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Kids, Would You Please Start Fighting

nytimes.com

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Re: Kids, Would You Please Start Fighting

#71

Post by eeZah7Ux »

Pulcinella wrote: post #55
muzani wrote: post #10

This is sort of why me and my wife pick fights with our kids where we can. We stress them to the point of snapping, then cool them down. It feels a little like bullying, but we cut back and emphasize that we still love them. My 5 year old daughter in particular inherits the stubbornness of both her parents. She often she says something she regrets immediately (e.g "I hate you!"), cries on realizing it, but refuses to…

Please nobody do this. This is unhealthy at best and abusive at worst.

...and also extremely manipulative.

Re: Kids, Would You Please Start Fighting

#73

Post by DoreenMichele »

kbutler wrote: post #58
cornyNetHandle wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't about calling someone a moron, it is about being able to respond, "Thanks, I can be fucking stupid at times, can you show me where I am being moronic here?". It is also about being able top unguard your own language should you know that the other person is operating by the rules, not to be insulting, but so to not worry about it for that conversation and so not having to run that whole level of extra process…

But you could further optimize your communication by dropping the profanity. A listener declaring Crocker's rules says they will not be offended, but at best, profanity communicates your emotional reaction to a situation. In seeking optimal communication of information, profanity is largely wasted bandwidth.

It isn't that simple.

I work really hard at editing out profanity when I write online. The reality is that I swear like a sailor and the running joke in the family is to quote that movie line "you go into a bar and sailors come running out." I basically use the eff word like other people use very.

So when I write something full of profanity, it doesn't suggest I have really strong feelings about it or am trying to attack or insult people. It usually means I was writing while tired, distracted or a bit under the weather and failing to put in the extra effort to mind my Ps and Qs.

I am aware that it causes problems at times for me to use so much profanity when I post things online. It isn't uncommon for me to go back and try to edit out the worst of it after I post it.

But the converse of that is this: it takes extra effort for me to come up with alternate phrasing and this takes bandwidth away from me focusing on more substantive elements. If someone actually thinks I have good ideas and they want to know what I think about something, they will get more useful info from me more frequently if they don't give me shit constantly about how my foul mouth is an excuse to just not listen to the substance of my points.

There are plenty of people who punctuate their speech with colorful language. Colorful language can be a rich way to express some concepts and trying to clean it up can actually lose something.

So given that I am hardly the only person on the planet who just habitually peppers their speech with profanity, I think one use of this standard is to agree to ignore that element as a minor style detail in order to focus on the substance of their ideas.

People from bad neighborhoods often have foul mouths. Expecting them to politely and articulately elucidate their points without profanity can be a form of classist and racist gatekeeping that excludes them from serious discourse.

I don't have an easy answer for you. I do try to clean up my language when speaking "in public" whether online or off. I just wanted to note that the issue is more complicated than that.

Re: Kids, Would You Please Start Fighting

#75

Post by DoreenMichele »

muzani wrote: post #10

This is sort of why me and my wife pick fights with our kids where we can. We stress them to the point of snapping, then cool them down. It feels a little like bullying, but we cut back and emphasize that we still love them. My 5 year old daughter in particular inherits the stubbornness of both her parents. She often she says something she regrets immediately (e.g "I hate you!"), cries on realizing it, but refuses to…

I hope you are merely expressing something really, really badly. Because this sounds like emotionally abusive, unhealthy behavior being justified as some kind of good preparation for a dog-eat-dog world.

Re: Kids, Would You Please Start Fighting

#76

Post by robocat »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #68
arglebarnacle wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's certainly true about total war where the nation's survival is threatened by defeat, but it's not true about the kind of limited wars was have seen since world war 2. In fact, because these wars are limited wars for the world powers that start them, but total wars for the postcolonial states in the receiving end, I think it's very correct that the public e.g. in the US continue to aggressively question the rati…

On that note, the US spends almost as much in defense as the entire rest of the world . Losing a "war" in the middle East would not affect the US very much outside reputation.

Calling it “defence” is almost Orwellian... when the majority of the budget is spent on attack and offence in other countries?

Re: Kids, Would You Please Start Fighting

#77

Post by dwaltrip »

dieterrams wrote: post #62
Mithaldu wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> debate The last time i had a conversation with an american trained in "debate", it was quickly obvious that reality and truth were the last thing on his mind, but scoring rethoric points was the first. The rest of your points are good, but i think if you start it out with the word debate, many americans are going to mentally short-circuit to that style of conflict, instead of "respectful conversation".

‘Debate’ does seem to have strong connotations of a rhetorical fight. ‘Discourse’ has been the preferred word among philosphers and other circles that discuss this sort of thing.

I prefer critical discussions to debates.

Re: Kids, Would You Please Start Fighting

#78

Post by Mithaldu »

_dps wrote: post #63
dieterrams wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

‘Debate’ does seem to have strong connotations of a rhetorical fight. ‘Discourse’ has been the preferred word among philosphers and other circles that discuss this sort of thing.

"Debate" has a long tradition of meaning a formalized presentation of opposing views, each represented by a person or team, for the purpose of evaluating relative merits. "Discourse" is a much broader term and does not imply formal structure, opposition, merit evaluation, or that advocacy of particular ideas is associated with particular speakers. IMO "Debate" is absolutely the right term for what the advice suggests…

You're right that historically debate was more noble. But meanings of words change.

The problem with debate as it exists today in the english sphere is that it refers to a sport where teams try to argue for views they don't even hold regardless of what they themselves even think about it. Due to the idea that regardless of the actual merits of an idea debated, either team needs to have an equal chance to "win", the whole "evaluating merits" part has in more recent times been deemphasized.

Re: Kids, Would You Please Start Fighting

#79

Post by andromeduck »

fallous wrote: post #67
_dps wrote: post #2

The article quotes studies claiming that people who grow up with conflict in their personal lives are more likely to be comfortable with differing opinions and certain forms of creative debate. Since there's seemingly some benefit of exposure to these kinds of negative experiences, they mention advice on how to mitigate the negative aspect of conflict. But I think it's actually great advice to teach children/students…

Note that being comfortable with differing opinions and being comfortable with certain forms of creative debate are two different things. A debate should be a voluntary contest between parties and is only possible if they both share and agree upon a base set of principles as the foundation for the debate. If an atheist and a theist "debate" the existence of God(s) it isn't a resolvable argument since their divergence…

Debate isn't always about changing the opinion of the person you're debating with. You can debate to win the audience.

Re: Kids, Would You Please Start Fighting

#80

Post by cookiecaper »

muzani wrote: post #32
hmwhy wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is from someone on the receiving end and is probably slightly older than your kids—I think it's great that you are teaching your kids how to deal with conflicts and making them think, but I'm not sure that stressing them to the point of snapping is a good thing. My dad did that to me and he still does it occasionally even when I'm "in the right"; I think he probably means well (he claims that he does when I conf…

Haha, my eldest child is 5. We kind of stress our kids since they're young enough to communicate. They don't enjoy it in the moment, but bear no grudge. We try to be very careful with damage control. We honestly talk it out. My daughter is good with labeling her feelings. She would say things like "Mom loves to pick on me for no reason, but I know she's just kidding," or "I was really angry with you this morning, bec…

I'm assuming there's a little bit of a vernacular mismatch here. People hear that you're "picking on" the kids or stressing them intentionally and conflate it with actual pettiness or degradation, instead of training the children to process and understand criticism without getting defensive, which is probably more along the lines of what you mean. I'd suggest you use words that are less likely to cause false associations on this topic, as it is highly sensitive.

That said, I think that the child's tolerance usually develops organically via interaction with other children, and the biggest way to help with this is to give the child a lot of siblings.

We should be careful not to "overengineer" our children's childhood, especially not in ways that are ripe for misinterpretation in hindsight.

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