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Comment by PakG1 | Hacker News Reader

>> The absolute worst things are these https://www.ehanddryers.com/hand-dryers/tap-hand-dryers, my kids just plain refuse to wash their hands out of fear of accidentally triggering the dryer

Wow, I was recently in an airport bathroom where a young boy absolutely refused to wash his hands. His father was extremely patient and said that he needed to wash his hands. The boy was near tears saying that they would miss their plane. It was all a really strange and illogical situation. Until I read your sentence. I don't know if this is why the boy wouldn't wash his hands, but it makes me realize that sometimes kids have reasons for what they say or do, even if they can't explain it. Reminds me of the hand licking incident: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18842009

I thought I had read all about the hand licking incident and learned not to make presumptions about kids. Today, I realize that the lesson hasn't really been ingrained into me yet.

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> sometimes kids have reasons for what they say or do

Raising two kids I've come to think that this is almost always the case. The reasons may be based on misunderstandings but they are logically coherent in the context. A lot of times they may have a hard time explaining it, especially when an adult loses their temper because they decide the thing is just a folly.

In my kids' school they are not allowed to wear shoes indoors, but my son refused to take his off and wouldn't explain why to the teachers. It drove them mad, and we got phone-calls and emails telling us this had to stop that he must obey the same rules as the rest of the kids! We spoke to him (without reproach) and slowly we realize that he knows his shoes are expensive (because they are pronation) and it turns out that someone had hidden them before. After we explain to the teachers he is allowed to keep is shoes by his desk as long as they are not on his feet. Problem solved.

It makes you wonder about how teachers are selected and trained in the first place/what kind of behaviors are incentivized that they would not be able to handle a minor situation like this and had to resort to emailing/phoning parents when all that was needed was to just sit down and have a calm chat with the kid.

I imagine teachers don't have the time to have this type of 1:1 interaction with the 25 students in their class. Seems like email/phone communication to the parents is reasonable here. Something like disciplinary action would have been bad though.

I will add that it is 1 to 25 in California, other states vary.

One of the reasons why better ratios help kids is exactly to give this type of individual attention.

Judging by teacher's earnings.. they are probably very badly selected and trained.

> and wouldn't explain why to the teachers.

Looks like they thought to ask him, but a kid's parent will be able to extract better info out of them.

Interesting, thanks for sharing that link. I had a ton of weird tics as a kid which could easily be traced back to the large amounts of prescribed amphetamines I was forced to take under threat of punishment. The solution to the tics was... more punishment.

It took me years to realize things such as, the reason I would chew on my shirt color all day even though I would routinely get sent to the principal's office and publicly embarrased by teachers or beaten at home was just because my jaw would get very tense and chewing motions relaxed it, and my mouth was the Sarah Desert and sucking on the fabric pulled moisture into my mouth.

You too!? I thought I was the only one!

My shirts would be sopping wet in the front and would all have tooth holes from my chewing them, I'd go through a shirt a week nearly.

I wasn't on any meds but my teacher at the time would dole out punishments regularly to me in class. I've put 2 and 2 together before, but I never knew I wasn't alone in this behaviour! Thanks for commenting, this really helped me.

All those poor buttons. And then I come to find out that one popular tip for reducing dry mouth in dry environments is literally sucking on a button.

I wonder how common it really is in young children. Certainly seemed I was the only one dealing with it at several different schools. Is it too late to form a club?

Similarly, I had issues with scratching my nose in public, nail-biting, hair-pulling, picking at scabs, sucking my thumb at night... punished and beaten all the time for it, and some particularly nasty teachers would try to make a public example... come to find out in my adulthood that I have a literal disorder, body-focused repetitive behavior (BFRB) syndrome, which is related to OCD and bipolar disorder and ADHD which I also deal with, and heavily exacerbated and permanently worsened by my forced exposure to intense medication.

Did you outgrow the tics? If so, at what age and what led to outgrowing them?

I still deal with BFRB and I've had a few instances of old tics resurfacing, but a combination of practice and learning much about my disorders and cognitive science has helped me tremendously with everything else, such as nervous tapping, twitching, repetitive audible excitations, speech impediments and the like. I believe even my BFRB will eventually no longer be a problem. They all subsided at different points in my youth, mostly after conscious effort.

When I was first placed on medication at five, I developed a pretty awful tic wherein I would swallow every five seconds. I was sent to therapy and the therapist first thought I was lying to get attention and then thought I was crazy and needed more medication. This tic was causing gastrointestinal distress, dental issues from lack of saliva, and was a major speech impediment for me. My esophagus would get pretty raw. This was my first experience in learning how to deal with these on my own.

One tic that seemed to go away without extended cognitive effort (on account of its lower frequency) was extended periods where I would laugh uncontrollably over nothing for half an hour or longer until I was red in the face and choking for breath and my diaphragm was convulsing. This lasted for a few years until adolescence. My family thought I wanted attention again and would punish me when I couldn't stop at their command. It's honestly insane how some people respond to behavioral anomalies in their children.

Thanks for your response. My son is 9 and he goes through phases of having some sort of tic (throat clearing, head shaking, blinking, etc). They're not too bad, relatively speaking, and no one has really noticed. Or if they do then they probably dismiss it.

His pediatrician said it's likely a mild form of tic and tourette syndrome which often goes away by age 13. We haven't brought it up to him besides once or twice asking if he feels any discomfort. We haven't talked to him about stopping the tics and don't plan to. I hope his classmates continue to ignore it and that they remain mild.

Sorry your experience was not supportive and I hope BFRB does, in fact, go away for you.

I would say that habits are everything, and in some cases, I believe even extreme disorders like schizophrenia can sometimes be caused by bad neurocognitive habits degenerating unchecked.

You're doing the right thing by not making a big deal out of it or making them feel different, but as your son gets older and more able to have these kinds of conversations, it's worth opening a dialogue with them about finding ways to form new habits that break the old ones.

Many of my tics only went away after much effort, and growing up I felt like I had no one to talk to about them. My family didn't understand and I didn't have good experiences opening up to other children about them because they also either thought it was an attention thing or that something was really wrong with me.

At some point your son is going to become stressed by his seeming inability to control his own body and he will want to have positive dialogue about it. He may not have the courage to initiate the conversation though or he may be worried you won't understand. I wouldn't approach it with a bag of tricks but rather learn together with your son and encourage them to pursue better habits when apt. I know for me, accepting my disorders as purely physical and maintaining the belief that I could overcome them mentally was instrumental in my healing.

Good luck! I'm sure one way or another he'll figure it out as long as he is surrounded by positivity.

One thing to remember is that sometimes it's correct to realy trust your kids even in contradiction to your best assessment of the situation. The hand-licking story is about tactics for diagnosis, but another angle is that (sometimes) it's OK to not understand something, to think your kid is wrong, but to let them have their way anyway. Missing a plane vs dirty hands? Trust the kid, find another solution (grab a towel, wipe hands on pants, take the germ risk, etc), and talk about it later as best you can.

You don't want to let your kid be the boss of everything; you don't want to let your kid ignore your intructions or choose to do something fun instead of necessary work, but if your kid would rather stand there and do nothing while getting upset instead of doing some small work item, they aren't "cheating" you out of anything by getting their way.

Kids have a reason for everything they do. If you don't know the reason, it's because you've failed to communicate with them. Sometimes they don't know themselves, but that's still a kind of communication failure.

There are many things my kids were saying that I only figured out days, weeks or years later. Listen, guide them, let them be, and don't be a helicopter parent.

The Kennebunk rest area in Maine was designed by someone who hates children or is utterly incompentent or both. The diaper changing table is flanked on both sides by 4 loud hand dryers. The icing on the cake is the solitary paper towel dispenser is located ABOVE the diaper table. If you drew the short straw for diaper time, you'll be treated with your child screaming for mercy from the dryer noise AND have people who prefer paper towels dripping their wet hands all over your kid.

I'm with the child on those tap dryers. They seem designed to blast any remaining drops of water in the bowl into your face or shirt. Hate the damn things and avoid them now. Maybe the places were using the wrong bowl or something. :)

I saw these for the first time on monday. The first thing they did was blast all the water in the sink into a fine mist and spray it over me. I can't believe that the people who designed or specified these ever used them.

Thank you for sharing that link. Truly.

In re: "the hand licking incident"

Oh the pathos! If only they had known of the "Six Step Reframe" algorithm (which is actually deprecated now in favor of even more effective algorithms.)

In pseudocode: https://gist.github.com/calroc/4719702

The hand-licking incident is more like /r/kidsarefuckingstupid.

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