Re: Parenting in Cohousing
From: Diana Carroll (dianaecarrollgmail.com)
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2011 09:11:05 -0700 (PDT)
Sharon, our kids are mostly hovering right below your theoretical cutoff at
the moment (we have a big group of 8-12 year olds), but we are just starting
to run into a few of these issues.  I don't think we've really resolved any
of them, though, so I'll be interested in the responses.

My philosophy largely agrees with yours.  It isn't the community's job to
enforce parental rules about things like how much screen time or what movies
the kids watch...especially once they get older.  On the other hand, I do
recognize that part of why we live in community is that we get to ask for
help with things that traditionally we are all on our own for...like, for
instance, raising our children in support of our values.

We ran head-on into this just a few weeks ago when one set of kids wanted to
watch a movie in the CH living room that some parents of OTHER kids felt
inappropriate for their own kids.  Some people in the community's response
(full disclosure: including mine) was: well then tell your kids not to watch
that movie.  This however was not an uncontroversial view, and we are still
working out the details of how to handle this.  (The problem is exacerbated
by the fact that the living room has a window, making the movies visible
from the hallway.  Some proposed solutions include using blinds.)

We have also had a longer term issue where we have things in the common
house which some children have trouble monitoring their own usage of.
(Examples being video games, and sugary foods/soda.)  Should the community
limit access to these resources in order to make life easier on those
parents?  much discussion, no global resolution (yet).

Our common house is never locked, and all the children have unlimited access
to it.  Or, rather, the community doesn't take group action to limit access
to it; individual parents may have rules regarding their own kids' access.

Locking it seems a very unlikely/unworkable solution.  We live in a very
safe, very rural neighborhood where few people (either in our community in
even in our town) lock their car or home doors, we leave our bikes and
equipment lying about, etc.  Having one building in the whole community
locked would be very weird and very against our community's culture.

sorry, no actual useful information here I guess, just interested in the
conversation

- diana (Mosaic Commons, Berlin, MA)




On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 9:46 AM, Sharon Villines
<sharon [at] sharonvillines.com>wrote:

>
> I've asked this question before to stone cold silence which usually means
> it's too hot to touch. I'm trying again.
>
> How do communities deal with access to common house facilities when
> teenagers, in the view of their parents, may be abusing such facilities?
>
> There are several age groups for which different expectations can be placed
> but for the sake of avoidance, let's try 14+.
> Have you had situations in which a parent expected the community, for a
> child of this age, to require, for example, that televisions and computers
> in the common house be locked up because the teenagers won't observe
> parental restrictions on "screen time."
>
> In my opinion, this is an age at which adults should have established clear
> understandings of adult behavior that is expected of their children and have
> in place both rewards and withdrawal of privileges if those behaviors aren't
> exhibited. It is fairly impossible to control their behavior with either
> constant supervision or limiting the environment. If the child doesn't begin
> or isn't expected to exercise self-control at the age of 14, all hope may be
> lost.
>
> When I expressed this opinion yesterday my neighbor said, "Sharon, you are
> dealing with cohousers here. Get real."
>
> How does your community deal with this?
>
> Sharon
> ——
> Sharon Villines
> "Reality is something you rise above." Liza Minnelli
>
>
>
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