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No Spanking, No Time-Out, No Problems

theatlantic.com

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Re: No Spanking, No Time-Out, No Problems

#341
post #146
post #62

Quoting the article: > "Sarah, put on the green coat or the red sweater. We're going to go out, okay?" Choice among humans increases the likelihood of compliance. And choice isn't important, it's the appearance of choice that's important. I've gotten this exact advice from so many articles and pop psych pieces. Maybe they are written by non-parents or their children are much easier, but it never works for me. My 4 ye…

There was a TV programme in the UK called The 3 Day Nanny, about a super nanny who would come in and sort out problem children and parents in 3 days. It ran for a few seasons. Fast forward till she had her own child, and I saw an interview with her. She was completely shattered. Like a wreck. She had her own difficult child, and coupled with little available help from others, she couldn't cope. She looked and sounded…

For some reason kids tend to listen to other adults more then their parents.

Re: No Spanking, No Time-Out, No Problems

#342
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's great and all, but is it possible that extended "childhood" is essential for being better adjusted in the western world? I wonder how many machete wielding 8 year olds grow up to be competitive in university.

> I wonder how many machete wielding 8 year olds grow up to be competitive in university. I'm guessing more than you would think, because this isn't that dissimilar to rural kids in the US.

To the parent poster's credit, I think there there might be something to it, the kid is busy learning, and perhaps if he/she is spending all day learning social/environmental survival skills instead of learning academics, they are going to be less equipped to handle a 15 year carer of school. than the "western" kid.

Re: No Spanking, No Time-Out, No Problems

#343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally know a child who was a literal hellspawn for 10+ years and would not respond to any kind of newfangled therapy Then his dad got too mad over him literally failing school and leather belt fixed him within a year Which was not a single stop solution either

There was something else going on. Physical violence is not a cure for any known disease. I have two kids, and as angry as they can make me, I always find that calming the situation down is way better than escalating it.

> Physical violence is not a cure for any known disease.

Setting bones? Fixing dislocated shoulders?

Re: No Spanking, No Time-Out, No Problems

#344
post #160

I live in a very poor Asian country where most every parent has never given a single thought to behavior theory or been exposed to the whole parenting industry. It's mostly just feed your kid, let them run around unsupervised with other kids outside, and have the oldest child handle certain responsibilities like getting everybody to school on time. Having worked with kids back in the US and here, the contrast in beha…

I have to agree here. I lived in a tiny village in Laos for 4 months a few years back, and I have to say, the six year-olds were more mature, independent, and emotionally sophisticated than some 16 year-olds I knew back home. Favorite slightly-related story: while teaching a class of 8 year-olds one day, a student in the back opened up his desk, and pulled out a machete. My heart stopped for a beat. He then proceeded…

> Favorite slightly-related story: while teaching a class of 8 year-olds one day, a student in the back opened up his desk, and pulled out a machete. My heart stopped for a beat. He then proceeded to sharpen his pencil with the machete, then place it back in his desk.

Haha. We did this all the time. Well, not with machetes, but what ten-year-old rural boy doesn't carry a pocket knife or a leatherman?

In high-school, the only concession to the no-weapons-on-campus policy was that if we were going hunting before or after school, you had to park in the lot across the street, so that your rifle or shotgun wasn't technically on-premises. My father remembers going to elementary school with his friends and they just locked up their 30-30s in their lockers, and would go do a quick deer drive at noon recess.

Re: No Spanking, No Time-Out, No Problems

#345
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Punishment might make you feel better, but it won’t change the kid’s behavior. This claim (from the article) is nonsense. I've changed the behavior of my kids countless times with punishment. I realize that the attitude I am supposed to take is that when someone with Ivy League credentials espouses a currently fashionable theory that my own observations contradict, I am supposed to believe the theory and not my own l…

My wife and I got a 5 month old border collie about 3 months ago. The approach that ended up working for us was to use positive reinforcement for almost all the things we wanted trained, and then only use negative reinforcement for one or two things we really didn't want him to do. We chose to punish (spank/"bad dog"/shake an empty soda can with pennies inside it) for only two things: pottying in the house, and chasi…

> We chose to punish (spank/"bad dog"/shake an empty soda can with pennies inside it) for only two things: pottying in the house, and chasing/herding the cats.

No need to hit your dog to accomplish this. Also during your training, unless you caught the dog in the act of potty in the house he might not even be able to connect the dots between potty and punishment given the time between the 2 acts and from his mind you might be arbitrarily spanking him.

If the dog pottys in the house the only one at fault is the human (assuming its not medical related) for not letting him out enough.

How can you be sure than your hitting was the the reason the dog stopping going inside and not his development of routine for "this is where I go potty" and the puppy's natural ability to develop their bladder to hold it longer?

We rescue huskies (no longer puppies). God love em, but they are not known for their intelligence or trainability. We are just proactive when house training, know that accidents happen, reflect on why they happened ("oops ya.. I did forget about them" or "OK I guess we arent ready to leave them alone for x hours yet"), and keep at the routine.

RE your "less intelligent" comment I agree. We kept them on leashes until they did their business and then rewarded on the spot. Afterwards they were let loose to run wild in the yard or go back inside.

Re: No Spanking, No Time-Out, No Problems

#346
We are about 3-4 days (due the 7th) away from having our first child and this article is a terrifying reminder of what is to come.

I have a rather good temperament and equanimity (ironic given the above) but my wife despite being brilliant sadly does not (in all other things she is superior to me).

Luckily we have a very good behavioral therapist and or already familiar with the psychology of punishment/reward. That being said my wife's biggest fear is having a child with the same temperament as she does.

Re: No Spanking, No Time-Out, No Problems

#347
post #62

Quoting the article: > "Sarah, put on the green coat or the red sweater. We're going to go out, okay?" Choice among humans increases the likelihood of compliance. And choice isn't important, it's the appearance of choice that's important. I've gotten this exact advice from so many articles and pop psych pieces. Maybe they are written by non-parents or their children are much easier, but it never works for me. My 4 ye…

> Maybe they are written by non-parents or their children are much easier To be frank, the article tips are pretty sound and well-accepted, including from specialists who deal with much more difficult children then you and me on a daily basis. First point, there's a tendency to see one's kids as special, be it especially gifted, or difficult, or an astonishing critical thinker for their age. It's quite understandable…

Sound and well-accepted are very different things - in the area of parenting, appealing to the authority of experts is really asking to be wrong. That said, I do have a bunch of kids, and in my personal limited experience, the particular advice in the article is sound, as far as it goes. If you have enough energy, there's almost always a way to defuse the situation. Real parents with a few kids and too little sleep do not always have enough energy or time to defuse the situation. Given what I see nursery school teachers do every day, I'd be pretty surprised if the experts can't get good results in a clinic, but that doesn't necessarily carry over to home.

Re: No Spanking, No Time-Out, No Problems

#348

I don't understand: how do you reinforce behaviour that is the default? Do you tell your kids every minute "I appreciate you didn't break the window/throw the glass on the floor/pour milk on the carpet/put play-doh in the washing machine"? I get that it works for clearly delimited things like "put on your clothes properly" or "don't make a mess during dinner" but that doesn't cover 90% of the time that I need to tell…

You reinforce good behaviour by paying a lot of attention to your child when they're being good.

Children crave attention. If you don't give them that attention when they're being good they'll be bad.

Re: No Spanking, No Time-Out, No Problems

#349
post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was something else going on. Physical violence is not a cure for any known disease. I have two kids, and as angry as they can make me, I always find that calming the situation down is way better than escalating it.

> Physical violence is not a cure for any known disease. Since when somebody disagreeing with you is a disease?

bluejekyll really should have said disorder.

If you have a kid who is getting bad grades in school and has behavioral issues, and the underlying cause of it is ADHD, then no amount of physical discipline, even up to child abuse like closed fist punches, throwing metal chairs, screaming at the top of your lungs while doing it, etc, is going to fix that. All it will do is breed resentment. And if you want to have a relationship with your child after they turn 18, I'd strongly recommend minimizing that.

And I'm speaking from personal experience as a child who went through that. My grades were as bad my senior year as they were from elementary school. The fear wasn't enough to make my brain neurons fire the same way as the other children around me.

(I also object to the labeling of anything that doesn't perfectly mesh with our conformist modern day upbringing as a 'disorder', but that's another topic. Given the realities of our system not adapting to the needs of people, but requiring people to adapt to the needs of the system, I'd reluctantly support medication over physical abuse.)

Re: No Spanking, No Time-Out, No Problems

#350
post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, after having three kids with widely different temperaments, I can only offer two pieces of advice to other dads: - You're going to have to change diapers anyway, so you might as well get good at it. I was a one-man Formula 1 pit crew of diaper changing. AMA. - Invest in a vasectomy.

AMA: what about the super runny pound of goop poo that leaks through both nappies.

Buy a dog.
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