Should Children Be Totally Free from Adult Authority?

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A.S Neil emphasized, that when he established his school in 1921 that he wanted to build a community where “children are free from the authority of adults”. On the other hand, Neil was famous for his provocative, often extreme, sometimes even dogmatic statements. All this might have given him popularity in the 1960’s, but he also lost it when the counterculture of the sixties burned out. Yet, there are a lot of truth in his basic ideas, which should be taken to heart and be considered. Because of this, it might worth to specify what should we say instead of “free from adult authority”. Trusting adults is very important for children. It is essential for their survival from their birth to trust the adults around them. We can call this “turning to the adults with natural trust”, in other words it means adults have natural authority over children. The trouble starts when this natural authority is not used, or used in a compulsory, aggressive way, or, if we phrase it differently, the adults rely on their compulsory authority. As a consequence children’s will trust them less and less, their natural authority the surrounding adults have will decrease. This is generally true: the more one relies on compulsion, the more he or she will lose his or her natural authority. There are many ways to keep this natural authority: asking the children’s opinion, honest discussion of problems, explaining external forces, and so on. If parents, and other adults are clever, they will keep the children’s trust and, and the relationship between the adult and the child will turn into one that will increasingly resemble a friendship. All this doesn’t mean that in a family the child will get the right to decide alone, or even having a vote in family matters, though these areas can develop with age. Naturally, problems will arise, when these rights are not tied with responsibilities, or they
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