The Sovereign Child: How a Forgotten Philosophy Can Liberate Kids and Their Parents

There’s a second plotline here: the well-intentioned and disastrous shift toward overprotecting children and restricting their autonomy in the real world. Children need a great deal of free play to thrive. It’s an imperative that’s evident across all mammal species. The small-scale challenges and setbacks that happen during play are like an inocula

Children won’t take in what you tell them until it makes sense to them. Other people don’t simply shape what children do; parents aren’t the programmers. Instead, they seem designed to provide just the right sort of information at just the right time to help the children reprogram themselves.

In play, children freely negotiate the rules, are actively involved in the social process, learning as they make their way. In sport, the rules already exist, and children instead learn how to play within predetermined boundaries.

Expect that static rules will get gamed. Becoming an adult is, in part, about learning what the system is, where its weaknesses are, and how to take advantage of those weaknesses. Children learn this in the system that their natal home provides. Make honorable systems, listen to children when they have grievances, take them seriously from an early