Origin
Child : How come you get to eat icecream on the couch?
Mix : Because I have my Icecream Licence!"
This was intended as a joke but lead to me outlining the key competencies you have to demonstrate to access this licence:
- You don’t spill icecream on the couch
- If you do, you notice it
- You know how to clean spills
- You actually clean those spills
As of writing this, my oldest has the licence, my youngest has decided they’re not ready for the responsibility yet, and happily eat at the table.
Why? I was exhausted by repeat queries, and while “because I said so” is sometimes appropriate, it’s more often a lazy response which doesn’t support learning.
Reflections
The Icecream Licence was bootstrapped directly off the Drivers Licence. In the case of the car we want people to have agency in their life, and to balance that freedom with the safety of other citizens. In the case of the icecream, I want my kids to relax and have fun, AND I want a harmonious house (one where I’m not yelling STICKY FINGERS ARGGHH!!!! nor resentfully sponging dairy out of soft furnishings).
My ultimate goal is for my kids to be fully autonomous, self-actualizing, socially integrated humans. There are lot of places freedom is dangerous (to self and/or others). The “Licence” is a really clear way to support people to grow into that freedom.
This is very similar to an education context, which works in “qualifications”, often defined by “key competencies” which need to be demonstrated in some way. Qualifications are usually used to boundary access to additional course/ programmes/ jobs. Licences are a sort of qualification which often boundary something dangerous to an individual / group / system.
Qualifications and Licences are both awarded by “authorities” - entities we’ve invested with the right to author, and to authorise (extend authorship/ autonomy). There’s a clear power dynamic in here, which needs some attention and care. While I still often hold the ultimate authority, the shift has been towards defining access to power, and supporting my kids to access that safely.
It feels great to shift from “No, because I said so”, to “Yes, when you can demonstrate X,Y,Z, are you ready?”
Creating Licences
Not everything should be a Licence. However we’ve found it a very succinct way
to communicate with our kids:
a) There is something adult or dangerous here 🔥
b) There is a pathway, I’m here to support you ❤️
Here’s some reflective questions to support you explore Licences:
Why are you really blocking your child?
You’ve probably been giving your child “some reason(s)”, but it’s likely truncated because you lacked the time, and your child lacks context. Pause and unpack it more fully. This provides hints about what your child might need to learn / master.
e.g. icecream isn’t directly dangerous, but it can attract animals, breed microbes, damage relationships
What does doing this well look like?
You are likely unaware of how many points of context + skills are involved with some domains. Happily, you can probably imagine a lot of ways your child would fail. Use these as pointers to mapping our explicitly the pieces of knowledge and skills required.
How do you “fail well” here?
Just because adults “know how to do something” does not mean they nail it every time. A key aspect of mastery is knowing how to adapt when failure occurs - often this involves sensing failure early, and knowing how to gently correct.
- what does this look like when it goes wrong?
- what are the best options for recovering/ mitigating damage?
Could this Licence have levels?
How can we practice basics and succeed before adding more context/ complexity/ skills?
e.g. ice-cream in a bowl, in a cone, with/ without chocolate sauce (see Dangerous Goods Licence)
Licence revocation?
In our house you can definitely lose your Icecream Licence. Sounds kinda punitive perhaps, but we’ve found having clear expectations about what’s involved with a Licence makes it really easy to outline outcomes.
It’s totally ok to not want to have responsibility for everything all the time! If you want to pause on some of those responsibilities, it just means that some of your freedom/ autonomy may be curtailed. We align power with responsibility <3