The Dangerous Child: Some Basic Concepts

The main purpose of this blog is to lay out my ideas for “The Dangerous Child Method of Education and Child-Raising.” The basic outline of “The Dangerous Child” is still naturally seen as quite vague by most readers. This posting may help to create an early outline of what I hope to present more fully in the future.

First of all, the word “dangerous” should not be taken to mean “violent.” Rather than being a violent child, a Dangerous Child when allowed to go about his business is peaceful in mind and body.

Here are some recent popular books which use the word “dangerous” in ways that overlap with The Dangerous Child concept:

The Dangerous Book for Boys by Conn and Hal Iggulden

50 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Child Do by Gever Tully

The idea in the two popular books above is to safely acquaint children with activities that contain at least a modest amount of danger. Both books hit back against the over-protective nature of modern approaches to child-raising that have been adapted by societal institutions. When children are sheltered from all sources of danger, they tend to be unprepared when facing the real world. This lack of preparedness places children and youth in much greater danger than if they had been exposed to a wide array of dangers, in a reasonably controlled fashion.

But I would be less than honest if I were to claim that the Al Fin Dangerous Child Method of Education and Child-Raising were on the same level of political correctness and societal acceptability as the listed books above. Dangerous Children, as envisioned by the Al Fin approach, will be truly dangerous to individuals and institutions which mean to do harm to them or theirs.

Ideally, Dangerous Child training commences before conception, continues through gestation, and begins in earnest in the neonatal period. But not every child is planned, and not every parent is expert in The Dangerous Child Method at the time of a child’s birth.

A child will be able to enter into The Dangerous Child Method at any age, including any point in adulthood. The training will be more effective, however, the earlier it is begun.

The main reason that earlier training is better, is due to the many “critical periods,” or “developmental windows” which young minds pass through between the uterus and the end of adolescence. The mind is more trainable at certain ages, for particular skills.

The Dangerous Child Method incorporates training in language, music, mathematics, science, art, thinking skills, interpersonal skills including people-reading and situational awareness, basic economics and trade, and a range of physical skills including methods of self-defense and many means of sustaining the human body in a wide range of environments.

Some of the early ideas on The Dangerous Child can be found at: The Dangerous Child Category in Alfin2101

and at “Survival” also at Alfin2101

A number of other articles at Alfin2101.blogspot.com also contain material reflecting The Dangerous Child philosophy.

It must be stressed that The Dangerous Child follows a broad and flexible philosophy, rather than an ideology. Ideologies tend to be mass movements with dogmas that are devised, interpreted, and revised by inner circles. These ideological dogmas tend to be unfalsifiable tautologies, not subject to outside challenge or argument.

A Dangerous Child will be the opposite of a typical indoctrinated university student, eco-fascist, or other brainwashed ideologue. A Dangerous Child will be educated in the best way possible: he will be self-educated, teaching himself as he climbs from each hard-earned learning plateau to a higher one. The wider universe will be his classroom, library, and playground combined.

Dangerous Children are acutely aware of the limitations of the human sensory and cognitive toolkits, and will learn to work within those limitation while exploring ways of transcending them.

And to close on a high note, Dangerous Children will be able to support themselves financially at least three different ways by the time they are 18 years old.

Can there possibly be enough time in a short childhood to make a child truly dangerous? There had better be. The alternative — the way western societies are drifting into decayed dysfunction — simply will not do.

These ideas will be fleshed out extensively over time, on this site and perhaps elsewhere.