[Plays With Life]

I tend to like ideas and approaches to parenting that are non-coercive, co-operative and the like. They just seem natural and desirable to me. Then I read / hear responses to it, like these:

-Have you gone barking mad? If the kid has nits because the parents refuse to take of the situation, the kid should be removed from custody and the parents jailed for child abuse. You've stated the entire problem with TCS when you said "the child's preference takes priority". On what planet??? A child's "prefrences" don't mean diddly-squat.

-We are going to live to be old people with a bunch of these kids (now grown up) who think they can do what they will because they were raised to think that whatever they do is ok. That fact scares me to death.

-If these kids are used to getting their own way in EVERYthing, they'll soon be unpleasantly surprised by school. And if Mumsy and Dadsy homeschool them, then they'll be unpleasantly surprised by their fellow kids. And even if they aren't, they will DEFINITELY be unpleasantly surprised by college and adult life.

-I suspect that there are about 10 parents in the country who seriously believe in this TCS stuff. You may quit worrying about the few loonies who subscribe to this one.

.. and the responses kind of disturb me. Honestly, I don't understand how people DON'T get non-coercive parenting. I'm not sure what makes people think that Bad Things will happen if you don't smack your kids around and control their behaviour.

I was wondering if anyone here has opinions on it? And how would you respond to the naysayers? ie, suppose a friend approached you, and criticized your non-coercive parenting approach. (a friend of mine had this happen to her). Do you know how you might respond to that person?

I don't have kids of my own, so I can't speak from extensive experience. This is generally the way I interact with children in my life though, and it's always seemed to work fine.