Posted on 10/10/2002 10:47:14 PM PDT by eabinga
Throughout the past year, I have been able, at times, to follow the commentaries offered to the public by my son Kyle Williams through WorldNetDaily. I have also seen some of the responses to those writings through e-mails sent to him and through letters to the editor.
For the most part, the responses have been very positive, but there has been some persistent speculation over the year that he is not writing on his own and that I or his mother – or both – are actually writing under his name.
Rather than answer that speculation directly, I will briefly describe how we have raised Kyle and his older brother and sister, and through that description, the readers are free to draw their own conclusions.
From the beginning of our lives together, we have done our best to allow our children to develop and learn in the direction that they chose. Certainly in parenting young children there must always be discipline and restraint, but we sought to provide the oversight without denying the creativity.
This approach is not easy, nor has it been without cost, but the end result we desired was that our children would be able to decide how they would spend their time and where they would place their efforts.
An example of this is with our oldest child, Emily. I have always loved music and I play several instruments. We have never demanded that any of the children learn to play, but have always given them the opportunity to learn if they desired, and Emily has chosen over the years to take advantage of that opportunity and has supplied the effort and discipline necessary to learn music and can now play several instruments well. When she plays the piano or the guitar, I enjoy the music. But it is she, not I, that is playing.
I have always been a great fan of the game of baseball, and our middle child, Donald, has taken advantage of the opportunity we have provided to all of the children to participate in and learn how to play the game. He has developed into a very good baseball player and, when I watch him play, I enjoy it very much and realize that it was partly my direction and instruction that has allowed him to develop as a player. But when he plays, it is he and not me that is performing.
When Kyle was 4 to 5 years old, I brought our first personal computer home so that the children would have the opportunity to grow with the technological age that I could see our society was entering. He and his older siblings all spent time with the PC, but Kyle showed the greatest affinity for it and took the greatest advantage of this opportunity we provided.
We provided some restraint, but also allowed him to make mistakes. When his exploration of the computer – and later what the World Wide Web had to offer – caused malfunctions or, in the early days, the complete collapse of the PC, we would take it to the proper people and get it restored because we are convinced that a big part of learning is through making mistakes. Allowing children to make mistakes without retribution is the greatest gift we can give them.
As Kyle grew, his interest in PCs and the Internet grew, and we allowed him the opportunity to take courses in programming and gave him the freedom to explore and grow in the technological world. We are aware of the dangers, but also realized that freedom to learn provides the best outcomes.
Whatever he has accomplished to date, he has done on his own. Was there influence from his parents? Yes, of course. But are we writing through him? No more than we are playing the guitar through his sister or throwing a baseball through his brother. Kyle, like his siblings, has actually taught and influenced us, at least as much as we have taught and influenced him. That is what parenting is all about – partnering with your children to allow them to tell you what they want to be. They will not only tell you with words, but also with actions, desires and needs.
The parenting partnership can be defined and planned, but the largest piece for the parent is to step back and allow the evolution and development of the child – mistakes and all – without acting on the innate need to take charge and make things happen.
So, in response to the charges that Kyle is simply being used by his parents or WorldNetDaily as a shtick, I answer that Kyle is now doing what he chooses, and developing as he wishes, and I enjoy his writings when I read them and wonder myself, sometimes, how someone so young can have such a knowledge of the world and such a means to express it.
If you'd like to sound off on this issue, please take part in the WorldNetDaily poll.
Don Williams is the father of WND's youngest columnist. Kyle's column appears every weekend, exclusively on WorldNetDaily.
The controversial column, "Bush and his Big Gov", that raised a lot of discussion here is located at http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29184
Kyle Williams is 13 years old, home-schooled and lives in a rural community in America's heartland.
His column title, "VERITAS," is Latin for "truth."
He particularly enjoys following current news events – and writing about them – and is extremely interested in politics.
Kyle believes he may one day have a career in journalism.
For now, he offers his unique perspective to the readers of WorldNetDaily.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/764035/posts
Didn't quite make 500 posts...
They couldn't figure out a way to mercilessly bash a 13 year old (as they do everyone else outside the groupthink) and look civil at the same time.
They can be an ugly bunch.
The most useful movie on child-rearing I ever saw was a hard-core TULIP calvinist retelling of the Prodial Son parable. Bottom line: it is not parental control that finally saves our children, but the grace of God.
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