I heard a fascinating interview this evening on Radio New Zealand tonight, with an author of a book about childcare - a woman by the name of Diane Levy.

• Listen to it, here (12 minute mp3).

A few days back, I wrote up a post speaking about my worries in respect to New Zealand kids.

And hmmm... my perspective has evolved somewhat. I've learned a bit more about about kids in New Zealand recently. There have been some delightful segments in this late summer on TV3, for instance. I think that overall, kids would seem to be better off than they are in the states. The ones I've seen seem to have a light of intelligence in their eyes and in their demeanor... which you don't see in the usa.

Definitely, there's a whole different social dynamic around kids; and certainly, I would no longer be minded to say that New Zealand is "on a precipice," in any way, because of how kids are being raised.

But this was a very fascinating interview which I heard this evening, listening to Radio New Zealand. It gave me a lot of insight into the thing I had misgivings about earlier. It's interesting to see that both the interviewer and the interviewee were on the same page about what should be expected from kids.

First, let me talk about child rearing in my country - the usa.

The attitude I heard in these two women hearkens back to an era decades ago in the states. We had a revolution in how children are raised and thought about - and it seems to have started with a popular television program in the late 1970s and early 1980s - "Mr Rogers' neighborhood." His ideas about childhood and children became a rallying point for all kinds of parents and teachers - and the preschool teacher organizations fixed upon that as the foundation for their philosophy about children. The idea is that children's minds are coming into focus. They don't have as great a capacity of reasoning when they are very young - and so you don't expect that from them. I certainly disagree with this idea. I believe that children need to be nurtured from an early age - and their minds need to be nurtured as well. Children can reason from birth, and if you bring that perspective with you, it will make your job as a parent a lot easier.

Interestingly enough, parents do a great service for their kids when they play all these silly games with babies and toddlers even if it's only because in their view, that babies have no capacity for reason. These parents teach their children how to be kids in the usa tradition - they teach their kids to talk in metaphors - and to use body language extensively to communicate their feelings and ideas to parents. And the skill of using your body language to communicate with others, and to be able to read people's body language really well is a very important one that kids will take with them as the grow up, and journey onwards into their later years.

Now, let me talk a bit about Diane Levy and her ideas. She has very good advice. The actions she recommends make sense to me - they certainly seem to be things that would tend to create a good social dynamic for the kids and the parents. However, the attitude she has seems to be that the kid is an object, rather than a person. She has prescriptions for what to do at various points, because in her view these objects known as "children" exhibit certain properties at these moments.

Why does the child not want to talk after she or he is picked up from school? Diane Levy has some wonderful ideas about this. But she neglects to accept the idea that she or other parents might bear some personal responsibility for the tension which boils over at that point. I remember the very scenario when I was a boy. And as I remember - my feelings at that point were that there had been a betrayal of trust at some point... which meant that I knew it wasn't wise to confide in my mother carelessly. Furthermore, there was a power struggle which was ongoing between me and my mother. Something had happened at school that day that I needed to digest quietly by myself. I didn't want to breach the topic with my mom until I thought it through a little bit. And so, while I really do appreciate the advice that Ms. Levy gives parents... I think that this kind of situation that Ms. Levy describes, really should be a reason for a caregiver to reassess how he or she is dealing with his child daily. Why is there a power struggle there? And what can be done to have some reconciliation between yourself and the child? I mean, maybe the adult is the one who needs to learn how to respect the child more.

The very idea of "respect," in the way it's being bandied about in that interview is flawed. I noticed that Diane Levy immediately gave a candid description of particular situations where New Zealand parents would misconstrue the idea of respect. This gives me some nuggets of insight into where the weaknesses are in childrearing for some New Zealand households. I also noticed, sadly, that Ms. Levy immediately embarked into a frame of reference where she describes what she thinks of as a justifiable power struggle between the parent and the kid. If there's a power struggle with a child, you're not parenting rightly. A adult-child relationship is a symbiotic relationship - a nurturing relationship. And as Diane Levy so poetically pointed out with her reference to "the GST approach" - the parent is the giver. The child's role in the matter is to be gracious, affectionate, and conscientious, in view of the fact that she or he is nurtured better if that affection is shown to the adult. So the model that works: is this nurture which is traded for affection. If a power struggle evolves that is persistent - it means that your friendship with the child is strained.

Now the idea of "friendship" did come up towards the end of the interview. I thought it quite audacious for it to be said that "you can't be a friend with your child." Maybe the word "friend" means something different in New Zealand, I don't know. The situation described of getting down and wrestling with the kid isn't my definition of "being a friend;" rather, I would call it "being a kid alongside your kid." Diane Levy says that she thinks that's ok, though she herself wouldn't do it. I, on the other hand, have seen that fundamentally, wrestling with kids like that - descending to their level - really doesn't ever work. One has to maintain one's role - as an adult friend, and caregiver. Kids value parents because they are parents - and can be disillusioned if their parents or caregivers start acting like their silly peers. It was a very hard lesson for me to learn as a teenager, that I could never be a kid again with kids - and still retain their respect; to be a good adult or role model with them, I needed to retain a professional distance from childlike behaviour. So I agree with the idea that one should not get down to the kid's level with the child. But when it comes to the definition of friendship, I would insist that there are many kinds of friendships - and an adult-child friendship is one of the most poignant of these. It is friendship, indeed.

Another important word that was brought up in this interview was "discipline." Diane Levy had a very quick response to this - she talked about how parents don't have the right to berate their children. However, again, the context which seems to be accepted for the concept by both people in that conversation worries me. Again, to hear the word used in that particular manner in which it was in the interview just takes me back 20 years. My favorite early childhood education professor at my university (I'll be careful not to say college - which means secondary school in New Zealand), defined discipline for us on the first day of class. My teacher, Joanne Ellingson, drew on the etymology of the word - and she pointed out that it is rooted in the word "disciple," which means a teacher - someone who leads by example. "Correction" is a better word to use, I think, when it comes to children than "discipline." To correct somebody means to make certain they change their approach to a situation. That's constructive. Discipline, as it was proposed by the interviewer, seems to be not only a synonym for punishment, but also a synonym for correction. And certainly these are not things that work well together. That approach is not a constructive manner of child guidance. Punishment, was the other word that my wonderful ECE professor defined the first day of class for us. She defined it as imposing pain or hurt - be it emotional or physical. I was glad to hear Diane Levy also point out ways in which punishment is counterproductive.

Now, Ms. Diane Levy and her interviewer immediately turned the conversation about discipline into a conversation about "venting." Venting is another fascinating concept. Both women seemed to agree that venting is "human nature." I take issue with that perspective. First of all, it depends on the personality type. Some people like to go into a sort of quiet existential state of mind in order to think about things, and puzzle stuff out. Others need to be more passionate, and they may need to curse as part of the process of coming to attention in regards to a negative thing that they have observed or heard about. Those who would think of themselves as humanists will probably be those who need to curse privately sometimes, because otherwise they risk brushing over and not focusing on learning about the more unpleasant things around them in their world; and that would lead to a very an unwise and foolish kind of simplemindedness. Now, cursing privately is not the same thing as berating a person publically. I think that there is never a need to be angry to someone else in an emotional manner. Cursing has no utility whatsoever as a manner of social discourse. I caught myself chuckling to myself upon hearing Diane Levy's words she related as she would say them to a child: "You don't use that language around me;" I mused about my notion that in my estimation, the operative words in that sentence would have been 'around me.' I think Ms. Levy also recognizes the value of being indignant and alarmed sometimes.

Now children, of course, do need to be given some license to have emotional outbursts around adults... those moments are very vital for adults to see. I consider it a privilege to see a kid have an outburst. Indeed, to see this kind of thing, is to see the inside of that child's mind and heart in a very intimate manner. After watching a child's outburst, I have the opportunity to engage my mind and plan a strategy for working with the child and her parent in respect to that area the child is upset about. I confess that this is very exciting to me in some sense; from my perspective it's a moment which is similar to when an architect lays out the blueprints, as he gets ready to break ground for a new building.

Of course, a child ought never to be abusive towards an adult. And most outbursts won't be that way, unless there's a power struggle which is ongoing. A child who realizes that the amount of opportunities she gets, and the amount of nurture she gets, go down in direct proportion to how shoddily she treats her parents will try her utmost to be amicable.

So in summary, if there's a power struggle going on between the parent and the child... there's a problem - and the parent should recognize that he or she is, in part, responsible for this tension. And I was very saddened to see how this otherwise wonderfully wise woman equivocated around that point. Even though she has sage advice in many areas... the general thrust of her opinion was that power struggles are natural and to be expected as a part of daily life with one's kids. And, to be frank, I would say that is a very flawed narrative of how parenting ought to be.