The non-aggression principle and the responsibility for the child

The non-aggression principle means that none has the right to harm or force anyone to anything. Since you do not own the child and the child owns itself this principle also apply for children. 

This approach does not seem to be any obvious when violence and coercion against children is taking place both visible and hidden in all societies. This doesn’t include only physical violence but also psychological violence such as coercion, abuse, shame and punishment, and the lack of meeting the mental and physical needs and necessities.

The non-aggression principle also means that you have the right to defend yourself against other people that is using violence against you. A parent that expose their children to violence in the forms I have mentioned above not only violates the non-aggression principle but also commit a crime as the child can’t defend him or herself in the same way as an adult. New borns can for example only express that something is wrong by screaming and crying.


Since it is the parents who have chosen to have a child together – whether it’s a good combination or not – it is 100% their responsibility and no one elses to raise the child in a way that doesn’t damage him or her because they don’t own the child. The parents are their childs trustees. If the child is injured or harmed it is the parents responsibility. Often you hear about child abuse, but (in Sweden) they don’t mention the parents responsibility.

One example that I want to discuss is that it often stands in the media about children being exposed to bullying and mistreatment in schools and kindergartens. Almost always schools and preschools that are blamed. Last year, Uppdrag granskning, a documentary, made a programme about a nursery where the children (many as young as 1 year old) didn’t get any real breakfast. The parents complained on the programme but still sent their children to that kindergarden. A while ago, a 4 year old in Strängnäs was bullied by boys at a kindergarden. She told her parents and did not want to go there. Her parents took didn’t take her out from kindergarten until they discovered that the boys forced her to eat garbage in the kitchen when no adult was watching. If the child doesn’t have a good bond to their parents it will not probably not say if it gets exposed to violence and abuse. It naturally makes a child with a lack of bond to their parents a prey for bullies as the bullies will know it’s not as likely that the child will tell their parents.

What I want to emphasize is that it is the parents who have chosen to put their children in such a school / kindergarden and therefore it is the responsibility of parents if the child is exposed to violence and abuse. One can certainly argue that it is the school that bears the blame for a child that has been treated badly and that forced parents to send there child but it is the parents’ duty to investigate that the school has no defects before and refuse to send their children there have it. I have heard many stories of desperate parents who know that their children are bullied at school or the child is not doing well in school, but they go to their jobs. It is the child that is important – do not work and school!

You might want to read my text “Who owns the child?” as well.

Do you think the text was interesting? Share as much as you would like! Do you think that something I wrote was difficult to understand or want to say something else? Please comment below and I will reply.

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