Consensual Living

It's probably not what you think. It's certainly not what I thought. What "Consensual Living" is, is a parenting "technique" that damn near guarantees that the children "raised" with it will turn out to be hellions. An excerpt:

In the consensual living model, father doesn't know best. Neither does mom. Instead, parents and children are equal partners in family life, according to the principles laid out at consensual-living.com.
...
Devotees study books such as Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn and Marshall Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication, and they consider parenting based on punishment and reward structures to be "coercive."

In contrast, "consensual" parenting is non-hierarchical.

The article, which I trust you can read without me continuing to blockquote it, goes on to discuss how the mommy and daddy of this little family negotiate with their toddlers, asking them for feedback on the rules with questions like "will that work for you?" and so on. I cannot even begin to describe all the ways this makes me angry.
But I'll try.

Let's start with the obvious: Consensual implies consent on the part of all people involved, and the way this reads to me, mommy and daddy are doing all of the bending. The children are certainly not mature enough to understand the need to compromise. They're still thoroughly planted in the "MINE MINE MINE!" phase of life and need to be taught how to act like good, selfless people. They do not need to be given the impression from birth that they can demand their way and that the people in authority over them actually aren't.

Let's also consider that our parents are our models for dealing with anyone else "bigger" than we are (older, more powerful, authority figures). Do we honestly believe that little Johnny's teacher or boss is going to give half a rat's ass about his feelings and "need to be validated?" (What does this mean, anyway? To me, "validation" is something they do with parking. But, I digress.)

Parents are responsible for giving their children the tools they need to survive in their world. Which means these children need to know that they are not the axis upon which the Earth spins. This is the absolute worst in lazy parenting, in psychobabble nonsense that makes parents feel that their job is to be the child's friend.

Another excerpt, this time from Consensual Living. This is from the section entitled "Principles of Consensual Living":

* Equality

The thoughts, feelings, wants, needs and/or solutions, of each individual involved, are equally valued, and equally considered. Everyone has thoughts, feelings, opinions, wants, needs, and/or solutions. We all must see those and the individual as equal regardless of our differences. It is more than just treating everyone as equal, each member of the family must be equal. If all family members do not truly feel equal, the process will be less than successful.

Doesn't that sound nice? Doesn't it sound like butterflies and rainbows and happiness? The problem here is that in point of fact, it never works this way. The parent demonstrates patience and spinelessness, whilst the child grows into an unholy terror. This is somewhat akin to the Tragedy of the Commons, the concept of a Miracle occurring and causing humans to not act like humans. Humans are selfish creatures. Young ones especially, for their instincts towards preservation of the species exist only inasmuch as they feel the need for survival.

The infant quickly learns that if it performs certain actions, others will respond in predictable ways. The parents of babies who pick baby up whenever it cries will create babies who cry when they want to be picked up. (Not to say that parents should not pick up their babies when they cry, but that parents should learn the difference between "I need something" cries and "I demand attention!" cries.)
The child who learns that saying things like "I feel hurt and rejected when you won't let me X" will get the parent to let him/her do X will fall back on those buzzwords. And what's worse, the child will not respect the parent, or itself. The child will loathe itself because deep down, it knows what it is doing is wrong. And that's the best case scenario. The worst case is one I've seen far too often: the sociopath.

This is just...UGH. I can't even begin to describe how angry I am about this. Parents are responsible for their children, but they are also responsible TO them, and as parents you have a real responsibility to make sure your child turns out as well-educated, well-socialized, and well-adjusted as possible. Some kids will go bad no matter what, but it's YOUR JOB to make sure that your child is given the best possible chance at becoming a decent human being. And this is NOT the way it's done.