Subject:
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Re: Excellent article
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sun, 12 Aug 2001 12:52:40 GMT
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220 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Daniel Jassim writes:
> > In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher L. Weeks writes:
>
> > Why is it so tough for people to grasp that there is an actually fair way to
> > treat kids? Treat them the way you treat your best friends. That is, they
> > don't get to tell you what to do, and you don't get to tell them what to do.
>
> Of course children deserve love and fair treatment, but it doesn't make
> sense to me to say we (adults) shouldn't tell kids what to do. Perhaps
> you're being too general with that statement.
If you mean that you think I'm being too general, then we disagree. If you
mean you think that what I meant was something more specific than what I wrote,
then that is not correct. I believe that inherent in our humanity is the
productive desire to build social harmony. With that built in, humans are best
off being allowed to guide their own lives with input (direct advice and their
simple observation) from others to help sort through issues. I think that by
around the age of three (though it's going to be different for each person),
and assuming that the child hasn't been emotionally damaged by overbearing
parents, the ability to act rationally and the desire to participate socially
lead humans to make the right decisions for them.
> Parents ARE here to tell kids
> (and show them) what to do until they learn how to do it for themselves.
What does that even mean? How can you assert what parents are here to do
without some kind of appeal to a creator who has been clear on the issue? To
the best of my knowledge, no such treatise from the heavens exists. So we get
to decide what we're here to do. _I_ am here to help my child learn how to
attain _his_ goals. Not to overlay my goals on his life, deciding for him what
he ought to do at any given time. I simply can't know what is best for
another.
> Example: As a parent, I will decide what chores my kid may have and at what
> age they should start.
I understand. That is a very common stance. But how do you know when such
chore-participation will no longer hurt them? A. S. Neill repeatedly wrote
that "childhood is playhood." The idea (from observing hundreds of kids as an
educator, and corroborated by others) is that if you let the kids get all the
play they want, then they never grow to resent work. Their play gradually
morphs into what we adults call work, and they end up happy with it. I know
that you specifically claim to enjoy your work, and not understand how anyone
could not, but many of us do what we do because it is the least bad choice, not
because it is the best choice. Research (pointed to me by reading Alfie Kohn)
shows that the adults who keep house most easily and naturally, are the kids
who were never given chores. The typical story for them is that around age ten
they started lending a hand when it didn't get in the way of their play, or
when they wanted to free up a parent's time, and they participated in more and
more complex around-the-house work as they grew up. Never forced.
So do you force (or pseudo-force) your kids to do chores because you need the
help around the house, or because you think that you're doing them a service by
indoctrinating them in the family community and providing discipline?
> BTW, my style is to give kids choices.
Mine too. ;-)
> More than
> likely I'd offer a few chores to choose from so that my kid gets a sense of
> empowerment. Nevertheless, I am telling my kid what to do but helping them
> have part in the decision making.
My son (turns seven in a couple weeks) only does house work when it is
important to him. He has the same responsibility to the house that I have. If
something bothers me, I fix it. No one tells me. Sometimes my wife asks me to
do something (like clean up cat vomit, especially), and sometimes I ask my son
to do something. In both cases, I think we feel a certain social obligation to
lend a hand for our loved one, but we don't _have_ to in order to avoid being
hassled in other ways. Why should my son have a task master when I do not?
OTOH, there are certain responsibilities inherent with certain activities.
Each and every time he gets some of my LEGO out (usually minifigs), he knows
that putting it away is an absolute requirement when he is done. He has the
right to set rules on how others handle his property as well.
> Now, to continue that example, if my child's household chore is to take out
> the garbage and he didn't, then as his father I'm going to see why not. If
> there's really no good reason other than laziness, then I'll give him more
> choices-- do your chores or no TV and no friends over (or some other
> priviledge). Still, I am telling him what to do and I have the moral
> authority to do it. The ideas and lessons here are (random order):
From where does this moral authority arise? For that matter, what exactly is
moral authority? If you mean that you can get away with it because you're
bigger, then I'd agree...but I bet you don't mean that. If you mean that you
can get away with it because our legal system holds children as chattle, then
I'd agree...but I bet you also don't mean that.
> - Dad is the boss and there are rules to follow (even for me)
Your dad is your boss? If not, what is this "even for me" bit? You don't
actually have some large dictator in your life do you? I have rules that I
must live with (by following or risking penalty) but they are mostly the same
rules that my kids have. Most kids have big dictators who do not have up-line
dictators of their own.
> - Work and responsibility is a part of living, whether you feel up to it or
not
Responsibility is an immutable aspect of action. There is nothing that you or
I as parents can do to affect that. When person X does action Y, they take
responsibility for it because the universe dictates that they do. There is no
reason for some authority figure to layer on some artificial responsibility or
consequence. And work is kind of a fuzzy term. I mean, I guess that everyone
has to do some base stuff in order to stay alive. If you're in the pool, you
have to 'work' to keep afloat. At the dinner table, you have 'work' to life
the fork. And if you want to buy groceries, you have to generate wealth, often
by going to 'work' so that you have the money to spend. But what makes you
think that your kids won't catch on to such an obvious truism without your
intervention?
> - All members of the family should have a role in household decisions
Well, I certainly agree with that. But I think it should be an equal role, and
further that the power of the house-meeting should be limited in what can be
affected. Slavery should always be beyond the power of the majority.
> - Authority comes with experience and should reflect knowledge and morality
So everyone on earth who is older than you gets to assign you chores? Not for
me, thanks. And what does it mean to say that "authority...should reflect
knowledge and morality?"
> Parents, that is to say parents who take an active role in their child's
> life, are responsible for contributing to their child's moral and
> intellectual development. The parent should be the child's moral compass
> until they get their own.
My child often asks about what I think is right and wrong. But I know that I
can't dictate what those term mean to him. Even as a child he has to figure
that out. The _most_ that I could possibly do by trying to enforce my opinion
of morality (and it is just an opinion) on him is to cause him to tune out and
stop asking what I think. More likely, he would actively rebel against what I
believe.
> > And kids do have a right to some of the family discretionary income.
>
> Right or priviledge?
Right. That is, they inherently deserve a fair say in what the family does
with discretionary income. My son understands all of our bills and what the
consequences would be of our chosing not to pay them. (He might not have
long-term credit-rating damage internallized, but during a conversation he
seems to get it, and anyway he understands that reneging on a committment
doesn't achive our goals.) So after all our bills are paid, we each get an
allowance. And after that, we discuss why we're saving. Vacation, retirement,
big purchases, etc. And saving up to build a treehouse is equally valid with
saving up to extend the deck so we can move our hot tub around to the back of
the house.
> > It is impossible to 'spoil' them by purchasing toys.
>
> Really? What makes you think that it's impossible? Perhaps as a kid, maybe
> you feel more loved when you get stuff? Is that what you mean?
No, I think kids are smarter than that. They don't equate stuff with love.
They know that it's just stuff. I agree that anyone (not just kids) who has a
lot of stuff tends to devalue it. But that's the right response to having
lots, not a wrong one. If you _do_ have lots of toys, then each one _really
is_ less individually valuable. There's nothing wrong with that. If you can
afford to spend $100 per week on toys then why would you want your kid to
'value' them as if they only got $100 worth per year? If I get my son
something and he fails to thank me, I tend to be miffed. But really, what it
means is that it just wasn't that important to him. And what's wrong with
that? It just means that next time I won't get him something trivial. That is
a natural state.
> I think when a kid gets loads of stuff, they really don't appreciate it as
> much. And maybe they are not aware of the work it took to earn the money to
> buy the stuff.
But if you make lots of money (I think of >$60 per hour as lots...at least
where I live) then the work it took you to afford that $60 box of blocks, or
Nintendo cart, or whatever isn't that much...so why should he value it as high?
> So, yeah, I think the word "spoil" would apply because the
> kid is getting all this stuff and it becomes sort of "expected" rather than
> celebrated. I've also noticed the thrill of the new thing wears off sooner
> when the kid expects newer stuff to soon replace the old.
Except for the use of "spoiled" and the associated assumption that something
is wrong with this phenomenon, I agree with this.
> As I got older, I appreciated material things more when I understood the
> story behind how I got the gift.
Right! And our kis will too. It is inappropriate for us to expect adult
behavior from kids. And demanding it puts off the time when they will
naturally accept the mantle of adult responsibility.
> One of my favorite toys (which I still
> have) was my Scout Walker from "Return of the Jedi." It was a Christmas gift
> from my childhood friend. When we were 12 years old, he had a paper route
> and I'd help him out sometimes so that was his thank you gift. Considering
> it took him 3 days of work to earn the money to buy me that, it was really a
> great gift.
That's awsome. And those things weren't cheap, so he must have had a heck of a
paper route.
> Right. I think "deserving" is relative to the resources available.
Absolutely. Whatever the resources available are, though, they deserve a fair
share. When I was little, my folks were broke. We could afford meat once a
week. We got three-foot Xmas trees. And my parents were very occasionally
hungry, but I never was. Then my dad finished he PhD and my mom her BA and
they both got jobs. Holy Cow, we had a lot of money! And while my folks
didn't practice the parenting techniques that I advocate (I think they were
pretty much in line with your own, actually) I did get a fair share of our
material wealth throughout. Skimpy Christmases when I was young and
extravagant when I was older.
In that article that this all started from, there were obvious cases in which
the kids were being given too much -- not the fancy car from the rich
family...that's just appropriate. But the hot-dog vendor who lived solely to
supply his kids with more crap. That's a dis-service to the kids as well as to
himself.
> Love is
> always deserved, though. I do think the idea of deserving something can be
> twisted into a negative attitude. I don't think it is wise to allow a child
> to think they "deserve" this and that (materialistically speaking) if that
> sense of deservance is baseless expectation.
Baseless expectation would be expectation with no reason. I'm not sure how
that's possible. Why shouldn't kids know that they have a right to participate
in how the family spends money?
> That is, getting stuff is a
> regular thing and something owed rather than earned. The "I deserve it"
> attitude is for the Gen-X'ers and often not quite realistic.
Hey, I think I'm a Gen-Xer. (I'm 31...doesn't that make me one of them?)
Getting stuff you deserve, is deserved. I'm not sure what you mean.
> I think it's
> healthier to feel that you get certain "exotic" stuff (like toys, games or
> money) because you did something positive (helped around the house, ate all
> your veggies, cleaned your room).
Actually the research suggests that this is a bad idea. Such a policy kills
the intrinsic satisfaction at having done those things. If you reward your kid
for eating their veggies, then you're stuck doing it for ever. And they're
likely to not like vegetables after they're on their own. So then they have a
bad life-long diet all because you didn't trust them as kids to pick their own
foods.
> But I do believe in limits to
> behavior and a child will discover the limit one way or another. If a parent
> doesn't set limits, I don't think the kid will.
The universe sets all the limits that are needed. When my son was little
(maybe 2?) we were in a grocery store and I foolishly didn't put him in the
cart because I only needed a couple things and just grabbed a hand basket. He
decided that he wanted a tub of ice cream for which we didn't have room in the
freezer. I explained why not and he had a fit. He was attempting to extort
behavior out of my with the threat of public humiliation. I, of course,
bristled at someone trying to force me to do anything, so I just leaned against
the opposite freezers and waited. He wailed for a while as people walked past
glaring at me. He's a stobborn little cuss (I don't know where he get's it :-)
so he didn't give up. Eventually a member of the store management explained
that someone complained about us he kind of asked me to leave. So I handed the
guy my basket, told Garrett that we were being kicked out of the store because
of his yowling, and started off. My son followed in shock. We didn't get to
have any of the groceries that we were there to buy and had to go home empty
handed. I didn't enforce public behavior expectations on him...the universe
did. And it was a far better lesson that I could have possibly provided by
either making him act right or by caving in. I do feel bad for the patrons
that he bothered (and believe me, I did consider just scooping him up and
leaving several times) but he never did it again. Not once. Most kids whine
and wheedle on and off in the store for their entire young life, but we got it
out of the way in one fell swoop. I like to think that the overall impact on
others was less than it could have otherwise been.
> If a parent doesn't have a
> sense of fairness, I don't their kid will either.
I think that many (most?) parents have a broken sense of fairness. And their
kids know it. They know that what the parent thinks is fair for the kid, they
wouldn't tolerate themselves.
> Some parents tune out their kids and then wonder why they're acting up or
> failing in school. I say it all comes back to home life and how involved the
> parents are with their kid's life.
I largely agree with this. But I think there are steps greater than being
highly involved in their life as their dictator. You can be highly involved in
their life as their friend, and the rewards are even greater.
Chris
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Excellent article
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| (...) Do you have any references to good books that describe your ideas about child-rearing? Especially how to handle a transition from an authoritarian regime to one such as you describe? Thanks, /Eric McC/ (23 years ago, 14-Aug-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Excellent article
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| (...) Of course children deserve love and fair treatment, but it doesn't make sense to me to say we (adults) shouldn't tell kids what to do. Perhaps you're being too general with that statement. Parents ARE here to tell kids (and show them) what to (...) (23 years ago, 12-Aug-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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