Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Essential Reading for Parents, 2 Nov 2003
For all those parents who feel that childcare does not exercise the mind and cannot represent a sufficiently morally valuable exercise, Jan's book and the theories of Taking Children Seriously provide the answers. This book can appear very testing initially. The theories challenge so many accepted forms of thought and can provide such vastly different solutions that one may find that the book demands considerable effort of reason and even a certain moral fortitude and honesty; but it is worth it. The theories of knowledge and ethics contained in this book really do seem to represent the best possible ideas on the subject of child/parent relations that are currently known to man. What is more, these theories, given that they are so good, really do work in practice. Using largely Popperian epistemology but with extension and elaboration in order to apply this to child/parent relations, Fortune-Wood demonstrates the usefulness of falliblism, rationality, creativity and common preference seeking within the family. Do a good thing by your mind, your conscience and your children. Get this book and critique it as hard as you can. Try to find good fault with it and if you do so, let the TCS community know as they will be very interested to hear about your criticisms. If you cannot find good fault, apply the theories asap.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
excellent overview of consensual/non-coercive parenting, 22 Nov 2001
Jan Fortune-Wood brings us an interesting look at
a growing philosophy towards parenting, called Taking Children Seriously, that asserts it is possible and optimal to raise children consensually, without ever attempting to force them to do things they don't want to do.For anyone who wants to rethink how to relate to children, or is interested in how best to promote
childhood learning and education. This is a book that invites us to think outside existing paradigms of how it is possible to relate to one's children. In many ways _Without Boundaries_ shares ideas with John Holts work, and what I've read in _Your Competant Child_ but it goes farther than anything else I've thus far come across.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
This book challenges your assumptions about parenting, 3 Mar 2002
A really meaty read that had me fascinated from beginning to end. I hadn't heard of the 'Taking Children Seriously' (TCS) philosophy before reading this book, but the Rev. Fortune-Wood explains it really well. I think the book is an adaptation of her phd thesis, so it is quite academic in format, and, to an extent, content. However, the theoretical parts are balanced by examples of how TCS can work in everyday family situations. Some of these might have you flinging the book across the room in disbelief (e.g. staying awake in the night with quiet games and videos to respect a toddler's erratic sleeping pattern). But, good for Jan - why not challenge some of our society's horrible legacy of child-rearing/training.I would have loved to have heard some of the author's anecdotes about putting TCS into practice. The theory is interesting, but I was drawn into a 'docusoap' kind of fascination with these families who live this approach. If she had gathered even a small sample of TCS families and quoted them, it would have added enormously to the book. One of my favourite quotes of all time is thanks to this book: Our children are "autonomous human beings..... not control specimins who can become advertisements for how well we parented."
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