Re: Re: Children (in cohousing and elsewhere) | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: Berrins (Berrinsaol.com) | |
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 2003 22:44:05 -0700 (MST) |
In a message dated 2/20/03 12:09:29 PM, racheli [at] sonoracohousing.com writes: << Hi Roger, I want to address some of what I think your assumptions are: 1- Noise is bad. >> Sorry, this misses the point I was trying to make. Please allow me to try again. The point is that people have different ranges of acceptable levels of noise and it may be that those with very little tolerance no longer want to put up with noise may want to avoid it as much as possible, and this is one of the several reasons they want a 50+ cohousing community. Myself, I often like the "energy" and life of kids playing exuberantly and have occasionally been guilty of riling up the kids myself. Others have less physical tolerance for the sustained volume and pitch that can happen at community gatherings. This tolerance tends to decrease with age, but is hardly limited to 50+ adults. One 30-something couple with two young children tend to avoid large meals because of the noise. BTW, the noise and activity "problem" occurs almost e xclusively indoors, where the sound and brownian scatter of youngins is contained by walls and roof. Outdoor noise is rarely, if ever, a problem. 2)<<In the kibbutz where I grew up there were about 500 members. All those people and their children ate dinner in one huge hall. The noise was probably unbearable (in terms of what I'd see as acceptable now), yet nobody seemed to mind.>> Maybe (I'm just supposin' here) growing up on a kibbutz socialized you and your fellow kibbutzniks to the noise (who knows, at some level you might even miss the noise). Kibbutzim, as you know, have been around for many decades, long enough for several generations to grow up and have kids and grandkids there. Noisy meals are normal. However, the vast majority of cohousing communities are less than ten years old. I suspect that most cohousing members did not grow up in a kibbutz or any other kind of similar housing situation and so were not raised with the crowds of kids we get in cohousing. We're not used to it. Perhaps in a generation or two cohousing folks will develop a tolerance for higher levels of sound. 3. <<I'd like you and others to consider that while you have a problem with the kids making noise, kids often have a problem with you (and others) constantly attempting to control their behavior. They probably won't tell you that (they know who has the power), but they resent the interference nevertheless.>> There are several issues in this one paragraph and we could spend hours chatting about each one. I'll try to keep it brief. - I myself don't usually have a problem with kids making noise, although I do sometimes. But the real issue was covered in # 1 above. - As a parent, behaviour control (aka setting limits) is a fact of life. Hopefully, if we do our jobs right, we will teach our children how to control their own behaviour. New social settings (re: cohousing) can be considered opportunities for teaching children to consider how their behaviour affects not just other children, but adults as well. All this may make me seem like a control freak, but that's hardly the case. I am not "constantly attempting" to control kids behaviour. First of all, it's not a constant problem, especially not for me. Second, on the rare occasion I think it necessary (which may have been once or twice in three years we've been here), I will ask a parent to step in. But learning how to live with others is one of the major lessons each generation passes on the next. It puts the "civil" in civilization. It is one of the cohousing lessons we are still trying to learn ourselves, never mind teach to the kids. We're working on it. - Kids, especially the younger ones, often resent anyone, including their parents, attempting to control their behaviour. That doesn't mean we should avoid dealing with the issue at hand. The level and style of control that non-parents may use is still one of the major issues being discussed. 4. <<The more society insists on supervising children all the time, the more they'll seem "out of control" at moments when they are left to their own devices. My opinion is that if they were allowed MORE unsupervised time, rather than less (even though this is obviously age-related), their behavior might improve.>> This is an interesting perspective- I'd like to hear what some of our social worker types on this list have to say. My non-professional take on this is partly covered in the second section of #3 above; if we as parents have done our jobs well and taught our children how to control their own behaviour, I would wholeheartedly agree with you. But all chidren are "works in progress," with only partial controls and social tools installed and many life lessons to be learned. Rather than thinking of supervising children as just controlling them, I'd rather approach supervision as an opportunity to help them learn to live with others. If they can figure it on their own, great, they'll probably remember it better. We often tell our own kids to work out their issues with their friends on their own. But sometimes they need help, and sometimes they need control. Its up to us as parents and community members to figure out (here come those discussions again) when to help, when to control and when to stay out of the way. What say you professionals? 6. <<IMO "admohishing" might work when someone has a real, and a largely *positive* relationship with a child, (just like with adults! :) If you don't really know a kid, and the only time she has any meaningful contact with you is when you lecture her about her allegedly inappropriate behavior, why should she take you seriously?>> This, to me, is one of the largest issues we face in cohousing, and I agree with you. Please don't forget the original context of this discussion- cohousing for 50+ only. One of the frustrations older people in cohousing have had is lack of opportunity to connect with children and form more positive relationships with them. There may be many possible reasons for this, but now we are drifting off-topic. Let me just say that if we ever figure out how to get solve this problem we might have fewer 50+ people wanting to leave multi-generational cohousing. Roger Pathways Northampton, MA (Who lived on Kibbutz Neve Eitan, just south of Beit She'an, for six months in the early 70's- a major inspiration for choosing to live in cohousing) _______________________________________________ Cohousing-L mailing list Cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org Unsubscribe and other info: http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L
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RE: Children (in cohousing and elsewhere) TR Ruddick, February 20 2003
- Re: RE: Children (in cohousing and elsewhere) racheli, February 21 2003
- Re: Re: Children (in cohousing and elsewhere) Berrins, February 20 2003
- Re: Re: Children (in cohousing and elsewhere) racheli, February 21 2003
- Re: Re: Children (in cohousing and elsewhere) Kay Argyle, March 4 2003
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