Subject:
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Re: Child rearing (was: Nothing personal, but...)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 25 Jun 2001 16:49:11 GMT
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Viewed:
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878 times
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Thanks for the response Shiri, I was begining to worry that my poor behavior
had actually run everyone off from the topic. That, I think, would be an
embarrassing first. I'll be disagreeing more politely now. :-)
In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Shiri Dori writes:
> Heehee - for a second there I thought you were saying that just coz *I* was
> popular doesn't mean I'm right. ROFL!
In as much as you are expressing a popular view, that's it. And come on girl,
you might not be popular out there, but we all like you.
> I'm claiming there is a limit to how far a parent can get pushed without
> punishing.
And my counter claim is that parents should not accept being treated poorly by
their kids any more than they should by peers or strangers. And the degree to
which the punish the three groups is the same. If my son is rude to me once,
briefly, then I usually ignore it or ask him to try saying that again more
nicely. If he is rude to me repeatedly, then I don't want to be around him.
If you are rude to me repeatedly, then I don't want to be around you. What is
the essential difference? Since my son wants me to be around him and provide
him with more than my legal obligations, he choses to be reasonably polite. Do
you think that I am harming my son by showing him how equals interact?
> Certainly when there's a danger to life or limb (be it the offender, or
> *someone else*) I think that the child can NOT go without punished
> consequences.
Why? I agree that when there is a danger to anyone, intervention is proper.
But not to punish, only to protect. Next month in DC, if you are being
accosted by the Mega Blok Muggers, I would intercede to protect you too, and
you're an adult. That's just part of being a good person.
What good do you imagine arising from my punishing my son for socking a
playmate? I would stop him as fast as possible if he were wronging another,
but then to punish him seems pointless and counterproductive. It removes from
the child the need to make reparations.
> Say my two kids are fighting. Sure, I might let them fight it
You mean arguing, right?
> out for awhile between them, to see if they can sort it out and relax on
> their own account, but if it's getting really violent I'm not going to let
> them hurt each other seriously.
I would use it as an opportunity to teach them both some problem solving
skills. And to clarify whatever issues they were disputing.
> Certainly if my child is beating up someone
> in preschool, and my kid is a lot stronger, and hurt the other child - I
> would punish him for doing that.
You would. And lots of others would. But what would you expect it to
accomplish. I believe there is exactly one (questionably) positive effect of
that punishment. Your societal peers would feel like you responded
appropriately and wouldn't act poorly toward you.
> Note I'm not talking middle or high school age here. This is toddler to
> mid-elementary school age range. About 2-10, I'd say. I think if my child
> hasn't matured enough by the time they've passed 14-15 to listen to reason,
> I'm in trouble.
I agree. And I think that the way from them to become reason-able, is to begin
practicing as early and as often as possible.
> Then again, I was quite the spoiled brat until we moved
> here, and even now I'm not all that helpful around the house - but I try.
You refer to yourself (in the past) and your sister as spoiled. In the
positive child raising jargon it would be said that they were given not too
much freedom (which the conservative thinks causes 'spoiling') but too much
liscense. I seek to give my son as complete a freedom over his life as
possible, while not giving him a bit of license to mess with the lives of
others. He has the right to not be impeded in his pursuit of hapiness, but
does not have the license to impede that of others.
> Another example for where I'd draw that limit would be when there was danger
> to someone else's property.
I too feel strongly about property rights. And kids can learn about them
early. My son has stuff, I have stuff, and our family has stuff. My son's
stuff is really his...I don't have the right to sell it, take it away, or
anything. My stuff is mine...he doesn't have a right to do anything with it
without asking first. (If he wants to play with my LEGO while I'm at work, he
calls and asks permission.) And our family stuff is up for mutual agreement
and veto. He has the *right* to use the family room (to draw from Frank's
note) but the family has the right to limit those uses. e.g. The family, at
the instigation of my son, decided that I shouldn't sort LEGO in front of the
TV because I leave it set up for several days sometimes and it gets in the way,
and I have a LEGO room already.
And everyone in this world has the duty to make things right when they make
things wrong. If he pitches a ball through the window, whether it is ours or
the neighbors, it is his responsibility to make it right. (As his father, it
is my responsibility to help him meet his needs, which includes his duties.)
> I'm not going to let my kids play somewhere they
> can break a neighbor's window until they are old enough to pay for it (which
> would be a *direct* consequence, right?).
Yes.
> If they *do* break a window and
> couldn't possibly afford fixing it, I would pay but punish them some other
> way (offering help around the neighbor's house or something - I dunno.
Why not pay, because our law places it (reasonably) as your duty to do so, and
then help your child find a way to pay you back? My son has a standing offer
to work for $1 per fifteen minutes of service. He could save up $50 for a
window pane. While a two year old really couldn't, their methods of breaking
windows are pretty limited. Further, he could learn how to replace a window by
helping with the work.
> Giving them extra chores, cutting the allowance, taking their ball away,
> y'know? Something mildly related to the offence, but maybe not entirely
linked).
Helping the child to sell the bat and ball might be a good start for saving up
enough to replace the window.
> Does that make sense? Do you need more examples for clarification?
Yes and no. I understand what you're saying, but let me say that you are both
needlessly consequencing your child and shielding it from the real consequences
in the above example when you take their ball away. If you punish, they feel
like that makes things even. It also makes them feel like you're in charge of
their life. If you let them figure out how and implement a solution -- only
helping when you need to, they are actually making things right and taking
appropriate charge of their actions.
> but sometimes the consequences are not
> imidiately apparent to the younger child. In those cases, I would take
> different measures and "make up" a bad effect, so they realize it was wrong,
> even if they wouldn't otherwise realize it.
With a child so young (<3) that they couldn't understand the minor abstractions
needed to grasp real delayed consequences, the key is to watch them and occupy
them with positive things to do. No one is perfect and no one can do that 100%
of the time, but that should be the goal. Otherwise, the child probably can
understand the consequences and should be allowed to feel them.
Farther down you suggest a situation in which a child is causing their parent
harm due to a fairly invisible medical condition. Obviously, you can't just
let your child kill you... But you can figure out why they are behaving that
way and change the environmental motivations. What, for instance, does your
sister get out of fighting with your mother? Is your mother needlessly
overbearing, and your sister simply rebelling to being stifled? Does your
sister have no other way of feeling empowered or attended to? There *must* be
a reason, and that can be changed. Failing to change the underlying system
that has lead to the fights (or other undesirable behavior) and simply
insisting that someone behave counter to what seems best to them isn't
going to be beneficial.
> > Why? Why does a child (what ages are we talking about, btw?) need authority
> > that you and I do not?
>
> Like I said, we're talking younger ages. Even early teens, maybe (after
> that, any extreme measure would cause a bigge and worse flare back, *at
> which point* I agree with you about creating a divide between the
> team-feeling of the parent and the child.
Even I think that very early ages -- varying somewhat from child to child, but
generally ending around three or four, won't get enough of the nuances of
social life to be reasonable. But I do not think that about older kids, and
certainly not early teens. What makes you think that early teens feel
differently than older teens about authority?
> My sister is 11, and just yesterday she
> was being *extremely* rude to my mother, after carrying on pretty badly for
> the past two weeks, promising things and not living up to her promises.
Why would you (her family, not just *you*) continue to pretend you trust her
promises? If my son breaks a deal, I remind him of it next time he tries to
make a deal and tell him that my faith in his trustworthiness needs to be
earned. If it seems unlikely that he'll hold up his end of the deal, no matter
how much that offends him (and his good intentions at the time, I'm sure) I
don't go for it. Just like I would with anyone.
> Now,
> my mother *could* let the effects of her actions gain up on her; but then
> she would have to go to camp without clothes, and that's not really an
> option. ;-)
I'm not following what "gain up on her" means or the relationship to camp
clothes. Is it a laundry issue? I most often do my son the favor of
laundering his clothes, but I won't collect them from his room and such. And
ultimately, if he wants clean clothes, it's his responsibility to clean them.
So if I've keyed in correctly that it is a laundry issue, why not send her to
camp with dirty clothes if she doesn't want to clean them?
> > > I would say "no TV for the day" or something of the sort;
> >
> > No TV for the day is an absolutely fabulous consequence for breaking the TV.
> > What it has got to do with mouthing off, I have no idea.
>
> Heh. When my sister broke the TV (seriously!!) we had no TV for a few weeks.
Right, no TV for one day is an unlikely consequence of breaking the TV since it
takes a while to get it fixed.
> But mouthing off often comes from stuff kids hear on TV (or in school). So
> yeah, I see a relation.
There may well be a connection between the media and the particular turn of
phrase that a child uses to mouth off, but the fact that the child is chosing
to mouth off, I believe, has little to do with their TV habits. It still seems
like a purely punitive reaction rather than trying for a curitive one.
> > What do you consider very extreme? I'm certainly willing to defend myself,
> but I can't think of any but the most improbably extreme cases where some
> kind of physical discipline is justified.
>
> I consider a great deal of rudeness and swearing at the parent, coming from
> a very young child to be inappropriate, and that follows later too.
Rudeness and name calling are always inappropriate. Sicne I was asking about
when it was appropriate to provide physical discipline, I assume you mean that
smacking someone in response to their words is justified. I happen not to
agree, even if I have acted that way and understand how one can make that kind
of mistake.
> Just that swearing and rudeness to the
> parent, or a teacher, and at a tender age I'd also say to a sibling or a
> peer, is totally uncalled for.
And worthy of a smack, spank, or paddling? By the way, what do you consider
the role of the perpetrator's age in the decision of how to respond to being
verbally abused?
> Also under the very extreme is fighting to the point of someone getting
> hurt.
Experiencing physical pain or requiring medical attention? What about
emotional/psychic pain?
> As well as going through/breaking/taking things a sibling specifically
> asked not to. (The again, the latter sibling is also to blame for not doing
> a better job hiding/locking it.) Etc.
Wow. So if one child wrongs another child's goods, the parent (as enforcer)
should swat the perpetrating child? But, the children should also be
encouraged to hide their stuff because true property rights won't be enforced
for them? I'm glad that greater society doesn't transparently act like that.
> I learned something that society
> woulda taught me sooner or later, and that is that people of more authority
> than me should be respected to a certain degree.
Because if you don't put on a show of respect they will hit you. That is never
the foundation of real respect. And I consider it a bad thing that society
teaches, not something that parents should buy into.
> I'm not gonna bow down in
> front of my parents, teachers or anyone else because of this; just watch my
> manners and words a bit more. Fair or not?
Not. I guess most people disagree, though it doesn't seem revolutionary to me
to expect that people won't whack you for speaking rudely.
> > I think there are negative consequences to physical discipline even when it • is
> > justified. I agree that that case may have been justified, but possibly not
> > the _best_ solution.
>
> What would *you* do if you were my mother?
This was because at age twelve, you struck your mother, right? At least the
first time, I would back away, look (and feel) really hurt (emotionally) and
pout. I don't believe that you can teach nonviolence through violence.
> > As I suggested above, I agree. It leave the "impression" that the adults in
> > their life are willing to use any tools necessary to coerce the child into
> > jumping through the hoops that the parent finds valuable rather than helping
> > the child to figure out what _they_ think is important and then helping them
> > achieve along those lines.
>
> No, I think you're taking it to the extreme. There is a difference between
> the occasional, relatively rare smack than a constant abuse (Dave clearly
> makes that distinction in his newer post). Any tools? Nah. I don't think
> most parents are asking their children to jump through some impossible
> hoops.
I didn't say, or mean to imply, that the hoops were impossible. Merely that
they are the parent's hoops and not the child's. To clarify, the parent is
requiring behavior without justifying to the child and seeking their agreement
that such behavior would be a good thing. They are deciding how another human
will act rather than presenting a case to that human for why it is better.
And I agree there there is a significant difference between mild occasional
physical discipline and constant rigorous physical discipline. A difference of
degree, not kind.
> Keeping your hands to yourself and watching out not to hurt anyone is
> not impossible, nor just valuable in the parents' eyes.
Keeping your hands off of _some_ things/people is needed. But children
shouldn't live in an environment where there are lots of things they can't
touch. I think that handling everything is a key ingredient in how they learn
about the world. And hurting people is definately to be discouraged. But
punishing them isn't needed.
> Some things need to
> be instated looooong before the child can decide what he or she wants out of
> life. I mean, seriously.
Like what? And the important stuff is taught by the universe. If you aren't
good to people, they go away from you. If you abuse other people's stuff, they
are angry and difficult. If you touch the space heater, you burn your hand.
The parent doesn't do anything for those lessons to take place. And when I
talk about what a child wants out of life, I'm not projecting far into the
future in an attempt to discern what they want as a life long vocation. I just
mean what they want at any given time. If your child wants something that the
family can't afford, how can the child build one or save up to buy one. If
they don't want it badly enough to do so, then that's their decision.
> Aww, c'mon (don't make it that personal).
Absolutely. I was wrong to say that both because I violated a norm in the way
we discuss here and for the reasons that I stated in my previous apology. I am
sorry about that.
> And yeah, in early age, the
> objective IS behavior modification. To an extent. Kids gotta be taught
> somehow.
I don't want to either agree or disagree. Actually, I want to disagree, but
more than that, I want to wait. I have a new baby coming in December and I'll
consider how it goes for the first three years and whether I am able to put
into practice my beliefs.
> The issues of morals are slowly introduced throughout the childood
> development, as the issues change from simple stuff (don't hit him, don't
> throw metal objects at people) to a bit more complex and perhaps optional
I contend that not hurting people is not a moral lesson, it is a practical one.
If you do, they may hurt you back. Even if they don't, they are likely to make
things tough for you. And our society in a larger sense has punishments for
those who do so seriously. But even still, hurting people is an option. It is
just one that is generally a bad choice. For kids and for adults.
> I meant mis-use, yes, but in the sense that someone is not using that
> authority to instate an "you're a bad boy who needs punishment" attitude.
> The control and punishment is for *children*, for cryin out loud, they are
> not fully grown adults who can make all their decisions on their own.
This is a common mantra, but where is the proof? I know that is seems absurd
on first glance to even ask for proof for such an obvious thing. I used to
think what you think. But I searched for the proof and I couldn't find any.
Demonstrate that "control and punishment [are] for children" rather than for
the adults. Demonstrate, or even hypothesize, that children can't make their
own decisions when informed. And remember that in the recent past people said
the same thing about women and negros. They were clearly wrong then, but it
was accepted dogma. How are you sure that your beliefs about young people are
not the same?
> I can
> let my kid eat ice cream and sweets and mcdonalds all day, and he or she
> might *not* get sick. But they also won't be getting all the vitamins and
> minerals they need n order to grow,
Unless they get a chewable vitamin.
> and they can't comprehend that yet!
The studies that I've looked at and annecdotal evidence that I have suggest
that kids actually do a fair job of regulating their diet all on their own.
For instance, when a kid goes without greens for a while they start to crave
them. I don't make any effort to balance my diet, and I just naturally get an
adequately balance diet. My son does less so, but I hold hope for his
development of new and more diverse tastes.
> my teen decides to live on fast-food, I'll point out that it isn't a very
> smart decision, but let her do whatever she wants. But not my 5-year-old -
> I'd make him eat balanced food, with *some* sweets but not too much. Get the
> difference?
Oh, I get the difference. I just think that it is a false difference. I think
your five year old is capable of understanding the rudiments of dietary science
at least to the extent of aiming for balance.
> > I prefer to be nice and help kids find and meet their own inner needs.
> Me too. But first you gotta teach them to *listen*! If they don't know how
> to do that, how will they figure out what they want? They won't know what
> the options are.
By exploring. Turn them loose on a library and they'll find their way.
> But I'm not talking about things that kids love to do on their own.
OK, there are studies regarding the propensity to perform housework that show
the same thing. Their is a correlation between the role of housework in adults
and the way it was handled when they were kids. Those who were required to
keep their space clean through hassling and bossing tend keep house more
poorly than those who were given the space to fulfill their family obligations
in their own way and at their own time. And there are others. Motivation is
killed by both punishment and reward.
> Plus, I believe that
> verbal and emotional encouragement is worlds more valuable to a child's
> self-esteem than anything else.
I think that the evidence suggests that allowing them to succeed and fail, both
without interference and judgement, is the most successful way to build real
self esteem.
> You can make or break a kid's talent by
> early-on en/discouragement.
I'd agree with the breaking part, but I bet you can't encourage a kid into
something for which he has little innate talent.
> I will encourage them to create, play, build and study what they enjoy, but
Build, especially, I hope. :-)
> not push them too much; let them find their own spot, their passion. But I
> think that has *nothing* to do with punishments.
Really? How will you handle it when they decide that some subject that you
value is not their thing and stop doing the work and get Ds on the report card?
Will you still allow them their passion at the expense of math? Or will you
intervene with carrots and sticks?
> I'll see what I can do (busy summer).
I know how it is.
> > If the behavior actually is bad, then there are
> > implications that will affect the child regardless of what the parent does.
>
> YES, but - key here, ding ding - the implications may not be apparant. Dave
> is stressing that. When the implications are not immdetiately obvious to the
> child (like in the case of high blood pressure - a two year old child won't
> understand he's damamging his mother's health, for pete's sake!), then the
> bad behavior goes unnoticed by the child. The kid didn't feel any immediate
> consequence, so I guess it wasn't bad, huh?
Unless you consider everything punishment, there are other ways to motivate.
Just being unhappy with a two year old and not preferring to do what they want
because they were not nice will motivate them.
> Yeah, but a 2-5 year old may not be old enough to understand the intangible
> concept of money. That's the key idea here. The consequences would not be
> obvious to a young child.
A child of two understands that you only have x dollars in this envelope and
because the broken olives have to be paid for, there is less for other stuff,
and the pretty blue bottled water has to be put back.
> Maybe, or maybe he won't be willing to help clean out. Have you thought
> about that?
Of course I've thought of that...I have a six year old boy. I've lived it.
When they find out that it takes much longer to get it done when only the
parent is working, and it will thus be that much longer before the parent can
attend to the child, they help to hurry things up. I rarely even have to
resort to that fairly benign manipulation though. I just ask for help and
remind him of something recent that I did just for him. That most often does
the trick if he's not in the middle of something else.
> So either you end up doing it alone (because most people don't
> wants crayon drawings in their living room if they're hosting people there,
> etc ;-), or it stays up. What did you accomplish then?
If you clean it up, you have demonstrated how people take care of their space.
If you leave it up, you have proven that the child has fair control of their
environment. (See, everything has an up side ;-)
Gad! Sorry this was so long.
Chris
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