101–110 of 110 posts
This guy thinks his kid is cute, because it's his kid, but I don't like the part where he deliberately irritates everyone in the hardware store. I don't think your kid is cute, so please keep it out of my way.
This is America, the kid's money's just as green. (OK that was a little crass I admit :-)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not trying to be pedantic, but that is a book, not a study. I've seen multiple studies that show parents who withhold praise raise higher achievers (personally, I don't like that, but none the less - the studies do exist)
> I've seen multiple studies that show parents who withhold praise raise higher achievers Ok. I don't like that either. I'd rather raise a healthy, curious, creative, passionate, and happy child. I couldn't care less about what he achieves. If he achieves nothing, so be it. In fact, on average, he won't achieve much ... but when he does achieve something, it'll blow your mind. And that little drone you raised, who is…
But, at the end of the day, our parents are most proud of us for who we are as human beings and members of society, and not for any titles, salaries or vehicles we possess. And I think that's exactly the way it should be.
I would much rather raise an intellectually curious child who would like to show me the cool project they worked on, or the cool thing they discovered, than one who believes I'll only praise them for a letter grade from an arbitrary third party.
> I'd rather my kid start the next Apple.
Me too, but I'd happily settle for my kid being happy, content and fulfilled with the life they lead, regardless of whether or not that involves creating a Fortune 500.
This guy thinks his kid is cute, because it's his kid, but I don't like the part where he deliberately irritates everyone in the hardware store. I don't think your kid is cute, so please keep it out of my way.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder how people like you expect kids to learn how to socialise appropriately if they must be kept out of the way all the time.
I upvoted your comment because I think it's an important point, but I wanted to note something that I found bothersome: "people like you" is a rather broad brush to use when judging someone from a single comment. Perhaps less harsh would be "people who share this sentiment," as the original poster may be in every other way a decent person.
That's a very inspiring story. My experience with my parents was quite the opposite. Whenever I would ask for help they'd present me with a heap of arguments why I shouldn't "waste my time on this stuff" and even try to stop me. I finally came to the conclusion that it's best not to ask them at all but try to do it secretly myself and only show them the end result. The only other possible outcome was them doing it al…
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That looks really good ... going to need a hot-glue gun first. Actually though some multi-purpose tube glue that I use to stick my shoes with should do it. Still not free. It's funny, so often with these makes there are hidden costs. Silver spray can is quite expensive where I am. Of course you can skip that part.
Nothing is free, but can be a negligible cost. You can make temporary paper glue out of flour and water, you can boil it down to use for paper mache. You can add food colouring to your water & flour mix to make paint. Food colouring cost money, as does flours, but you can make your own from plants/cereals if you really feel the need. Either you have enough money to buy some glue, or you can spend time teaching your k…
Not useful for sealing submerged parts of a shiny metal structure though.
>Either you have enough money to buy some glue, or you can spend time teaching your kids how to make it.
This is how it seems to go. However practically you need grain, so you need a trip to a field with grain in, which would be a bus ride, which would cost more than walking to the shops to buy glue.
Once you're at the field (assuming you have permission), you'll need to gather the grain. Scythe? Sacks? I know from experience that you get little flour from the grain you can hand collect and grind with a couple of flat stones in a couple of hours. Were talking young kids here too, getting them to gather grain won't be much fun when they're moaning "I thought we were making junk boats ... can't we make our boats".
I'm not trying to be completely obstructive (honest!) - making our own epoxy sounds more fun (but again, hidden costs) - but perhaps these things will come later.
That is kind of what I meant by hidden costs.
To recapitulate often one doesn't realise the benefit of the resources one has available. Making a piece of furniture for example someone will say "use your drill press", "use a nail gun", "use an orbital sander", etc.: obviously once one has these things the usage cost is near zero but the acquisition cost is high. These acquisition costs get hidden.
This guy thinks his kid is cute, because it's his kid, but I don't like the part where he deliberately irritates everyone in the hardware store. I don't think your kid is cute, so please keep it out of my way.
Speaking from personal experience, I think the positives of this outweigh the negatives. I've had many customer-interactive part-time jobs in my life, and I think that it can be great fun when adults have their children do the interacting. So long as the store is not too busy, and the parents provide intervention when it is necessary (as in this particular story), I think that most people will not be inconvenienced s…
'The fellow is already engaged with another customer, talking on a phone and looking at various plumbing boxes on the top shelf. [...] He is rather busy, and is starting to look around frantically for a parent to clear the matter up. "Tough luck, buddy," I think as I'm stepping forward.'
The part I object to is not teaching a child how to socialize. It's the deliberate abuse of a "busy", "engaged with another customer", and "frantic" employee under the banner of "tough luck, buddy" -- i.e. "it's a kid, so I can do whatever obnoxious thing I want and you have to put up with it". Also, "tough luck, other customer". Maybe this kid also needs to learn how to wait his turn, so he doesn't wind up a self-entitled asshole like his daddy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Speaking from personal experience, I think the positives of this outweigh the negatives. I've had many customer-interactive part-time jobs in my life, and I think that it can be great fun when adults have their children do the interacting. So long as the store is not too busy, and the parents provide intervention when it is necessary (as in this particular story), I think that most people will not be inconvenienced s…
Well, you've all downvoted the crap out of me because it's not socially acceptable to publicly admit that you find any aspect of children annoying. Step away from the knee-jerk reaction, and read the author's own words: 'The fellow is already engaged with another customer, talking on a phone and looking at various plumbing boxes on the top shelf. [...] He is rather busy, and is starting to look around frantically for…
There are, of course, some things wrong here. The child should not interrupt another customer to get help - that is rude. But part of learning is making mistakes, and I think it totally agrees with the spirit of the rest of the story to let the child make the mistake, and point out afterwards what improvements could be made (to be clear, the story does not say that this happens, I am only suggesting the hypothetical that it could happen, and I claim that it would justify the inconvenience). Again, this is slightly inconvenient for the people involved, but a great life lesson for the kid. By making these social mistakes, he gains experience with the types of subtle cues people let on when you are performing a social faux pas. A short explanation after the fact from the father can help the child not to make the same mistakes again.
Of course, this particular father may have done none of those things. He may be a sadistic bastard who pointed out the most busy, overly worked employee in the store simply because he likes bothering people, then congratulated his kid on making a spectacle. But the spirit of the story is lighthearted, so I interpret his actions as well-meaning (and probably slightly exaggerated, for effect).
I don't think that people should have to put up with any obnoxious thing a kid does. In fact, I think it would have been a great thing for the other people in the story to treat him like an adult, just like the dad wanted them to. If the clerk had said "hang on, I'll be able to help you in one minute", that wouldn't have been a problem. Or if the other customer had said, "pardon me, but I am in the middle of a question here - can you wait?", then the obnoxiousness of the situation could have been avoided entirely and the kid would have gotten a great lesson out of it.
People just need to relax. I know kids can be obnoxious. It bothers me to hell when I see children running around, bumping into people and sword-fighting in the aisles of the supermarket while the parent seems totally oblivious. But these sort of minor inconveniences need to be viewed as they are - minor. Total time wasted of other people in the store on this day - maybe about 45 seconds. Hardly a big enough deal for you to label the daddy a "self-entitled asshole".
By the way, I didn't down-vote you. I don't agree with you, but I think that you made a perfectly valid point - children are annoying. In fact, I up-voted you for it.
This sort of story makes me sad. We don't have a tree house, we don't even have a tree. We don't have money to spend at the DIY store to keep the house in shape never mind making checkers boards for fun. I thought I was getting pretty good at quenching the covetousness that society seemed to have imbued me with but when one realises that stuff is needed for many uplifting experiences. Realising the great joy certain…
There's got to be a surplus/junk store like http://sciplus.com in your area (that one's got locations in Chicago and Milwaukee). Boatloads of cheap arts and crafts materials: cotton balls, tissue paper, glue sticks, chalk, markers, etc. I spent $30 there and got about four shoeboxes full of random crap for my nieces to craft with. Dollar stores are great for this stuff. And office supply stores can be especially nice…
However, can I drag you back to my initial bleatings - the point being that it is a rich persons gift to their child to allow them free rein in such a hardware project.
Yes we have lots of craft materials that we've acquired over the years, no we don't have $30 to spend on "random crap". But this precious little to do with where we started ...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not trying to be pedantic, but that is a book, not a study. I've seen multiple studies that show parents who withhold praise raise higher achievers (personally, I don't like that, but none the less - the studies do exist)
> I've seen multiple studies that show parents who withhold praise raise higher achievers Ok. I don't like that either. I'd rather raise a healthy, curious, creative, passionate, and happy child. I couldn't care less about what he achieves. If he achieves nothing, so be it. In fact, on average, he won't achieve much ... but when he does achieve something, it'll blow your mind. And that little drone you raised, who is…
> ...easily quantifiable status symbols that can be placed in a study and can be easily used to force the parent to render praise.
Just as a data point, I'd like to add that coming from a childhood of constant praise and overprotective parenting, I am also looking for easily quantifiable symbols of achievement. Growing up under-challenged, for me it was quite the interesting psychological experience to have to face the reality that I've been coasting through high-school and college, and have absolutely no objective idea of my skills or achievements.
What I mean is, each extreme is damaging - lack of praise, but also too much praise. A good middle ground is perhaps objective evaluation of the child's progress, coupled with a good introduction into the art of reasonable persistence.