Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: raising children brochure

[Diana Carroll (dianaecarroll]

I don't think it would be super helpful to set up expectations before
move-in.  It's really REALLY hard to tell what's realistic until you are
there.  The issues we thought would come up (example: children's nudity,
underage drinking) were often non-issues, and things we never anticipated
(nerf gun fights in the great room, not being gentle with our interior
glass doors) were.

Also, it really does no good to tell people how to parent their kids. You
might think that "expectations of children's behavior" is a separate issue
from parenting approaches but it really is not. e.g. "free range" children
are going to have different patterns for common house usage than children
more used to being supervised. And how those parenting differences manifest
in *your *community will not become apparently until you move-in.  In fact,
they keep becoming more apparent over time as kids age.  A "free range"
three year old has a very different expectation from a "free range" 10 year
old.



Diana

On Mon, Apr 5, 2021 at 10:42 AM CJ Q <homeschoolvideo [at] gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
> I'm thinking of making a brochure on raising children in cohousing for
> forming communities. What information do you think would be helpful?  I was
> reading the second issue of Communities magazine and even by early 1980s
> intentional communities realized it was a myth that it was easy to raise
> children with various parenting ideas.
> I know the main thing I"ll encourage is to try to set up expectations of
> children's behavior before they move in.  That's one.
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Carol
> homeowner Emerson Commons, VA
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