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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

#381
post #259
post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> leather belt fixed him within a year Lot of Indian parents (including mine) follow this approach.

It was very common everywhere until about 10-20 years ago. My mum even keeps her collection of broken wooden spoons.

> It was very common everywhere until about 10-20 years ago.

I keep hearing this mentioned as why "kids these days" are so stupid/weak/emotional/etc, without any proof.

I'm curious if there is any (popular) research in these areas that I can show otherwise (or not!).

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

#382
post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A workmate once told me that he found his young son fiddling with the dials next to a hot stove. So he took his son's hand and briefly placed it on the hot part. The son ran away crying but he learned his lesson.

This is what rational me says I should do, because it makes sense. But I can't imagine my wife understanding, and the questions at pre-school, etc. Assuming it was a small burn, because that's what would cause a child to cry. Plus I might hate myself for doing it. It's a short jump from "I touched my son's hand to the hot stove to teach him it's bad" to CPS knocking on my door.

Intentionally burning your kid is not good. Also, you run the risk of teaching them that it's mom or dad that's dangerous, rather than the stove. If you're willing to burn them, let them do it to themselves. If not, then teach it without hurting them.

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

#383
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…

My kid has rejected false choices from almost as soon as we began offering it to her. Would you like the toy or the book for the car? (Screaming) I don't want car, I want home and show! Makes me giggle how often it fails with her.

That said, I've noticed well set patterns work very well with her even if she doesn't like certain aspects of them. She even gets cranky when I forget to do a certain part of the pattern even if she hates what the event is. (Daddy you didn't close the gate!)

Every kid is different, totally agree.

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

#384
post #349
post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Physical violence is not a cure for any known disease. Since when somebody disagreeing with you is a disease?

bluejekyll really should have said disorder. If you have a kid who is getting bad grades in school and has behavioral issues, and the underlying cause of it is ADHD, then no amount of physical discipline, even up to child abuse like closed fist punches, throwing metal chairs, screaming at the top of your lungs while doing it, etc, is going to fix that. All it will do is breed resentment. And if you want to have a rel…

> then no amount of physical discipline, even up to child abuse

All physical discipline is child abuse. That's why it's illegal in most of Europe.

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

#385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the problem with one-size-fits-all methods. Kids are just different and what worked for one child doesn't necessarily work for another child. Even if you do exactly the same thing. My girlfriend used to train dogs for a living. She always said "it's the owner's fault, not the dog's". Now we have a Chihuahua who won't listen, doesn't respond to rewards, doesn't respond to punishment. She just does her own thing…

I think it's also that a dog will also respond differently to a third party (the trainer) than how they respond to the owner with whom they already have a relationship. The owner could use the exact same techniques as the trainer, but the dog will respond differently. Same thing as why organizational change can be more effective when lead by an external change agent than an internal one.

I think that's what a ot of trainers and coaches don't understand. When people (or dogs) meet somebody new they listen much more to that new person. So the coach thinks his method is perfect.

But after a while people will regress to their old habits.

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

#386
post #208

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…

> or "If you get dressed, I'll tell you something interesting about Mercury."

Gonna have to try this one - my son loves collecting facts. Thismay prove very helpful. Even if it turns out not - thanks for the idea, it's a good one.

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

#387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Abuse is not legal. Physical discipline is legal. Drawing the line between the two is up to the court system.

And pretending there's a difference is ignorance.

Pretending there isn't a difference is ignorance.

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

#388
post #234
post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Or even "once you're dressed, I can tell you something about Mercury". I agree that it shouldn't be a reward - more a thing to do or discuss after the task is done that isn't an option before it's done. Because as I imagine most parents know, any perceived offered reward does become grounds for negotiation.

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

#389
Having only read part of the article and having gone through toddler years with 2 kids having ADHD and ODD my only insights are:

Get good at child psychology the art of manipulation. You're a team against the kids - keep up a united front, regardless of your marital situation. If you don't learn to manipulate those kids into doing what you want, they will very quickly learn to manipulate you into doing what they want. If you don't consistently maintain a united front, they will play one of you off against the other, every. single. time. and one of you will become the enemy they hate and the other their best friend. This isn't fair to the parent that ends up the enemy and is detrimental to their relationship.

Some kids are easy going laid back and compliant. Most of them have their own free will and will largely do what they want, regardless of what you want them to. Get used to not having complete control at all times, because if you try and maintain control at all times, one thing I can guarantee is that your kids will feel powerless and ultimately begin to despise you.

Give them compassion and understanding and try to give them enough rope to run without hanging themselves. YouTube has plenty enough videos to scare the crap out of them from doing stupid shit that will hurt or kill them. It's also got a great many videos that will inspire and educate them. It's a great tool. Use it as liberally as you need.

I can count on one hand the number of times my kids have been spanked. They're now 8 and almost 7. Those spankings yielded almost zero result and reflects more on my inability to maintain control of myself under the stress they put me under than their behaviour. All it did was exacerbate already intolerable behaviour. Did they deserve it? Yes. Did it yield the result I wanted? No. Should I have held my temper? Probably. The fact that it didn't yield the result I wanted says it was a futile exercise. It didn't teach them anything, they didn't respect me for it, they feared me for it. Do I want my kids to fear me? Absolutely not. Plus, they were some age less than 8 and 6. They're expected to act out. They're kids. I'm an adult, I should be able to control myself better - and I largely do.

No amount of framing decisions to stimulate cooperation work. No amount of forcing them to comply works. Neither one of them seem to have any sense of guilt unless they think they've really hurt you and you show them real honest vulnerability... and you can't show that card too often or they'll just think you're unable to stand up for yourself and then they'll never learn to respect you.

Okay, so there's not so much advice there. But I'll tell you, every kid is different. Some tools work on some and have counter effects on others. You need an arsenal of techniques and you need to pick and choose them for each situation, like a Marine, you don't take the same tools into every operation, you pick the best tool in your arsenal to complete your mission.

Sometimes spanking will work on some kids, other times it will just make the situation ten times worse. Sometimes timeout will work, other times it'll just drag out the torture for both of you. Sometimes shutting down the argument and dictating how things are going to happen is the only way. Other times, you just have to pick your battles and say to yourself - does the outcome of this situation even really matter? Why do I feel the need to argue and enforce my will here? If you're worried about how they dress reflects on you, let them watch shows like "What not to wear" so they learn a sense of style. But honestly, they're kids, does it really matter? Their friends will tell them if they look like an idiot. Peer pressure can be a wonderful thing.

Sometimes the easiest path is just relinquishing control of everything inconsequential and only controlling the things that really matter: Don't let them hurt or kill themselves or anyone else and don't let them damage or destroy anything that doesn't belong to them.

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

#390
post #196
post #18

> Tone of voice dictates whether you're going to get compliance 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…

It's interesting to me that my parents did essentially the opposite for raising my sister and I: they created a spinner that would randomly choose whether mom or dad would help us get ready for bed that night. We completely accepted the decision of the spinner because that was The Way of the World.

I find I have lot a easier time getting my son to accept hard dictates when I don't provide a reason - it's just the way it is. "Because I said so" is surprisingly effective[1], I think because he's learned that when I say it there is no more discussing.

Reasons provide a point of discussion - and my boy will discuss endlessly anything he's given the opportunity to. Particularly if discussing the reasons means not having to do the thing he doesn't want to do.

The problem I have is that I remember always wanting to know why (hell, I still do). So I have a default explain-first mentality that I've become increasingly aware I need to break.

It's a hard balance to find. You want the child to know the whys of what he's doing - but you don't want each reason to turn into an endless discussion.

[1] he's not happy about it, but it is remarkable effective :D

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