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Why young parents should focus on building trust with their kids

desunit.com

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Re: Why young parents should focus on building trust with their kids

#81
post #43

When I was a little kid I had a school psychologist give me the marshmallow test. It was extremely awkward because their assumption was the same as used throughout this article, that the marshmallow represented a strongly tempting treat. But it happens that to me as a picky eater marshmallows were always creepy nonfood and to this day I still find them absolutely disgusting. I was also quite disciplined because of my…

> I was also quite disciplined because of my violent and abusive father

I went the complete opposite direction as the result of violent and abusive parents and had never considered that the opposite also occurs, but of course it must.

For whatever reason, the more violent my parents became with me, the more violent and defiant I became…and not just with my parents. I came to see everyone and everything as a threat to my safety and began to respond accordingly.

Given the whole fight or flight thing, I am wildly predisposed to choosing fight. It took years and I mean years to learn to control this.

Re: Why young parents should focus on building trust with their kids

#82

I feel like this article is good, on the verge of great, then makes cultural comments that invalidate the point trying to be made for no real reason. Like the race or location of the parent determines their childhood? The rest is spot on. I became a parent before I was ready, and man, they are little sponges. They learn everything you do, everything you say, embarrassingly so. My 5 year old would lay on the couch to…

> Our kid made her own 'phone' out of cardboard as a child, pretending to read and chat on it.

I did that, but a cardboard laptop!

Re: Why young parents should focus on building trust with their kids

#83
>instant gratification is practically a way of life.

For kids on ADHD spectrum - absolutely. Marshmallow test is flawed, because it doesn't filter for the lack of control over executive function.

> A follow-up study showed that kids from stable, reliable homes were much more likely to wait than kids from unpredictable ones.

Unstable home is strongly correlated with impaired lack of control over executive function.

Re: Why young parents should focus on building trust with their kids

#84
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wonder how many of the sayings I inherited from my father he inherited from my grandfather that died before I was born. It's like a kind of genetic memory.

It's the original meaning of "meme"

I'd characterize modern popular usage as... hmmm... "formulaic in-joke."

Re: Why young parents should focus on building trust with their kids

#85
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I reject that premise. It's completely fine to point out societal norms. Neither were particularly offensive. But assuming a Japanese child will have patience where an American will not is the same weird thought that leads to weird guys wanting Japanese wives for 'obedience.' I'm not at all against pointing out or even flexing cultural differences, but they don't matter at all when raising a child(other than of cours…

You reject that peoples personalities are shaped by their environment? What if instead of focusing on location but instead focused on time period. Do you think there would be behavioral differences between a child born to a middle class family now compared to one 1,000 years ago? What about 10,000 years ago? Rejecting the premise that the environment shapes who we are and the type of people we become sounds extremely…

> You reject that peoples personalities are shaped by their environment

No, I reject that you can tell anything meaningful about the environment by country. Or even state. Or even neighborhood!

Japan itself could fit into the US 25 times by area.

Are kids raised in SF the same as those raised in Alabama? Or NY vs Phoenix? It'd be insane to make any generalities about a country so large and diverse, IMO.

Heck, kids in Loudoun county grow up completely differently than kids in Baltimore county. What does that tell us about the US, if anything?

I'm guessing Japan is the same, but I'm not educated enough to speak to it.

Re: Why young parents should focus on building trust with their kids

#86
post #10

People always use the marshmallow test as a sign that the participant can’t delay gratification. But what if they just understand time-value-of-marshmallow. Sometimes marshmallow now is better than marshmallow later.

One of the criticisms of the test is that children who fail it are more likely to have parents who regularly fail to deliver on their promises. From that perspective it doesn’t make sense to wait.

Re: Why young parents should focus on building trust with their kids

#87
post #15

> Think about Japan, where kids are often taught to wait quietly for meals or gifts Author got the country and items correct but not associated correctly. In Japan, kids pass the marshmallow test with flying colors but fail the same test if it's a gift. In America kids generally pass the gift test (hypothesis is that they're used to waiting for presents on Christmas). source - https://www.scientificamerican.com/artic…

Marshmallow test is one of those things real psychologists (whether practical or science) just do not care all that much about, but pop culture is sure obsessed with it.

They do care about it. It’s an immensely important milestone in the development of the field, and is pretty much axiomatic as a developmental marker and has been widely and consistently replicated.

Where modern day psychology diverges is (as discussed in the article) on the conclusions and analysis.

Re: Why young parents should focus on building trust with their kids

#88

The headline makes it sound like a boomer giving advice to a millennial parent or your in-laws giving unsolicited advice. I started hate-reading it but it turned out to be rather wholesome and good. Thank you!

Nah, I'm millennial and not trying to give any advice. Just sharing my observations while talking to my young daughter. Glad that you liked it!

Re: Why young parents should focus on building trust with their kids

#89

I feel like this article is good, on the verge of great, then makes cultural comments that invalidate the point trying to be made for no real reason. Like the race or location of the parent determines their childhood? The rest is spot on. I became a parent before I was ready, and man, they are little sponges. They learn everything you do, everything you say, embarrassingly so. My 5 year old would lay on the couch to…

> cultural comments that invalidate the point trying to be made for no real reason. Like the race or location of the parent determines their childhood?

You have two kids, one ate ten boxes of marshmallows yesterday, the other didn't eat for two days. Which one is going to wait more for marshmallows?

It's pointing that the Marshmallow test was flawed. Which doesn't surprise me (most social experiments are very flawed).

Basically, when you account for socioeconomic factors, the correlation goes away, or so I heard. Rich kids are more successful in life than poor kids, who knew?

Re: Why young parents should focus on building trust with their kids

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of things the marshmallow test might signal, but most kids probably aren't spending a lot of time performing cost benefit analysis when faced with the problem. I wouldn't doubt that kids with trust issues would tend to do worse. Certainly the ones with behavioral/executive function/developmental issues do worse than others.

Speak for yourself. The kids I know are modeling the future interest rates on marshmallows.

Toddler scribbles are in fact marshmallow yield curves.
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