Raising a moral child • Hacker News Board

Re: Raising a moral child

#131

Post by nevinera » Wed, Apr 16, 2014, 1:16 PM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #115

nevinera wrote: post #39

Modern parenting literature seems largely to be about manipulating your child into being who and what you want them to be. 'Tricks' and 'techniques' abound, and every other article is about 'teaching' your child to achieve/empathize/compete. You know what works extra- extra- well? Be the kind of person you want your kids to be. Treat them like a decent person treats other decent people and that's the behavior they wi…

>Modern parenting literature seems largely to be about manipulating your child into being who and what you want them to be. That is not modern parenting, that's just parenting. Aside from some fringe philosophies (Summerhill for example) I have yet to come across any seriously taken historical example of parenting advice that is not focused on shaping children into something the parent desires, even if that is a very…

Throughout most of history, parenting was largely focused on equipping one's children to survive. The idea that one could impart specific qualities onto one's children is very new - until recently one instead struggled to impart religious rules onto them, with sufficient impact that they would continue to be followed.

If you think 'treat people with respect and dignity' is about manipulating other people to behave as you want them to, then you're doing it wrong.

Re: Raising a moral child

#132

Post by hyp0 » Wed, Apr 16, 2014, 1:20 PM UTC

parfe wrote: post #117

hyp0 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if they controlled the effect of the actresses own response. Although they might be excellent actresses, being mean to a baby is probably going to make you feel pretty rotten, at a level it might be hard to control, and the baby could be picking up on that. Animals can pick up subtle cues that are not apparent to adults; I'd be amazed if babies weren't at least as good. I'm thinking of Clever Hans http://en.…

Simple enough to swap the actresses around to remove the individuals as confounding variables. On a related note. HN gets pretty obnoxious nit picking about experiments. Guaranteed half the posts about a social science experiment come from novices whining about some flaw only they can see in the experiment yet a hard science paper gets posted and surprisingly no one has any complaints about the experimental design.

How would swapping actresses help?

The issue is not a quality of the individual person, but of their action - and the relationship between their action and the baby's later response to that person is very thing being tested.

BTW: Whatever your intention, calling people "obnoxious", "nit picking", "novices" and "whining" because they question something does not actually raise the level of discourse.

Re: Raising a moral child

#133

Post by nevinera » Wed, Apr 16, 2014, 1:25 PM UTC

dubya wrote: post #68

nevinera wrote: post #39

Modern parenting literature seems largely to be about manipulating your child into being who and what you want them to be. 'Tricks' and 'techniques' abound, and every other article is about 'teaching' your child to achieve/empathize/compete. You know what works extra- extra- well? Be the kind of person you want your kids to be. Treat them like a decent person treats other decent people and that's the behavior they wi…

The article actually goes further to suggest it's not how you treat your child, but also how they see you treat others. Being a decent person is a great first step, but even so your child will eventually (probably often) do something you consider bad behavior. Possible responses range from ignoring the behavior to trying to beat it out of them, and you'll find parents all along the spectrum. This is how psychologists…

Did you include 'express disapproval, then talk rationally about why' in your range of responses?

If you respect your kid as an autonomous individual, your disapproval will matter to them, and a rational explanation is the only way they can internalize a rule that will persist without the presence of an enforcing authority.

It won't work out of the blue, of course. Children that have not been treated as rational entities won't respond as such, and children that are very young have a limited understanding of the world. But explaining things to them even before they understand the explanation has a lot of value - they may not understand your reasoning, but they will definitely understand that you're trying to explain, even before they can talk.

Sometimes you may find that the 'bad behavior' you perceive isn't actually a problem at all. I instinctively tried to stop my child from stomping through puddles and getting her feet wet; in reality that's only important if she's about to walk a long way, or if she'll have no chance to change her shoes for hours.

Re: Raising a moral child

#134

Post by nevinera » Wed, Apr 16, 2014, 1:28 PM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #119

nevinera wrote: post #39

Modern parenting literature seems largely to be about manipulating your child into being who and what you want them to be. 'Tricks' and 'techniques' abound, and every other article is about 'teaching' your child to achieve/empathize/compete. You know what works extra- extra- well? Be the kind of person you want your kids to be. Treat them like a decent person treats other decent people and that's the behavior they wi…

This argument is not only wrong, it is actively harmful to people who seek to be better parents. Cognitively, little kids are not people, at least not the way we typically think of what a person is. The analogy of a delicate and hard to work piece of clay is not a bad analogy for the reality of the situation. What you dismiss as "tricks" is actually highly valuable technical knowledge. We would laugh at someone who s…

Children are not mechanisms, and you cannot engineer them into shape with your 'highly valuable technical knowledge'.

(implied insult redacted - sorry about that.)

Re: Raising a moral child

#135

Post by Loughla » Wed, Apr 16, 2014, 1:35 PM UTC

WildUtah wrote: post #114

freshyill wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Mine used two boxes of different sizes as stairs to reach the counter and the retrieved chocolates from the cabinet above. Then she climbed back down and moved the boxes back to where they came from so we wouldn't know. Only then did she relax and eat the chocolates. I thought my wife was stealing all the chocolates for days until I caught the toddler doing it.

Mine has figured out how to climb the dog to get at the cat's tail; something that the toddler seems to view as a nutritious and delicious food item.

I fear the dog may have been the mastermind in this plan.

Re: Raising a moral child

#136

Post by Loughla » Wed, Apr 16, 2014, 1:40 PM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #119

nevinera wrote: post #39

Modern parenting literature seems largely to be about manipulating your child into being who and what you want them to be. 'Tricks' and 'techniques' abound, and every other article is about 'teaching' your child to achieve/empathize/compete. You know what works extra- extra- well? Be the kind of person you want your kids to be. Treat them like a decent person treats other decent people and that's the behavior they wi…

This argument is not only wrong, it is actively harmful to people who seek to be better parents. Cognitively, little kids are not people, at least not the way we typically think of what a person is. The analogy of a delicate and hard to work piece of clay is not a bad analogy for the reality of the situation. What you dismiss as "tricks" is actually highly valuable technical knowledge. We would laugh at someone who s…

"you are helping to program the most complex computer ever created."

I get the basic idea of what you're saying, but that sounds like a lovely way to raise a serial murderer. Sometimes, engineering doesn't translate well to other parts of life.

Re: Raising a moral child

#137

Post by aestra » Wed, Apr 16, 2014, 1:42 PM UTC

Taek wrote: post #51

mcv wrote: post #17

Man, I just learned to compliment actions rather than talent, and now I have to do it the other way around. I get why, though. Moral actions are choices. Being smart isn't. If you praise a kid for being smart, he won't be able to choose to be smart. Instead, he'll assume he's smart and won't have to work so hard. I suppose praising an innate tendency to work hard might be more effective.

Having worked with kids a lot (long term, I would work with the same kids for 4-5 years and get a long term image of their development), it really seems to me like praising a kid for being smart is going to be better than praising a kid for working hard. This sort of gets coupled with the idea of 'work smarter, not harder.' When a child is praised more substantially for trying hard, you get things like staying up all…

> it really seems to me like praising a kid for being smart is going to be better than praising a kid for working hard.

This does not line up with research in the matter.

>This sort of gets coupled with the idea of 'work smarter, not harder.' When a child is praised more substantially for trying hard, you get things like staying up all night studying for a test.

No. Not if you teach balance.

>When you emphasize being smart and not needing to study, the child is more likely to push themselves such that they can land good grades without needing to study.

This is just so ridiculous I can't even comment.

Re: Raising a moral child

#138

Post by aestra » Wed, Apr 16, 2014, 1:49 PM UTC

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"…

A moral and caring person doesn't let themselves get walked all over, a passive person does.

You hold the cognitive distortion that your wants and needs are less important than others because you grew up in a more healthy manner. This is incorrect.

You can make a request and say "no" to one and still be a kind, caring, and moral person.

Re: Raising a moral child

#139

Post by skj » Wed, Apr 16, 2014, 1:49 PM UTC

gohrt wrote: post #94

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…

That book has interesting experiments , but suffers psychology's common problem (especially baby psychology): massively over-extending the experimental data into unsupportable conclusions that ignore loads of confounding factors. Example, quoted from the website: """ The babies in the unjustified group spent more time looking at the adult's discordant expression and exhibited more checking behavior. Additionally, the…

Thanks, my thoughts exactly.

Coming from a machine learning background, I am often shocked at the quality of experiments in psychology and even economics.

I think the reason may be because in machine learning, you describe your algorithm and experiment exactly. If someone can use the same algorithm and devise an experiment to disprove your results, you look like a fool. With softer sciences, maybe people just say, "then you obviously didn't do it right!" and there is no code to point at.

I like to think that in medicine they know how to do things properly, since there is so much regulation and money on the line.

Re: Raising a moral child

#140

Post by snowwrestler » Wed, Apr 16, 2014, 1:53 PM UTC

nevinera wrote: post #134

snowwrestler wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument is not only wrong, it is actively harmful to people who seek to be better parents. Cognitively, little kids are not people, at least not the way we typically think of what a person is. The analogy of a delicate and hard to work piece of clay is not a bad analogy for the reality of the situation. What you dismiss as "tricks" is actually highly valuable technical knowledge. We would laugh at someone who s…

Children are not mechanisms, and you cannot engineer them into shape with your 'highly valuable technical knowledge'. (implied insult redacted - sorry about that.)

All humans are mechanisms, and developing a better understanding of how the mechanism works does not harm parenting.

You're trying really hard to claim some sort of moral high ground here, but there is nothing immoral or harmful about knowledge.

You've set up a false dichotomy between parents who are "good people" and parents who are interested in scientific knowledge about how children develop. Any parent can be both. In fact I would argue that parents who seek to learn more about child development will arm themselves with better tools for being good parents.

I don't know why you perceive scientific studies of child development as a threat, but you obviously do.