Natural Child
Thursday, September 17th, 2009Parenting and Homeschooling THE NATURAL CHILD: Parenting From the Heart, by Jan Hunt. Hunt clearly puts forth the premises of this book in the first chapter. Here are a few of her points: “We understand that all children are doing the very best they can at every given moment. We trust that though children may be small in size, they deserve to have their needs taken seriously. We know that it is unrealistic to expect a child to behave perfectly at all times. We recognize that ‘bad behavior’ is the child’s attempt to communicate an important need in the best way she can. We learn to look beneath the child’s outward behavior to understand what he is thinking and feeling. We see that in a very beautiful way, our child teaches us what love is.” If you are having trouble accepting these concepts, this book will help you find your way to a peaceful and rewarding acceptance, or make you decide not to read it.
Another reason this book is here is that I believe that part of our duty as parents is to educate our children for the future, and we want a peaceful future for them. How we raise them, the unspoken values they learn even before we can communicate with words, is important. In the foreword, Peggy O’Mara of Mothering magazine writes: “Margaret Mead … said, ‘The most violent tribes were those that withheld touch in infancy.’ To me, it is very simple. The propensity to act aggressively is related to unmet needs. When we objectify our babies and manipulate their legitimate needs to meet our own comfort level or prescription for living, we may unknowingly put them at risk. We can instead choose to surrender to the mystery of our baby’s needs and the surprises he or she brings just as we would surrender and adapt to the surprises brought by a new love.”
At first I wasn’t sure why Hunt begins her book with the topic of child abuse and the cycle of violence it tends to perpetuate, but perhaps it is to clear the way so that even those with a history of abuse can find their way through the book and find peace in their own lives as parents.
This book can help you find the balance between discipline and spoiling, much in the same spirit as A.S. Neill draws the line between freedom and license in his book Freedom, Not License. You will find examples of how to deal constructively with misbehavior and difficult situations. The book progresses from infancy into adulthood, offering examples of problems and possible solutions. There is an emphasis on forgiveness — forgiving your child during trying times and forgiving yourself too, with the understanding that we are human and imperfect. It’s likely that you will not find the perfect example of your own problems, but you will learn the attitudes to develop so that you can cope and find your own constructive solutions. You will find advice about coping with your own preconceived and unconscious conditioning from your upbringing and how to make the changes you would like. Hunt has a lot to say about the inherent problem of rewards and finding an alternative to spanking, and there are very sane suggestions for coping with our seemingly hurried lives and making time for our children to just be children.
Although Hunt is an unschooling parent and there is much about parenting in general, you will quickly realize that her attitudes and suggestions are applicable to all styles of parenting, and so contribute to all styles of homeschooling. Her parenting ideas are what we used years ago, although we didn’t find that unschooling worked for us all the time. I like to think that unschooling in Hunt’s style would work for everyone, but I can’t convince myself that it would. Maybe someday it will be possible. I hope so. Hunt’s book is one to keep handy. Read it once to set yourself on the right track. Pick it up again any time you’re feeling stressed or need reinforcement. $16.95.