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The Hand Licking Incident

raisingfutureadults.blogspot.com

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Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#101

Post by icantdrive55 »

Baeocystin wrote: post #16
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.

Eh... I can count on a shop teacher's hand the number of times I was actually spanked or swatted when I was a kid, but after talking to my Mom about it, I think she made the right choice the times she did. To give a specific example, once was when I was about five, I had just learned about electromagnets, and was actively trying to shove bare wire into an outlet. Yes, the spanking did make me a little afraid of pokin…

I used to put pennies in the fuse box as a kid.

My mom didn't spank me on that one, but the anger she displayed stopped my childish behavior.

By the way, I think we have gone overboard on electrical codes, but not having the fuse box in the bedroom closet is a good one.

(Speaking of negative reinforcement, I belive I'm Shadowbanned. I don't care enough to check it out in incognito mode, so down-vote/upvote me please. Why did I get banned? I guess the moderator didn't like me? He did me a favor kind of, but I think shadowbanning is very petty. So petty, I'd be shocked if Dang was an American. And no--if you're going to fire someone, you just ban them. Tell them like an ethical person would do? O.k.--I guess it's obvious negative reinforcement doesn't work on the internet, at least with me?)

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#102

Post by PakG1 »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #75
cryptonector wrote: post #47

It's so easy for parents (and teachers) to misdiagnose strange child behaviors. TFA is a wonderful example. Parents need to watch for things like blood sugar problems, autism (e.g., failure to make eye contact), skin problems, mild food allergies (why does the kid not like _fill in the blank_, maybe it's because it tastes "spicy" to them), and much else. Young children will not figure these things out by themselves.…

To me, the point of the essay was the opposite of what you just said, instead: listen to and trust your child.

I think you're both right. By listening and trusting your child, you'll be able to successfully and properly debug. That's what happened in the blog post.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#103

Post by wpietri »

bitexploder wrote: post #78
Nomentatus wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, your job is to help the child grow and learn. Whether it looks - to other parents, teachers, etc. - like you are a good parent is very much beside the point, and usually a conflicting goal you need to detach yourself from. In fact, paying attention to that is narcissism. See Preacher's kid syndrome. Similarly, whether their behavior is impeccable today isn't the point, whether they're learning skills for tomor…

We are big on Montessori at my house. The philosophy there is basically what you said: kids are adults in the making and parents are just their guides. Ego leads people to think they own their kids and such, but we are just stewards of our kids for small but key part of their life. Many parents struggle with this idea that kids are their own agents and you are just there to help them grow. It seems obvious, but when…

I have a nephew who's been at a Montessori school since kindergarten and I'm hugely impressed with it.

Their philosophy has definitely changed my views on management and software process. In my head there's a bar graph for "controlling supportive", and I evaluate changes on how they affect that position.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#104

Post by DoreenMichele »

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…

A 2 second google search will also bring up thousands of pages about kids licking hands.

Google did not exist 24 years ago when my now 31 year old son was 7 years old. The company was founded Sep 04, 1998, just over 20 years ago.

Note to self: Work on more clearly signalling context and time frame to my readers.

Also even though the article the mother seems to think that they have gotten to root cause.. there may be more of a cause.

The article mentions in brief that he has health issues. He got a proper diagnosis a few years later when he was fourteen. That helped enormously with a long list of complicated issues.

So his hand licking was likely rooted at least in part in the fact that he has a condition that significantly impacts his epithelial tissues, which includes but is not limited to skin.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#105

Post by djsumdog »

I thought this was going to turn into an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder story. I use to wash my hands when I was younger .. a lot. I couldn't give an explanation because there wouldn't have been a rational one to give.

Instead I was just put on a bunch of drugs, all of which didn't make the compulsion go away, but did make me not want to wash my hands. Since I felt like I couldn't do certain things without washing my hands, I pretty much just watched more TV and became more lazy and useless.

I still have OCD, I just hide it a lot better these days.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#106

Post by jmspring »

bitexploder wrote: post #3

Parenting is like that. As much as some people don’t want to admit it, operant conditioning is a thing. Humans are still mammals. Parenting gets simple when you can detach and not be caught up with your own ego. Barring abnormal psychology, kids are pretty fun to teach and watch grow. My one key lesson is, especially with younger kids, they aren’t doing whatever they are doing to cause me distress. Most of parenting…

From the late Utah Phillips -- "Little Kids are assholes, but they are their own assholes, and you have to respect that."

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#107

Post by guest2457533 »

xenadu02 wrote: post #93
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…

Small children often can’t articulate the reasons why they do something. If pressed they’ll fabricate an answer that may or may not be nonsense (but isn’t true nonetheless). If you suggest a reason to them they’ll immediately say yes. If you offer a list of reasons they’ll immediately claim it’s the first or last choice offered. I have no doubt that she asked him repeatedly why he was doing it but either he couldn’t…

I've seen the same behavior with my kids. Sometimes the reason is clear and correct and sometimes it's clearly not.

One strategy I've found that can sometimes work is to engage with them in problem solving. Asking them what they think would help or if you have a guess, an action that corresponds with that guess. I've found its usually a more reliable source of information.

The internet is a boon for these things too. I know the author didn't have Google 23 years ago, but now there are a lot more resources to get on the right track with many strange kid behaviors, so it's like parenting in easy mode now.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#108

Post by nostrademons »

Baeocystin wrote: post #16
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.

Eh... I can count on a shop teacher's hand the number of times I was actually spanked or swatted when I was a kid, but after talking to my Mom about it, I think she made the right choice the times she did. To give a specific example, once was when I was about five, I had just learned about electromagnets, and was actively trying to shove bare wire into an outlet. Yes, the spanking did make me a little afraid of pokin…

There are plug covers you can buy for Hell, my parents also told me when I was ~4 not to stick anything in the electrical outlets. No spankings were involved. I listened because why wouldn't I?

(Well, at least until senior year in college, when I was like "What happens if I strip an Ethernet cord and stick it in an electrical outlet?" I'd missed the exploding-wires demonstration in my physics course, y'see. Did not get electrocuted, though I did get a spectacular pyrotechnics show.)

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#109

Post by closeparen »

bitexploder wrote: post #3

Parenting is like that. As much as some people don’t want to admit it, operant conditioning is a thing. Humans are still mammals. Parenting gets simple when you can detach and not be caught up with your own ego. Barring abnormal psychology, kids are pretty fun to teach and watch grow. My one key lesson is, especially with younger kids, they aren’t doing whatever they are doing to cause me distress. Most of parenting…

Did we read the same article? Conditioning failed. The solution was to respect the child as a complex being with trust and agency and ask him why. The parent specifically regrets her attempts to train the child like an animal.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#110

Post by Baeocystin »

vidarh wrote: post #54
Baeocystin wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh... I can count on a shop teacher's hand the number of times I was actually spanked or swatted when I was a kid, but after talking to my Mom about it, I think she made the right choice the times she did. To give a specific example, once was when I was about five, I had just learned about electromagnets, and was actively trying to shove bare wire into an outlet. Yes, the spanking did make me a little afraid of pokin…

> 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…

> but you don't know how you'd acted if they'd just talked to you instead.

I have an entire childhood of other experiences I could relate to you that tells me that I do, in fact, know how I would have reacted in I had just been talked to. And I am genuinely grateful for the (very few) times I was swatted, because there are things in this world that fear is the appropriate response to.

You appear to have spent your childhood in a safe country. I did not. If what I am saying sounds foreign to your mindset, consider yourself lucky, and I mean that with genuine sincerity.

>It ignores that people who never were spanked regularly can tell similar stories about just having been talked to (that's how I learned not to stuff wires in outlets).

You understand the innate survivorship bias in this example, right? Of course you can talk to the people who never poked wires in to an outlet- they're still here to talk.

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