Parenting Philosophy per Aristotle

Is this the greatest thing or what?!  THE PHILOSOPHER as St. Thomas would call him, pertaining to raising children.  I can really love that as I adore the time tested wisdom of Aristotle and now you can too, in this excellent book: If Aristotle’s Kid had an Ipod, by Conor Gallagher, published by St. Benedict’s Press/Tan Publishers, 2012.

 

I discovered this book through a friend as we “synced” our NOOK Color devices and she could Lend me the book from her eReader library.  Pretty cool for these moms :)

It is a simply wonderful, easy to read and thoroughly informative book – not meant as a parenting guide, but meant to draw upon the wise philosophies of Aristotle and get into focus a few areas that apply so nicely to parenting, even in the modern day.  To say Aristotle is timeless….well, such an understatement.  Remarkably timeless.  Rich in vision and such common sense.

Without a lot of spoilers…because you must read this book for yourself, one area I greatly enjoyed was on technology.  Conor Gallagher is a modern day dad of 8 children, and knows the score when it comes to electronics these days.  I love how he describes Twitter, Facebook and other social media, as well as Texting, Ipods, etc.   We are not unplugging (our children certainly aren’t) enough, unless we make an absolute effort for them to do so.  Those items to not really supply relational communication that is meaningful and can built friendship…true friendship being the lasting one as defined by the 3 levels of friendship Aristotle describes.

And…let’s speak of friendship.  Very scary stuff!…when statistics show that “true friendships” outside of kin have dropped dramatically in the last six years to a mere 57% as compared to 80-90% in decades before that.  Communication has changed, and in regard to human relationships, not for the better.  There is still nothing better than sitting down and talking face to face with a friend, in a group of friends, and taking time to do so as “friend time” is now becoming extinct….and it is sacred and being tread upon.

A teaser not a spoiler….you may not like everything the author shares, as he turns some so called parenting techniques on their heads.  I for one really appreciated that because “strong willed” in Aristotle’s definition is not referring to the same kind of “strong willed” that Dr. Dobson describes in modern day.  In fact, Aristotle’s strong willed (against the bad and toward the good) is completely opposite. 

And one more thing….yes your children need love (“all you need is love…”, right?…wrong), that’s not all they need.  They need so much more, and deserve so much more, and the author nicely unpacks all they need to be given. 

A great thought: this would be an excellent book to read together with other parents and then group together to discuss.  I highly suggest it.  I would love to do this with our few home school moms at our parish; I think we could really benefit from it.  Even if you don’t have a group per se, but just one friend you could do this with – go for it.  And may the wisdom of Aristotle be with you.