August 23
2011
It is often like a slap into my face to observe my two little kids do what I do. Just look at Valerie (see the photo below). As I find myself staring at a computer screen a lot, for her a computer has been a magnet. If I ask what she does, she says: “I am sending out e-mails.” Or I hear her mentoring her dolls or the younger sister, supposedly the way I do it. And you know my theory… Being a child is our first job. The family is our first employer. The father or the mother is our first boss, the siblings are the first colleagues, the neighbor may be the first competition :-).
It makes me think that to see more freedom based businesses we need to see more freedom based families first. Things are changing here in Central Europe where I reside. But is the change fast enough? I doubt it. The last five years I go to children’s playgrounds, the main thing I hear from the parents is the popular command and control, carrot and sticking and contempt. And after we send our kids to school? The same thing just goes on…
On the other hand I am often overwhelmed by the number of people who are trying to reform the way we bring up our kids be it at home or at school. It makes me very optimistic. I often think we should unite all the reform movements because the home, the school and the work are the same thing. Perhaps just the vocabulary is different. But the principles are the same.
Children follow. And not only them. We need more examples of freedom based families, schools as well as businesses so we could follow them. And as I said business can learn from (= follow) how we run our schools or how families deal with power and communication. On the other hand parents and teachers can learn a great deal from some of the teachers. What do you think?
- Spread freedom...
