I haven't read Aaron Stupple's book, The Sovereign Child: How a Forgotten Philosophy Can Liberate Kids and Their Parents, because he and others aren't open to debate and criticism.
A book about TCS does interest me as someone who was very involved with the Taking Children Seriously (TCS) movement (founded by David Deutsch and Sarah Fitz-Claridge), even though I now have disagreements with TCS. But, based on a brief review, it's not actually a TCS book. Stupple repeatedly contradicts TCS and doesn't seem familiar with what TCS said.
Taking children seriously means not mediating their relationship with food. A parent simply cannot know how a child should eat, because they cannot know their hunger patterns and cravings or how different foods taste and feel to them.
TCS said to share your best theories with your children about food and everything else. It said children need tons of advice and discussion, not to rely on their own knowledge. It wasn't a hands-off parenting philosophy. It didn't assume children or parents know best; it said everyone is fallible and critical discussion is needed (just like Karl Popper said about learning and problem solving in general).
Stupple repeatedly presents a false dichotomy between authoritarian parenting (food rules and restrictions) and permissive parenting (giving children free reign). TCS rejected the authoritarian/permissive spectrum as a whole, saying that the spectrum itself was an error.
What would I do about my kid’s weight? First of all, I’d wait until it appears as a problem before addressing it.
Waiting to address problems after they happen, instead of discussing them in advance and trying to avoid them, has nothing to do with TCS. If your child doesn't want to be fat and you wait until he's already fat before helping, then according to TCS you failed your child.
The truth is that there is a lot of time to wait and see if a pattern of eating is causing a problem. My five-year-old son has been eating ice cream almost exclusively for the past few months, and, if anything, he’s on the thin side. Before ice cream, his staple was Oreo cookies, but he seems to have grown tired of them. He eats ice cream as a meal, and he goes many hours between servings, not because we limit him, but presumably because he only likes to eat a limited amount at a time. Over the course of a day, he consumes a typical amount of calories. Contrary to popular opinion, free rein simply does not guarantee excessive eating of sweets or any other kind of food.
By giving him free rein, he has learned how to feed himself—he gets the ice cream out of the freezer that sits below our fridge and spoons out his own serving. Everything about the food that he eats is mediated by him, uncomplicated by judgment, expectations, or rules.
If my kid did start to become overweight, I’m not sure I would do anything about it out of fear that he would think I disapprove of how he eats. Tension with meals and snacks adds up over time, and there’s no guarantee that it would be worthwhile. I’ve seen parents nag their overweight kids to no discernible effect except misery and humiliation. Instead of doing something, I’d wait until my kid himself expressed dissatisfaction with his weight. Once my kid identified that he had a problem, by his lights, and made it clear that my support was welcome, only then would I help him problem-solve by exploring the problem situation and guessing possible solutions. Every step of the way, I would take extra care to make it clear that I’m only here to help him manage his weight and eating issues the way he wants.
I don't agree with focusing on weight and calories without being concerned with nutrition. And I don't agree with thinking a diet is fine because a child isn't fat yet at age five. But I don't want to debate health, just parenting methodology.
Waiting for your child to bring up a problem himself is neglect. Children don't understand lots of things. TCS made an effort not to be neglectful, e.g. by saying to share your best theories with your child and saying parents should talk with and help children a lot. Whether TCS did enough to avoid neglect is debatable. But Stupple isn't even trying to avoid neglect like TCS did. He seems afraid of discussing things with his child.
The reason for the neglect is clearly to avoid authoritarianism and other types adversarial parent/child relationships like nagging. Stupple is caught up in the permissive/authoritarian false dichotomy that TCS critiqued. He doesn't see how to avoid permissive neglect without being authoritarian. Basically, he tries to avoid interacting with his child because his interactions are too authoritarian. TCS said parents need to engage with their children a lot without being authoritarian – do it in a fallibilist, helpful way where you don't impose your goals on your child – not be hands-off parents.
I make an effort to prepare meals that they like, including wasting a bit of food and remaking meals that are rejected, but only to a point. Eventually, I’d throw in the towel and tell a picky eater that they’re on their own—though I make sure to keep a store of foods that they tend to prefer.
This swings in the authoritarian direction on the permissive/authoritarian spectrum that TCS rejected. TCS does not allow parents to "throw in the towel". They must find common preferences. They aren't ever supposed to give up on that and tell their kid they're "on their own".
It's actually widespread that permissive parents mix in some authoritarianism and authoritarian parents mix in some permissiveness.
This portal to his interests [YouTube] isn’t just entertaining and edifying for him; it is incredibly helpful to us. When my wife and I are trying to get work done around the house, he doesn’t bug us to focus on him. When we visit friends who don’t have age-matched kids he could play with, he entertains himself with his iPad. When I need to disrupt whatever he’s doing to run an errand, he is happy to oblige as long as he can watch something in the car. And when he wants to stay up late, he is content to watch his tablet while the rest of the family sleeps. YouTube obviates countless opportunities for family discord.
Yes, TCS advocated unlimited screen time. But TCS also said a lot of other things, e.g. that you should offer children both. Like if you're ever trying to bribe your child to do something, consider if the child would prefer to have both: receive the bribe and still not do the thing he doesn't want to do.
So, would child like to not be disruptively dragged along on errands and also watch unlimited YouTube? Why should he have to pick one or the other? Why can't he have both?
Would child like to stay up late, have an iPad, and also have his parent awake and available to help with stuff? Would child like to have an iPad and also get attention from his parents when he wants something even if they're doing housework? Would child prefer to have the iPad and also not go to the homes of his parents' friends where he has nothing else to do besides iPad and the adults don't play with him?
TCS says to make all that happen for your child, or find other solutions your child likes even more, or find common preferences. Disrupting your child's activities to run errands, and not wanting to be "bugged" by your child, and taking your child to places that have no benefit to him, is just the kind of thing TCS harshly criticized.
The only way a TCS parent should bring his child along on an errand is by persuading his child that going on the errand is good for the child to the point that the child would request the errand, and want a compelling reason for not doing it, even if the parent didn't feel like going. If child is really persuaded, you should be able to say "Actually, I changed my mind, let's not do that." and have child object and want to be persuaded it's bad before he'll agree not to do it.
Similarly, a TCS parent should stay up with his child, or find another common preference, unless his child would say something like "Hey, why are you staying up? Didn't we agree that is a bad idea?" If child wouldn't object to parent staying up, then child hasn't been persuaded that parent going to bed before child is best, and child would presumably prefer company and help. If child is staying up late alone, it's often a sign he doesn't like his parents a lot, doesn't find them helpful enough, or doesn't know how to manage his sleep cycle and needs help.
TCS also tried to avoid neglect with its unlimited screen time advocacy. TCS said to talk to your children about what they see on TV (that was was before the rise of YouTube). Discuss it with them. Critique bad themes. Help them understand it and think critically about it. This is especially important with YouTube, more than TV, due to bizarre, disturbing videos designed so the algorithm will show them to children using autoplay.
It's irrelevant to my point whether TCS was right or wrong. It's irrelevant whether TCS was wise or placed overly large demands on parents. What's relevant is simply that TCS was vastly different than what Stupple is talking about.
Stupple has one of the most common, basic misconceptions about TCS which was addressed over and over and over again, year after year. He confused TCS with permissive parenting. He's focused on avoiding taking any potentially coercive actions, not on helping his children, whereas TCS says to do both.
And, like many other permissive parents, he allowed authoritarianism to creep in too. He sees child going various places to accommodate the parent as necessary, which is exactly the type of assumption TCS loved to question. He is helpful only to a point, then throws in the towel and tells his children they're on their own, whereas TCS said to find common preferences. Running out of patience like that is typical authoritarianism where the parent tries to get his way nicely and, if that doesn't work, he gets his way not so nicely.
The process of human knowledge growth may be most evident in science, where the conjectures are better known as hypotheses, the criticisms as experiments. It’s no surprise that Popper began as a philosopher of science and only later realized that his description of scientific knowledge growth generalizes to all domains, such as art, politics, and morality.
As Deutsch explained in The Fabric of Reality, and said Popper also knew, most criticism in science isn't experimental tests. Ideas have to survive lots of other criticism before we put in all the effort to do experiments. Contradicting this, Stupple suggested that all scientific criticisms are experiments, not a small minority. So, besides not understanding TCS, Stupple also doesn't understand Critical Rationalism.
The part about Popper only realizing later that his epistemology applies beyond science is also wrong. Quoting Popper's autobiography, Unended Quest (my bold):
In Logik der Forschung I tried to show that our knowledge grows through trial and error-elimination, and that the main difference between its prescientific and its scientific growth is that on the scientific level we consciously search for our errors: the conscious adoption of the critical method becomes the main instrument of growth. It seems that already at that time I was well aware that the critical method—or the critical approach—consists, generally, in the search for difficulties or contradictions and their tentative resolution, and that this approach could be carried far beyond science, for which critical tests are characteristic.
I wonder what Popper books Stupple owns, what he's actually read, and how he uses them for research. When I saw his claim, based on my familiarity with Popper, I was immediately suspicious enough to check it. Then I quickly found a relevant quote. I would expect any Popper expert to be suspicious of that particular claim and to fact check it before publishing it.
The recommendations in this book don’t come from “the research.” They don’t come from my experience or from a sense of what’s right. Rather, they come from a theory of knowledge, or what is known in philosophy as epistemology.
This context makes it extra important if Stupple gets Popper wrong.
I only spent a few minutes skimming to find the quotes I've used. Basically everything I read was wrong. I assume the book is like that throughout.
To help make sure I'm not cherrypicking, I decided to select a paragraph randomly and analyze it too. Here it is, added to my essay before I even read it:
When we pull off win–wins, like making teeth brushing fun or re-creating the wall-drawing experience in a way that is easy to clean up, we not only avoid the Foul Four, but we create practically the opposite. Instead of becoming a gatekeeper and adversary, the parent becomes an agent of fun. We become someone our kids want to have around because, instead of blocking their interests, we aid them in fostering their interests and make their world more open and exciting.
I tried to search the book to find out what the "Foul Four" are but I couldn't find any brief statement. I did find the claim "Conclusion: The Foul Four Are Unavoidable" so I'm unclear on why this paragraph says they can be avoided.
More importantly, according to TCS, trying to make tooth-brushing fun is coercive and bad. If your child doesn't want to brush his teeth, TCS says that he shouldn't brush his teeth; don't try to find ways to get him to do it even though he doesn't want to. Trying to get children to do things they don't want to by making those things more fun is exactly the kind of parenting behavior TCS routinely criticized. TCS said to put your energy into helping your child with goals he actually has, not into finding ways to gently get him to follow your agenda.
I searched my emails for tooth brushing fun and the first thing I found was Sarah Fitz-Claridge, in 1999, responding to an idea about making tooth brushing "fun" that "kids love" which included "fun" reminders for optional, voluntary tooth-brushing:
If they want to they will do it anyway. You wouldn't remind your house guests to brush their teeth, would you? So why remind your children? It has that fishy smell of coercion to me. And although fish might be good for you, coercion isn't.
And no, the answer is not to start letting it be known that you are brushing your teeth now. If your children have all the information you have about tooth decay, they are (or should be) making their own informed judgements and decisions about issues in connection with their teeth. If you have not given them all the information you think they might want about dental health, then do so! Children are not born knowing about tooth decay!
The advice most people give their children about tooth decay is much exaggerated, and many myths are propagated. Be very careful to be accurate, rather than telling your children the usual lies about rotting teeth. Remember, for example, that some teeth are so strong that they simply don't get cavities, no matter how rarely they are brushed, while other teeth will get a cavity even if the child brushes every time she eats and never eats anything traditionally thought to cause tooth decay. And don't tell your children that sugar is a tooth rotter whereas other carbohystrates [sic] aren't, because that is false, at least according to my wonderful dentist. And don't show your children your mother-in-law's false teeth in the glass and tell them that is what will happen to them if they don't brush. It isn't. Technology has moved on considerably since the days when that might have been a real possibility. It is now possible to have false teeth bonded in the bone tissue permanantly [sic], and it need not cost a fortune either, so don't tell that that it will! I could go on...
But anyway, even if all the lies parents tell their children about tooth decay etc were true, remember, mental health is more important than dental health!
What Beckah is advocating might not be coercive, but the chances are, it is, or they would already have been brushing their teeth without any need to be reminded.
Did Stupple read any TCS posts about tooth brushing before writing about it in his book? Note that besides accusing a parent of probably coercing their children with their fun approach to tooth brushing, Fitz-Claridge also said that you should share information with children (like I was talking about above).
I disagree with Fitz-Claridge about how cavities work, how good modern dentistry is, etc. But the correctness of her claims is irrelevant to whether Stupple is misrepresenting TCS.
After writing this, I found the tooth brushing win-win solution Stupple referred to:
Let me walk you through how this [problem solving with win-win solutions] works with the teeth-brushing example.
Why does a kid not want to brush their teeth? Maybe they don’t like the taste of the toothpaste or the feel of the brush. The parent can try sampling different toothpastes and brushes. They could make a special trip to the store and let the kid pick out several varieties to take home and try out. Maybe the kid would like their own electric toothbrush. Lots of kids love having ownership of their own tools and using them like adults. Having their own teeth-brushing kit could be a way to emulate Mom and Dad before going to bed. A pleasant atmosphere, without fear or anxiety or compulsion, opens the door to games and other fun options to add to or modify the teeth-brushing experience. My wife and I make a big deal about how good our breath smells after we brush. We huff in each other’s faces after brushing and then playact being overwhelmed by the amazing smell. Our kids love to join in and dazzle us with their minty fresh breath.
It's hard for me to stress enough how not TCS this is to people unfamiliar with TCS who may find this more reasonable than TCS. I have disagreements with TCS now but I do know what it said due to my many years of involvement. In the TCS view, this is a parent with an agenda trying everything he can think of to get his way while never considering that maybe he's mistaken and his child is right. TCS sees this as an archetypical example of irrational, infallibilist "gentle" parenting, where the parent is focused on getting their way without using punishments. TCS wasn't about merely rejecting punishment; it rejected the underlying assumption that the parent knows best and the child is inferior. TCS would say the parent is giving his child misinformation about breath smells and how adults actually view tooth brushing. TCS would see it more as lying not fun. Parent is manipulating child because he failed to make persuasive, rational arguments. When you can't get your way with reason, you should consider that you may be mistaken instead of using something other than reason to try to get your way.
What happened? How could the book be so wrong and not demonstrate basic familiarity with TCS?
I think the key question, which Stupple does not answer, is how exactly did he learn about TCS? What research did he do? The founders abandoned TCS around 20 years before the book came out (leaving many parents without the support they were promised).
TCS used to have conference talks, a paper journal, an email discussion list, an IRC chatroom, an in-person community especially in the UK. That's gone. So when, where and how could Stupple have learned TCS? Reading the website isn't enough. Did he just discuss it with other newcomers like Logan Chipkin who also didn't participate in the TCS community? Did he get a copy of the TCS discussion archives and read over 40,000 posts? Did he read even just the 2,800 posts written by TCS founders? Has Stupple read any of the TCS journals? Did he interview any TCSers from the original TCS community?
Also, he wrote a parenting book without any experience parenting children older than six. He hasn't seen the long term results of his parenting. He hasn't studied early childhood education or worked in a daycare or school. I don't think he's talked with a bunch of TCS mothers with older children. The book is armchair philosophy.
There was no TCS community for Stupple to join. Most of the resources are gone. It's not his fault that he wasn't in a good position to learn TCS. Deutsch strongly objected to my plan to publish the TCS discussion archives on a website and make TCS knowledge available to everyone. He wanted to bury TCS. I also wanted to continue hosting TCS email discussions but Fitz-Claridge worked to stop me. She wanted to bury TCS. But then what is Stupple doing writing a book allegedly about TCS, when he doesn't know what TCS says? It's one thing to try some ideas you read a few essays about online; it's another to base a book on that. And why are the TCS founders helping promote this, rather than distancing themselves from a book which contradicts and spreads misinformation about TCS?
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