The Myth of Normal 103

Chapter 9 A Sturdy or Fragile Foundation: Children’s Irreducible Needs We are born not knowing who we are, we don’t know how to think. We only know how to feel. It is through our feelings that how we are raised creates the trajectory for our future lives. —Natasha Khazanov[*] Raffi Cavoukian woke suddenly at six o’clock one morning in 1997. “I bolted upright in bed,” he tells me, “jaw dropped, eyes wide open, and the words ‘child honoring’ were playing right in front of my eyes, as a phrase and as the name of a philosophy.” For the next decade, the internationally cherished children’s troubadour took time away from the concert stage and recording studio to dedicate himself to envisioning, networking, and advocating for a world that honors children. He has maintained that commitment.[1] As he speaks of it, he sparkles with the playful enthusiasm and deep respect for young people that infuse his music—the same qualities that inspired my son Aaron as a toddler to dress up as his musical hero for Halloween, complete with ukulele and face-painted beard. “At its core, child honoring is respect for personhood,” Raffi says. “Children are here to learn their own song.” The question of children’s developmental needs is neither abstract nor sentimental; it is of urgent practical importance. Although we often refer to childhood as “the formative years,” our societal norms speak dismally to our appreciation of how formative these years really are, of just how much is