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The Hand Licking Incident

raisingfutureadults.blogspot.com

201–210 of 358 posts

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#201
post #80

This reminds me of something that happened with our child. She started pulling her hair out at night as she fell asleep. Large clumps were pulled out over a month or two and every night there would be small amounts of hair removed. There was a lot of pressure to go to a psychologist from her GP and medication was suggested too. We were talking about it a lot and her hair was getting thin. One night we gave her a new…

You might enjoy this similar anecdote from an SSC post. > The Hair Dryer Incident was probably the biggest dispute I’ve seen in the mental hospital where I work. Most of the time all the psychiatrists get along and have pretty much the same opinion about important things, but people were at each other’s throats about the Hair Dryer Incident. > Basically, this one obsessive compulsive woman would drive to work every m…

That's a much simpler fix than the one that sprung to my mind: Advise her to get rid of the hair dryer and only wash her hair in the evenings instead.

The techie's fix would be to install a 10-minute timer on the outlet so she can be sure it doesn't keep running.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#202

I love this story. Little kid logic is so foreign to me now it makes me a little sad. Another example - we have our nephew stay over sometimes. One night, he did not, absolutely NOT want to go into the room he sleeps in. We couldn't work it out. He slept there a bunch of other times, no problem. Tried picking him up to carry him in, but no, he screamed like crazy. After a long, long time, he settled enough to tell us…

>Little kid logic My favourite is when you ask a crying child where they hurt them selves, and they point to the table they just walked into. Edit: Or have a paddy because they can't join the banana they've just cut in half, back together again.

The first one's just ambiguity isn't it? "Where did you hurt yourself? At Timmy's place"

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#203

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…

> But appropriately, rarely applied, I can say with certainty it worked for me.

For me it was "appropriately, rarely applied", and it was still awful and the negative consequences are still with me. Yes, it's harmless in some cases; so is falling out of an aeroplane.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#204
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So the teacher, grandparent, and father never bothered asking why he's licking his hands, and his mother only after a lot of drama, including spanking(!!) No, the mother did ask: "I tried grilling him about why he was doing this so I could find some solution." The article doesn't imply that she asked him only after spanking him, and it seems unlikely that she did. Edit: fixed the quote from the article.

Looks like something went wrong with your copy/paste there, since you copied the same twice. But I assume you meant: "I tried grilling him about why he was doing this so I could find some solution. He couldn't explain it and the terror in his eyes was disturbing." That doesn't really sound like asking to me, but more like telling him off while also asking a question somewhere in between.

> Looks like something went wrong with your copy/paste there

Oops, you're right, thanks! Fixed.

> That doesn't really sound like asking to me, but more like telling him off while also asking a question somewhere in between.

After re-reading that part, I'm willing to concede that your interpretation is probably closer to the mark than mine.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#205
post #82
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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

A very important consideration. A parent who smacks out of frustration or malice will do harm. Yet a neglectful parent who never smacks a child will do more harm than an engaged parent who does.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#206
I dunno about this story. When I saw my son lick his hands the very first time, this was the convo:

- Are your hands tasty? No - Are your hands dirty? No - Are your hands dry? Yes!

Problem solved. Plus a quick visual inspection will usually confirm dry hands. It’s not like an insidious disease with no visible symptoms.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#207
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My 2 year old announces that the oven is hot, then goes up to touch it to confirm, regardless of me explaining it to him. I've never spanked him, I wouldn't be confident of him understanding a danger I had explained to him though.

At 2 years old there's only one thing a parent can do to avoid a child touching a hot oven: make it physically impossible for the child to access a hot oven.

As if that is always possible. You would need to build a big enclosure padded out with cotton wool. Many dangers in the real world, you can maybe stop the kid touching an oven, but you won't be always there to stop him/her from dangerous situations.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#208

I love this story. Little kid logic is so foreign to me now it makes me a little sad. Another example - we have our nephew stay over sometimes. One night, he did not, absolutely NOT want to go into the room he sleeps in. We couldn't work it out. He slept there a bunch of other times, no problem. Tried picking him up to carry him in, but no, he screamed like crazy. After a long, long time, he settled enough to tell us…

>Little kid logic My favourite is when you ask a crying child where they hurt them selves, and they point to the table they just walked into. Edit: Or have a paddy because they can't join the banana they've just cut in half, back together again.

Well, your question is ambiguous. No wonder the child is giving you a weird answer. The proper question is: “Where is it hurting?”

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Little kid logic My favourite is when you ask a crying child where they hurt them selves, and they point to the table they just walked into. Edit: Or have a paddy because they can't join the banana they've just cut in half, back together again.

The first one's just ambiguity isn't it? "Where did you hurt yourself? At Timmy's place"

Yes, but its an example of how small children think

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#210
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also, as it turns out, one of the most pertinent things a developer should be considering at all times. Sometimes we may get a bit too refactor-happy, not seeing the use behind a certain fix, a line of code or a strange function. Our first instinct isn't to understand it, but to tear it down, gleefully assuming that it's useless.

The trouble comes when the others working on your code are crazy enough that that strange code often is useless, so you have to spend the time trying to work out whether it's tear-out-worthy.

A sign of maturity is to a) recognize when code is crazy, and b) document why it is so in a comment.
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