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How to get kids to pay attention
51–60 of 283 posts
Re: How to get kids to pay attention
#52Text-only link because NPR couldn't be bothered to make their GDPR compliance page link to the correct page:
https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=621752789
Re: How to get kids to pay attention
#53My father was short tempered, very loud, and an unusually large man in stature and presence. Additionally he worked nights, got a couple hours of sleep, and then woke up and took care of my brother and I for breakfast / school before sleeping more. He was not someone to mess with in general, let alone at 630am on a Tuesday. I think the threat of being screamed at and intimidated made my brother and I two of the most…
There's a lot of range of behavior when it comes to strict parents, but just for the sake of tossing out my own anecdote the friends I had growing up with what I thought were ultra strict parents, all ended up acting out in later years. These were smart, disciplined kids that I grew up with, but when finally out from under their parents things changed as they went through university and eventually early life away from their parents.
To me it seemed they were just kept in a bottle for years and then other development started as soon as it could away from mom and dad.
Granted, what you and I think of as strict parenting could be very different things, and a few had a sibling who actually stuck with a very straight and narrow path through life.
Re: How to get kids to pay attention
#54What's really interesting to me is this same thing can be applied to adults too. The article writes: > For starters, he says, ask your kid this question: 'What would you do if you didn't have to do anything else?' I often wonder what civilization would be like if adults asked the same question to themselves and then lead a life where they focused on that instead of being pressured into "making a living".
Well, today is a national holiday for me but about a dozen of us have to be at work (long story). For the next three hours, short of an emergency situation, we have literally nothing to do. No cellphones, but half of us are playing X-box (not networked). The other half are surfing the web, two of those are trying to find a way to watch the world cup despite our security filters. I would much rather be walking a dog o…
Have you tried reading or learning? I've always a book in my bag for unexpected breaks. Depending on the topic or book, you can easily go from something else to reading and back to work.
A month ago there was a thread about the "one book that changed your life": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17168136
I read Mindset by Carol Dweck since then and found it very interesting (and applicable to some parts of my life and behaviour).
Re: How to get kids to pay attention
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Depends on age whether normal. For 5 years old, yes. For 8 years old, absolutely no. Normal 8 years old should be able to wait two minutes without being disruptive when teacher is focused on somebody else. The kids who can't should absolutely get special help and assistance. However, if the healthy kid can't, then the solution is not to excuse it, but rather teach them patience and less egoism.
But what's the range? Maturity isn't a hard line
No, it is not exact line. I would have to check the exact lines in studies, but basically expectations rise with age.
But largely, I think that the goal should be to teach kids to have abilities like patience and functioning when you are not center of attention instead of categorizing them into "good enough" and "bad" categories. Ultimately, don't blame child.
That teaching won't happen if adults knee jerk to wave everything away.
Re: How to get kids to pay attention
#56My father was short tempered, very loud, and an unusually large man in stature and presence. Additionally he worked nights, got a couple hours of sleep, and then woke up and took care of my brother and I for breakfast / school before sleeping more. He was not someone to mess with in general, let alone at 630am on a Tuesday. I think the threat of being screamed at and intimidated made my brother and I two of the most…
Out of curiosity, what were your feelings like towards your dad at this time? Was there a lot of fear around him? Did you "like" him?
As someone who grew up in a working class environment in which mostly everyone had "flawed"(lol) fathers, I've found that there's a big distinction in the structure of the discipline.
The parents for whom crossing a line resulted in verbal/physical abuse but were otherwise fine tend to have good relationships with their kids. While the punishment is much more severe than it would be in other families, there's a clear logical structure that a child can understand. When I was younger I would say stuff like "My dad hit us sometimes when we were being dumb, but otherwise he was great". However, I've long learned that people that grew up in the middle/upper class don't want to hear statements like that and get extremely uncomfortable, so I now leave it at "my childhood was good".
On the other hand, the people I knew growing up that had a father that was arbitrary with their anger tend to have non-existing/bad relationships with their fathers. I'd see situations where the father would tell their son to do X, son would respond that they've finished X already, father would lose their temper and scream at them to do X again, which made no sense. When you do that, you're not teaching a lesson or imposing any structure, you're just teaching your son that you're an asshole. Unsurprisingly, these children grow up with extreme resentment towards their fathers that has lasted into adulthood.
Re: How to get kids to pay attention
#57> For starters, he says, ask your kid this question: 'What would you do if you didn't have to do anything else?'
Wow. I don't have to do anything else right now, and I'm reading HN :(
Re: How to get kids to pay attention
#58My father was short tempered, very loud, and an unusually large man in stature and presence. Additionally he worked nights, got a couple hours of sleep, and then woke up and took care of my brother and I for breakfast / school before sleeping more. He was not someone to mess with in general, let alone at 630am on a Tuesday. I think the threat of being screamed at and intimidated made my brother and I two of the most…
Another anecdote people might not like: Sunday school was an amazing form of early-childhood education for me. Some of my first experiences with music, art, and reading were in Sunday school. It taught me to love drawing and singing which I still like to this day. We were taught to obey our parents or go to Hell, to pay attention or go to Hell, to share and be kind and to empathize... or go to Hell... Which everyone…
Interesting theory, I think there's something to it.
There's probably some selection bias going on with the religious homes thing. Like the hidden variable that both religious adherence AND discipline/work ethic are caused by: a belief in a meta-order that one should conform to and operate within.
i.e. It's reasonable to assume that more traditionally religious parents are people that tend to prefer (a) explicit order and structure, and (b) conformity or deference to authority. If you value those things, you will likely place a higher degree of value on discipline and work ethic in your own life and in your children's lives.
On a more subtle level -- and this will likely be unpopular on here -- I believe that sincerely religious people are also more likely to have a certain "default stance" towards life / the universe... that their actions matter, that they want to be "morally good", that they must take into account a perspective other than their own (either God's perspective, their priest's, their parents', etc). That combined with a kind of earnestness... seems like a good plan for success in life.
Obviously not saying those are exclusively or even principally religious attributes.
Also not saying that that stance is absolutely the best one. You can likely index too far that way too.
Re: How to get kids to pay attention
#59My father was short tempered, very loud, and an unusually large man in stature and presence. Additionally he worked nights, got a couple hours of sleep, and then woke up and took care of my brother and I for breakfast / school before sleeping more. He was not someone to mess with in general, let alone at 630am on a Tuesday. I think the threat of being screamed at and intimidated made my brother and I two of the most…
Another anecdote people might not like: Sunday school was an amazing form of early-childhood education for me. Some of my first experiences with music, art, and reading were in Sunday school. It taught me to love drawing and singing which I still like to this day. We were taught to obey our parents or go to Hell, to pay attention or go to Hell, to share and be kind and to empathize... or go to Hell... Which everyone…
A religion-based anecdote like this sounds very odd to my Western European/Australian ears.
I simply can't imagine anyone here in the UK or in Australia (where I went to school and university) making such statements relating students' diligence to religious background.
(For what it's worth, I went to a Church of England-run high school, where the top students were overwhelmingly non-religious.)
In so many ways, the USA is a very different country...
Re: How to get kids to pay attention
#60[deleted]