Connections Over Compliance Quotes

Children raised in authoritarian religions often enter adulthood feeling ‘starved for love’ because their parents consistently prioritized obedience and compliance over nurture and connection.

The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.

Thomas Jefferson, for instance, recognized the essential connection between education and freedom, writing in 1816, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”12 Still, the institution of the family prevailed over the interests of the state. Jefferson advocated for a highly decentralized system of education, locally controlled by parents in small districts, or “wards” as he called them, with little government involvement. He also believed that parental rights and individual liberty outweighed mandatory compliance. In 1817, Jefferson wrote, “It is better to tolerate the rare instance of a parent refusing to let his child be educated, than to shock the common feelings and ideas by forcible asportation and education of the infant against the will of the father.

A dysregulated adult cannot regulate a child.

Children are the most honest barometers of the health of our communities. Their disruptive behavior is a call to action to all of us—to tend to the broken links and suffering with compassion and wisdom.” TRAUMA INFORMED POSITIVE BEHAVIOR SUPPORT WEBSITE

Our shift comes from viewing discipline not as something that we do to another, but rather as something we want to create within another.

When we approach our kids with charts and reinforcement and stickers and time-outs, we essentially tell them that their behavioral compliance is what matters most.

As parents, we want our kids to be able to recognize and assert their desires, to be able to hold on to the idea “I know what I want, even when people around me tell me no.” But we cannot encourage subservience and compliance in our kids when they’re young and expect confidence and assertiveness when they’re older.

But we cannot encourage subservience and compliance in our kids when they’re young and expect confidence and assertiveness when they’re older.