Susan Radzilowski: Practical Strategies for Peaceful Parenting (1h7m)

This episode features a parenting workshop by social worker Susan Radzilowski from 2016. This workshop views behavior through the lens of positive parenting. A guiding principle of this framework is to remember that all behavior has meaning. Using positive discipline strategies when your child’s behavior is a concern can help to transform problem behaviors into…

The Best Things to Learn about Raising Children (37m) – Episode 275

Episode 275 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following topics: using an essay by Leo Babauta of ZenHabits.net, he looks at 18 of the best things to learn about raising children; loving your children unconditionally; helicopter parenting; the harmful effects of harsh discipline; self-directed education; learning independence; democratic family decision-making; leading your children by example; parental contrition; shielding children from sex, drugs, and technology; giving children space; recognizing that your children should be allowed to become their own person; and more.

Homosexuality Isn’t The Issue

My 11-year-old daughter has a “frienemy” who has been trying to bully her– with the encouragement of the girl’s parents– into a lesbian relationship. It has been going on for a year and a half now. This girl acts like a friend until she draws my daughter in, and then she does the nastiest, meanest things I have ever seen a kid do– totally crushing my daughter with her backstabbing.

Gillette Social Justice & An Attack on Voluntaryism Rebutted (40m) – Episode 269

Episode 269 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following topics: the new Gillette commercial admonishing men to be better men, in part by keeping other men under control; the patriarchal undertones of the Gillette commercial; the unfortunate oversights of not including women (mothers) in their admonishment in how boys are raised and the absence of striking the root issue of violent and coercive parenting practices; the claim that voluntaryism is “exploitation pretending to be anarchism”; where left anarchists make major mistakes in their critique of voluntaryist and anarcho-capitalist theory; and more.

On Voluntaryists III

A popular ethical thought experiment is the question of given the ability to time travel, would you kill baby Hitler? Allow me to nip this supposed quandary in the bud. The voluntaryist approaches this differently than a coercivist. Killing baby Hitler would prevent Hitler’s involvement with the Third Reich, but so would many other actions toward baby Hitler.

On Back Talk

Among many other contra-conventional parenting practices I engage in is the allowance of so-called “back talk”. I have no interest in using my “authority” as a parent and threateningly large size and loud voice to silence any of my children who fill the need to respond to what they judge as an unsatisfactory final word.

Kids Who Aren’t There

Before the 90s, kids first started going out to play unsupervised at some point between 5-8 years old. Today this has changed to 10-16 years old. I was just considering how this happens. You probably don’t need 100% of people to agree on the change. In fact, you probably only need a small minority.