School reduces children sense of control

Typical school systems, which schedules are highly regimented, reduces the sense of control of pupils. They do not have control over what they’re learning about, or what time they should have their lunch.

My 5-year-old (Year 1) told me told me that she prefers to be at home because at school she can't control what she has to watch. She's being forced to watch Number Jack where it has a character that she's scared of. When she reaches home, we gave her a lot of freedom to choose what she’d like to watch.

References

The Self-Driven Child (p. 11)

These are exactly the circumstances most kids experience every day. Lest you doubt how little control children and adolescents like Kara actually have, think of what their days are like: they have to sit still in classes they didn’t choose, […] stand in neat lines, eat on a schedule, and rely on the whims of their teachers for permission to go to the bathroom.

Backlinks

• Home should restore children’s sense of control
  • Sense of control is a basic human need. Unfortunately, School reduces children sense of control. Given that the majority of children’s time is being spent in school, they have to have a different place where their sense of control could be balanced out.