BATESON: Now that is a matter of seizing the moment. One of the things we emphasize in our book is the importance of play. Children, like all young mammals, actively do things that don't seem to make a great deal of sense at the time - playing pointlessly. You don't need to pay them to do it. They do it spontaneously. As biologists, we reckon that this activity serves many useful functions, equipping the individual with skills and an understanding of the social and physical world that it will use later on. I'm concerned about the tendencies in modern pre-school education that seem to ignore these benefits. In trying to force children to acquire skills prematurely by making them sit behind a desk when they really want to play, we are in danger of laying up trouble for their futures. First of all they get frustrated. They become alienated from their teachers, and that sets up a chain of events that may mean that later on in their life they'll never make it in school. Evidence from programs like High Scope suggests that an authoritarian approach to pre-school education thwarts children and, on the other side, an excessively permissive education leads to loss of direction. In those programs in which the children are encouraged to play, but the teacher helps them to plan what they're going to do, they establish a good relationship with the teacher. When compared with 3-4 year old kids who were prematurely sat behind a desk and were just told to get on with practicing their letters, these kids treated authoritatively but with sensitivity end up being highly socialized; they're likely to be in jobs when they're 20 and they are more likely to have stable personal relationships. A whole series of measurements indicate that they're well-adjusted people who are not alienated from society. If they have had an authoritarian regime at the pre-school stage, they are likely to play truant and drop out later on. As a consequence, they are likely to be without of a job when they leave school, and they are likely to have bad adult relationships.

JB: Are you coming down on the side of authoritative, as opposed to authoritarian?

BATESON: Yes.

JB: In either case, you're not sounding like Dr. Spock.

BATESON: Even Spock became a strong advocate of authoritative approach to parenting. And the permissive approach can lead to a lot of trouble as well as the authoritarian. The child doesn't know where it's going.

JB: You talk about resilience in animals and in children.