Learnings from Reclaiming Youth at Risk: Part I, Chapter 3: Learned Irresponsibility

In this chapter, I learned about the myth of how obedience training producing responsible adults. In contrast, they paraphrase WEB Dubois, indicating that only responsibility teaches responsibility. The authors refer to Ruth Benedict, an anthropologist, who criticized our culture for excluding youth from responsibility only to blame them for being irresponsible (e.g., youth who exhibit learned helplessnes, the defiant teen, the narcissitism of an affluent generation, the negative peer subcultures of gangs). By punishing children for rebellion, they learn how to manipulate and deceive to escape authority.

This chapter provides a Profile of Discouragement: A Youth Counterculture that speaks about those who studied gang members in Bogota, Columbia. To summarize this section, these children demonstrate remarkable talents and resourcefulness in order to survive because, "given their choice between enslavement in a pseudo-home and misery with liberty in the streets," they embrace freedom. Interestingly, as William Glasser has written, one of our needs is to have freedom (as well as fun, freedom, power, and belonging). No wonder these young people choose freedom over obedience.

Another section in this chapter indicates discusses the Tyranny of Indulgence. Many children seem to get everything they want. There are a good number of adults who are permissive with their children. They get the child whatever he wants. The authors list three problems with permissiveness, indicating:

1. Self-esteem may decrease because a child does not know what is of value and what behaviors are acceptable.
2. "Delinquency may be reinforced as adults keep giving 'another chance.'"
3. Aggresion increases if permissiveness is assoiciated with adult hostility.

This section as indicates that some adults are not really permissive. They are indifferent, "care-less." In other words, this person is not interested in his role as parent, teacher, or counselor. Other indifferent adults are distracted by their own problems. Other adults gain some satisfaction from a child's out-of-control behavior.

The next section, about the Tyranny of Obedience, starts by stating that "The saga of discipline of Western civilization is a litany of futile attempts to compel the young person to obedient behavior." The authors cite how the educational system has replaced relationships with an elaborate system of rules, with formal codes of conduct, which outline what is allowable and what will be punished. The authors begin to introduce another viewpoint, that of the Native American, who do not value obedience. The authors states how this group believe that men are the same,, that no one is superior to another. In contrast, they encourage an abundant freedom that is designed to give the child sufficient opportunity to learn from experience and natural consequences. This chapter ends with the thought-provoking idea that rules are important but that why someone follows the rules is equally important. If children are forced to follow rules, the will only do so if they are policed. This implies that if children internalize responsibility, they will not require "policing."