In an interview this morning, I was asked to name the five things that I think are crucial for effective parenting. Respect and trust were the first to come to mind; I’ve been talking about them forever as prerequisites for creating an environment in which kids can develop and learn. It took me a little while longer to distill everything else into three words. But I eventually came up with open-mindedness, experimentation, and communication. Parents need to be open-minded and willing to experiment with ways to live with children, rather than blindly following rules provided by other parents, books by “experts,” or variously defined parenting or educating “styles.” And communication is the key to creating an environment of respect, trust, open-mindedness and experimentation.

(A word about terminology: The words used in the interview were actually “radical unschooling;” “life learning;” and “natural, non-coercive parenting.” I just removed them from the above paragraph because I’m tired of conceptualizing those terms as alternative. It’s time that non-coercion of kids by adults, respect for and trust in kids, and all the rest of the non-domination sorts of behaviors, define how the two generations interact, rather than being some newfangled, utopian alternative. Obviously, we’re not there yet, and conversation would dry up without those short-form words to describe a new way of living, but we need to keep moving these ideas from the sidelines to the mainstream.)