The Hand Licking Incident • Hacker News Board

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#261

Post by ergothus » Mon, Jan 07, 2019, 2:36 PM UTC

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #257

xondono wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of the infamous comment block: // // Dear maintainer: // // Once you are done trying to 'optimize' this routine, // and have realized what a terrible mistake that was, // please increment the following counter as a warning // to the next guy // total_hours_wasted_here = 42 Edit: to improve legibility

Indent 4 spaces to format as a code block instead of flowing together or separating with blank lines as paragraphs: // // Dear maintainer: // // Once you are done trying to 'optimize' this routine, // and have realized what a terrible mistake that was, // please increment the following counter as a warning // to the next guy // total_hours_wasted_here = 42 Note that on narrow windows or mobile screens this doesn't wr…

(Increments time wasted counter)

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#262

Post by g051051 » Mon, Jan 07, 2019, 2:40 PM UTC

The headline made me think of this: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2012/04/13

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#263

Post by triangleman » Mon, Jan 07, 2019, 2:48 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #236

tempestn wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My kids are six and four, and explaining to them that something could seriously injure or kill them is definitely enough to prevent them from ever doing it. I can't imagine spanking them to try to make a point, but if anything I expect that would influence them to trust my warnings of potential injury less.

As a complete anecdote - I remember when my parents told me when I was very little that eating rotten/mouldy food could get you seriously ill, I think I even asked if you could die from it - to which they said that yes, you could. And after that, I had a complete phobia of everything that seemed even slightly off. I became incredibly picky, because that one spot on the slice of cheese could be mould or because the ha…

Yeah, one time I told my 3 year old not to touch a wild mushroom. Mostly because I'm grossed out by it. But now she's got this crazy attitude towards mushrooms, the weirdest plants in the world that people eat but are dangerous. I have no idea how it's going to shake out. If I could do it again I would have let her touch the freaking mushroom.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#264

Post by passing_by_and » Mon, Jan 07, 2019, 2:48 PM UTC

MRD85 wrote: post #254

I don't get why people find it so hard to empathise with a child. I've solved a bunch of my youngish children's problems by taking the time to try to figure out their reasoning and talk to them about it. I've had a huge chip on my shoulder about parenting for years. I'm a single parent of a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old and it's been this way since the youngest was a baby. I've had so many bad experiences, especially w…

>>To your comment about people not empathizing with a child.

What I have observed is that people just get worn down. They just can't muster up the energy to see the child's perspective. They aren't bad people or parents, but being a parent is much harder than advertised. No one tells you it is an endurance sport.

I am not sure how to give people more energy, but I suspect one of the reasons we organized ourselves in small closely knit families in the past was to help with this very problem. Contrast that with today in most wealthy countries...

Totally agree with your overall point of kids being kids.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#265

Post by Sean1708 » Mon, Jan 07, 2019, 2:49 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #155

I don't understand why this example of abusive and poor parenting has got so many upvotes.

Because they learnt from their mistakes and made it a teachable moment, encouraging other people to avoid the same mistakes.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#266

Post by api » Mon, Jan 07, 2019, 2:49 PM UTC

n4r9 wrote: post #242

> He felt we were interfering with his solution to his problem, not helping him. He was too young to understand the cause and effect relationship, and the way the adults around him had handled it just ensured that he would never come to us to ask for help with his real problem. This passage really resonated with me. I fall into the same cognitive trap as that kid on a fairly regular basis. It happened between me and…

I feel like the same phenomenon sometimes happens with adults at the scale of civil society. People start doing strange things like believing silly "alternative" conspiracy theories, withdrawing from society into online alternate realties, etc., and instead of trying to communicate and figure out why we just insult them and call them stupid and crazy.

Humans are not perfectly rational and they are not always able to even understand let alone communicate their problems or motives. This is especially true if they're under stress or suffering from mental illness, addiction, or abuse.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#267

Post by moftz » Mon, Jan 07, 2019, 3:01 PM UTC

syllogism wrote: post #199

RobertoG wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>"Little kid logic is so foreign to me now it makes me a little sad." Well, you have to admit that your nephew logic was flawless. As him, you wouldn't go into your room if you though there is a one meter frog waiting for you. His priors were weird, but that's to be expected with little experience of the world.

Also these adults ignoring the issue and sending him to the room anyway? Plainly in league with frog and not to be trusted.

Big frogs have infiltrated the 1% and are working towards a new world order.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#268

Post by clucas » Mon, Jan 07, 2019, 3:01 PM UTC

Carpetsmoker wrote: post #179

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(!!) I get that being a parent is hard and try to hold off my judgements on stuff like this over the internet, but ... I am not wildly impressed by this teacher or their parenting. I'm glad that at least the mother came to her senses later on and decided to treat her ch…

I suggest taking the same sorts of steps recommended in the article, when responding to the article.

Instead of having a judging/shaming/punishing reaction toward the author, read the article generously, and try to understand what may have made the author behave in the way she behaved. She gives plenty of fodder for that. And that is exactly what you think she should have done with her child (and which she eventually did do).

And based on what she wrote in the article and on her comments elsewhere in this thread, I don't think she's saying her actions with her child were justified - she is instead embarassed by her actions, and is giving people very valuable advice for things to look out for in your life that may make you behave in that judging/shaming/punishing manner, even when you don't believe you're the sort of person who might make these mistakes.

Perhaps take some time for self-reflection - you said that you were trying to hold off on judgement of their parenting - so why did you ultimately feel that judgement was necessary? As you note, the author did figure things out - are you saying that writing about a mistake, and the solution to that mistake, is "not wildly impressive" in general? If that's case, would you argue that post-mortems of tech problems are not wildly impressive?

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#269

Post by vollmond » Mon, Jan 07, 2019, 3:12 PM UTC

glitchc wrote: post #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.

Though, if you don't inspect the first time it happens, it would be easy to assume dry/chapped hands are the result, not the cause, of the licking.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#270

Post by nicoburns » Mon, Jan 07, 2019, 3:16 PM UTC

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.…

Seems to me that far more often the problem is one that the young child has figured out and even articulates to the adult, but the adults ignore it because they wouldn't find that same issue a problem, and they don't understand why the child does.