We try to live consensually in my house – and while my husband and I strougle to let go of our constant control, our son shows us the way by living up to our trust more or less every single time we do let go.

WRT the eating situation – I think you need to get into a totally different mindframe to really understand what CL is all about. My son (3 yo) has – and always will – been able to eat whenever he wants to. I don’t prepare meals for him, but he can eat leftovers (heated in the microwave if he wants), he can have some fruit or some bread. He still sits down to eat breakfast and dinner with the rest of the family – not always hungry, as he usually wants to taste everything while I cook dinner – but because he likes the company and likes to talk to the rest of us. I like the fact that he actually likes to spend time with us, instead of being forced to participate because otherwise he won’t get anything to eat. Sometimes he gets up before the rest of us does to go watch at cartoon – and I help him find it on the server – but my husband and I don’t get up to watch it with him, because we want to eat our dinner.

Does he choose whatever he wants for dinnner? No, because usually he doesn’t have an opinion… he pretty much eats what is served. This is from at child who has never ever been told to eat his veggies – or anything else for that matter – sometimes he eats only meat, sometimes only veggies, sometimes only bread. His meals are rarely balanced if you look on only one meal. But often he eats a whole cantaloupe for afternoon snack, or 3-4 carrots – and the other day we had vegan lasagna and he kept asking for more…

How about candy youd say – if he had the choice would he not eat it all the time? No he wouldn’t. He often has the choice… when we meet up at LLL meetings or our local babywearning groups there are TONS of cake and candy and he eats just as much fruits and veggies as he eats cake – or actually he is prone to ask for a piece of cake and leave it while grapes are eaten till the plate is empty. We don’t have much candy around the house because I am quite overweight (and raised by a controlfreak mom) and I cannot control it if we do. But often – when he asks, he gets it. Often when we go shopping he asks for winegum – but just as often he asks for strawberries – they are just as much a treat for him.

As for getting out of the door – I haven’t figured that one out yet… I’m a SAHM and have more time – it does make it so much easier. Alot of CL parents have one or the other at home. Not everyone can do that – and not everybody wants to do that, and maybe that is just where one has to compromise consentuality – if he had his way he probably didn’t have to get out of the door every day… Like I said not everyone has that choice.

As for behaving in traffic – I have explained it to him, and I explain it to him every time we are out (I live in the city, so it is really really important). Most of the time he stays at my side and the is exemplary – once or twice (maybe three times) ind his life he has forgotten and it has been dealt with very very swiftly by dropping my bags and running after him and stopping him physically. Lifesaving is not forbidden in CL )

Maybe I’m wrong, then, in thinking that consensual living and the “taking children seriously” philosophy are the same thing? Your description of consensual living sounds more along the lines of Kohn’s “Unconditional Parenting” (which, to be fair, I haven’t finished yet, so maybe I should reserve judgement on it, but so far I more or less agree with him). The TCS philosophy is, from what I’ve read, a literal no-coercion approach – your child does nothing unless they want to do it.

Then again, many TCS-ers cite Kohn’s book as backup for their approach, so I guess it’s all a bit muddled as far as what you call it and what the specifics of it are and how far the individual parent goes in carrying it out.

As you said, it may not always be practical. But I think it is worth aiming to do more of it.

Already this morning I tried it out a bit with good results. When we were in the car, my son wanted his window open. I said, no we can’t open the window. It is too cold outside. And he wasn’t happy. Normally I would have just explained again why we can’t open the window and expected him to understand. This time I asked him why he wanted to open it. He said because he wanted to look out at the snow and the cars. That is when I noticed his window was fogged up. So I suggested he use his scarf to clean the window. He did that and then was happy. He didn’t really need the window open, he just wanted to be able to see and for him the best solution to make that happen was opening the window. So by trying to understand the reasons behind his request instead of just denying it, we came up with a solution that worked for both of us.

I have heard of consentual living (I believe it’s basically the same idea as the “taking children seriously” philosophy?) and while I appreciate the theory behind it, I have the same concerns as you regarding the practicality of it. I have even bigger concerns about it when it comes to larger families – maybe it works well for those with one or two children, but when you have many children and take a “no coercion” approach, it just can’t work. Someone will have to do something they don’t want to do.

I also do question the very root of the idea behind it. Mutually agreeable solutions are nice – they’re something to aim for. Less coercion is nice – it’s something to aim for. But ultimately children are not able to make the best decisions in all cases. If they were, they wouldn’t need parents to guide them through childhood and into maturity.