Raising Children Who Think for Themselves
INTRODUCTION
Mountains are removed by first shoveling away the small stones—Anonymous

How many of us liken parenthood to a perilous journey? As parents, we are constantly teaching our children to fend off outer evils like drugs, alcohol, gangs, violence, and suicide, as well as helping them sidestep inner pitfalls like cynicism, eating disorders, irresponsibility and poor impulse control. These dilemmas can sometimes make our children’s future appear downright bleak! In spite of all this, our job is to raise them to be successful, competent, self-confident and independent.

As a physician, I have been fortunate to be privy to that part of human life to which others have no ready access. Patients could open a window to the world to me through their most intimate thoughts about their and their family’s lives. What I witnessed over the years fascinated me. On one hand, I had patients who seemed to have “everything”…by society’s standards, anyway. But they were often unsatisfied, frustrated and depressed, claiming their lives were empty shells. One man, in particular, had several cars, a big yacht, Texas Hill Country property and a 7,000 square foot house in an exclusive neighborhood. He was able to dress his family in the finest designer clothes and send his children to the most elite schools. Despite these trappings, his life was a wreck. Two children were unemployed bums high on drugs more often than not, and a third had perished in a tragic accident. Marital emotional support for this poor soul was slim to none, because his relationship with his wife wavered from contentious to hollow. In a nutshell, here was a man who had succeeded in those ways that society had promised would bring him happiness. However, society did not live up to its end of the bargain. Here was a man whose unhappiness was the result of his basing his choices on the outside world’s values instead of on what he felt and reasoned was best for him.

On the other hand was a patient with a lovely wife and six children who were living from hand to mouth in an old trailer home. He was a hard-working low-wage machinist assistant for an oil tool company whose hours revolved around the needs of his family, not around his need for image or escape. What a breath of life that family was when they waltzed in and out of my clinic with beaming smiles and sincere appreciation. There was true love and admiration between each and every one of them that was mightier than the external influences that could have torn them apart. They didn’t care about Guess Jeans or Skechers boots. Attending public school was fine, as far as they were concerned, because both parents felt it was ultimately their responsibility to educate their children by involving themselves in the schools and supervising homework time closely. And, in their estimation, the mildewed wading pool behind their trailer could muster more laughs out of those kids than a 56-foot motor yacht on Lake Travis. This was a man whose happiness came from making his own choices; by using his own reasoning powers to match his actions to his values and principles, instead of blindly adopting the choices thrust on him by an external world that had no conception of or concern for his individual values and principles.

Although I felt these observations were interesting, it wasn’t until later that I caught on to their connection to all that is wrong in the world today. Every morning, I’d read horror stories in the newspaper and shake my head in disbelief. Stories like children killing their parents or siblings, gang members racking up kill quotas, mothers chaining their children to posts in the cellars, allowing them to wallow in their own filth, and so on. Awful, despicable acts that made me wonder how anyone could possibly depersonalize human life so easily…the same lives I often fought so hard to save as a physician.

Then, one day, I read a story I couldn’t dismiss. A young mother had killed her 2-year-old son for some trivial annoyance, cut him into little pieces, fried him in a skillet and served him to her dogs. Then and there, I felt I had to do something to help stop this madness, for the world that had given me so much and for the world in which my children would have to live their lives.

First, I decided to explore how others interpreted the state of the world today. I interviewed hundreds of teachers, parents and children in Texas and California and even as far as Norway. Most of the children were interviewed during their lunch period or recess, with the permission of their parents and school principals. Others were interviewed by phone. Throughout these pages, you will see many references to these interviews.

This social reconnaissance mission inspired me to search for the most proximal cause of society’s current predicament. In my earlier research, I had found that humankind usually tackles social problems at the very tips of their branches rather than deep down at their roots, so that at best, the disease is slowed, but not cured. For instance, we pour money and other resources into anti-gang efforts, welfare reform and drug and alcohol awareness programs. We declare war on drug traffickers and criminals. We do all this without ever asking ourselves one important question—Why do we have these problems in the first place?

My conclusion: the threats and challenges children face in society today stem from one source—we are raising our children to be externally rather than internally directed. In other words, we are teaching them to make choices in life to gain the approval and acceptance of others. In doing so, our children relinquish the one gift that elevates human beings above all other living creatures—the power to reason.

When children are self-directed, on the other hand, they use their power of reason like a sword to cut through the jungle of external influences: they use reason to examine all the possible consequences of the choices they consider, relying on it as an inner point of control. Self-directed children make a decision after giving it full consideration, because they believe that choice is right for them, not because they believe others will think more highly of them. It is this reasoning, this internal dialogue that is the foundation of the self-directed child. We must endeavor to instill this in children—the earlier the better.

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Imagine, for a moment, a world of self-directed children! We’d have people who can appreciate their own unique strengths, translate them into meaningful roles and contribute to the pack by fulfilling those roles…people who live according to their own thoughts rather than the thoughts of others.

Compare this to an externally directed world where people frantically jockey for the best positions within the pack, stepping on others and their own moral principles along the way.

Go one step further and imagine that it’s within our power, as parents, to decide which of these paths humankind shall travel! With a few tweaks of our parenting techniques we can create a self-directed world. I’m not saying this is going to be a walk in the park, by any means, because after all, humanity has endured centuries of externally directed behavior advocated by individuals, leaders and society as a whole. And since this indoctrination includes the way we were all raised, we’ve got a mighty cranky tiger by the tail. But, it can be tamed. Now, let’s explore the tools that will help us take on this worthy challenge: the seven key strategies for raising self-directed children.

From Raising Children Who Think for Themselves

No reproductions permitted, all content © Elisa Medhus, MD.