Cohousing-L Mailing List: Parenting in Cohousing

[Fred H Olson (fholson]

Lyle Scheer <wonko [at] monkeyhouse.org>
is the author of the message below.  It was posted by
Fred, the Cohousing-L list manager <fholson [at] cohousing.org>
due to a format problem.
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Seems like quite a generic parenting question, no co-housing
required.

Kids can almost always find ways around restrictions if they are so
inclined.  I would imagine it quite simple to find a friend who is
allowed more screen time, and so on... without the need of a common
house.

Similarly, parents can create consequences when they discover that
the rules have been broken, with or without a co-housing community
involved.

All of this, of course, highly dependent upon both the nature of the
parent and the nature of the child.

Put that all aside, and it does come down to the actual question
asked, how does a community deal with said parent-child relation?

Separate this into distinct areas:
 *  The relationship between the parent and the child.  Probably not
    much an be done from the community here.  Resources to assist
    parenting?  Certainly if the cohousing group is so inclined.
 *  Dealing with a request from a parent to the community regarding
    access restrictions.  Seems rather straightforward, and the
    community can choose to accommodate the parents request or not,
    depending on how it might affect other users usage.  I imagine
    this highly tailored to the situation and the community.  I would
    claim that ultimately it is up to the parents to parent, but
    certainly a cohousing community could choose to provide common
    resources and even become involved with co-parenting.  I
    certainly do not think there is any place for a common cohousing
    standard.  I would say this is up to each community
    individually.  Perhaps my imagination is limited here, but I
    would think the parents have much more in their realm of control
    to be able to deal with this and create appropriate consequences
    than does the community at large, but that may be because I see
    the example presented as more of a generic parenting issue.
 *  Dealing with community member's feelings/opinions regarding
    use/abuse of the common facilities by a teen.  Seems like the
    generic case of common space use/abuse applies.  Do you have a
    policy to apply?
I'm not quite sure what there is here to discuss.

My community, Ashland Cohousing Community, does not have any physical
access restrictions.  The common house is typically unlocked during
the daytime and early evenings.  We do have a policy that children
are not in the common house unattended, though that has been worked
around in specific cases (a pre-teen practicing on a keyboard in the
CH at one point).  We only have one teen currently, and no problems
around this teen.  We do have a batch of younger ones that will get
there.  I would say my community deals with specific issues on a case
by case basis.  However, in your specific query around a 14+ year old
abusing a common facility, we have not yet had to deal with this.

On the other hand, we have had to deal, and continue to deal with
issues around parenting.  The ones we struggle with most seem to
revolve around the case where a community member sees a behavior in a
child that they deem inappropriate, which may or may not be covered
within our community policies, and needing some response, but not
willing to provide the response themselves, and not finding the
specific parent sympathetic to that community member's desire for
response, or providing that response and then feeling resentment that
the parents do not.  I suspect there's a usual gamut of such issues,
going from dinner behavior in common meals to toys on community
property not picked up.

- Lyle

On 6/13/11 8:38 AM, Robert Heinich wrote:

 Sharon,

Is your Common House open to all or is access restricted?

Our Common House is locked but all adults and teens with parents' permission
have keys.  However that does not mean all teens have keys.  Some, in the
view of their parents, have not developed the trust to have a key.

Our Common House does have TVs but no accessible computers.  So some of our
teens do watch TV (cable TV or movies on DVD).

So if the parent have restricted screen time and the teen ignores the
restriction, they should not have a key to the Common House.  However, this
control is with the parent and not with the community.  As I stated earlier,
not all of our teens have keys to the Common House.

-Robert Heinich
 Eno Commons Cohousing
 Durham, NC
 http://www.enocommons.org
 where the whirring of the Brood XIX cicadas is winding down but one an see
fireflies now