Nice post. Something I think about a lot with my 4 year old son. And it's sick how much influence you have as a parent, and how much they listen and learn (at least he does) when you take the time to explain things to them.

I know and notice so many people never really listen to their children. Don't let them decide anything. They're just dragged along. I believe that is really damaging to the development of their "self" and the image of who they are. When you're not allowed to decide anything or have an opinion...how can you really learn who you are in relation to others?

I also struggle a lot with the indoctrination that I all ready can see happen in kindergarden. It's not bad yet, but I've all ready started to unschool him.

The other day one of the women who works there told another kid that didn't finish his meal that "think about the children in africa". She told me sort of proudly that she thought it seemed like the children really got it!

These kind of people work in kindergardens in Norway..sickening. She managed to shame a 3 or 4 year old kid in order to eat his food.

I talked about this incident with my son, and bright as he is, he understood that he shouldt feel responsible for the fact that some kids in other countries don't have food. And I asked him..do you think that the child in africa would get food just because you finished yours? And he laughed and said no. So all ready he is light years ahead of most adults who believe economy is a zero sum game ;)

If home schooling or other alternative ways of doing it didn't have such a bad reputation here in fact so bad that you actually risk losing your kid to the children services - we would definitely have chosen to do that. But nothing would be worse than getting the children services on your back. So you play along..and try to re-educate your child at home.

Yes, this is Norway.