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* The two most vital things for every parent concerned about the issues of exploitative sexualization of children need, in my opinion, to do is 1) to get super clear about their role as a parent and 2) learn as much as possible about anthroposophical child development.
* To be a parent is not to be a friend or even a guide—it is to be a mother or a father and sometimes, for a single parent, both. It means being clear about boundaries; developing the ability to say ‘no’; learning how to pray and meditate to get support on one’s path; and never ever going along with ‘the crowd’ when one’s inner Mama-voice or Dad-voice is screaming ‘no---don’t do it!’
* Learning about anthroposophical child development is a long path (I hardly use the term ‘Waldorf’ any more as the schools for the most part have strayed so far from their foundations as to be almost unrecognizable---I say this as someone who went to a Waldorf school from kindergarten through high school; taught in several schools; ran a nursery; and have worked with parents and children for almost 40 years out of what I used to be proud to know as Waldorf). Key concepts such as the need for tiny ones to not be precociously dragged from their At One consciousness by adults must be understood so that the nonsense that passes for caring for children can be seen for its inadequacy or harm. A small child being asked what sweater they want to wear, what they’d like for dinner tonight, whether they want to invite Granma for the weekend, what gender they are today….these are adult concerns, adult choices, adult agendas. A little child who is a kitten one day and a pirate the next does not need adults who seek the child’s prematurely self conscious self aware opinions. If a child really needs something in them addressed, any good willed reasonably observant mother or father will know this. To bring a child to self-awareness before she is developmentally ready for this is to steal a part of that child’s childhood.
* So get various books about anthroposophical child development---it is likely that older books are more useful. Our curriculum through the years of course has lots of information on child development—our Curriculum Overview can be helpful in this as well as the various audio downloads we sell.
* Sorry to make another plug for resources but our Self Study Course is for parents wishing to understand the depths of what informs Christopherus and to also work on their own personal path of self development. It will be of great help in navigating items 1 and 2 above. To answer the questions that confront you, to navigate your way through our crazy world, you need to feel secure and at peace with your beliefs and your path: I have created this self development path to be a powerful help for each parent’s journey.
* Although it might seem to many parents that the problem of the sexualization of children is something new, this is far from the case. Our culture over the last 30 years has steadily commercialized and sexualized children---what is happening now could not have happened if more people had rejected the trend toward, for instance, dressing little girls like prostitutes, selling them dolls which encourage the same and even parading tiny ones around in such nauseating spectacles as Toddlers in Tiaras. Sex is great, sex is an important part of adult life---it has nothing to do with children and a non negotiable boundary must be set by all adults of good will and conscience to protect children.
* At the same time, being a parent---an authority, a boundary-maker, the one responsible for their children---has also been severely challenged in our society. Obviously, there are always terrible parenting situations---but a culture which does not encourage, support and embrace parenting---especially mothering---as a valid, wonderful and worthwhile endeavor is not one which can find a good way to help those people who make a mess of parenting. School teachers are not parents and homelife needs be at the fore of every child’s life. More day care, longer day care and so on is not the solution---enabling parents to live on one salary and valuing homelife including grandparents, is, especially for the poor, a much more humane and life enhancing solution. Teacher’s unions would not be so out of control if so many parents hadn’t just handed most of their children’s lives over to teachers. Homeschooling is part of the solution, but those who choose or need to send their children to school need support to ensure that schools enhance family life and do not work against it.
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