I am a christian, and I LOVE the way that these Garden of Eden children are being raised. While we are born into a sinful world, we are not born evil. The true definition of Discipline is to Disciple, meaning the children follow our example. Jesus never beat on or punished his disciples, they learned from his example and teaching. Sadly many people interpret discipline as the same thing as punishment.
The verses in mostly the Old Testament about the "rod" are misunderstood in our culture. The rod is a shepherd's hook that protects the sheep and beats the wolves away if need be. "Thy Rod and thy Staff, They Comfort Me." Jewish culture clearly understands and teach that the rod was never used to beat children and never should be used that way. Somehow christians in our culture haven't understood the original context of those passages.
My 3 children are unschooled and we use Gentle Parenting, and it aligns with how children were often raised in bible days.
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Thank you for your comment. I unschooled my children who are now in their mid and late twenties--a true blessing of life changing awareness. Once I realized that my children were absolutely fine and it was me that had the conditioning, biases, fears and dysfunctions, I could take responsibility for myself, move out of their way, and let them shine!!
I don't really believe in disciplining or punishment, as if we live by the Golden Rule we will respect and honor each other and not have desire to do harm, hence no need for discipline. True communication, listening, understanding, and facing our inner demons make children's lives so much more rich. Addressing our own darkness, so they can shine the light of pure potential. I'm sure your children are blessed by your taking the leap to unschool them. A truly powerful move. Way to go!!!
Thank you for your response! We are so excited to start a conversation on parenting. All the old paradigm's problems begin with parenting, thus all problems can be solved with new paradigm parenting solutions. Our children are living solutions!
There's a lot of misinterpretation surrounding religions, #1 because they are control structures and #2 because there have been countless translations and edits through the ages and the original message is warped to support the control structure. We find it disgusting that any would accept or encourage abusing a pure, innocent, shining child, but without consciousness the message spreads that children are reared by breaking them and beating them into submission. We're grateful to hear that you disagree with child abuse despite what may be a "popular" or at least "accepted" interpretation of the Bible, and that you're willing to speak against it.
it is unacceptable to our standards, and that's what we point out. Unfortunately, many children are blatantly abused on a daily basis, but there are subtle forms of abuse as well that are seen as "normal" and "acceptable" in this society. Forcing a child to attend school - making them devote hours of their day to a place and projects they really don't care about - teaches them to be subservient, teaches them that their passions are not as important as what someone else tells them to do.
Not only do we not beat our children (which is a disgustingly low standard that passes for "good" parenting to many), we honor and respect them. We encourage them to do what interests them, we support them in their play and growth and development! They live freedom.
Truly they are our teachers.
I agree about forcing a child to attend school. I just wrote a post 2 days ago when most kids were back-to-school for the first time, entitled "Happy-Not-Back-To-School Day". In it I explained how especially for my eldest son school would be "Developmentally Inappropriate" given his learning style and personality.
I wish more parents were open to letting their children learn in a manner more suitable manner.