Subject:
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Re: Corporal punishment (was rah rah, canada!
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 4 Feb 2004 20:14:40 GMT
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Viewed:
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488 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Koudys wrote:
> To continue the discussion with maybe a specific example, however,
> lets consider the tantrum throwing child.
Honestly considering tantrums is a somewhat humbling experience for parents.
You can pretty explicitly track the cause of the tantrum to failure to act on
the part of the parents. I've been there and done that. It's been my fault.
It might be again -- we all make mistakes.
Actually, asking the child to stop a tantrum is silly. A tantrum is the direct
result of a child's incomplete ability to deal with stress in a mature way. A
tantrum is kind of like an anxiety attack in an adult -- regarding the
psychology of how to deal with the victim, not the medical response that's
appropriate. You wouldn't ask someone to stop having their panic attack, and
hopefully you wouldn't blame them. You would look to see if there was anything
you could do to relieve the stress that lead to the situation.
Think about the tantrums that you've seen. Are the kids having fun?
I respond to the rare tantrum with as much giving as possible. If my child
wants my time, I try to give it. If my child needs my help, I try to be there.
If my child wants a cookie, and there's no overriding nutritional reason not to,
I try to get them a cookie. The child is telling you what's important to them.
They already tried to tell you in the positive ways that you've been reinforcing
all along, but you ignored them and they don't know what to do. So they go
bat-nuts (I've been away too long, I almost used the 'S word' there) and all you
can interpret it as is "Dad...that cookie is really much more important to me
than you understand and I don't know how to tell you that."
The thing is, lots of people, and it sounds like you're one of them, assume the
worst of their kids. They are deathly afraid of being taken advantage of or
used. They recoil at the idea of giving the tantruming child the cookie just on
the principal of the power relationship that I wrote about before: "if I give
little Billy the cookie now, I'll be giving up my power over him. I can only
give him the cookie when it's my idea. All things must come from me." But I
ask this, why doesn't Billy deserve the cookie? I mean, why isn't it his right?
_I_ don't have to ask permission of anyone. Why does he?
You point out that the kid will learn that tantrumming gets them their way
(carried out of the undesirable venue). My answer is maybe you should be
teaching them that simply asking gets them their way. If your child is having a
tantrum in an antique store because you've been shopping for three hours, then
maybe you've set your expectations too high. Hell, I can barely stand to be
doing nothing interesting for that long! And why should they not have a right
to dictate how their time is spent?
The classic answer to this is to point out that otherwise, because you're
responsible for them, they get to dictate what you do with your time. Yup,
that's right. They do. That's only fair. Compare how much say they had about
whether you'd bring them into the world or not with how much say you had. That
same ratio represents the amount of giving that's owed. The parents owe the
children. Whatever respect or time or joy the children give the parents must be
earned. Demanding it is unfair.
You justify mild violence (and I'll keep calling it that because it would be
untrue to myself to not) by noting that it "cuts to the chase" when negotiation
fails. So what about when your girlfriend is being difficult? Do you turn to a
rod no thicker than your thumb? What about at work when your boss is being
unreasonable? Further, I think you're attempting to justify violence when you
write "we all learn at some time that things don't always go our way" but I'd
point out, maybe you (anyone, not DaveK specifically) haven't learned this yet
if you think it's OK to beat a child into submission to "your way."
You also express the classic fear that without a system of imposed punitive
measures, children won't learn that "actions have consequences." Actually, one
of my main gripes with discipline is that it shields the lesson on consequnces
that the universe delivers. Parents don't need to teach it. You can't really
grow up and _not_ know that actions have consequences. When you run too fast,
you trip and skin your knees. What teaches that better: haranguing parents, or
tripping? If you imagine a child so docile that they actually obeyed the
parent's admonition about running, they would only then grow up not knowing the
consequence to an action...that's when we get somewhere bad.
> As a tangent, if you were spanked as a kid, who did the spankin'--mom or dad.
My father had the assignment of delivering the spanking that was a parenting
decision. My mom was usually the one to deliver spur of the moment slaps to my
face for smarting off.
Chris
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Corporal punishment (was rah rah, canada!
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| (...) With respect, it is seldom the case that "simply asking" will result in getting one's way. Why don't you ask your boss to double your salary and increase your benefits? Will you get your way? I grant you, throwing a tantrum probably won't (...) (21 years ago, 4-Feb-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Corporal punishment (was rah rah, canada!
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| In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher L. Weeks wrote: <snip lots of weel thgouht out and implemented stuff> (...) Wow Chris, that's a whole different slant that I hadn't considered. Nicely done. To continue the discussion with maybe a specific (...) (21 years ago, 4-Feb-04, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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