I spent five years working with at-risk youth. These kids came from dysfunctional homes and they brought a whole series of other issues. A lot of those kids came to our facility with chemical dependency, read addiction, and issues with authority, in all its varieties, which leads to academic problems.
While this was a taxing job, physically and emotionally, it was really rewarding. It was an interesting exercise in building relationships and creating a framework to learn about Liberty.
A fair number of the kids I worked with were court ordered to be there. So how can we talk about learning liberty when the kids had no freedom. Well, the kids were sent to us because of their abuse of liberty due to a lack of understanding of what liberty really means.
In the course of their time with us, these kids had to learn the relationship between rights and duties.
“I feel happy that twenty-five years of vicissitudes in my fortune, and firmness in my principles, warrant me in repeating here that if, to recover her rights, it is sufficient for a nation to resolve to do so, she can preserve them only by rigid fidelity to her civil and moral duties.
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These kids came to us typically very entitled. Entitlement occurs when individuals receive the rights without the attendant duties that ensure those rights. I also had the opportunity to work with kids on the other end of that spectrum. These kids rebelled against authority because their home was only duties with no rights.
I was able to meet these parents and my take away that experience is that the nature vs nurture argument is flawed. It is certainly a combination. We had kids who were born addicting to various chemicals which leads to deficiencies, others parent's had created a culture in their home where Liberty could not exist.
Do not confuse a culture of liberty with permissive parenting. Permissive parenting leads to entitlement. It is the role of the parent to set appropriate boundaries, appropriate expectations, and appropriate consequences.
“I think that there’s something in the American psyche, it’s almost this kind of right or privilege, this sense of entitlement, to resolve our conflicts with violence. There’s an arrogance to that concept if you think about it. To actually have to sit down and talk, to listen, to compromise, that’s hard work.
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It isn't fun and it isn't easy, but this is how the true principle of liberty can be taught. In striking that balance between rights and duties, children learn that their rights are only ensured by the fulfilling of their duties.
These principles also help parents. By setting boundaries, expectations, and consequences, the parent does not have to juggle all of these in the moment of stress. This gives both parent and child the most precious commodity in the parenting game: predictability.
There is safety in predictability or in other words, there is safety in liberty. Liberty thrives when all parties behave predictably in the framework of expectations that have been established. Problems and difficulties arise when expectations aren't clear, consequences are not enforced, leading to a loss of predictability.
The kids that I worked with began to strive when they realized that I was going to be consistent with this. Many of them have since left and been successful, others returned to their homes where this principle was not in place and they, as a consequence of that, have struggled.
“When We replace a sense of service and gratitude with a sense of entitlement and expectation, we quickly see the demise of our relationships, society and economy”
While this is anecdotal and personal, it is mine. Working with those kids changed how I parent my own children. While I am not a perfect dad, by putting into play this principle, it has been easier to be a predictable dad, which makes me a better dad.