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Raising a moral child

nytimes.com

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Re: Raising a moral child

#81

Post by not-gro-tsen »

gohrt wrote: post #77
AJ007 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best thing my parents did was be consistent. Early on I learned how to behave because I could predict my parent's reactions. How can a child learn to behave when all adult figures are erratic and irrational? Even the smallest things, like telling a kid Santa Claus is real can cause them to discount the value of truth. Reading behavioral psychology studies should require a skeptics hat. I'm not calling out these s…

The famous "marshmallow experiment" is great evidence for this. When the original experiment was re-analyzed, researchers found that children from stable, consistent environments, with reliable trustworthy adults, were better able to withold temptation and show patience to win a "2 marshmallow" delayed reward in exchange for a sacrifice of "1 marshmallow" now.

As soon as he was old enough to understand, I showed my kid the marshmallow experiment and taught him a few ways to mess with the experimenter, if someone were to try this on him. Bwahaha.

Re: Raising a moral child

#83

Post by abarringer »

jgalt212 wrote: post #67

I would like to raise a moral child, and I aim to do so, but I'm sure they'll be less successful for it. In today's oligarchy it seems like the great majority of successful people today are either criminals or general pieces of shit. Now, of course, being a success is not the end all and be all, but seeing your skills greatly outdistance your results can be quite frustrating.

That only makes sense if by "being a success" means having more stuff then the next guy.

I'd prefer to define success differently. If I had all the worlds goods/power and treated others like dirt I'd chalk myself up as a total loss.

Re: Raising a moral child

#84

Post by KMag »

dominotw wrote: post #24
mherdeg wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, so the author's advice boils down to: (1) If your child does something good, DO tell them that they are showing traits of a person who does good things (praise character). DON'T let them think that they're merely a person who did a good thing (praise behavior). (2) If your child does something bad, DON'T tell them that they are showing traits of a person who does bad things (shame). DO tell them that they did a…

This is exactly how my train my dog too.

Am I missing the sarcasm, or how do you express a distinction between actions and character that you think your dog understands?

Re: Raising a moral child

#86

Post by freshyill »

jcampbell1 wrote: post #27
jawns wrote: post #4

The experiments this op-ed describes are really neat. I especially like the one that demonstrates the importance of "practice what you preach." Here's another cool experiment related to social/moral development, which you can perform on your own kid: Have two grown-up friends each show your baby a toy. The first friend should offer the toy to your kid but then retract the offer and keep the toy to himself. The second…

I don't understand this at all. At 21 months, a toddler can walk and talk, and you can play keep away with them for fun. I don't know what it means to drop a toy out of reach. Do you drop it on a high counter or something?

As the parent of a 21-month-old, I can assure you that nothing is out of reach—especially the counter.

Re: Raising a moral child

#87

Post by trackofalljades »

I find this article directly interesting, as a parent, but also sort of "meta" interesting as someone who's always been fascinated by the differences between shame-based societies and guilt-based ones. I'm not discounting the author's insights, but they are very clearly influenced by western thinking.

Re: Raising a moral child

#88

Post by jostylr »

jawns wrote: post #73
jostylr wrote: post #71

Father of recent 3 year old. Big believer in modeling. I see other parents tell their kids to clean up, put stuff away, etc. I simply embrace cleaning up and my daughter follows suit quite often. We also do whatever we can to enable her to participate in what we are doing (sadly computers are a big problem in that regard, much more than say chopping with a knife). Our kid is very well-behaved and cautious (except for…

From Wikipedia: "At a Sudbury school, students have complete responsibility for their own education, and the school is run by direct democracy in which students and staff are equals. Students individually decide what to do with their time, and tend to learn as a by-product of ordinary experience rather than through coursework. There is no predetermined educational syllabus, prescriptive curriculum or standardized ins…

The wikipedia quote is correct. Your assessment seems to be not based on anything. Ask yourself, what is harder to learn: (1) knowing who you are and how to work with others or (2) solving an algebraic equation?

They pretty much all learn how to read, write, do arithmetic. Those who want to go to college (about 80%) do so without difficulty, learning what they need in a few months. They are serious, engaged students in college because they know why they are there. They find college kids goofing off to be quite a mystery. They are free to become themselves when they are supposed to -- puberty. That's what that stage is for. Most schools prevent the self-exploration that is necessary to allow for that. So then it gets delayed until people's 20s.

--

Visit such a school and you will see that they are much less nasty than those in a public school. Bullying is virtually unheard of. They work together as a community and take responsibility for it. They are collectively responsible for all the policing and judgement of others as well as themselves. They adjudicate quite fairly.

I saw 8 year olds wrestling with determining an appropriate punishment for their friend vs. their own desire to help their friend. They really struggled to find a balance. 8 year olds. This is an issue that a lot of adults struggle with.

They also write themselves up when they break a rule. They all buy into building a community. The school I visited was full of energy and respect.

So you can either choose to believe the fiction of "Lord of the Flies" or believe the results of forty years of actual experience with the model.

Re: Raising a moral child

#89

Post by jeffdavis »

MarkPNeyer wrote: post #80

i had to learn the opposite message here. our society tells us so much stuff about being kind and caring, and there are very few messages about being able to stick up for yourself, being able to make reasonable requests and being able to say no to people who are not treating you fairly. i had a roommate who didn't pay rent. i couldn't bring myself to confront the roommate because i felt like i "made of lot of money"…

I think you are trying to separate things into "morally good" and "morally bad" that are really just morally neutral. If your roommate isn't paying you rent, kicking him out is a neutral course of action in most cases.

Re: Raising a moral child

#90

Post by taybin »

taybin wrote: post #47
sergiotapia wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't know why you're being downvoted. As a parent, every single time I read something about 'raising your kids X', Dr. Lipschitz (from The Rugrats) comes to mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNTesmh1wpI

That video is...something else.

To the person who downvoted me, did you watch the video?
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