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The Hand Licking Incident

raisingfutureadults.blogspot.com

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Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#81

Post by porphyrogene »

geomark wrote: post #73
vidarh wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But appropriately, rarely applied, I can say with certainty it worked for me. No, you can't. Maybe it did, but you don't know how you'd acted if they'd just talked to you instead. It's easy to think we can untangle how a given event shaped us, but we really are horribly bad at it. It ignores that people who never were spanked regularly can tell similar stories about just having been talked to (that's how I learned…

I am pretty sure he can say it did work with more certainty than you can say it didn't. It's a personal anecdote that he is intimately familiar with.

He did not say that he was wrong, he said that he cannot know for certain that he is correct.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#82

Post by hogger »

icu wrote: post #53
markdown wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It never ceases to amaze me how many authority figures think violence “fixes” a behaviour I think it's safe to assume that most humans currently alive were spanked as children and most parents alive today spank their children. If that assumption is true, than it's not amazing... it's just the norm.

In the UK it is actually illegal to smack your kid... so it's not like corporal punishment is still the norm now. There is also a large portion of parents who have rejected corporal punishment and opted for 'peaceful parenting' techniques from a moralistic perspective based on the non-aggression principle. Even if you don't agree on moral grounds there have been loads of research papers written on this topic. The pap…

Hitting children is also illegal in New Zealand.

Something to consider - is hitting the child caring for them or venting frustration?

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#83

Post by geomark »

icu wrote: post #53
markdown wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It never ceases to amaze me how many authority figures think violence “fixes” a behaviour I think it's safe to assume that most humans currently alive were spanked as children and most parents alive today spank their children. If that assumption is true, than it's not amazing... it's just the norm.

In the UK it is actually illegal to smack your kid... so it's not like corporal punishment is still the norm now. There is also a large portion of parents who have rejected corporal punishment and opted for 'peaceful parenting' techniques from a moralistic perspective based on the non-aggression principle. Even if you don't agree on moral grounds there have been loads of research papers written on this topic. The pap…

"There are tons more studies on this."

Are these studie done by people in the field of psychology, the field famous for its issues with reproducible study results? Just askin'.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#84

Post by skandl »

beaconstudios wrote: post #65

I tend to think that almost every time someone is doing something you don't understand or don't like, you're better off understanding the reason for the behaviour than trying to quash it. Even if you desperately want it to stop, they're clearly doing the thing as a means to address something so if you want to stop them using the current solution you should have a better solution to hand or the problem will once again…

Choose curiosity and patience over judgement and commands. Such a simple message, and yet in practice it's so easy to fall for the (illusion of?) control, thinking "there's no time for curiosity or patience here."

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#85

Post by chasing »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #74
chasing wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tone of my original comment had a bit more "shouting at the TV" to it than it should've. Apologies for that. It's tough to comment on people's lives and kids even if you know them -- much more so if you don't.

On the internet, you shout at TV, TV shouts back. ;) It's all good. My sons are adults and basically adore me. I hear probably daily "You're an awesome mom and I'm so glad you raised me!" even though the oldest is so Aspie, he will not and has never told me he loves me. Feelings: Not his cup of tea.

Very glad to hear it!

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#86

Post by hogger »

rootedbox wrote: post #62

Seems like something simple that one could have asked a doctor.. "My kid keeps licking their hands.. any ideas?" Also even though the article the mother seems to think that they have gotten to root cause.. there may be more of a cause. Dry hands is often because of the compulsive action of washing ones hands too much. So now there are 2 compulsions washing hands and licking hands to keep them dry.. By replacing licki…

Medicalising things doesn’t always have the desired outcome. I’m guessing that medication and therapists would have been the result.

The google hits (in a quick skim) are all ADD and autism type stories although adding ‘dry’ gets this HN thread, so that’s good.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#87

Post by scarejunba »

markdown wrote: post #5
georgebarnett wrote: post #2

It never ceases to amaze me how many authority figures think violence “fixes” a behaviour, rather than simply causing the issue to be hidden and breaking down trust and then later having it resurface many times worse.

> It never ceases to amaze me how many authority figures think violence “fixes” a behaviour I think it's safe to assume that most humans currently alive were spanked as children and most parents alive today spank their children. If that assumption is true, than it's not amazing... it's just the norm.

Modern usage of "never ceases to amaze" permits reference to things that are common. For instance, one could say "it never ceases to amaze me that people believe in God". A few billion people believe in God, so one could say it's not particularly amazing but that's not the point. The point is that, in the opinion of the speaker, it is so outlandish as to be unbelievable that anyone could feel that way.

It's a rhetorical exaggeration.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#88

Post by drieddust »

> The hand licking incident strongly reinforced my commitment to just stop and not do things that I knew didn't work. It made me more committed to not "put out the fire with gasoline," even in the face of social pressure to the contrary.

To this effect only, I have started a journal to keep my behavior in check while dealing with kids. Needless to say it has helped me a lot and often times I have caught myself in the act instead of taking things personally just because it's socially unacceptable. Earlier my default mode if thinking was to treat a kid as an adamant adult ready to shoot you down is just a not worth it.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#89

Post by Robotbeat »

One thing this reminds me of is how much of a game-changer language development is when you're trying to help your distraught child. There are few things more frustrating than a screaming/crying child that is too young to communicate why they are upset... You feel bad for them and want to help them so much... And once they're able to communicate, 9 times out of 10 it is relatively easy to address (although sometimes the underlying problem might be they're very tired, etc).

Of course, when a child is very upset, they're also often unintelligible, so one of the most important things is to (at very least) remain calm so they have the chance calm down enough to communicate with you.

(One of my children has a speech impediment... it's not easy for everyone, but it is sooo helpful when communication can happen.)

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#90

Post by taneq »

JoBrad wrote: post #60
taneq wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing that jumps out at me is that it took months and months to ask the simple question, "why are you doing that?" Also, in this case the undesirable behaviour had a perfectly benign and easily fixable root cause, but that's not always (or even mostly?) true. In many cases my kids will be misbehaving because they're not getting what they want, eg. icecream for dinner or to not go to bed on time. In cases like the…

The article mentions that she tried grilling her son about why he was doing this early on, without success.

True, but there's a difference between grilling someone about something, usually after a confrontation about it, and calmly discussing their motivations with them without a build-up of conflict beforehand.
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