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Comment by spiderfarmer | Hacker News Reader

I fully agree that you have to take children seriously, respectfully and make sure they are able to live life to the fullest.

But the "rules are bad" trope is, unfortunately, a trend in The Netherlands. Parents that live by this rule are sacrificing themselves. It's bad parenting.

I see a lot of parents (mothers mostly) in public places desperately trying to explain their dissatisfaction to their misbehaving children. The children meanwhile are completely disregarding them and will continue doing whatever they were doing untill the parents give up. The parents will end up awkwardly trying to ignore their children, visibly ashamed but still unable to use their authority for fear of breaking their chosen path to happy parenting. They won't even raise their voice.

As a parent, I see this all the time. In school, on the street, in stores, it's everywhere.

Reasoning with kids that are completely unwilling to listen to your "adult talk" is completely hopeless. Rules aren't fun but they aren't bad either. You don't have to explain your rules everytime, just make sure you enforce them consistently.

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Let me provide you a personal experience that might help put this "rules are bad" trope in context.

One day I was with my daughter (~24 months old) at the Zoo and she wanted an Ice Cream and I said "nope". She looked around with wide eyes and noticed all the people near by. Then, she did something I had never seen before -- she dropped down on the ground, twisted and swirled, and started to scream; for quite some time. I calmly sat down nearby and asked her: "when you're done, could you let me know?". Over the next minute or so, several parents gathered around to gawk at the spectacle. When my daughter got close enough to some urine on the ground, I got up, walked over and said: "careful, icky pee here". Without stopping the rolling or the screaming, she immediately recognized and steered clear of the urine. I then sat down again and said, "when you're done, could you let me know?". After another minute or two longer, with hoarse voice and a few bruises, she stood straight up and said: "Fine; I'm done. Monkey next?".

What was problematic was the reaction of other parents. During the episode, they became increasingly anxious looking at each other and trying to catch my attention. One of the mothers asked me "Where is your wife?", to which I responded: "at work, but don't worry, I'm the primary care giver". A father said (after being nudged by his wife): "well, you're just going to sit there?" to which I calmly responded: "It's a temper tantrum". One final mother didn't say a word, but made sure to give my daughter comforting eyes and looked harshly at me, making sure I knew she was dialing someone (police?) on her cell phone.

Once my daughter got up, we inspected her pants for horse urine and talked about how that was an extreme waste of time. Later on I asked her what the Tantrum was about. She explained it quite clearly to me: "well, daddy, one other boy just had one and he got the ice cream, so I wanted to see if that would work". I explained to her that this was pretty bad behavior and that if I ever see it again, we will go home immediately. I've had a few tantrums since, but none of them have been public. My daughter and I then had a very fantastic afternoon talking about Monkeys and more effective ways to communicate her desires.

This was a very unexpected experience for me. I seriously didn't expect that in 1-2 minutes, I'd have a dozen adults gathering around in a circle. I didn't expect 2 of them would be brave enough to hurl insults. I didn't expect one of them to be implicitly threatening police (CPS?). I can see how many parents would have caved under such peer pressure. Perhaps it's not the parent's fear of the children that leads to these problems, but instead, fear of what other parents might say or do?

So. I'm not sure how to connect this to this thread. First I'm not sure a "rule" would have helped. Punishing her wasn't going to help (I evaluated going immediately home, but I think the event was traumatic enough for her already). I'm not sure. Would you do it differently? If you saw me on the bench, would you think that I had given up?

Thanks for this story. I like to think I would do better than some of those other parents... (At least, father to father, I wouldn't challenge your capability by asking about mommy!) I'll do my best to keep this story in mind in the future.

It seems to me, reading this from your perspective, is that the correct attempt at intervention would simply be asking, "Is everything OK?" And after hearing it's a temper tantrum, a hearty "good luck" before walking off!

I am very firmly in your camp on how to handle that. I’ve watched my daughter do this so many times even at 20 months. Each time I hang out nearby, I will typically talk calmly to her but I will not attempt to soothe the wild beast. Sure enough, she tires of it pretty quickly, gets up, and is right back to her happy self every time.

Thank you for sharing this. As a father, other parents are my greatest fear. Right now we live in Japan, and I gotta say the way preschoolers are treated here I'm really quite comfortable with (generally relaxed, but calm/sometimes stern talking-to, leaving other parents space, also tons and tons of infrastructure that helps, no helicoptering). I'm really quite concerned about moving back to Europe - while I like the schooling system there better, the helicopter-parenting scares me. My hope is that German-speaking / Swiss culture is still the way I remember, with lots of self-responsibility given at young age, but some stories I hear make me worried.

I'm in Zurich atm and saw plenty of 8-10 yr old kids runnig around Sunday morning alone, playing soccer or riding tram. The place seems still all right.

Good to know, thanks. I will actively avoid living in places (like AFAIK most of US/UK), where this isn't completely normal. In Switzerland, children are sent alone to (and prepared for) Kindergarden at age 6 - I hope that we'll be able to do that as well once my 2yo is at that age.

I also could care less about other parents.. But my daughter would not stop after 1 or 2 minutes. Even after 20. I tried it many times. Distractions mostly do not work neither as she was quite smart early enough :)

Not every single child is the same. Some need more powerful nudge towards behaving while others can sit in the carryon for 2 hours at movie theatre totally awake and not enjoying grown-up movie..

That sounds really tough. Yep, children like all people are all a bit different. I wish you luck and hope you find what works for you.

What happens if you just walk away? Will she continue? My kids will stop when they notice I'm not there.

i would expect it to differ based on environment and trigger, but most likely she will just run after me without changing much of behavior :) I love the fact my both kids are persistent. I just need to get through their childhood and direct their powers to good beginnings :)

With that attitude I’m sure you will succeed. Best of luck to you and your family.

I would have done it just slightly different -- picked the child up and held her in silence through the tantrum, even still sitting on the ground. That way, she can feel you there (in case it were a real melt-down -- say from fever or overstimulation, not something calculated), not get bruised, keep out of horse urine, and show other parents that you're not quite that cold. You were right to be absolutely boring and unimpressed. Two is probably a little young to understand "extreme waste of time."

Yea, that’s not going to work with all children. Mine would just get more agitated from this. For me calm down time comes later and starts with “hug?” and they come to you for resolution.

I'll second comstock's reply that this won't work for all kids. Picking my 2-year old up mid-tantrum would just make him try to fling himself backward out of my arms and potentially get hurt from falling.

> "well, daddy, one other boy just had one and he got the ice cream, so I wanted to see if that would work"

Pretty advanced for a 2 year old.

With 2 year olds in general, and any discipline advice: YMMV for everyone because they are very unpredictable at that age.

Any "I did this with my 2 yr old" and "I got this result" causality should be taken with a pinch of salt.

I can assure you that young children are way smarter that most give them credit. They can pattern match pretty quickly.

> "I wanted to see if that would work"

This seems advanced to me. Of course this could be a stock phrase copied from an adult. My 2 year old does this a lot and it makes her sound grown up. As an adult I use confirmation bias to say "yup she's smart".

2-year-olds are definitely capable of this kind of thinking. The ability to explain it and introspect is more rare.

Yes, she is precocious. The story I presented was a story; I explained to the best of my recollection what happened so that it may be used at a data point. Every situation is different and if the story helps someone, that is fantastic.

I'm more interested in how observers could be more helpful in these situations. When I see children out of control and an overwhelmed parent, I will sometimes try to help by de-escalating. In fact, I'm coming to think that we should learn as a culture how to talk to other people's children directly in a way that grows community and mutual respect. Children will often listen more intently to another parent (or, even better, especially a slightly older child).

Your anecdote was so great to read. It's funny, my therapist related almost the exact same anecdote. It was about a mother he saw once whose child was screaming for ice cream. The mother just kneeled down, smiled and said, "You can't have any ice cream. But it's OK to want it, and it's OK to be angry that you're not getting it," and she let the child scream until she was done.

The point of my therapist's anecdote, and implicit in what you wrote as well, is that the tantrum isn't shameful or "wrong," it just is. You made it clear that it's not an acceptable way to get something from you but you neither condoned nor condemned the emotional reaction itself. I think the part that TCS gets "right" is that there's no need to shame an emotional reaction. I personally try to treat everyone in my life, adult or child, according to this principle.

I think the dangerous part of what I read in this article is that we shouldn't establish boundaries. Establishing a boundary, like telling a child that she won't get ice cream, is critical, not just for children but for adults. You can furthermore make consequences clear from the beginning so that if you need to "punish," really you're just enforcing the boundary. I think that's really healthy for all of us, children included. It provides stability and rationality, and it shows that you can treat people while respecting your own needs without resorting to anger and shame.

I'm not a parent yet, but I hopefully when I become one I'll be able to deal with such situations with the grace and compassion that you had! Thanks for sharing.

> is that the tantrum isn't shameful or "wrong," it just is.

Wait.. it is wrong. If we don't get something that we want, we don't throw a tantrum. Yes, it is an emotional reaction, and it's one that isn't acceptable.

I'm not a perfect parent, but IMO if I were in GP's shoes, I'd leave immediately. Throwing a tantrum is not acceptable, and the consequence has to be immediate and clear. That's my boundary.

I think she might mean it's not wrong in the sense of "deeply immoral." Murderer is wrong. Physical abuse is wrong. Many things are deeply and intrinsically immoral. Tantrums aren't. They're unacceptable but they aren't immoral. At least not before a certain age.

As a parent I strongly agree with you. A tantrum indicates lack of emotional control and a lack of respect for other people in the area, both from the child and the parent.

It's OK to be angry. It's not OK to let that anger take over physically once a child has more emotional maturity than a baby.

For those who permit their children to behave like that, what will be the cut-off age when they have to stop? 12, 16, 18? Or 32 and throwing a tantrum in a workplace?

If it was actual lack of emotional control, then imposing a penalty wouldn't work, since that implies they do have control over it. I doubt tantrums really are anger taking over, they're just an attempt at emotional manipulation of others, and they persist only if they get a positive response.

Some kids do lose emotional control - a close (minor) family member had that problem, probably due to difficult childhood moments - but in that case they need help in handling it, not punishment.

These are just my personal views; I'm certainly not an expert.

> If it was actual lack of emotional control, then imposing a penalty wouldn't work, since that implies they do have control over it.

The point is that children need to LEARN to control themselves, emotional or otherwise.

I see it differently. A Zoo is a safe place for parenting and learning. If you feel disrespected by mere glancing on a child having a temper tantrum in a Zoo, then you and I simply aren't going to agree on much. I'm certainly not going to escalate a situation with my daughter to physical confrontation so that you might feel more comfortable.

Based on what you wrote, you're almost certainly a great parent, but I have a question:

If your daughter learned by observing the boy using a tantrum to get his way, couldn't there be other children who observed both the boy and your daughter, see that a tantrum at the very worst amounts to a 50% chance of ice cream and a 50% chance of continuing the zoo trip?

If you had told her: "When you're done, let me know. And if this goes on much longer we're going home once you're done." The other children may have observed possible negative consequences for their actions.

Thanks for the complement. To answer the question, I try not to escalate the situation or change the message while adrenaline is high.

That said, after the tantrum was over and the crowd had dispersed, my daughter and I stayed and discussed the situation (and consequences). One mother and her 3 year old boy lingered, eventually joining in. Her young boy was very assured that he would never, ever have such a tantrum like that! I told him I was so relieved, especially because of hidden dangers like stinky horse urine puddles.

I think that is great! Thanks for the reply, I hope I remember this message if I ever have children.

There's two parts here: a.) What would I do, as the parent, if my child were to throw a tantrum, and b.) How would I react, as a parent, to another child throwing a tantrum.

For A: As stated, I would leave immediately. I'll hedge that a bit and say that getting to the point where a child is rolling around on the ground is a failure for everyone concerned, so ideally we'd never reach this point in the first place. If there's a disagreement, my kids and I can talk it out without resorting to a tantrum.

For B: I don't care what you do with your kids. In public at a zoo in an open area, have at it. It's a tough situation all around and I'm not going to make another parent's day worse by saying anything.

Thanks for the response.

When you say "I would leave immediately", you do mean that you would physically intervene to remove your child, correct? Doing this at 2 years is pretty easy; you can just pick them up and leave. How do you do it at 6 years (50 lbs, 42")? Do you try at 10 years? How do you "leave immediately" with an older child if they physically resist?

If you transition from physical to physiological intervention at a later year, what sort of practice will you and your children have had will make this likely to succeed? If you could make that transition (away from physical manipulation) earlier, is there a reason to wait?

> When you say "I would leave immediately", you do mean that you would physically intervene to remove your child, correct? Doing this at 2 years is pretty easy; you can just pick them up and leave. How do you do it at 6 years (50 lbs, 42")? Do you try at 10 years? How do you "leave immediately" with an older child if they physically resist?

This is tougher, and really I can only offer my own experience and thoughts. For context, I have a 9yo and a 18yo. I don't actually recall needing to intervene with any of them engaging in full-on temper tantrum mode. At their worst, usually pulling them aside, explaining their behaviour is not appropriate, and staying with them with the idea that when they're ready to behave correctly we can resume whatever it was we're doing is enough. Often it would be something that we could talk about together and reflect on their feelings. Depending on their age, if they're very young it's the kind of thing that can happen, and maybe some time out together is enough. If they get older and are still having this kind of behaviour then maybe you do need to leave for the day.

My youngest will often talk to me at bedtime about how she felt about certain things that happened that day. For example, if she yelled at me that day I'll bring it up and we can talk about how she felt, how that made me feel, and how to deal with it in the future. More commonly it's about something that happened at school that day.

> If you transition from physical to physiological intervention at a later year, what sort of practice will you and your children have had will make this likely to succeed? If you could make that transition (away from physical manipulation) earlier, is there a reason to wait?

IMO (and I'm just a random person with no training, so don't take this as actual advice), parenting succeeds when expectations are clear, consequences are not arbitrary and promises are kept. If you say X is going to happen when they do Y, then you better follow through. Whether X is a punishment or a reward, it doesn't matter. Trust is what probably makes it easier to transition to you using words to de-escalate situations. At a very young age children just can't remember or understand your reaction to their behaviour, and it takes time for them to learn that.

All that said, it's been awhile since I've needed to deal with children throwing a temper tantrum, so I've probably left a lot out. All I can say is that at my kids' age today I don't need to deal with this problem. Sure, sometimes they're disappointed at not getting what they want. We can talk about it and if they feel they're not being treated fairly we can usually come to some sort of compromise.

I think that we may be talking past each other.

I'm distinguishing between something being "wrong" vs. something being "acceptable." Wrongness to me is a moral attribute; whether something is acceptable is a purely subjective and individual quality. Maybe the tantrum is unacceptable to us and to nearly every other adult in human society, but it's still subjective. I think that parents absolutely should show with their actions and words whether something is acceptable _to them_ and give advice about what will be acceptable to others (they will learn soon enough anyway). That's what GP did by showing that throwing a tantrum was an unacceptable way to get ice cream.

The key part is that he didn't then go on to say/communicate "and what you're doing is wrong and you should be ashamed of yourself," or something to that effect. The exact words don't matter, kids internalize shame very easily: if you think it's wrong or shameful, then they will get the point. It will be effective at preventing the behavior in the future, but damn, shame is like the nuclear option in my opinion when it comes to parenting. Obviously there's a healthy amount of shame that we should all have for things that are genuinely shameful. But is there really anything shameful or wrong about a lack of emotional control? The child is a child, they don't know any better.

So the question is what is unacceptable? I would argue that the tantrum itself is totally acceptable, assuming (as GP has said in follow-up comments) that it's a safe space for the child and the parent has the capacity in that moment to hold emotional space for the child. I would even argue that although the tantrum is obnoxious, the part of the tantrum where the parent says "yes, it's good to express and vent your anger"--even more so for a girl in a world where girls are told not to show anger--is downright healthy. The part that's totally unacceptable, in my opinion, is the idea that the anger will get her the ice cream. But if you say "not only will you not get this ice cream, but also you're not allowed to throw a tantrum ever because it's wrong," that kid will more likely than not internalize a certain amount of shame for her actions, and next time she wants to express anger she will feel ashamed about it. Which sucks, because that stuff, built up over time, will stick with you well into adulthood. Hence the therapist :-).

Went as a volunteer to a camp for kids with ADHD and Aspagers. Tantrums are unavoidable. We had drafted a contract with the kids that lines out rules of conduct for pretty much everything, ie. swearing == 10 push-ups or squats, any attention seeking behavior had to be diffused with holding and counting down from ten. It was ranging from a symbolic hand holding up to a full ground tackle if the situation was going a bit overboard.

IMHO you acted the best way you could. I've seen to many kids traumatized by a lack of a framework that would allow them to think about consequences. The key is communication and respect for the rules from both sides.

I was about to ask "which age are those suggestions for".

We cannot expect a 24 months old to understand all our explanations. Sure, we DO explain things, but sometimes a rule it's just a rule, and an outburst is just an outburst.

I agree with the article in that, when they grow up, we should prefer explanations over rules, while we parents may tend to "keep enforcing arbitrary rules" forever.

I wouldn't even have waited. I will just walk away myself, the kid will follow and if he/she doesn't I will observe from a distance.

Question: how do you handle other types of bad behavior, like when your kids are running around in a tightly packed shop?

But why didn’t you give her the ice cream in the first place? Perhaps, because of a rule? Perhaps that rule was not so bad after all?

This part is laughable:

> Some parents are having a hard time. They sacrifice for their children and give so much. They want some rules to keep things under control. But rules can’t create good family relationships. Cooperative learning and problem solving is the only win/win approach.

You can't spend time explaining ALL the rules around in society because it takes literally years to explain the ins and outs of everything. And kids need to know how to behave well before they can master speech and language, so it's pretty obvious you need some level of rules and some level of obedience. I am totally for "explaining why", but just saying "rules are bad" sounds like a very poor generalizing principle.

In practice you can probably get away with explaining some fairly general rules that cover most of day to day life early on and defer detailed exception clauses for later.

Explaining all the rules is what school is for, basically.

> Explaining all the rules is what school is for, basically.

And this is where so many people go wrong. Parents are teachers too, and it's their job to teach their children how to fit into society, behave, be decent people, etc.

A lot of rules, like math tables, help you learn the basic foundational building blocks. Once you have those, you have a reference to understand more things.

School is, basically, for most of the other stuff.

>Explaining all the rules is what school is for, basically.

Heh. My school published a list of rules which included: 'Any breach of common sense is also a breach of school rules.'

Gödel suggests If you can explain all the [sufficiently complex] rules; your system is inconsistent (contradictory rules are true).

If the rules are consistent, some things can't be explained.

That is so ridiculously poorly applied to the legal system. Your system of rules needs power too. Don't just spread lies.

> Don't just spread lies.

Would you mind editing out name-calling from your comments here? The rest of your comment makes your point just fine.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Learning that any sufficiently advanced system is usually inconsistent and breakable is one of life's most important lessons. Rules are contradictory, both in meaning and application. There is no master theorem and they are not consistently or evenly applied. The world is not fair and just.

It is one of my main conflicts with homeschooling, the point of conventional schooling is that everyone must fit a mould and conforming to a structure. The lesson of that point is finding a way to deal with that conformity, you need to know the rules of hierarchical groups in order to break them or succeed inside or outside of them.

I was unaware that explaining social rules to kids involved arithmetic.

First of all, Gödel talks about the provability of true statements in formal systems, not the explain-ability of laws, and second of all, in any nontrivial formal system there are things that can't be explained, namely the axioms.

Right, exactly. I don't think the explanation always needs to come first — my toddler knows not to touch the oven, but doesn't understand why. Someday he will, but for now he just needs to fucking listen so he doesn't injure himself.

Even as adults, there are plenty of "rules first, explanation later" situations — and there are plenty of rules that people obey without knowing why. It's not so bad.

From a comment below: "It should go without saying that this strategy should be used only when it's reasonable".

As a parent, I’ve stopped judging other parents. When I see a parent struggling with a “misbehaving” kid in public, I don’t see a failed parent. I just see someone in a difficult situation with no easy way out.

I don’t think “This wouldn’t have happened if the parent followed my parenting philosophy.”

Parenting is hard, we all struggle, and dismissing other people’s ways is easy, but it doesn’t do anything besides making you feel good about yourself.

I really find the original comment very strange, and quite shocking that it's currently the top comment. In particular the way it singles out "mostly mothers" as being "bad parents".

Parenting is very hard, if these mothers are the sole/primary care-givers they are doing an extremely difficult job.

For those who haven't experienced this, the difficulty in my view is not dealing with an isolated situation. It's dealing with these situations every day, over an extended period of time. It's hard work, and it's hard to get everything right.

I completely agree. In the book Reviving Ophelia [1] the author asserts that the most well-adjusted girls were the ones who had plenty of well-defined boundaries at home. Rules are good and accepted in the adult world; why would the child world be any different?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reviving_Ophelia

You mean, treat them as good submissives and order them as appropriately?

No. Seriously, what would be said about myself if I started making huge sweeping generalizations about a gender? Its bad for males, and its bad for females. Primarily, any effect one "tries" to find is so close to 50% its useless.

Tl;Dr. Reviving Ophelia is junk science, meant only to sell more of their books.

Well behaved women rarely make history. This could be precisely the reason why women do so poorly socioeconomically, because they are taught to be endlessly obedient and subservient without question.

It may make them well behaved, but it makes for terrible leaders who need to defy societal norms to perpetuate or see through a novel idea or business model, terrible self esteem for STEM fields when women need to feel confident in their own understanding of how things work and be willing to dig into the why's instead of mentally reoienting to the politically correct or expected answer.

It's bad for basically every level of Independence that women need to excercise to be socioeconomic equals.

Bringing up well behaved women with excessive boundaries in correlation to children is precisely the issue with society.

I think I'm going to go ahead and buy that t-shirt that says "raise boys and girls the same way"

If boys get to play in the woods and turn their sisters curling irons into backyard bombs, go out late at night then girls should have the same freedom to comfortably practice exploration, tinkering with stuff and breaking stuff and building stuff and roaming about without their mothers worried about where they are going and loading them down with more domestic chores than their male siblings.

Well behaved women typically make good mothers and this is absolutely immense for the history of humankind.

My apologies if my comment appeared to make a distinction between boys and girls; it wasn't my intent. In my opinion the original premise that "rules and obedience are bad" is wrong (for both boys and girls). While this topic is largely subjective I cited the book as supportive of my opinion; that it is based largely on the author's experience with girls is coincidental.

Just going to insert my layman’s opinion here, but I think the article’s suggested methods are good.

Children learn by example and they are always watching. If a child is misbehaving In public, the child is still watching. How does my parent (my role model) solve their problems? By yelling? By hitting? Or by talking?

And to counter anecdote with anecdote, I have seen plenty of misbehaving children in public with parents frantically trying to control them by yelling at them or spanking them, and it usually only results in even louder crying and more defiance.

Children misbehave as a kind of experimentation. At least some bad behavior is unavoidable, and it is an excellent chance for parents to give their children a lesson in conflict resolution.

As a father, my 2 cents: There's something in between talking and yelling. Call it the 'stern' talk if you will. I get this authoritative voice, usually giving the little guy two choices: Either accept what you have right now peacefully (i.e. take your winnings), or play me again and I'll take away some of your freedom (pick him up, put in baby car, put to bed, something like that). So far it has proven very effective with my 2yo, calms him down immediately and after a little while his mood tends to be great. The little bastards seem to like when they get to know their boundaries, it seems to give them a feeling of safety. So far its also not becoming more frequently necessary (which I fear, because inevitably it will loose effectiveness at some point). Maybe 0.5-1.0 occurrences per day or so. Also, it's only ever needed when he's with his mother and I'm there (the 'good cop' who can't be strict with him until she breaks down...), when I'm alone with him he pretty much behaves 100%. Kids, they are masters at what they're doing...

This.

Children thrive on boundaries. It gives them an 'area' within which they can fully explore, learn, play, etc, while KNOWING that as long as they stay within those lines, everything will be fine.

I call it THE VOICE, and I try and keep its use to the minimum, so as to not reduce its effectiveness. However, when I do use it, mine knows he has to stop pushing boundaries, or there will be repercussions.

God yes hallelujah!

Same here (2.5 kids raised).

The other important part - remeber to losen the boundaries as they continue growing up, so when they are 18-ish there is no difference between boundaries on and off.

Thank you. Yes, good point. The way my little buddy works, boundaries are frequently tested anyways, and sometimes they fall when we feel he's ready - I think it's kind of a natural, almost automatic process. That being said, rationally balancing risks vs. freedoms is the most intense parenting task IMO.

This is all true. Stern talk is certainly helpful... to a point. Be aware that he is listening and absorbing everything, and since your rules are literally his entire world, he will be the most amazing rules lawyer possible. And he is way smarter than you think way younger. At 3 my kid was reprimanding my behavior for not following my own rules, and lately he's begun to tell me when I've been unreasonably angry ("you need to listen" or "you yelled and made me sad" are the forms this sometimes take... just apply judgment as to whether he's correct so he doesn't take advantage of parental guilt). He's sometimes mixed up about cause and effect (he's 3) but taking his emotions and 3 year old logic seriously has been very helpful for understanding why he's upset and helping him control himself, or tell me when I've been acting unreasonably.

Also, Daniel Tiger is amazing. There's a song for everything and he's memorized all of them.

We had one instance where it backfired so far. About two months ago I overdid it a bit when telling him to cut out going number two in the shower/bath (happened 2-3 times during potty training). That traumatised him about bathing, to the point where he was scared of going to take a bath, instead wanted to sit on the toilet for 1-2h. Let's say he already showed me where my boundaries are...

>But the "rules are bad" trope is, unfortunately, a trend in The Netherlands. Parents that live by this rule are sacrificing themselves. It's bad parenting.

TCS explicitly says don't sacrifice yourself, even in the specific essay linked. The people in the Netherlands are not doing TCS.

It's a common trap people fall into though, even with conventional parents. I agree that self-sacrifice is bad. There's a lot to TCS other than not having rules though.

You can't just drop rules and expect everything to work out great. That would be naive. You have to actively seek out solutions that work for you and your kid. And really work, not "work" in a compromising, sharing-of-misery kind of way.

>I see a lot of parents (mothers mostly) in public places desperately trying to explain their dissatisfaction to their misbehaving children.

What you aren't seeing is the thousands of times the child has been thwarted, denied, forced, coerced, dragged around, insufficiently helped, etc.

>The children meanwhile are completely disregarding them and will continue doing whatever they were doing untill the parents give up.

Does that strike you as the approach a child would take if their parent were typically super helpful, responsive, and had a really strong strong track record of taking the child seriously?

>The parents will end up awkwardly trying to ignore their children,

this is not TCS!

>visibly ashamed

ashamed of their helpless, dependent children who are actively upset about something!

>but still unable to use their authority for fear of breaking their chosen path to happy parenting.

You describe a sad situation but something that is not at all a criticism of TCS. It's rather compatible with the TCS worldview (the bare facts of the situations described, not your interpretation)

>They won't even raise their voice.

Having a big person yell at you isn't helpful or nice.

You have never had children, right? Or if you did, you had one and they’re still pre-toddler?

I know that some people had horrible parents that mistreated them and hence they ended up being very sensitive to any parental reprimand. That sucks. None the less, kids need unconditional love, but they also need boundaries. Loving them means you sometime have to lay down the law. It’s not fun. It’s a hell of a lot easier to not do it.

But there are real reasons to not do it? Doesn't it seem rude or unfair or maybe hateful to imply (imply, not say explicitly) that the only reason people would avoid laying down the law is out of laziness?

No I don’t think there are reasons to never do it. There are simply so many situations that come up that I cannot comprehend why never doing it is the right choice. Please note though, I’m not saying that the reason you’d not do it is laziness. Hell no. If anything that approach is more work.

Hm ok.. I don't know why i interpreted that way but its comforting to hear thats not what you intended.

> Does that strike you as the approach a child would take if their parent were typically super helpful, responsive, and had a really strong strong track record of taking the child seriously?

How many 2 year olds have you raised? I ask, because that’s exactly how many kids act naturally. They don’t realize when parents are ‘super helpful’, their behavior is much more base than that.

I can tell you first hand, a small percentage of kids will behave well almost naturally n matter what you do, and some will behave poorly no matter what is done. Most though seem to thrive with sensible boundaries in place.

You sound very judgmental.

Bring up kids is hard, what those “mothers” are doing is hard, physically exhausting work which often takes 18 hours a day. You know nothing of their personal circumstances but decide to judge them anyway. For me, it’s amazing that many full time care givers can hold it together as well as they do.

I live in the Netherlands, have 4 kids. I don't see what you see.

Anecdotal evidence is a really terrible way to inform your parenting.

Sometimes what you experience firsthand is ten times more valuable then what you read on the internet. And maybe the struggling parents I saw are a local problem. But judging by the upvotes, there are more people who have similar experiences.

Or maybe its just the childless Americans (raised in a culture where spanking is widely accepted) that upvote the tough line on child discipline.

I mean, your original post was really about how to enforce rules, though you spent most of it conjuring up the image of publicly annoying children and then assuming their parents don't set any rules.

Somewhat surprisingly you also describe how the same parents that supposedly don't set rules clearly trying (but failing) to enforce said non-existing rules...

Just say what you mean: you make your children obey you by physical means.

I hope I'm misreading your implications when you say "you make your children obey you by physical means", because it sounds like you're accusing the parent commenter of child abuse. I'm sure that's not what you intended but I wanted to make it clear how that could come across.

Spanking isn't considered abuse in American culture. But you can make children obey physically without spanking. There is snatching from them, picking them up, etc. Those are physically asserting yourself over them to enforce a specific outcome. Not saying that's good or bad, just showing how the poster didn't imply abuse.

The original commenter didn't mention physical discipline though - in fact, they explicitly stated that the parents in question wouldn't even raise their voice, which I took to mean that the solution was to verbally discipline misbehaving children rather than trying to explain the rules to them as you would an adult peer.

Sometimes these other attempts do not work. (I had to use medieval methods exactly once for very good reason: electric sockets. Child safety and covers only go so far.)

>Just say what you mean: you make your children obey you by physical means.

You say this like its inherently a bad thing. Do you think children are abused by their nervous system that keeps them from biting their tongue and chewing on their jaw by causing them pain when they do so? Does this process cause them mental trauma? If not then why do we act like using a proportional amount of physical means to instill correct behavior in young children is inherently a bad thing? This "enlightened" parenting movement has really jumped the shark.

Does it seem brutish or incivil to stoop to physical means to adjust your child? Maybe you should cultivate reason. I wouldn't have written this comment except your comment about the enlightened parenting movement jumping the shark seriously rubbed me the wrong way.. as if to say we should not try and do better, we should just do things the way theyve been done for most of time. Its such a backwards and harmful perspective. We see problems that we can fix, why wouldn't we? Does it threaten your parenting style? Will your kids not respect you if you withhold violence?

>We see problems that we can fix, why wouldn't we?

Because we don't know its a problem. We have ideas that may or may not be sound. But we push them on the world with a fervor far beyond that which is justified by the facts, going so far as to criminalize non-abusive spanking in some places.

>Does it seem brutish or incivil to stoop to physical means to adjust your child?

These just aren't the types of judgments that a make sound basis for widespread forcible change of parenting styles.

>Because we don't know its a problem. We have ideas that may or may not be sound. But we push them on the world with a fervor far beyond that which is justified by the facts, going so far as to criminalize non-abusive spanking in some places.

We should operate on our best understanding, no? You're right we don't know it, as we don't know anything. I suppose we should not act like we know it, as you say, and should not punish people too severely for such things. Thats not to say we shouldn't use our best judgement, which is that such parenting styles are perhaps "savage" (i hesitate to use that word in particular, but maybe you get the meaning). If verbal conflict is enough to be incredibly stressful, can you imagine physical conflict? Verbal conflict already gives me immense anxiety.

>These just aren't the types of judgments that a make sound basis for widespread forcible change of parenting styles.

Why not? And then what types of judgements would? THis sounds like a comment just intended to resist change, and the kinds of judgements I imagine you supporting are ones that dont cause change.

I just think widespread change should be instigated by sound science, not by unproven ideas about how things should be or what we think is ideal. There is a lot of information encoded in current practices, we should not wholesale toss out convention without fully understanding the consequences. There is the potential for immense damage if our ideas about how to best raise competent adults is wrong.

>Thats not to say we shouldn't use our best judgement, which is that such parenting styles are perhaps "savage"

My concern is the value of these judgments in getting at the truth of the matter. Judging corporal punishment as harmful because we as a society have decided that violence is savage, is just an invalid deduction. But we've become so accustomed to reasoning-by-emotion that its hard to push back against loud voices that declare corporal punishment no longer acceptable. But the risks are too high to let our emotions overtake the science on the issue.

This topic is very hard. What would be harmful? We have to agree about that first.. somehow it seems putting your child into an awkward position is harmful, and itd be awkward if your child was normalized to corporal punishment.. Thats probably not that severe of a harm to the point that it should prevent you from considering corporal punishment.

Harmful in the sense of raising children who have never had any real boundaries growing up and so don't respect a parent's authority, are impulse-driven, are unable to delay gratification, have no work ethic, etc. These traits are detrimental to academic careers and job prospects.

That isn't to say that all children who aren't spanked grow up into these sorts of adults. But some children inherently have more behavioral issues, or are brought up in bad environments with a lot of negative influences, and they can grow into serious deviant adult behavior if not properly addressed when they're young. Corporal punishment is an effective tool and it needs to be on the table unless proven otherwise.

I didnt know we were still concerned about deviant adult behavior in 2017 lol.. Seems like deviance is fine to me and everyone is free to live a life according to their own wishes and priorities

You misread me. I mean deviant as harmful, not deviant as alternative.

> Just say what you mean: you make your children obey you by physical means.

This comment badly breaks the HN guideline which asks you to "respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." I know it's not always easy, but please follow it when commenting here. Otherwise we just end up with misplaced outrage compounded.

You’re getting upvotes most likely because most of the people on HN are either childless (and don’t fully understand what parenting involves) or don’t take an active role in parenting (this is unfortunately true of the people I know in real life who are on HN).

There's a ton of selection bias on both sides of this discussion. You were motivated to post your personal counterexample in order to defend Dutch parenting (whereas Dutch parents with misbehaving children would not be), and the poster above would have been noticing the misbehaving children regardless of how many well-behaved children were nearby.

If true, this would be an unfortunate ignorance of Kohlberg's theories of moral development (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg%27s_stages_o...).

These are not laws. The observations and patterns do not exactly match across cultures. The basic premise of moral rationality is plenty flawed as well.

> But the "rules are bad" trope is, unfortunately, a trend in The Netherlands. Parents that live by this rule are sacrificing themselves. It's bad parenting.

Ironically the problem arises from a self inflicted rule: "don't be angry". If they truly thought from first principles they would have realized.

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