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The Hand Licking Incident

raisingfutureadults.blogspot.com

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Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#281

Post by amyjess »

tome wrote: post #191
g5095 wrote: post #185

Wen I was in Kindergarten, my teacher called in my parents to tell them that I had learning difficulties. My mother asked why the teacher felt that way, her answer: 'He won't sit on the mat with the other children for story time'. My mother asked the teacher, 'Have you asked him why he won't sit on the mat? he usually loves stories at home.' She called me over in front of my teacher. 'Why won't you sit on the mat wit…

When I was about 5 I was in a gym class and the teacher told us all to "sit on our backsides". I and half the class didn't know the word "backside". I think I ended up assuming my "backside" was the side of my back and lying on the floor on my side. Some of my classmates ended up in similar positions, much to the bafflement of the teacher!

At around the same age, also in a gym class, I had a teacher who would pronounce "sit" as "set". I had no idea what to do when he told us all to "set".

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#282

Post by gowld »

SilasX wrote: post #251
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes adults also think like this, in slightly less obvious ways.

Right, there's that old joke about the radio show that separately asked the husband and wife of a couple "where they had sex" and the second one interprets it as "which orifice" rather than "where were the two of you located when it happened".

Mallrats:

"He wants to have sex in a really uncomfortable place"

"Like in the back of a Volkswagon?"

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#283

Post by gowld »

Timpy wrote: post #276
gwbas1c wrote: post #259

When I was almost 11, I started sucking on my knuckles because they were dry and cracking. My mother immediately knew what the problem was and showed me the hand cream. She didn't need to scold me or make a big fuss. Honestly, this article really isn't about "the hand licking incident." It's about all the drama in the mother's life at the time; the drama in the mother's life was unrelated to the hand licking. In all…

She talks about not feeling respected as a stay at home mom, her sister had a premature baby, they moved to Washington. Who is the target audience for this? The author realized her mistake, uses the article to absolve her guilty feelings, and talk about her own drama. It really is a valuable lesson, but everyone in the comment section here managed to share their "oh, kids are just kids, be more empathetic" epiphanies…

The commenters here aren't bloggers blogging. The author is a semi-profressional writer who likes to write.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#284

Post by howard941 »

chasingthewind wrote: post #247
exolymph wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might enjoy this similar anecdote from an SSC post. > The Hair Dryer Incident was probably the biggest dispute I’ve seen in the mental hospital where I work. Most of the time all the psychiatrists get along and have pretty much the same opinion about important things, but people were at each other’s throats about the Hair Dryer Incident. > Basically, this one obsessive compulsive woman would drive to work every m…

This is a great solution! Now I just have to figure out how to disconnect my gas range and put it in my car every day :)

Point an IR-sensitive webcam at the range.

Now I just have to figure out how to remember that I locked the front door when I forget to do the verbal "door locked, check" drill

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#285

Post by gowld »

vollmond wrote: post #269
glitchc wrote: post #206

I dunno about this story. When I saw my son lick his hands the very first time, this was the convo: - Are your hands tasty? No - Are your hands dirty? No - Are your hands dry? Yes! Problem solved. Plus a quick visual inspection will usually confirm dry hands. It’s not like an insidious disease with no visible symptoms.

Though, if you don't inspect the first time it happens, it would be easy to assume dry/chapped hands are the result, not the cause, of the licking.

Even if you don't inspect the first time it happens, it's a simple case of a cause+effect reinforcement loop. Many many people (adults!) have the same problem with licking their lips in wintertime instead of using balm.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#286

Post by gowld »

Udik wrote: post #244
glitchc wrote: post #206

I dunno about this story. When I saw my son lick his hands the very first time, this was the convo: - Are your hands tasty? No - Are your hands dirty? No - Are your hands dry? Yes! Problem solved. Plus a quick visual inspection will usually confirm dry hands. It’s not like an insidious disease with no visible symptoms.

I second that, the story is interesting and has the value of a general lesson, but on second thought it sounds like other obviously made-up anecdotes, such as "the car that wouldn't start after buying strawberry icecream" or the "emails that didn't go farther than 500km". There is a little kid obsessively licking his hands in winter? They must have become very red and inflamed after only two or three days. Therefore,…

Why do you think "emails that didn't go farther than 500miles" is obviously made up?

https://www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail-faq.html

How would putting some cream on prevent the licking?

Cream doesn't last forever.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#287

Post by _ea1k »

pure-awesome wrote: post #246
couchand wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here let me fix that for you: "document why it is so in an executable test".

Sometimes possible, but not always. An executable test is good for documenting what a piece of code should do, but not always entirely sufficient for documenting why .

Exactly, and in the pathological case it ends up documenting the why incorrectly and the code is still wrong.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#288

Post by jschwartzi »

gowld wrote: post #280
zaroth wrote: post #220

This is a great anecdote to describe a formal approach which is called positive discipline . We assume as adults that children who do things that are not what we want or against our instructions need “discipline” in order to learn they should have made a better choice. This fails on the most basic point. Young children are, in most cases, not making a conscious choice at all in these cases. They are not thinking in t…

You're right that you can punish a child (or an adult) into understanding something they can't yet understand, but you can punish a child (or an adult) into refraining from a behavior, unless the person is incapable of understanding cause and effect. Billions of people (and animals) have learned to restrain their impulses out of fear of punishment. It's fundamental to how mammal brains work.

The problem is that teaching people to restrain their impulses using a fear of punishment is totally different from getting them to change their behavior because they understand why the behavior is bad. When you simply punish someone without teaching them to understand you create a system of unwritten rules where the person is unsure whether any particular action will result in a punishment or not.

But if you can create an understanding of why the action was bad then you can give the person a toolset to understand whether their future actions will be bad. And hopefully you can create a society of people whose behavior is determined by their understanding of right and wrong and not by whether or not they think they will be punished for something.

I think you're grossly oversimplifying the way people work if you don't see the difference here.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#289

Post by Loughla »

MRD85 wrote: post #254

I don't get why people find it so hard to empathise with a child. I've solved a bunch of my youngish children's problems by taking the time to try to figure out their reasoning and talk to them about it. I've had a huge chip on my shoulder about parenting for years. I'm a single parent of a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old and it's been this way since the youngest was a baby. I've had so many bad experiences, especially w…

>people have treated me poorly because I was a dad with his kids.

That's interesting. Honestly, I've found that I get passes for many mistakes, because the bar to being a good dad is set so low in most peoples' minds. If I'm not hitting them and basically know their initials, I seem to be a success.

What has your experience been? If you don't mind me asking.

Re: The Hand Licking Incident

#290

Post by jrauser »

zaroth wrote: post #220

This is a great anecdote to describe a formal approach which is called positive discipline . We assume as adults that children who do things that are not what we want or against our instructions need “discipline” in order to learn they should have made a better choice. This fails on the most basic point. Young children are, in most cases, not making a conscious choice at all in these cases. They are not thinking in t…

I'm reminded of a time when my sister in law was upset with her daughter. The girl was supposed to have cleaned her bathroom but hadn't swept the floor. To make peace, I offered to help her finish the task. What I learned is that she actually didn't know how to sweep a floor (she was maybe 5 or 6 years old). I helped her and both of us felt like we'd learned something.

She learned to sweep a floor, and I learned that often, when kids aren't meeting your expectations it because they honestly don't understand how to do it. I didn't have a child for a long time after this, but I think of this vignette often.

Even at work with junior colleagues, often they have no earthly idea what the expectations are or how to fulfill them. They need to be taught and just expressing your disapproval isn't going to help.

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