Putting Time Out In Time Out: The Science of Discipline 323
An anonymous reader points out this story at The Atlantic about new research and approaches in the science of discipline. "At the end of a gravel road in the Chippewa National Forest of northern Minnesota, a group of camp counselors have gathered to hear psychotherapist Tina Bryson speak about neuroscience, mentorship, and camping. She is in Minnesota by invitation of the camp. Chippewa is at the front of a movement to bring brain science to bear on the camping industry; she keynoted this past year's American Camping Association annual conference. As Bryson speaks to the counselors gathered for training, she emphasizes one core message: At the heart of effective discipline is curiosity—curiosity on the part of the counselors to genuinely understand and respect what the campers are experiencing while away from home....She is part of a progressive new group of scientists, doctors, and psychologists whose goal is ambitious, if not outright audacious: They want to redefine "discipline" in order to change our culture. They want to rewrite—or perhaps more precisely said, rewire—how we interact with kids, and they want us to understand that our decisions about parenting affect not only our children's minds, but ours as well. So, we're going to need to toss out our old discipline mainstays. Say goodbye to timeouts. So long spanking and other ritualized whacks. And cry-it-out sleep routines? Mercifully, they too can be a thing of the past. And yet, we can still help our children mature and grow. In fact, people like Bryson think we'll do it better. If we are going to take seriously what science tells us about how we form relationships and how our mind develops, we will need to construct new strategies for parenting, and when we do, says this new group of researchers, we just may change the world."
I don't even... (Score:3, Funny)
TFA was TL;DR, and TFS doesn't explain anything. Apparently I'm not disciplined enough to even understand what the hell this is about.
Re:I don't even... (Score:4, Funny)
TFA was TL;DR, and TFS doesn't explain anything.
Indeed. I have seem more concise and informative submissions written by Bennett Haselton.
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While this is true, the article by the Atlantic does appear to have some more interesting substance. Sorry that the submission doesn't grab you. Those who are interested in Neuroscience, such as myself, find the article at least a bit more entertaining.
Perhaps if we consider how we are approaching the mind in how it receives information and writes to long term memory, we can educate in a way that is more effective. While some people assume that this can be used as a big brother tool to train people to be
Re:I don't even... (Score:5, Insightful)
I felt the exact same way. "Oh, okay, so no spanking, no time outs. What should I do?" And finally at the end of the article they say something about teachable moments.
Ummmm...so what do I do when my 2 year old hits the cat? Most of the time he's loving and playful with the cat. But then sometimes for no reason he throws a toy truck at the poor cat. So I yell at him "NO!" and send him for a time out. Then I explain what he did was wrong, and make him apologize to the cat, and then explain that we only love and pet our kitty.
What the fuck is wrong with that? What else am I supposed to do? Let him go right on doing it and wait for some teachable moment about not hitting the cat? TFA says "what you're doing is wrong" with little explanation why and then fails to tell you what to do instead except some hippy crap about talking to your kids.
Re:I don't even... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd be curious to read what exactly these people recommend in place of timeouts. I mean, I'm always up for learning new parenting techniques, but I just don't see how a "teachable moment" tactic will work in the real world. Certainly with younger children.
As you well know, when a parent corrects a young child's behavior, the typical response is to either engage in a debate or to throw a tantrum. In neither case is the child internalizing the lesson behind the "teachable moment". A timeout effectively avoids both of those responses because once the child is placed into a timeout, there is no one to argue with, and there is no one to watch the tantrum.
So that would be my question: how does this new technique compensate for the real-world problem of toddlers acting like toddlers?
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The authors don't care, because they won't be present when your toddler misbehaves.
Re:I don't even... (Score:5, Funny)
The appropriate thing to do, obviously, is to hit the child with the cat.
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Conditioning has a lot of scientific basis. A psychotherapist talking about translating neuroscience to raising kids sounds suspicious.
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I still remember when I was young and for some reason I got it in my head it would be a good idea to pull the dog's tail when it was eating. Why the fuck I thought this was a good idea is beyond me at this point. The dog turned barked loudly and snapped at me and I went and ran to my dad and complained that the dog tried to
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Does your cat have its claws? If so, the cat will provide his own damned teachable moment when it's good and ready, and when your kid doesn't expect it.
Though, in fairness to your two year old, I can see fifty coming up ... and I think throwing toy trucks at cats is an entirely reasonable thing.
Cats are evil, pointless animals to have as pets. :-P
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I wish he would, but the cat just takes it. If the cat would just bite back at him he'd learn real quick.
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Cats are evil, pointless animals to have as pets. :-P
Oh Hell no: cats are evil pointy animals to have as pets.
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The same thing my generation did: ignore the self-styled "experts" who tell you you're doing it all wrong, and trust your own best judgment instead.
The world is chock full of wonderful theories about child-rearing and education that might provide better outcomes if we all had infinite time, infinite patience, and infinite resources to try them out. But we don't, so we do the best we can with what we have. That is particularly true when you are a parent of a young child.
This
Re:I don't even... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not a parent, but I have observed Japanese parents with young children and they tend to recognize that 2 year olds are not really responsible for many of their actions. Maybe he lost his grip on the toy, maybe he didn't understand that the car can't catch it or doesn't like having things thrown at it. They tend not to shout anyway, and I've noticed that Japanese children tend to be a lot quieter and calmer which may be related.
Instead they will calmly explain that the cat doesn't like that. Play stops, the child is faced with their parent and even if they don't understand exactly what is being said they understand the tone of voice and facial expressions. They might try to explain that only dogs like to catch things, making it a teachable moment.
So, kinda like what you do but without the need for shouting and time-out. I see the logic - punishing a 2 year old for not understanding seems somewhat unreasonable, since being a 2 year old you can't really expect them to have understood. For repeated behaviour it goes to loss of privileges, like taking the toy away.
It seems to work pretty well. Japanese kids seem quite mature, and some of the toys they get are kinda surprising for a westerner... Fairly sharp woodworking tools, for example. I dunno, I'm not an expert, but I think I'd like to at least understand what they are saying before making a judgement and unfortunately TFA doesn't really explain it, as you pointed out.
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Film it & post it on youtube?
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The author distinguishes between the need to act hastily to stop a behavior (to protect the cat, in your example, or the child from himself, in the article's example), and what we do as a follow up (time-in spent talking and engaging instead of time-out spent isolating).
As we've known for a long time, positive reinforcement causes people (and animals) to repeat behaviors that resulted in being rewarded. Negative reinforcement, on the other hand, can sometimes stop unwanted behavior, but it can just as easi
Re:I don't even... (Score:4, Insightful)
Have you ever had a 2 year old?!
Actually I agree with you, and thus far our 2 year old has responded reasonably to rational discussion (kept at his level). Like most things in parenting, persistence is key. A 2 year old doesn't "get it" the first time, but being consistent with disrupting and correcting the errant behavior has always borne fruit after the 20th or 30th time (or we have become numb to it perhaps?).
We have a really mellow kid, so we have not had the need for spanking or time-outs as such. Often we are simply dealing with a tired or hungry-cranky kid and need to deal with that issue rather than the specific outburst as a behavior issue.
The basic bit of wisdom I got before I had kids was that all kids are different. It is dangerous to project your own experience onto other parents, not matter how clearly it appears you or they are doing it wrong.
Re: I don't even... (Score:5, Interesting)
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All children need discipline, and the subjects of TFA don't disagree. You are confusing discipline and punishment, and it doesn't seem like the subjects of TFA are saying punishment must be avoided at all times. They doo seem to be
Re:I don't even... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think what they really want are children who are so unruly that their parents can't control them, and they can't function in society. They make for perfect lemmings fully dependent on the government.
If you honestly think it's a government conspiracy then you are at least a little bit "broken, psychotic, or socially maladjusted".
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Alfie Kohn, in Unconditional Parenting [amazon.com], argues that focusing on behaviors is insufficient. You can teach a child that if he gets caught doing X, he'll get a spanking, consistently -- and he may avoid getting caught, yes, but this doesn't address the underlying intentions. Kohn isn't opposed to natural consequences (touch fire, get burned) but kids catch on when you punish coming-home-late with taking away desserts, or whatever. Yes, it's a consequence, but only by your decree, which breeds resentment. He de
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Unconditional Parenting would ask this: is your goal to get the child in the carseat at all costs (and not be delayed yourself), or to understand why your child is screaming, hitting, and/or running away? Which is more important to you, and why?
This is what I mean by "convenience" -- when we focus on getting what we want (child in carseat, no delay) and we debate what "works" (talking or spanking). And then we're surprised when kids try to manipulate us, trying out various tactics to see what "works" to get
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The first thing you do is ask yourself "where do I usually take the kid in the car?". Because the kid obviously doesn't like that place.
Then you figure out why the kid doesn't like that place, and deal with THAT issue. Once you've worked that, you can go back to carseat issues.
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One of the other responders to my post had a good idea I'm going to try. I'm going to try emotionally manipulating him to feel guilt for hitting the cat, which is what I really want. And associating the cat's bad feeling with his own guilty feeling. Empathy, to make him not want to hit the cat, rather than simply learning there's a rule to not hit cats because I say so. So if he hits the cat, I'm going to check out the cat, comfort the cat, ask my son why he would do such a thing, "would Curious George ever
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The cat definitely does not get more attention than my son. But, my son might want more attention than he feels he's getting.
I tried it tonight, and I think it like the result. My son walloped the cat, and I immediately went to the cat, making sure it was okay. I gave my son a sad and hurt look. I asked him why he would that, and if any of the people he liked would do that. He seemed confused and a little abashed and apologized to the cat without being promoted. If he was looking for attention, it backfired
Re:I don't even... (Score:4, Insightful)
Hell, TFS was TL;DR.
TFA in a nutshell:
"We're going to discover all these neat behavioral things via neurobiology, and change the world!"
It doesn't say they've actually discovered any of these things yet. Just that they plan to.
It reads very much like this. [youtu.be]
Re:I don't even... (Score:4, Funny)
Bah ... (Score:5, Interesting)
What is the point of putting kids in the middle of the forest if you can't beat them without anybody hearing? It was good enough for us, it ought to be good enough for these spoiled little kids.
Camp is there to weed out and identify the weak minded.
If you want to be coddled and understood, go to frickin' band camp. ;-)
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Doh, sorry, I've only just skimmed "Malfeasance for Dummies" and haven't yet finalized my plans, I'll make a note of that.
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Carrying an instrument around for 10 hours a day, marching according to strict order, developing a skill that requires technique, creativity, and discipline? I don't remember being coddled or understood at band camp, whereas every other summer camp I know of (or attended) is mostly about singing kumbaya around campfires and getting entertained.
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Re:Precious Snowflake (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Precious Snowflake (Score:5, Interesting)
The whole point of punishment/discipline is not retribution for stepping out of line, but a means of teaching children where the line is and not to cross it. If there is a more effective way of teaching those things that doesn't involve punishment, why not try it?
Maybe my children just have a different personality, but I never hit them and have rarely yelled at them. We don't have a concept of "time out" at our house. Yet people frequently remark about how well-behaved my kids are, probably because I use other techniques like empathy ("how would you feel if somebody did that to you?") and consequences ("if you don't put your PJs away, you won't be able to wear them to bed tonight").
Of course camping is more about independence and responsibility than behavior, but I think the same methods could apply.
dom
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Anecdotes aren't evidence, but they are data: my parents were pretty hard on me. I think they'd freely admit that they were too harsh at times. However, I never received any form of physical discipline after the age of 8, and no verbal discipline after the age of 13. By these ages I was pretty firmly set in my behavior with regards to honesty, politeness, respect, and obedience to authority. Today my friends joke that I'm "lawful-stupid" because I won't break minor rules for convenience. Overall, I am thank
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While I think you have a point, one has to wonder how much should we pile onto those not "happy fun shunshine" days. To me it seems there is no shortage of crappy shit fuckdays when we turn 18 and have to live our own lives. Unless your uber-pampered kid with a unlimited inheritance or some sort.
It is completely fair, to ask the question, what in neurobiology can teach us about dicipline. We think there are the mirror neurons that may help us explain it. Flogging your kids might well create violent adults.
Re:Precious Snowflake (Score:4, Interesting)
You're really making a supporting argument here. Punishment like time outs and spankings, etc. are exactly the types of things that lead to the kids you observe in your college job. Kids that are afraid to fail. That need their parent's approval/blessing for everything.
Challenging your kid to work through their issues, to think critically, to resolve their frustrations, to redirect their energy, to do all the kinds of things the article is getting at...are exactly the things needed to produce the kinds of students you would like to see.
Don't know why so many people on slashdot are misunderstanding the gist of this article as sheltering or babying kids and instead are in favor of making kids suffer for the sake of suffering. Perhaps these are people who suffered so much as kids themselves and are defending this as a way to justify their own upbringing?
Re:Precious Snowflake (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think the reason large portions of the world don't "like us" is because "everyone's a winner". It probably has more to do with torturing people, blowing up innocent women and children via drones, 100+ years of interference in other governments (including supporting drug smugglers, funding violent overthrow of democratically elected leaders, funding oppressive regimes, funding death squads), domestic police murdering people, and generally being a dick that sees no wrong with itself.
Now, stop whining or I'll give you something to cry about!
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It probably has more to do with torturing people, blowing up innocent women and children via drones, 100+ years of interference in other governments (including supporting drug smugglers, funding violent overthrow of democratically elected leaders, funding oppressive regimes, funding death squads), domestic police murdering people, and generally being a dick that sees no wrong with itself.
How many people do you know that actually do that? Small number right? How many people do you know that just go along with that and don't question anything? Large number right? That last group is the "everyone's a winner" crowd.
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Once again, you are assuming that the rest of the world is like America. Actually most people have a reasonable idea of what the US has been up to, since they have probably been affected by it in some way. In any case, it's hard not to have noticed it on the news lately. Most of the world has far more international news than the US networks do.
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And thus the decline of western civilization...
If it's to fall, it'll be due to people who were raised on the idea that physical violence against innocents is a virtue and who thus support societal institutions that use it as their primary means of motivation against adult subjects, contrary to the human drives towards freedom and creativity.
Way to ascribe the cause to the cure.
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I think Western Civilization would be a good idea.
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If it's to fall, it'll be due to people who were raised on the idea that physical violence against innocents is a virtue
You have this backwards. Western civilization dominated the world back when we used plenty of physical violence to keep the "innocents" in line. We exterminated, enslaved, or subjugated entire races of people when they got in our way. The decline came when we started being compassionate and humane. If Gandhi had lived a few decades earlier, the British would have simply shot him at the first sign of trouble, and that would have been the end of that.
Re:Precious Snowflake (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay. A simple spanking is not "physical violence".
A spanking is a proxy for the pain certain dangerous activities could inflict.
We are NOT talking about beating a kid black and blue. We're talking a simple swat or two on the landing gear.
A friend of my parents subscribed to the whole "no spanking" line.
Her son kept coming into the kitchen while she was cooking and trying to get into the oven.
She used a gate. He'd get over it.
She'd physically move him elsewhere in the house, he'd come back.
She'd yell at him. He'd cry, then come right back.
Finally, he wound up searing his hands on an open oven door. Stuff that required painful reconstructive surgery later in life.
So I ask you. What would have been worse for him? A couple swats on the ass? Or what happened to him?
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Kids can be perfectly fine with spanking. However, spanking has its problems. Take a willful two-year old throwing a tantrum (screaming, hitting, yelling) and a parent that has already committed to causing physical pain as a discipline technique, lock them in an enclosed room together, and who knows what could happen?
Spanking can work, but it is inherently hypocritical (I can hit you, but you can't hit me) and has some really nasty failure modes. You don't have to cause physical pain to children to get them
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There is nothing hypocritical about ordered social hierarchies. I can't fire my boss, but my boss can fire me. It's a natural part of society.
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Regardless, I think that parental modeling is a hugely significant tool for developing behaviors in children. Doing something that I don't want my kids to do seems problematic to me. If I can avoid it, I will.
The thing you haven't addressed, though, is that spanking is inherently confrontational and leads easily to escalation of emotions. I don't trust myself to consistently be an objective arbiter of justice, and establishing that hitting my child is a line I will never cross means that I won't ever worry
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The barbarians will win. Just like Rome, etc. The Huns will come, Hannibal will cross the alps, etc.
Whoa! The Huns were barbarians, but the Carthaginians certainly were not. By almost any measure, Carthage was more civilized than Rome. The wrong side won the Punic Wars.
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Re:Precious Snowflake (Score:5, Insightful)
You guys fail to see the point here. Perhaps you're not parents. Perhaps your bad parents of the type described in the summary.
The point is that there are ways of engaging kids to address the core reasons for their acting out and/or to redirect their energy into something positive. Really has nothing to do with spoiling or coddling or calling everyone a winner. It's the same behavior that any good manager at work should exhibit, rather than just declaring that there will be punishments for all until moral improves.
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Really has nothing to do with kids running wild. Perhaps you're not a parent?
Think about it from a business perspective. How do you get the most out of your employees? What makes a good manager? Punishments will only get you so far and will generate lots of problems with retention and performance in the long run. Positive reinforcement, recognition, freedom of choice and exploration, etc., well set expectations, well set milestones, etc will lead to real success long term.
Re:Precious Snowflake (Score:4, Insightful)
From what I can fathom TFA is about using what we know of psychology, instead of just trying to beat the desired behaviour into our kids. I thought geeks were supposed to be all about science driven solutions and hacking to get the desired result.
The thing about winners is that there is only one. The guy who came second might only be 0.01 seconds slower, but he's still a loser. Sometimes the world works like that, and it's bad because we waste a lot of talent. Sometimes it doesn't work like that and we are all better off for it, since clearly 99.9% of us are not the best but rather somewhere on the bell curve and with something valuable to contribute.
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It is, which is exactly why I took a saw from the tool shed cut my kids skull open and rewired the neurons then hard soldered the connections.
Re:Precious Snowflake (Score:4, Insightful)
You are full of shit. Sure, there's some pretty poor stuff out there, and MRI, etc can be (and are) used sometimes to generate exactly the result the researcher is looking for, but any science in its infancy has plenty of crud in the mix.
Really, psychology is just a hell of a lot harder than any of the more basic sciences. Biology used to be in the same boat - it pretty much started and ended with categorizing species (and a bit of anatomy as well). It wasn't until things like evolution and powerful microscopy came about, providing theoretical frameworks for understanding and the ability to understand things at a more fundamental level, that the real power of the science became apparent.
My background is in physics, btw. Being familiar with the incredibly nuanced experiments that were developed for many of our big breakthroughs in physics helps you realize how many orders of magnitude of complexity are added for understanding something like a human mind.
Easy kid vs. Succesful adult (Score:5, Interesting)
Many people want/prefer a less assertive/aggressive child. They do what they are told, instead of trying to invent/create new things to do on their own.
That makes for a less assertive/aggressive adult. They do what they are told, instead of inventing/creating.
Another clear example is the 'polite rage'. Studies have shown that the more polite a society, the more seething rage develops inside it. Where a traditional brash American northerner gets angry, but never fights for honor, a traditionally polite American southerner stays polite until you go to far and then goes for blood.
Re:Easy kid vs. Succesful adult (Score:4, Funny)
And then the Canadian has to apologize in a passive-aggressive way even if it wasn't his fault.
Re:Easy kid vs. Succesful adult (Score:4, Funny)
Bless your heart.
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Can you cite the studies you mention? This sounds like an interesting read.
Here is a place to start: Culture of Honor [wikipedia.org]
Societies that place great importance on personal honor tend to be stratified and violent.
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Studies have shown...
Studies have shown that when people say that, the vast majority of the time they are saying some bullshit thing they made up and then appealing to a false authority to lend it credibility.
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I will however state that in my opinion your sense of humor needs a lot of work. It is clear you were trying to be funny but failed.
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Another clear example is the 'polite rage'. Studies have shown that the more polite a society, the more seething rage develops inside it. Where a traditional brash American northerner gets angry, but never fights for honor, a traditionally polite American southerner stays polite until you go to far and then goes for blood.
Completely explains the internet.
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Studies have shown that the more polite a society, the more seething rage develops inside it.
Actually, studies have shown that those who truly control their temper are less likely to get angry and less likely to suffer the negative consequences of anger (And this was not the ones that are inflicted by others, but the negative changes which happen to the body as a result of anger).
April ... (Score:2)
What a bunch of crap.
a progressive new group (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh look, here come the same "social engineers" that brought us soaring male suicide rates and burgeoning single motherhood with it's associated social outcomes, except this time they want to get their clammy hands on the children. They even use the same postmodernistic deconstructivist language as every likeminded gang of merry marxists.
Stop trying to redefine things through ideological lenses you muppets, science doesn't work that way even if you do manage to convince the gullible that it does for a while.
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No their not. There is an extremely loose reference to Mirror Neurons, and that's all the science you are going to get. The rest is anecdote and persuasive reasoning. Frankly it's crap. But why are we surprised? Anything like the development of the most complex structure we know of in the universe (the human brain), is not going to be an easy (do X + Y == Best Outcome For All Developing Brains). People have their ideas and then move on to pushing an idealogical agenda with all confidence. Maybe their right,
Cry it out (Score:3, Interesting)
I have five young kids. There's no way to survive this as a parent if you don't let your kids cry themselves to sleep at times. There simply aren't enough parents and time to go around otherwise.
Every child is different, but my five only cried for a long period for about 2 weeks or less. Then it generally reduced to about 30-90 seconds. Over the course of their first year of life, they learn to sleep, in stages. There are regressions associated with certain development stages, but so be it.
My family size was average until the last 2-3 generations. Is is abundantly apparent that the reduction in family size provides the luxury of a lot more choices in parenting. That's a positive thing. But because there is so much variety to the human condition, it is illogical to suggest that 'crying it out' is new or terribly sub-optimal.
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I have five young kids. There's no way to survive this as a parent if you don't let your kids cry themselves to sleep at times. There simply aren't enough parents and time to go around otherwise. Every child is different, but my five only cried for a long period for about 2 weeks or less. Then it generally reduced to about 30-90 seconds. Over the course of their first year of life, they learn to sleep, in stages. There are regressions associated with certain development stages, but so be it. My family size was average until the last 2-3 generations. Is is abundantly apparent that the reduction in family size provides the luxury of a lot more choices in parenting. That's a positive thing. But because there is so much variety to the human condition, it is illogical to suggest that 'crying it out' is new or terribly sub-optimal.
I have seven children. We almost never had to let a child cry themselves to sleep, but I do suspect that may have to do with our kids' individual wiring and that crying to sleep might be the best solution in other situations. Most of our infant sleep problems were resolved when we realized our kids were much hungrier than experts predicted and started feeding them a lot more! Giving the baby another bottle turned out to be the number one way to get our babies to fall asleep with less fuss. When they get
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I am only on my second kid, but we've never had to do "cry-it-out", unless you count car trips. The Baby Whisperer books are pretty good - the basic idea is have a consistent schedule and cues that help the kid go to sleep (think Pavlovian conditioning + circadian rhythms) and it seems to work well. We have had lots of people comment on how well and quickly our kids go to sleep.
This sounds screwy! (Score:3)
How about "no"? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's nice, Tina, dear. You play your little make-believe games with all the other ivory-tower bleeding hearts, while the adults get real work done.
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Obviously, the people writing this weren't beaten enough, or hard enough, as children.
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Come on, man; don't talk about the article submitter like that. This is why he submitted AC.
Brainwashing (Score:2)
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Look to advertising to be on the cutting edge of what you're describing. They are the best financed and have the most to gain from such deep manipulative techniques.
Destructive do-gooders to hurt children (Score:2)
These people will inevitably hurt the people they interact with. You can spot destructive people by what they say. The claim they'll "redefine discipline" and "change our culture".
Non-destructive people would say "we're studying different approaches", "we'll try things and see what works", "we may not redefine discipline or drastically change the culture, but maybe we'll come up with something that works". Humility is the key. Without it, you end up hurting people recklessly or accidentally.
You know how I know this is a bunch of horseshit? (Score:2, Insightful)
"At the end of a gravel road in the Chippewa National Forest of northern Minnesota"
Why do I give a fuck if they were at the end of a gravel road? I don't, and neither does anyone of even the most negligible consequence. They're clearly pandering to a very specific audience with this article. Not that the rest of the summary is any better, of course.
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Spankers and spankees trend toward Republicanism (Score:3)
No more need be read.
Re:Spankers and spankees trend toward Republicanis (Score:4, Insightful)
I wish you would have read the next sentence:
This could help explain why changing methods of discipline is so difficult and why science faces an uphill battle in facilitating change.
They managed to get an anti-science dig in with their prone-to-violence dig. This is the typical crap that you read in The Atlantic.
Argument from authority (Score:2)
Say goodbye to timeouts. So long spanking and other ritualized whacks. And cry-it-out sleep routines? Mercifully, they too can be a thing of the past.
I applaud any attempt to bring neuroscience and other scientific insights to bear on childrearing, but I question the idea that somebody who is an expert in one of these sub-issues would also be an expert in the others. Sounds like we are committing the logical fallacy of assuming that because one person is an expert in one field they are an expert in all. Maybe these are all related, but it just seems to me that neuroscience is complex enough that an answer to one of these questions doesn't have a lot of
Mirror neurons? Or just neurons? (Score:2)
The article sounds pretty ridiculous, but in reality studies have shown that imagining practice is almost as good as practice.
Those "mirror neurons" sound like neurons being used to simulate actions of others. Saying that they automatically reflect actions taken by another is a stretch in humans. In monkeys, maybe it's triggering a pavlovian-style neural pathway.
I would rather not try to base a whole philosophy of something or another on animal studies. Try it on some college students first and see.
"Watchin
SPAM vs Millions Of Years of Evolution (Score:2)
Tina Bryson has two fairly recent books in print which she undoubtedly hopes to sell by the boatload, Should I trust her or the millions of years of evolution that have led to my parentage? Hmmmm?!
Looks like SPAM to me.
Grammatical and Logical Errors Abound. (Score:5, Interesting)
Dear Slashdot,
I apologize for my critical comments about Slashdot Editors. It appears that the ability to look up the correct spelling of a phrase is not required in modern publishing, e.g "right vs rite of passage", "corporal vs corporeal punishment". I am not a grammarian, nor an expert in child rearing, however this article makes me feel that I am a veritable genius.
TL:DR version:
Don't beat your kids, it can act as an interruptive stimulus but has little lasting effect. (No kidding?)
Don't use time out. It's almost as bad as beating, and can cause emotional dissociation from the parents without time-ins (UmKay...)
Time-ins are the secret magical ingredient that parents didn't know about before the specific identification of the mirror neuron. Therefore, all of those parents that used coaching to illustrate logic empathy and consequences, you knew not what you hath wrought. ( Yeah, whatever.)
Cynics Summary: Hey, being a good parent means treating your child like a human being, and trying to establish a rapport such that your requests make sense to the child. Coaching your child about consequences for actions (good and bad) are still the primary method of behavioral training. Punishments should be used sparingly to be of good affect.
I know my grammar probably sucks. I don't get paid, nor do I want people to click on my article to generate ad revenue. This is a public service announcement. ;P
Article summary: Use time-in more than time-out (Score:2)
The point of the article is made near the end, which is to use less time-outs (which should still be used, as a time of reflection), and more "time-ins", which is apparently teaching your child about emotional events as they occur through the day. Based on the examples given, I would guess "time-in" is something we already do with our kids; it's just talking over events like "Wasn't it funny when Sarah sneezed milk out her nose?" Then listening to our kids tell their version. The new thing is to somehow
Everything you need o know in one paragraph (Score:2)
From the linked article:
I’m reminded of a case study that describes an individual who had come to associate sexual arousal with being covered in insects. As a child, that individual had been locked into closets for unimaginable amounts of time, and during those times, bugs would frequently fill the space and crawl on him. The child, trying to seek some sort of escape from the reality of his experience, found comfort only in sexual release—even though he was too young to even know what sex was or meant. His body knew only that it felt good, and it provided the only possible escape available to him.
This is everything you need to know to raise a really interesting child.
Discipline (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't think about what you want to happen when it all goes right. Think about what you want to happen when it all goes wrong.
When there's a teenager in front of you, telling you to fuck off, about to hit you, throwing shit around the room. Quite what do you think "talking" is going to do? Now, there's a limit and being just as angry isn't going to help, but all your lovey-dovey techniques will go out of the window even if you try them all).
(I used to run karate clubs for children up to 18... I have had 18 year old stand in front of me, push me, and threaten - in a room full of parents of kids. It did not require physical intervention to stop the situation, nor did it mean ignoring it and allowing it to continue).
You can (hopefully) stop things getting to that stage but there are points in a child's life when they aren't going to listen or conform to your fancy-schmancy child psychology class.
At certain ages, children are animals. We all are, all were, all will be for several million years yet. And the analogy holds when they are in a rage, or upset. They can't speak to you, they can't listen to reason, it doesn't work. Try to stop an animal from peeing on the sofa by just telling it no every time.
The ONLY way it works is if you've already got them to associate your denial with some kind of consequence. That consequence needn't be beating the shit out of them - nobody condones that on animals or children. But the consequence has to be there.
That consequence also has to be ENFORCED no matter how gentle it is. Take away the videogame. Deny them sweeties. Make them sit in the corner. Don't let them out with their schoolmates. Whatever it is, you need to enforce it. What's missing from modern parenting is consistency and enforcement.
Society does not function because everyone does what you tell them. It functions because the outliers that don't are handled in a different manner to those that do. And we have a set of consistent rules - the law - and we enforce them. (Crappy enforcement of the law in the US news aside, but even that proves my point - if the rules aren't consistently enforced, they will not work!).
We enforce them by the only way that provides the negative connotation to it - association with a negative action including "tasters" of that action for those who can't imagine the consequences for themselves. We call them "jail", "community service", "fines", etc.
Positive-only parenting works about as well as giving all law-abiders £100 a year. Bankrupts the country, scams the government to oblivion, and still doesn't get rid of crime - and any amount of crimes go unpunished and "rewarded" just because we don't know about them still. The positive-only approach is NOT ENOUGH to calm an angry teenager, in the same way that it won't appease an angry criminal to offer him £10 extra when he's mugging you. He's still going to mug you.
Set rules. Enforce the rules, at every infraction. And there has to be a negative consequence for failing to abide by the rules because otherwise - what's the fucking point of setting them? No animal on Earth will abide by a rule "just because". They will do it because of positive or negative actions associated with it. And positive associations ONLY work when everyone is calmly playing the game. See how far a doggy treat will get you in terms of compliance when your dog's just been barking at another that's bitten him (hint: he won't give a shit).
The other crime of modern parenting is conditioning children to EXPECT consequences for everything. Yelling at them for the most minor things is pointless. You're wasting a "power" a parent has on a bit of food on the floor or a stain on their jumper. Stop it. Then when you DO need it, it's there and has the desired effect - because they aren't conditioned to expect a bollocking over the most minor of things, and it shocks them when it does happen.
Also, stop the absolute bullshit of "I'm not going to tell you
Please get back to me... (Score:2)
where the hell... (Score:2)
...is Dave Brubeck in all of this?
Dear Google, I asked for "Time Out", not whatever this crap is about.
Broken (Score:2)
People through out the ages have tried fix society and produce well behaved people. They all have failed. Some have had some good ideas, but I believe they fail to get to the root of the problem. Each and every one of us is selfish. We want things done our way to benefit us. We are able to dream of utopia, where everyone is well behaved and loved, and everyone works for the commo
pain works (Score:2)
Pain is possibly the oldest, most effective stimulus to changing behavior in the history of, well, life.
To suggest that human behavior isn't modified by pain is to imply that humans are somehow intrinsically different than every other kind of life on this planet.
I doubt that is true.
Now we can talk all day about the long term effects of pain on spent beings, and the concomitant damage that can be done emotionally, socially, or in terms of relationships. But if I'm going to take you seriously as a real scie
Doesn't take into account real world parenting (Score:2)
I would say I'm pretty much a technocrat, in that I would take hard data over what feels correct or what has always been done any day. If the data show beyond any doubt that working with children in the manner that the article suggests produces better results than thousands of years of corporal punishment evidence, then I would follow the study regardless of what anyone else did.
The problem is that when you're working with people, especially _all_ the people, studies only get you so far. Average IQ is 100 -
Not the best article.. (Score:2)
but there are a few gems in it.
I kinda get what they are saying.
From own experience as parent with three kids:
child #1: no disciplinary method ever worked effectively, period (spanks, timeouts, taking objects or privileges away, etc). Currently this child has severe entitlement issues and feels nothing is her fault. She passes the psychopath test with flying colors. at 16, she's in psychiatric care after professing suicidal ideation and superficial attempts.
child #2. A thoughtful, empathetic and genero
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