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Comment by skocznymroczny | Hacker News Reader

There is a difference between spanking and child abuse. The opposite of always trying to negotiate with the child also has it's drawbacks. It moves the parent from position of authority to position of a partner and forces him/her to negotiate over every little detail in life. Also, spanking is quite an efficient method if you get the "child laying down on the floor in the middle of a department store" problem. In this case negotiations won't give you anything, unless you promise your child to buy every single thing that grabbed his attention on the shelves.

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> "child laying down on the floor in the middle of a department store"

In more than three decades of living in Norway where corporal punishment is exceedingly rare I have never once seen this kind of behaviour from a Norwegian child and rarely from immigrant children.

So perhaps one should look to the behaviour of the parents and society in general in order to tackle this kind of misbehaviour by ensuring that it does not happen instead of simply reacting to it when it does.

>So perhaps one should look to the behaviour of the parents and society in general in order to tackle this kind of misbehaviour by ensuring that it does not happen instead of simply reacting to it when it does.

Ok tell us how since you seem to be an expert on it. You can't "tackle" every situation with sweet words before it happens, especially when you're directing those words towards a being that doesn't have a full formed brain yet.

My general experience with Europeans is that it takes almost until middle age to leave the house, stop suckling their parents income, and act like adults where they can be responsible for themselves.

If that's what you want for your country fine but I think the hands off parenting and letting them get away with everything when they're young has consequences.

Anecdotally, my wife's German cousin came to visit quite often when he was little. His parents never disciplined him and took the Euro approach to essentially whining at him when he did something wrong. When he got upset he would just go around American Grandma's house knocking her stuff off the shelves and breaking it. Grandma had enough of that and gave him a nice swat eventually. He neever did it again. The kid is in his late 20s now, doesn't have a job, his parents are buying him an apartment, he has no clue what he wants to do, and has failed out of school multiple times. He also still acts like he's 15.

Maybe that annoying pain of a child was on his way to become an asshole rocket scientist until grandma's humbling corrective made him consider the significance of his place in the great cosmos.

And now because of that incident we live in a world devoid of ESA-grade asshole rockets.

I'm pretty sure that I pointed out that children here are well disciplined. Your anecdote about your German cousin is quite the opposite of the behaviour of children that I have observed here. I'm pretty sure that I did not say anything about hands off parenting either.

Children are socialized early here in Norway by a combination of parental and kindergarten influences generally resulting in self confident children who rarely throw tantrums and can from an early age be negotiated with.

You could wait until your child is done lying on the floor, not buy them anything, and perhaps punish them in a civilized way later. Or carry them out of the store if you're in a hurry. Violence is always abuse and should not be tolerated.

> You could wait until your child is done lying on the floor

If your kid is a shit, and you bring them into my day and allow them to continue being a shit, well, you are a shit.

No, your convenience is not more important than the welfare and bodily integrity of a child.

If your idea of civilization is that we can reward, through inaction, being totally uncivilized, then I reject your civilization.

The child does not get a reward. That's the whole point.

I would agree.

I think for parents in a hurry an inconsolable child is challenging in a public setting. As you say carrying them off might be the best option at that point, if you have your hands free —which may not be the case.

The parent is the leader. Rarely negotiate with kids because it teaches them selfishness, arrogance, and narcissism. There are plenty of unpleasant consequences that don't involve beatings. Kids need boundaries and to know they're going to be held accountable for their behavior.

I often hear these “negotiations” with children in public and they are laughable. Trying to have a reasonable discussion with a 2 year old is only a step up from trying to reason with my dog: they just don’t have the tools.

Children are constantly pushing and probing boundaries. They are trying to figure out who is in charge. So, when you respond to their aggression in a weak way because you’re worried about them not liking you, you lose. You aren’t teaching them to “be civilized”. Little by little their respect for you will diminish and you risk them becoming more unruly.

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