I’m glad to see this quote. I often ask my kids what they think, and try to get them to figure out the answer, but very often I simply give them the best answer I can come up with. The result is they are totally willing to ask questions of me on virtually anything. I bend over backwards not to “teach” them my opinions, or at least to flag them as opinions when I mention them. Things like existence of god or political questions get flagged. Or even whether kids should be hit.
My kids do have opinions that differ from mine, and they do it matter of factly, without thinking it is a particular sin or threat to our relationship for sure. At least one of them, when I explained a cryonics thread, allowed as she believed in some sort of life after death and thought cryonics was irrelevant and even a negative in that light.
So yes, I think flagging “works” along with the other things I do which amount to treating my children as though they are independent intellectual actors. Just as I think flagging “works” in any conversation where values, judgements, and observations might get confused for one another, possibly even by the people who express them.
I’m glad to see this quote. I often ask my kids what they think, and try to get them to figure out the answer, but very often I simply give them the best answer I can come up with. The result is they are totally willing to ask questions of me on virtually anything. I bend over backwards not to “teach” them my opinions, or at least to flag them as opinions when I mention them. Things like existence of god or political questions get flagged. Or even whether kids should be hit.
Do you thnk that flagging works?
My kids do have opinions that differ from mine, and they do it matter of factly, without thinking it is a particular sin or threat to our relationship for sure. At least one of them, when I explained a cryonics thread, allowed as she believed in some sort of life after death and thought cryonics was irrelevant and even a negative in that light.
So yes, I think flagging “works” along with the other things I do which amount to treating my children as though they are independent intellectual actors. Just as I think flagging “works” in any conversation where values, judgements, and observations might get confused for one another, possibly even by the people who express them.