Book Review: 'Parenting for Social Change'

I've been taking my time with Teresa Graham Brett's new book Parenting for Social Change, which challenges not just mainstream but also alternative parenting cultural double-standards. Perhaps especially in alternative circles, for example, we find covert manipulation of children's choices to maintain the parents' control over of every aspect of the child's life.

In Parenting for Social Change, Brett urges parents to look carefully at the ways we may be usurping our children's learning and maturation experiences. We may defend our perceived need to control our children based on a misperception of their motives or on the cultural belief that our needs are more important than theirs.

Perhaps children manipulate because we do. Perhaps they feel so powerless that they see no other way to express their needs, just as we might do in a situation in which we ourselves felt powerless. How do you feel when your "No!" is ignored? Violated? Victimized? Yet, our culture routinely ignores children's "No!" even going so far as to overpower their bodies "for their own good" or simply to get our way.

Brett writes from her experience as a professional social justice consultant to higher education institutions, as a member of a bicultural family, and as a mother.

The first half of the book addresses parenting, family relationships, a adult-child power dynamics in general. That's the part I've read so far. I'm just getting to the subject of teaching, learning, and what it means to be educated. Look for part two of this review.

For more info: ParentingforSocialChange.com.

Originally published on Examiner.com.