No Spanking, No Time-Out, No Problems

If nurture didn't matter, tips would be totally irrelevant.

My girlfriend used to train dogs for a living. She always said "it's the owner's fault, not the dog's". Now we have a Chihuahua who won't listen, doesn't respond to rewards, doesn't respond to punishment. She just does her own thing. My girlfriend is much more humble now. I wish a lot of these child psychologists would have to deal with a difficult child day in and day out, not just once a week. Maybe they would also lose some of the confidence in their advice.

Fast forward till she had her own child, and I saw an interview with her. She was completely shattered. Like a wreck. She had her own difficult child, and coupled with little available help from others, she couldn't cope. She looked and sounded defeated and expressed that she felt guilty that, of all people, she was not coping.

There is a reason some parents "get it right" and, I'm sorry to say, but thats just as likely down to the kid.

This sounds astoundingly similar to what software developers are doing when they remove features and customisability and then retort "but you can still choose between X and Y"l nevermind the fact that X and Y are still a horrible substitute for the A-to-Z that they replaced --- and more unsettlingly, it seems like it does work on much of the user population.

Amen to that. I have 3 boys. We put in the same ingredients and got wildly different results with all three. I'm convinced that parenting is more about working with what comes factory installed than it is about moulding some ideal human from a formless block of potential.

Incentives and punishments that work with one don't work with the others; we have to really become students of our children to understand what they do and don't respond to, and to parent them accordingly. If my sample size of 3 is any indication, trying to fit children through a one-size-fits-all mold is going to fail miserably.

Because children of that age (and younger) have two traits that will always trump logic:

1. Defiance (better described as a need to understand independence)

and

2. A lack of long-term thinking

When a child - who wishes to experience control - wants a cookie, a choice between a banana and an apple is untenable.

Be wary of interpretations that give you broad-reaching advice on how to essentially manipulate children. This - child psychology and help - is a huge industry; interpreting studies to fit a narrative is simple and rarely meets argument.

But mostly this approach seems to work. Now we as parents still need to remember to use this approach, which we unfortunately often forget in the morning rush.

i dont understand how this isnt immediately a red flag for dystopian orwellian oppression. I guess u can do it to kids, they cant defend themselves.

To be frank, the article tips are pretty sound and well-accepted, including from specialists who deal with much more difficult children then you and me on a daily basis.

First point, there's a tendency to see one's kids as special, be it especially gifted, or difficult, or an astonishing critical thinker for their age. It's quite understandable, since we have an infinitely deeper relationship with them than with any other kid. Secondly, it's much more difficult to deal with relationship issues when you are involved in them; that explains why you can often clearly see what's wrong in others' relationships (parent/kids or S.O.), but yours always seem more complicated by several order of magnitude. And thirdly, we can also find it quite irritating to be given some basic tips when we are experiencing hell and we feel like we are so past that kind of "pop psych". It's like, "Do you think we've not tried that already?".

Of course, a few tips are no magic bullet (sorry for the cliché), and sometimes the problems are just too serious, but on the whole they just deliver, to the surprise of many parents when they see it used successfully by specialists. I'm not one of them but I know a few, and I personnally use the "give them a choice" tip and if done correctly, I have found it to work very, very well--for parenting and in life in general.

And I've seen this work often enough when we've had friends of my son come over that we often see act up around their parents, but that will try that shit once with us and then follow our sons cue once they see that all they achieve is getting ignored, that I tend to think that whether this works or not is more often down to follow-through.

That doesn't mean it's a one size fits all solution. You do need to adapt what kind of options you present, and how you respond if they try to push the boundaries - kids are not stupid; if you keep offering "options" when they know there are other alternatives that are on the table if they say the right things, then they'll try to challenge you for it.

The purpose of parenting is not to control the children but to support them in learning themselves and the world.

Human beings are intelligent and wired for success. It doesn't take long before we start realizing the difference between choices that don't matter to us and ones that do.

If you're looking for parenting practices that support self knowledge in a collaborative and respectful environment, I recommend "Raising Our chikdren, Raising Ourselves" by Naomi Alford.

Offering fake choices does not respect the intelligence nor dignity of human beings.

And, we need to acknowledge that manipulation is probably a better approach than psychological abuse (time outs) and threats to a child's physical safety (spanking).

If you never let them wear their shorts and tshirt in the snow when they really want to, they will never respect the cold or your advice.

It bothers me most when people discuss diet and obesity. "Just don't eat so much!" is often given as slightly condescending advice. Such advice reflects a personal experience where your body isn't screaming in hunger 24 hours a day. Different people have different metabolisms too, turning food into energy to be spent, or locking it away instantly as fat -- makes a huge difference. Calories-In-Calories-Out is a rather limited view of the situation.

Our internal experiences differ, it affects who we are and how we behave. We all have to be responsible and deal with our personal realities in an adult manner. But it's rather lame to assume that anyone who is challenged by things you find simple is either stupid or lacking in willpower.

1) You praise the heck out of the child when they do accept the choice. This is hard because you have to remember to notice NON-drama, which is typically not noteworthy to people. You over-remember when things went bad and under-remember when things went fine. I do too--everyone does. (Politicians exploit the heck out of this BTW.)

2) You don't defer your whole life to arguing with the child. If it's time to go, you go, sweater or not. The key thing is that it's not punishment. It's just Life... or The Schedule. Don't act mad, just calmly firm. If the kid won't wear a sweater, they get cold. Bring the one you prefer as a backup if you want.

3) (Hardest) You model the behavior you want. Play a pick a sweater game when it's NOT time to go and there is no pressure. If they do it right or sort of right, praise the part they did right and do it again.

None of this is easy. FWIW I have a young kid and would grade myself at around 50% or less on these. But it's a model to work toward.

Exactly my situation. My 2 year old just keep on it until she feels otherwise. Though one thing I have seen to work is to employ her into something adult like allow her to stir the liquid while making scrambled eggs :)

'We are going out now', 'no, I don't want to, scream, etc, etc', 'Ok, stay there, when you are ready to talk to me and go out, I'll start talking to you again, until then, I'll be in the kitchen/bedroom/whatever'. This usually gives him 5 minutes to think a bit, then comes back, apoligises and we go on our way. I've tried pretty much everything before this, and seems it was the only thing that works with mine.

I (as a parent of 2 very easy kids) always avoid those type of permission-asking questions when presenting choice. Instead I offer, not ask: "You can wear the green or the red. What do you choose?"

Time outs have worked very well for me too. Some behavior is simply unacceptable and ignoring it only teaches them they can repeat it.

Lastly, I think there's a tendency to forget that, with kids, they're basically completely different people every few days/weeks. We've gone through a lot of phases with our son and sometimes the best solution is to simply wait it out. More often than not the behavior changes as his brain changes.

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

Every kid is different, totally agree.

"Would you like to buy me one set of nunchucks or 2 sets?"

https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/5g9pai/lpt_mot...

(Though, to be fair, my younger son started to be a pain in the ass teen and then I explained the somatopsychic effects of puberty to him one day in front of his brother and best friend, in part by saying "Your problem is called testosterone, not my bitch mother" and they were all three easier to deal with after that.)

Maybe it's because I grew up as a kid in another culture (Eastern Europe) and some time ago (I'm 36 now) but do kids nowadays really call their parents "bitch"? My parents almost never laid their hands on me (the couple of times they actually did I had deserved it) but, nevertheless, it would have been out-of-this-world for me or for any other kid to call their parents names like these. It reminds me of this Eddie Murphy sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldUbxfOtjqw .

(Locke was onto something ...)

My other tactics for routines are "Which animal should we brush teeth like tonight?", "OK, we're going to brush your ears. Teeth!? No. No, maybe your eyebrows. OK, teeth then." and "Close your eyes and I'll choose your clothes and get you dressed so it will be a surprise."

This claim (from the article) is nonsense. I've changed the behavior of my kids countless times with punishment.

I realize that the attitude I am supposed to take is that when someone with Ivy League credentials espouses a currently fashionable theory that my own observations contradict, I am supposed to believe the theory and not my own lying eyes or I'm "anti-intellectual". Credentials over evidence.

I'll take the risk. But I'm still interested in these theories, because I'm always looking for better ideas to try. A theory that is false overall can have useful parts. Maybe "punishment won't change behavior; reward will" is wrong, but some variation such as "lots of reward with a bit of punishment work much better than lots of punishment with a bit of reward" IS true, or is true for at least one of my kids. (But then, this weaker claim is something I already believe and it abandons the "never punish" enlightened part that was what really made it attractive to The Atlantic.)

Also, theories like these, even if not true, remind me not to overgeneralize from my own observations.

Their theory: Punishment doesn't change behavior. My observation: Yes, it does. So my theory: Punishment changes behavior. The truth: No, it doesn't. (As in, not necessarily) Me: Oops.

So, I'll keep reading and considering, but no, the basic claim of "don't punish, because it doesn't work" is wrong even if rewards also change behavior.

Getting angry seems to just stimulate fear in our kids which shuts down communication and halts any opportunity for them to learn something positive from a challenging situation. I want a child who can communicate and is expressive. It's a long game so I feel like having a child who learning to communicate when they're 3 is more likely to communicate when they're a teenager facing bigger, real world problems.

Good luck with yours

And yet getting caught in the act of doing something wrong and being "punished" (harsh words in the case of a dog) is remarkable effective, particularly in combination with positive reinforcement for the things done well.

> We adopted a puppy a little more than a year ago and this was the exact advice we were given for how to train her

This works remarkably well until you have a dog for which it doesn't work. We've adopted several dogs - some as puppies, some grown - and found that most of the time, for most of the animals, these practices work. But sometimes -and for some dogs - they don't work at all, or with greatly reduced effectiveness.

It depends on what drives the dog and that dog's personality.

> Our baby is only six months old so we'll have to report back in a decade as to whether this approach works well with kids too. :)

Yes. And no. It depends entirely on the personality of your child - and to a limited extent, your own. That's the frustrating thing about these kinds of articles (as well as dog training articles). They position themselves with such authority that we seem to be expected to believe that they're handing down a Great Universal Truth*.

It's not. In my opinion, there is only one - living things (dog or child) are complicated creatures. There are so many variables unique to each living thing in your care that there's not much room left for The One True Way.

[1] My favorite of these is a popular dog trainer who - with all sincerity - says that when you pull on a dog's collar, the dog will pull back because it's physics. The dog must provide an equal and opposite reaction. It's amazing how many people buy into the rationale. What the trainer advocates is perfectly fine in many cases - but I can't get past the pseudo-scientific non-logic.

(Good) parents all do this all the time. I think it goes as far as being instinct. E.g. the first time your child uses a spoon by himself, there's going to be porridge all over him, table, chair and floor, with a comparably minute amount going into his mouth. But you still smile, applaud and praise him.

This "punishment doesn't work" mantra is rampant in the field, and it's totally unsupported by the scientific evidence.

What is true is that punishment on its own is relatively ineffective, and that you need to reward desired behavior to shift it from something undesirable to something desirable.

But if you read the learning literature, it's pretty clear that the most effective way to change behavior is to punish undesired behavior and reward desired behavior.

The article is promulgating this ideological distortion of operant conditioning that's common in developmental psychology.

Maybe there are better or worse ways of implementing punishment, and the best thing is to combine it with rewards; in fact, sometimes rewards on its own will work. But the idea that punishment is ineffective is incorrect.

At that point you can turn it into a huge thing, or you can just take the coat with you until you get outside and they get cold. At which point you let them put it on. And if they still don't want it, well, most children aren't going to let themselves get hypothermic.

Most of the time, I will ignore it because it isn't important enough for me. If I know you are a "sales/marketing" type, I may simply ignore this part of your personality because I realize you can't turn it off.

If I think it's important, I will call you out on it. I will inform you quite strongly that I will come to my own conclusions after I have considered my options. If you want my support, present me with your evidence and arguments.

If this is a business power play, I'm going to call one or two other people over who will want the choice to go different directions, sit back, and watch everything melt down into a gigantic argument.

Don't manipulate people around you to do things they don't want to do. Align your goals and tasks so that people want to do the thing you want them to do. Otherwise, you'll get a reputation for "playing poker" all them time, and then people will start avoiding you.

Or worse, they'll start sending someone like me over to deal with you. And they'll laugh as you get increasingly frustrated that you are interacting with someone you can't manipulate. (Yes, I'm speaking from both personal and business experience).

Please don't treat your colleagues/employees like a fucking child.

Edit: by natural reaction I mean the quick leap towards the child while screaming "NOooooooo!", not anything purposefully scary.

Trying to scare kids into compliance is rarely a effective method, and has some very nasty side effects. If long term approaches can't be used, child proof gas knobs exist.

The whole point of the article is that those children lack positive reinforcement, and that if the parents were paying attention to the children when the children were good the children wouldn't end up screaming in a restaurant.

I think people have to realize that kids also have to be kids. One can't expect them to be as quiet and well behaved as grown ups. I am very much against the popularity of French child raising as it seems to frequently create subdued children, who can sit quiet at the restaurant but who has lost the spark.

I remember some fellow Norwegians married into a french family comment on how when they were at a park the Norwegian kids ran around and had fun and the French kids looked at dumbfound with: You can do that?! Can we do that as well?

I assume this is not the average behavior. Or I hope, but I think it gives an idea of how you don't want your kids to end up.

Save the negative reinforcement and punishment for situations where it's absolutely clear and necessary—that's the best way to keep it an effective tool anyway. Maybe 60% positive, and 10% negative, with the other part just not being reinforced (an incredibly powerful behavioral tool all on its own).

It's the same with dogs (not as a derogatory comparison—just the truth of the science). I negatively reinforce for biting only, and only after they're at an age where they can comprehend the association between the bite and the punishment. It's remarkably effective. For nearly everything else, positive reinforcement is orders of magnitude more effective.

Overall, the most important part is to be a majority positive player, which makes you an overwhelmingly positive symbol in your child's (or pup's) life. This has primary effects that far outweigh the alternatives and negative side-effects of negative punishment and negative reinforcement methods.

I don't agree that the article is dangerous—people are unlikely to give up negative reinforcement altogether, but being introduced to a wider diversity of well-proven methods will only help, and we need more of it.

The difference between punishment and negative reinforcement is in how one models the relationship between cause and effect, and how you are increasing or decreasing behavioral frequency.

The important aspect behind punishment or negative reinforcement isn't negativity or pain, but a model of learning that has since fallen out of favor versus bayesian causal learning models.

With negative feedback it gets tricky very quickly as there is such a thing called intermittent re-enforcement - one provides inconsistent strong negative feedback and behavior gets worse and more persistent.

Enforcing hard limits consistently requires careful thinking and acting. It does have value in some cases. There is however a risk getting stuck thinking about the problem not solution. The author argues a solution focused approach is more effective in most cases. I don't think he covered clinical or criminal situations.

Anecdotally, being raised by an asian mom. I was subjected to negative reinforcement of her disappointment if i didn't do well. I attribute that to both my and my sister success because we both didn't want to deal with the shame of failure.

Punishment is often the simple way out when you are too tired to really put the effort into doing it the proper way. Making sure you observe proper behavior and complement on that requires more effort. If I got a good amount of energy I am also usually able to convince my child to go with what I want them to without shouting, or threaten with punishment. But that often requires more imagination and when you are tired and worn out, there is no energy left to be imaginative.

Obviously this is simplified, but it shows how a mechanism for identifying opposition could be advantageous. In the social environment of early humans, maybe this made sense evolutionarily, but is now inconvenient in the different situations in which most people live now.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma#The_iterate...

Children crave attention. If you don't give them that attention when they're being good they'll be bad.

And frankly, what would you do instead? Let your kid run wild? Brand helpful parenting knowledge as "psychological tricks" and decide to do whatever feels intuitive instead?

Even if it's simply to control them from doing something undesirable to you.

Headphones control how someone can interact with you. How you dress/act forces control on how people respond to you.

We build our systems around this.

They know what they'd be letting themselves in for

-edit -> and be in your late seventies, having long forgotten what it is to raise kids or see your peers raise their own kids.

Wow, this is very well put.

Congrats and enjoy :)

The two are related, though. The article here is explaining how meaningful, relationship-building positive-reinforcement is an effective strategy.

Alfie Kohn's work is easy to misinterpret -- the title of his book mentions "gold stars" as a bad idea, but misses the meaning of a gold star. A gold star isn't a bribe in the sense of an "incentive program", it's a tangible expression of appreciation* -- which is what the article here argeus in favor of.

*as long as the star is its own reward, not some sort of currency used to buy rewards.

I strongly suspect that we're looking at the same combination in our son. Sadly I'm reluctant to take my concerns to a medical professional because ODD has a strong correlation with abuse. While I've no doubt that some of my and my wife's parenting has contributed to this, abuse isn't happening -- it's literally been his personality since he could first talk. Still, it's enough to make me uncomfortable going into a situation where that's the assumption[1]

Was yours a medical diagnosis - and if so, did you run into any troubles around that aspect?

> If you're worried about how they dress reflects on you,

This raises an interesting problem though. I find I'm reinforcing societal norms that aren't consistent with my own - because I'm aware that he has to function among peers and adults every day in a social environment. Their reactions to negative behavior aren't enough to prevent him from doing it.

Encouragingly, the couple of situations I've explained that for [in simplified form] have resulted in major improvement (such as using 'inappropriate' language - I personally think it's fine if you know the meanings and usage of the words and when it's ok to use them, regardless of age. After explaining that other adults and parents didn't view it that way, and that it means they won't want him playing with their children and will think poorly of us as a family, that particular problem stopped.)

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

This, as a lesson slowly being learned.

Favorite slightly-related story: while teaching a class of 8 year-olds one day, a student in the back opened up his desk, and pulled out a machete. My heart stopped for a beat. He then proceeded to sharpen his pencil with the machete, then place it back in his desk.

Man, I miss Laos.

Anyways, the North American trend to never leave your kids unattended really seems to have stifled their independence and ability to strive on their own, and it's so evident when you travel to some developing countries.

Perhaps taking a hands-off approach is more likely to result in well-adjusted, independent children AND children who learn and earn less.

American kids are under tight and organized control all the time. They got their playdates, piano playing, soccer practice, etc. Their parents are driving them everywhere to all sorts of activities. These kids never seem to have a life of their own.

There are of course huge differences in Europe in how kids are raised. But at least in Norway kids tend to allowed to roam a lot more freely. It is more normal to walk to school yourself or be outside by yourself. Parents tend to not arrange playdates. They go over to each others house themselves. And a lot more of their day isn't organized in any way.

I saw this when studying at college in the US. American college students were a lot more immature than European college students IMHO. They seemed unaccustomed to having this much freedom, and not having parents looking the over the shoulder all the time. American college also felt very nanny like. A lot of rules and regulations as if you are still a child.

It is rather ironic that in the land of individualism and freedom, there is so much control and regulation on peoples lives. I think Americans have mistaken economic freedom for personal freedom.

Yes, the things we write are subject to misinterpretation, particularly when stripped of the their context. But asking people to avoid correct use of punctuation isn't going to make that less likely. Quite the opposite, in fact.

The parent's usage is very common, so it seems a bit harsh for a mod to call them out on it, even if fairly politely, when they are not clearly in violation of anything they have been told.

[1] a weirdly large number of schoolchildren are still hit in the US.