CHILDIST LANGUAGE. As this is my page, i hope youll allow me this indulgence. I know I have talked about this before. There are many experts in the field who aim to shift peoples thinking from the dominant paradigm on control over a child to working with them, to approach children in distress with empathy and to work with them to problem solve and all of the things i totally am onboard with, who continue to use language that i believe is antithetical to the approaches they are advocating. When you call problem solving discipline or limit setting discipline or empathy discipline than I think it is largely a strategy to get people who believe in their core that children NEED TO BE DISCIPLINED to be able to keep that belief while doing something that isnt discipline but still get to call it that so they arent being softies or whatever. the general idea is that children are oppressed. when we put them in time outs or take away priveleges or hit them in an effort to either get their actions to conform to our desires or to make them pay for not doing as we tell them to, they are oppressed. that is to say they are they recipients of an unjust exercise of power. if we want to understand our children, coach them, empathize with them, help them understand the ways of our world and to educate them about own needs for understanding, respect etc. then we have to use language that reflects this. calling their unwelcome behavior that is an attempt to communicate and meet their own needs (be it for understanding, attention, justice, autonomy, what have u) misbehavior does not help in shifting thinking. even if what you recommend is empathy and problem solving. does that make sense? should we be using the language of oppression to solve the oppression? as a strategy? or be more upfront and change the language too? no matter how much we say misbehavior is a child trying to meet their needs, if we still call it misbehavior it will be harder to see it that way. no? its like trying to have it both ways? to me it feels somewhat reminiscent of seperate but equal. seperate isnt equal and we look back on in horrified that we ever thought that. am i off here? should we be using this childist language ie misbehavior big boy voice discipline (positive or gentile which i find to be oxymorons) as a strategy? or does it actually retard change? or am i crazy and am just splitting hairs? i cant tell!
Posted on: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 19:14:49 +0000
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