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No Spanking, No Time-Out, No Problems

theatlantic.com

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Re: No Spanking, No Time-Out, No Problems

#231

Post by inimino »

true_religion wrote: post #215
inimino wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, if you read much about journalism, you will know that what is put in quotation marks and attributed to someone is to be taken rather seriously.

That's only true in journalism. Just because we link to news stories primarily doesn't mean this site has a journalistic flavor or should follow those conventions.

Attributing words to someone is something one should be cautious about, regardless of the context. It isn't a peculiarity of journalism.

I was responding to the idea that such a convention about quotation marks doesn't exist. It absolutely does. Journalism is the most familiar example, but academic writing, non-fiction books, and other contexts are held to the same standard.

Re: No Spanking, No Time-Out, No Problems

#233

Post by westiseast »

colanderman wrote: post #230
JonoBB wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a TV programme in the UK called The 3 Day Nanny, about a super nanny who would come in and sort out problem children and parents in 3 days. It ran for a few seasons. Fast forward till she had her own child, and I saw an interview with her. She was completely shattered. Like a wreck. She had her own difficult child, and coupled with little available help from others, she couldn't cope. She looked and sounded…

I wonder if this has anything to do with kids learning how to work around their own parents' parenting style. They'll have had years to learn how to disobey their own parents by the time this woman comes into the picture. If her style is different enough, the kids won't know how not to behave. Then when she has a kid, her kid learns exactly the mental tricks needed to be able to disobey her, by virtue of spending 24×…

I firmly believe in nuture over nature, but...

Some kids have physical issues like bags of energy or stomach/sleep issues and some parents equally have physical or mental problems dealing with that. And everything goes out the window when you've had a month or four with no sleep. I think a lot of people discount that side of things - it's like in the fight world: everyone has a game plan until they get punched in the face.

Re: No Spanking, No Time-Out, No Problems

#234

Post by mdda »

prawn wrote: post #208
llimllib wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With my son, "time for a bath!", no matter how excited, yields crying. "Would you rather watch trains or buses after your bath?" yields an excited choice. (As with all parenting advice: usually.)

If you want to avoid promising TV/iPad as a reward, good alternatives are: "If you get in the bath, I'll go and choose a bath toy that you've never even played with before." (And then I find something random in the kitchen - ladle, colander, Tupperware, etc.) or "If you get dressed, I'll tell you something interesting about Mercury." (Or owls, or bullet trains or anything you can come up with.) Used the Mercury one w…

I can't speak for llimllib, but I didn't read their comment as being a reward for having a bath. The key bit of the suggestion is that having a bath is implicit in the whole situation.

Similarly, me (+spouse) have never offered any reward for completing any task - and see many other parents having to enter into a what-if kind of negotiation. I like your Mercury example, but would consider taking it further: "I can't tell you about Mercury until you're dressed". It sounds logical enough to a 5-6 year old (even though these things are not logically connected).

I guessing these tactics will have to change at some point - but we've successfully navigated around most of the tantrum stage so far.

Re: No Spanking, No Time-Out, No Problems

#235

Post by GuiA »

coldtea wrote: post #166
andrewfromx wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah right. I'm sure musk thinks, hmmm today instead of working all day on a fun project I think I'll parent! You can't have it both ways. I'm sure musk sacrificed father/kid relationships for work success in a major way. It's not possible to have it all.

> yeah right. I'm sure musk thinks, hmmm today instead of working all day on a fun project I think I'll parent! Many rich people do that all the time. If he doesn't think his kids is a "fun project" too, then that's his choice, not something born out of necessity. > You can't have it both ways. You can, if you have "fuck you money", which Musk has 10000 times over. It's the poor people who work 2 shifts and barely ha…

> You can, if you have "fuck you money", which Musk has 10000 times over.

You can have "fuck you money", but you can't have "fuck you time". Sure, the capitalist HN crowd will argue that money can buy you time (e.g. by having people do your chores for you, etc) but ultimately there is a finite amount of bedtime moments, meals, Sunday mornings, etc in your kid's lives. Try as you might, fuck you money won't change that.

Re: No Spanking, No Time-Out, No Problems

#236

Post by LyndsySimon »

op00to wrote: post #207
caseylabs wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to agree here. I lived in a tiny village in Laos for 4 months a few years back, and I have to say, the six year-olds were more mature, independent, and emotionally sophisticated than some 16 year-olds I knew back home. Favorite slightly-related story: while teaching a class of 8 year-olds one day, a student in the back opened up his desk, and pulled out a machete. My heart stopped for a beat. He then proceeded…

That's great and all, but is it possible that extended "childhood" is essential for being better adjusted in the western world? I wonder how many machete wielding 8 year olds grow up to be competitive in university.

> I wonder how many machete wielding 8 year olds grow up to be competitive in university.

I'm guessing more than you would think, because this isn't that dissimilar to rural kids in the US.

Re: No Spanking, No Time-Out, No Problems

#237

Post by kbenson »

cheald wrote: post #213
marcell wrote: post #62

Quoting the article: > "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. I've gotten this exact advice from so many articles and pop psych pieces. Maybe they are written by non-parents or their children are much easier, but it never works for me. My 4 ye…

> For me personally, having kids has resolved the nature vs nurture debate squarely in the "nature" side. Amen to that. I have 3 boys. We put in the same ingredients and got wildly different results with all three. I'm convinced that parenting is more about working with what comes factory installed than it is about moulding some ideal human from a formless block of potential. Incentives and punishments that work with…

Well, there's also the fact that unless you are homeschooling and preventing your children from experiencing human and media contact, your nurture input is only part of a whole. I learned a lot of what I did and did not want to be like from my parents growing up, but I also learned a lot from my siblings[1] and my friends, and my school experiences.

That is, you may provide the same ingredients, but ultimately the kid's the baker, and you're not even really in the kitchen to see what goes on. Who knows what makes it into the final product?

1: Aside from the normal older brother semi-worship for a while, I also witnessed what sounded like him coughing up a lung every morning for a winter or two with chronic bronchitis from smoking. Peer pressure to smoke (and there was quite a bit, most my friends did) isn't quite the hurdle you might think it to be when you have that in mind.

Re: No Spanking, No Time-Out, No Problems

#238

Post by AndrewKemendo »

The most successful, caring, well educated and thoughtful people I know came from the worst upbringings. They grew up in households with abusive parents, homelessness as a child and general chaos.

At the same time the biggest burnouts, felons, drug-addicts and the like that I know personally (and in the statistics) came from ... the worst upbringings. They grew up in households with abusive parents, homelessness as a child and general chaos.

On the flip side, most of the people I know who were raised in peace, calm, consistent love, and wealth are generally pretty middling and while they live a fine life aren't really making huge impacts as I see from group 1 above. Maybe it's that the story isn't as compelling so we don't read about those as much. Chalk it up to sampling error.

From a social scientist perspective, group 3 is the ideal upbringing because it's consistent and the lower bound outcome is generally still desirable.

However there is just something about the ridiculous struggle that seems to either make diamonds or spent coal. From the perspective of population distribution for groups 1 and 2 it's overwhelmingly spent coal that comes out, but that 1% that becomes diamonds are really spectacular.

Re: No Spanking, No Time-Out, No Problems

#239

Post by AndrewKemendo »

manarth wrote: post #124

So much of this sounds like "control". > "it's BF Skinner's Operant Conditioning" > "Choice increases the likelihood of compliance" > "There are a whole bunch of things that happen…and you can get the child to comply" Most parents would want the best for their child, but there's a massive gulf between wanting the best for someone, and using psychological tricks to force them into complying with expectations.

Make no mistake, you want control over everyone around you.

Even if it's simply to control them from doing something undesirable to you.

Headphones control how someone can interact with you. How you dress/act forces control on how people respond to you.

We build our systems around this.

Re: No Spanking, No Time-Out, No Problems

#240

Post by geon »

maxxxxx wrote: post #188
tw04 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you didn't bother to read my post? Because I never once said it never happens/is universal law. I said it is the majority of the time... you know, exactly what you just said.

You were not very precise with your numbers. You say "99%", "9 out of 10" and "very rare". To a lot of people these mean "negligibly small". With dog training, child rearing and most everything else in life you increase your chances for success by a lot if you follow certain rules. But let's not look down at the people who fail. It may be their fault or it may not be their fault.

How are 99 % or 9/10 not precise numbers?

And "very rare" was a comment on "99 %", not a quantity on its own.

HN is the one place where I expect readers to interpret numbers literally.

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