Parenting: Letting Children Choose

About this episode

Tanner Campbell discusses the importance of allowing children to develop their rational faculties before introducing them to philosophies like Stoicism.

I am a public philosopher, it is my only job. I am enabled to do this job, in large part, thanks to support from my listeners and readers. You can support my work, keep it independent and online, at https://practicingstoicism.com/pledge. Over the years, many parents have asked me how to teach Stoicism to their children. My answer, when the child is young, is always the same: don’t. Not yet. In this episode, I explain why I believe children should first be allowed to fully develop their rational faculty before being introduced to philosophies or religions of any kind, including Stoicism. I use religion as a parallel case to show how faith only counts as faith when it is chosen freely, not inherited through early conditioning. When beliefs are introduced too early, before a child is capable of genuine evaluation, what looks like belief is often just unexamined imitation. I argue that this concern applies just as much to philosophy as it does to religion. The ancient Stoics themselves understood that the rational faculty matures over time, and they generally held that serious philosophical instruction was appropriate closer to adolescence, not early childhood. Before that point…

People in this episode

Host: Tanner Campbell

Topics covered

• parenting
• Stoicism
• child development
• philosophy
• education

Keywords

• Stoicism
• parenting
• child development
• philosophy
• education
• rational faculty
• beliefs

More episodes of Practicing Stoicism

• Social Justice: Racial Slurs at BAFTA · March 4, 2026 · 7 min
• Justice: On Taxes · February 22, 2026 · 10 min
• Grief: Death of Animal Companions · February 8, 2026 · 12 min
• Ethics: Co-Existing With The Unjust · February 2, 2026 · 13 min
• Ethics: Abortion · January 30, 2026 · 31 min
• Stoic Justice: Renee Nicole Good · January 11, 2026 · 14 min