Connections Over Compliance Quotes

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

A dysregulated adult cannot regulate a child.

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.

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

Indeed, the move to connect public subsidy and private compliance must be understood in the context of the postwar history of urban redevelopment initiatives, most of which have been considered failures. A thorough history of these programs is beyond this chapter, but the litany of criticisms is familiar: Urban redevelopment has relied too heavily on private-side investment; it has emphasized displacement and gentrification over reinvestment; it has lacked citizen participation or neighborhood input; and it has been riddled with patronage, incompetence, and distribution to favored groups. Mostly, however, urban redevelopment policy has been unsuccessful.