TO LISTEN TO A CHILD-INTRODUCTION

Based on T. Barry Brazleton's 1984 book.

From the little I've heard, it seems to be Brazleton's philosophy that children basically want to do the right thing, so parents shouldn't pressure children and should only be gentle with them. While I don't have the hyper-Calvinist viewpoint that all babies are completely wicked, the fact is every human being is born with a fleshly nature, part of which entails a proclivity toward sin.

Brazleton's parenting philosophy fails in logic and practicality for two main reasons.

First, due to the aforementioned fleshly nature, children sometimes refuse to do things out of laziness or obstinacy,. Likewise, children will misbehave at times just because they can.

Second, even if a child is acting out due to a legitimate underlying problem, that still doesn't make the way they are dealing with their circumstances right in and of itself.

Samuel Beckett said that if person one hurts person two, that hurts person 245.

Let's take a look at an example of an unchecked application of what I perceive to be T. Barry Brazleton's basic parenting philosophy.

A child isn't getting enough attention from one or both of his parents and subsequently feels unloved. He acts out his feelings of not being loved by hitting another child. The parent excuses their child hitting the other child as just a symptom of the child feeling unloved and doesn't properly discipline their son, resolving instead to just spend more time with the boy.

The victim of this first child feels slighted, and rightly so at the perpetrator of this action getting off scott-free. He takes the anger he feels at the injustice of the situation out physically on a weaker child.

The weak child grows up constantly having been bullied. Finally, as a teenager this person decides they can't take it anymore and commits suicide.

The sister of the person who committed suicide is so devastated and bewildered at her sibling's actions that she begins to lead a life of promiscuity and drug and alcohol abuse.

Finally, as a result of her promiscuity this young woman gets pregnant. She keeps the baby but is too busy working to support the child and going back to school in order to better her life that she can't give her son all the attention he needs and deserves.

The son, feeling unloved, acts out his feelings by hitting another child.

Thus, the cycle continues.

Better that, while still resolving to pay more attention to their son mind you, the parent had correctly disciplined the child at the beginning of this example, reinforcing that it is wrong to hit people while at the same time teaching the child we don't take out bad feelings on others in that manner.