101–110 of 446 posts
My fiance recently graduated in psychology, and we have two kids. This article basically mirrors our current sentiment of how we want to raise our kids. I have one thing to add: Don't beat yourself up if you fail to do it right. After things escalated, talk to the kid honestly, tell her what you felt, and ask her what she felt. And try to do it better the next time over.
What if the kid has no interest in talking to you?
> Let’s say you have an adolescent daughter and she says to you, “Mom, you are such a bitch. What have you ever done for me? You only think of yourself.” > The teen may be at the dinner table and just being quiet and not saying negative things. Well, when you're starting out, one of the positive-opposites can sometimes be reinforcing the non-occurrence of the behavior. And you just say, “Marion, it's nice having dinn…
Maybe it's because I grew up as a kid in another culture (Eastern Europe) and some time ago (I'm 36 now) but do kids nowadays really call their parents "bitch"? My parents almost never laid their hands on me (the couple of times they actually did I had deserved it) but, nevertheless, it would have been out-of-this-world for me or for any other kid to call their parents names like these. It reminds me of this Eddie Murphy sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldUbxfOtjqw .
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Perhaps working around these fatal emotion exceptions is better than running into them every day, at least until the child's brain has had time for a few major revisions. Perhaps. Parenting is complicated. But we shouldn't pretend it's not a trick, and that we aren't doing something the child may rightfully resent. > In your second paragraph, are you suggesting... No. > If the person has a negative reaction to it,…
If the goal of the parent is "get child to grandmas, so I can go to work to continue to take care of this child", while the child's goal is "I want to continue to watch cartoons in this very spot and not move, and I'll have a tantrum if I am told to move due to poor impulse/emotional controls in my under-developed brain, unless I am 'tricked'", then who's goals are more important? If the child resents such a "trick"…
> Punishment might make you feel better, but it won’t change the kid’s behavior. Instead, he advocates for a radical technique in which parents positively reinforce the behavior they do want to see until the negative behavior eventually goes away. We adopted a puppy a little more than a year ago and this was the exact advice we were given for how to train her. Puppies and little kids are remarkably similar, and the k…
Keep on at it. My partner and I fostered rescue puppies (mainly larger breeds) for several years before having kids. We taught bite inhibition, toilet training and general manners to umpteen puppies using positive reinforcement while they were in our care. We've used remarkably similar techniques on our children now aged 3.5 and 1.5yo. Every child is unique so YMMV but we have been very happy with the way our kids ha…
That being said, especially with kids older than ~3, we believe some form of negative consequences for bad behaviour are necessary. Especially if they e.g. push or hit another child. And I don't mean using physical punishment, more like "I'm taking this toy away from you now". The important thing is that the child is old enough to understand what they're doing is wrong, and that the consequence is relatively immediate.
Also, being angry is an emotion kids need to learn about. This means (IMO) it's OK for a parent to be visibly angry sometimes, as long as you are able to remain a good role model while angry. I.e. yelling at / insulting someone, hitting someone etc. is very much out of the picture. But yelling into the air "Aargh I'm so angry!!!" and then being able to cool down and acknowledge afterwards why you were angry is likely good for a child to see. Again, assuming that the child is old enough to understand, and that you discuss/explain it afterwards.
This was explained very well decades back in "Punished By Rewards" - one of the most useful book I've read.
The two are related, though. The article here is explaining how meaningful, relationship-building positive-reinforcement is an effective strategy.
Alfie Kohn's work is easy to misinterpret -- the title of his book mentions "gold stars" as a bad idea, but misses the meaning of a gold star. A gold star isn't a bribe in the sense of an "incentive program", it's a tangible expression of appreciation* -- which is what the article here argeus in favor of.
*as long as the star is its own reward, not some sort of currency used to buy rewards.
While this is framed here as a "radical" technique, it's just BF Skinner's Operant Conditioning, which has been one of the foundations of behavioral psychology for nigh on 100 years. If you're wondering if it really works, yes, it does. One of the key elements of it, especially when using it on people, is accepting that the subject is likely to execute the behavior badly for the first few iterations, but you have to…
(Good) parents all do this all the time. I think it goes as far as being instinct. E.g. the first time your child uses a spoon by himself, there's going to be porridge all over him, table, chair and floor, with a comparably minute amount going into his mouth. But you still smile, applaud and praise him.
This article is dangerous. On the surface it may sound good, but there is behavior so vile and harmful to the child, family or neighbors that never showing negative reinforcement is extremely dangerous with some children. It does have some merits though, showing plenty of positive reinforcement will likely reduce the amount of negative reinforcement needed.
I wonder how it equips children for the real world where there is both positive and negative reinforcement. If they only deal with positive reinforcement, will they have the emotional conditioning to deal with negative reinforcement. For example, dealing with a negative review or getting skipped for a promotion. Something we probably all experienced, getting yelled at by a manager. Anecdotally, being raised by an asi…
We need to allow kids to fail, because you will fail in real life. Sports with no scores is dumb.
Fairly tangential to if we yell at our kids or not.
"Sarah, put on the green coat or the red sweater. We're going to go out, okay?" Choice among humans increases the likelihood of compliance. And choice isn't important, it's the appearance of choice that's important. Having real choice is not the issue, humans don't feel too strongly about that, but having the feeling that you have a choice makes a difference. This was the main take away for me. It seems like it might…
I don't understand how people think this is honest. You're clearly using your cognitive advantage (or in the case of a boss, usually an organizational info advantage) to trick the other person. I remember as I grew up noticing when adults were doing this, and I resented them for it. Why would I want my kids to feel that way about me?
The irony is this is being suggested by an article that posits we should be nicer to our kids and not punish them. But deception and manipulation, that's apparently totes okay! It is so much nicer!
I don't believe in a punishment model. I also did not lie to my kids, nor deceive them nor manipulate them. I have a great relationship with my now adult sons who know they can trust me because I don't pull any of that bullshit. And that's what really matters to me. I sometimes wish I could figure out to share that information effectively to help other parents, but people who justify their shitty behavior don't actually want to be helped. They want the rest of the world to be nicer to benefit themselves, but they don't want to have to deal with the man in the mirror. He's fine. It's everyone else that is bad.
And it is usually fruitless to try to debate it.
Best.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who is this "we" you're asking on behalf of?
HN moderators. I realize that's not always clear, but something in me resists putting "mod" labels beside our usernames.