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Comment by bornfreddy | Hacker News Reader

Great list, but:

> To keep young kids behaving on a car road trip, have a bag of their favorite candy and throw a piece out the window each time they misbehave.

That's terrible advice. Treat children with respect! They are very smart, they just lack experience. If they "misbehave", talk to them and explain why this is not good. If you can't find an explanation, chances are you are wrong and you should reevaluate your position.

But never, never, never willfully hurt them by throwing away their favorite candy. So wrong on so many levels.

This was a big surprise for me in this list as I mostly agree with the items before it. Or, to use a previous item:

> You’ll get 10x better results by elevating good behavior rather than punishing bad behavior, especially in children and animals.

Well said.

View on HN

(Full disclosure: I was once a child.)

When someone punished me, all it did was harm my relationship with that person. I didn't ever do anything wrong on purpose (except some rare exceptions involving peer pressure, which I always regretted), so by definition when I was punished, from my point of view I was being punished for doing my best, which I considered a grave injustice. The fact that they assumed that I did something bad on purpose deeply offended me, and damaged the trust in the relationship, and bred resentment and bitterness.

I'm autistic so perhaps this is an atypical perspective—from what I've heard we seem to have more of a thing for justice.

I understand there are some naturally naughty kids out there. But I genuinely believe that most kids want to be good, where "good" is defined as "behaving in a way that I get approval from my parents". The question is to what degree those ethics are actually internalized rather than just performed when someone is looking...

(full disclosure: I also was once a child)

you write that your experience as an autistic is that you have "more of a thing for justice" than might be expected from the general population.

I read that as an aspect of autism is to serve as a magnifying lens on on particular aspect of what it means to be human.

So, the trauma you report from being punished might have been felt stronger by you than it would have by someone with a different mental makeup, but that doesn't mean that the other person didn't feel it.

Conclusion: Your hightened awareness allows you to make explicit something which to others is just vaguely troubling. Thus your view is closer to the universal human truth than those who deny it.

I don't think you're right. Kids are naturally flexible, curious and have no notion of right or wrong. They will constantly try things out and need boundaries for their own good and for the good of the family.

How these boundaries are set varies by community, but some form of punishment is very very common.

Boundaries are good, but extortion and intimidation is not the way to do it. You can withhold candy but throwing it away is hurtful and cruel.

Speaking as someone who is currently dealing with a very disobedient 2-year old.

In any case, to keep kids behaving on a car road trip, you need to keep them busy and take care of their basic needs, being still and strapped in the back seat is not fun.

I actively rebelled against attempts to control my behavior. I think this is a good character trait to have: it made me a pain in the ass as a kid, but a populace with such a trait would not tolerate government overreach for a single instant. I'd rather get into a lot of trouble than let someone control my life.

Also, to expand on the cruel punishment thing (an extreme example but I believe it's just a more pathological manifestation of the same thing): my mother would sometimes break my things as punishment, for example toys or CDs that were gifts from friends. 15 years later, it still stings. All that taught me was that she was immoral (and possibly insane) which made me rather unreceptive to her future attempts to "educate" me.

> : it made me a pain in the ass as a kid, but a populace with such a trait would not tolerate government overreach for a single instant. I'd rather get into a lot of trouble than let someone control my life.

Education system does not teach science or life - it teaches compliance, obedience, to sit down, shut up and complete work by deadline

> my mother would sometimes break my things as punishment, for example toys or CDs that were gifts from friends

I'm sorry to hear that, it doesn't sound like healthy or grownup behavior. I recognize a lot of that in my own parents, I don't blame them, but a lot of their actions during my childhood I would now find petty or even emotionally abusive (characteristic of borderline or narcissism). They had their own problems I guess, their parents probably did worse things.

I'll admit, I don't have much experience being on the other end and actually dealing with misbehaving children (or teens, or adults for that matter), but I still have a strong bias towards peaceful dispute resolution rather than just forcing things on people and justifying it by saying I'm wiser and more powerful. (The governments of the world have been doing this an awful lot lately...)

I might illustrate with an example of something that happened yesterday. My mother and I were feeding some feral cats near our building when we were verbally assaulted by a neighbor, who strongly disapproved of this practice (he literally said "not in my back yard!" But it's an apartment building so it's our backyard too.)

My mother's instinct was first to run, and second to get the police involved (he seemed to be a bit mentally unwell, so she feared him). My instinct was to talk to the man, despite his frightening appearance, and understand his perspective. What is it about the cats that bothers him? Maybe it's the fact that people haven't been cleaning up the food trays, so it looks messy. It could be any number of things. But my fundamental thinking is that if I talk to him I will understand him better, and be able to come to an understanding. Whereas my mother's perspective is "he is mentally ill and therefore not even worth engaging with."

I bring this up because most people's perspective on children seems to be "they are a child and therefore their perspective is irrelevant. I am going to force my perspective on them, and force them to do what I want, at least until they are a legal adult." I disagree with this, because it conditions people for their entire formative years to instill a sense of powerlessness and a sense of not mattering.

In most countries, such disrespect of children is actually required by law. From a young age I had no interest in continuing school, but I was forced to pretend to go along with it for another 5 years, or the police would be sent after my parents.

>I don't have much experience being on the other end and actually dealing with misbehaving children

I do and managing young kids on a long road trip is war. You do what you can to survive and try not to feel too bad about it after.

i find it incredibly hard to believe that you "didn't ever do anything wrong on purpose" since you disclosed the fact that you were once a child. are you perhaps meaning something along the lines of "didn't ever think that things i did on purpose were wrong" instead? the thing that upset you when you were punished would then be that your definition of wrongness was different to that of the person punishing you?

most kids want a combination of 1.) approval from parent(s) and 2.) stuff that makes them happy and when 2 conflicts with 1 there can be issues, and it is a rare child that seeks only approval from their parents in all circumstances, as you also point out.

I think a big issue for many autistic people is that they are often perceived as wilfully misbehaving when they they have actually been trying very hard to behave. And this is particularly confusing for autistic children as the rules for them are different to the rules for the adults whose behaviour they are modelling.

i guess, and intent is important as a factor, at least somewhat mitigating. teaching that actions have consequences based on their outcome, nom matter how well intentioned, is important though, as is the lesson that life is unfair, or at least does not care about what you wanted or intended to happen ;)

i think i actually have a similar problem about asccusations of lying that often get thrown around in arguments etc. when the peoson accused has simply made an error in good faith...

I had an insight about this which isn't really novel but it finally clicked for me on an experiential level: if you assume bad faith, it makes you feel really bad about the other person, and from that feeling flow words and actions that screw up the relationship (even if your suspicion was completely unjustified and the other person had no ill intentions whatsoever!)

This comment and the previous one in the thread feel very salient, especially in the view of assuming good or bad faith. We've all been children, it's the burden of our human condition, but it feels like assuming others had less-than-pure intent as children because that was how you viewed the world as a child, speaks very directly to the environments in which we're raised along with changes in social mores over time. I'm mostly interested in the dynamic where one person assumes that children act in bad faith, I assume because they think kids are 'trying to get away with it', while the other person points out that from a child's perspective, they are trying their best to model behavior of those around them.

I guess it seems like if you're raised around people who are always acting in bad faith on some level ("Everybody is doing it", "It won't hurt if nobody notices", etc) then you're going to assume that there is always some ulterior motive even without any further evidence.

That is a great point. I got into a lot of trouble for treating people exactly the way they treated me. (That usually didn't have the intended effect of enlightening them, unfortunately...)

My reasoning was, if you don't want it done to you, don't do it to me. If you claim this behavior is so bad, why do you repeatedly demonstrate it? That too made me lose a lot of respect for parents, teachers etc.

Oof, that rings familiar. I was anti-authoritarian as a kid, but not as a "rebel against the man" or anything so much as the concept of authority from position being completely alien to me. I respected authority from knowledge mind you; someone who knew things I didn't I would listen to, ask questions of, seek to understand; when it became clear I knew more than the teacher, had better understanding, etc, I would disconnect and stop listening to them.

> "didn't ever do anything wrong on purpose"

The fact that there are two ways to read this comes up in the criminal law context, where there's a question as to someone's mental state.

You read "on purpose" to attach to "act" – as in, "none of my wrong acts were acts I purposely engaged in." (Such statements can often be read this way in the law – it's about whether they intended the act, not the consequences.)

But I think most people stating that sentence intend to communicate that the wrong (or harm) was not deliberate, in that they had innocent motives, or a non-culpable mental state. And that claim shouldn't be all that hard to believe.

Having mental disabilities and being frequently punished for them is counterproductive.

A lot of ADHD symptoms are identical to lack of maturity or laziness. In my case, being punished for inability to pay attention after school, frequently forgetting things (1), or failing to think about the long term consequences of my actions in the moment was incredibly damaging.

It’s little different from punishing a kid who is missing a leg for “slacking off” in gym class.

1: On top Of ADHD, my mom had and her mom had short-term memory issues due to lacking sufficient enzymes to process folic acid. Me having the same genetic short-term memory issues was treated as laziness by my parents.

How'd you determine the folic acid thing, is that common? My memory is awful (and I have various strange conditions mental and physical), I'm thinking I might benefit from some genetic testing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylenetetrahydrofolate_redu...

For me, this is fixed by an L-Methylfolate supplement at a dosage of 15mg/day.

This is why no parent should ever punish a child in anger. Not because it's morally wrong, but because it doesn't work. The first step must be that the child understands what they did wrong. Then you can tie a punishment to it if you really want it to stick - but first you need to talk it out.

Of course, a parent will often find that after they talked it out, they don't want to punish their kid anymore. (All the better.)

I mean, you should also never raise your voice to your spouse or say things that might be hurtful.

But hey, we're all humans, so it's messy.

I don't disagree, but I would argue it's unrealistic.

Your behavior as a parent doesn’t need to be perfect.

Being humble and acknowledging and explaining your mistakes is far more important than getting it right in first place.

Also found it can be good to talk it out later that day once the kid has calmed down or the event has passed.

At times asking my child after story time, right before bed, "hey, remember today when x and y happened. Do you want to talk about it? Why did you get upset?"

I find kids will happily talk and give their side of the story. It's good then to explain what you think could be a better way to handle that situation in future. Often they'll agree and I'll even hear them later using the strategies to resolve playtime disputes with other kids.

If I raised my voice or was involved in the event being discussed, I will also share my side of the story and explain what I'll try to do to improve or help in future.

Does this work in reverse though?

I kind of have a thing for justice, and I feel hurt and angry when I’ve done everything I can for my family, told my son clearly why he can’t do something, confirmed that he’s not going to do it any more, and then turn my back and it’s being done again.

I find it hard to stay calm in those situations.

I think in that case, it’s OK to punish them.

What the OP was trying to convey is that always lead with empathy, communication, and love. But, if after doing that your child is still willfully misbehaving, then they know it’s wrong (you talked to them, calmly and respectfully) so now it’s time to start leveraging punishments (groundings, taking toys, etc).

Respectfully disagree. The only solution I found to be working is - to not turn your back. Include the son in whatever you are doing and lead by example.

Of course it is easy to say that when not involved in the situation. But in general it helps to understand why the child "misbehaved" and only then change the course, and punishment in my experience never gives the intended results.

> helps to understand why

Yes precisely!

There's a book, Nonviolent Communication (have you read it?)-- I wrote a bit in this sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31209737

There's a book, "Nonviolent communication: a language of life", 3rd ed, which writes about this.

From what I remember, if you can talk and listen to the kid, and understand what underlying needs drive the behavior, and then mention this to him -- then he'll feel understood, and notice that you're listening and care. And that was, from what I remember, the most important thing, in solving a conflict. (I.e. being listened to and understood.) The other things then, afterwards, tended to be comparatively simple to solve together.

Yes. Telling the child your own needs and feelings is not enough, you need to ask about and listen intently for the needs and feeling of your child. Only when both you and your child both feel heard and seen will understanding result. And once you have understanding of each other then you both know what to do to take best care of each other. The solutions to the conflict then come by themselves, because you now understand each others needs. This only happens after you've put in the hard work to listen and talk and listen and talk and listen and talk and listen some more...

> The solutions to the conflict then come by themselves, because you now understand each others needs

Well said :-)

(thanks for explaining how that works; before that, it was still a bit vague to me)

Explain that to him. Talk to him, explain why things are the way they are. And of course, compromise as you would with an adult. Is your opinion really an universal truth or is there some compromise you can reach?

For example, playing with knives is not a good idea, but maybe all the child wants is to be included in cooking? Giving him a spoon might be enough (and much safer).

But every situation is different, it's not easy. :) Don't give up, and good luck!

That sounds like a coerced promise. He hasn't been given an alternative, and he may not be on board with the explanation. He has learned that the only way out of the situation is to make the promise, whether he intends to keep it or not.

You have to treat him like a person.

I'm curious, what does you have to treat him like a person mean in that context?

If the following things happened with an adult:

1. they lied to me

2. I calmly, respectfully and quietly call them out on it

3. they apologised to me and promised not to do it again

4. they immediately do it again

I would calmly call them out again (publicly yet still calmly and respectfully if we were with others), inform them that I'm not going to remain amongst them, then ostracise them.

How do you ostracise a child when you're their guardian?

Edit: clarified that calling them out on it is done respectfully and calmly

You're missing a step, which most adults also miss when dealing with adults.

You have to figure out why they lied, and not in an accusatory way. Often, particularly when someone wants us to promise something that we don't want to, we are trained to lie to get out of the situation. It can often feel like there is no alternative to lying.

This is, obviously, not an ideal behavior, but you can't solve it by force. You have to accept that they have a reason for not wanting to do what you want them to, and you have to come to a mutual understanding.

In any healthy interaction, you do not unilaterally set the rules. You both have input, and you have to respect theirs, even if you don't agree with it. That will help them learn to respect your input as well.

I'm mildly on the spectrum, and my view toward punishment as a kid is that it was misguided as well. I don't think it harmed my relationships with my parents, exactly (not directly anyway; the underlying personalities/values maybe), but it definitely introduced me to the fact they were flawed human beings who didn't know what they were doing, which has never 'corrected' in adulthood (i.e., I don't look back and go "in hindsight what they did was for the best", and I'm quite certain that if I behaved similarly due to stress/fear, I'd be apologizing for it immediately after).

Rather, what I was constantly looking for (and still am), was the "why" of things. Attempts to influence my behavior without first influencing my understanding led to friction and were the reasons they tried punishment (which never really worked). I didn't generally go out of my way to disobey them, but if we were at odds they had to explain it well enough for me to understand where they were coming from. This worked better with my mom who seemed to have a better understanding of my needs; my dad was more authoritarian and seemed to expect me to just listen due to the nature of the relationship (which in hindsight is funny, as while he is very much "the rules are the rules" when it came to other people, as soon as he had a reason he felt was good to disobey them, he would; he never really empathized with "other people might have good reasons to disobey the rules or otherwise feel they're unfair too", which helped me understand his political leanings).

I relate to this. Looking back, the troubled path always provided the most engaging feedback loops, sadly.

Agree 100%.

> But I genuinely believe that most kids want to be good, where "good" is defined as "behaving in a way that I get approval from my parents".

Well said, I would just say "...behaving in a way that I get attention from my parents". Approval is better yhan disapproval, but both will do if a child lacks attention.

This explains why "bad" children often stay the way they are even when punished - this is how they get the most of their parents' attention. Attention is the main currency for children and the only way to raise a healthy adult is to give plenty of it to a child. But not as punishment.

Coincidentally, adults are not as different from children as most think we are.

My experience (and observations) at least.

> Treat children with respect! They are very smart, they just lack experience. If they "misbehave", talk to them and explain why this is not good.

This is so out of touch with the reality of toddlers that I can’t help but think you’ve either never had children, someone else raised your children, or you got really lucky with an abnormally docile kid.

Screaming tantrums are hard to give rational explanations over. Do you wait your turn to speak between screams or just talk over them?

The whole field of behavioral science is something that exists and looking there for hints what actually works might be a good thing. Afaik the studies say that punishment is worse than ignoring wrong behavior in terms of getting you the outcome you want.

Better even is giving positive feedback on positive behavior while of ignoring bad one.

And yes, I had a toddler brother and had to test this based on actual, stressful reality.

My uncle (RIP), who was a child psychologist was a staunch proponent of treating his kids with respect and intellectual honesty.

Like most kids, they still got into trouble and had major screw ups in their young lives. However I've never seen anyone who respected their parents more in my life. There were no beatings, no yelling, no destroying or selling of their property as punishment. And wouldn't you know it, when they got in trouble for something they did wrong - they didn't resent their parents for it. They were always expressive that their mistake (or the general view of society that what they did is a mistake) was the problem.

It's hardly empirical evidence but it certainly convinced me.

I get what you are saying completely, and completely agree.

I have noticed male children, especially the first born male, who's father is a Psychiatrist end up--well--what's the right phrase? Some seem very angry. It's just something I noticed in my small circle.

I'm probally wrong, but it's something I have noticed.

How many people do you know who are the first-born male child of a male Psychiatrist? I'm thinking your sample size might be a little small to be drawing conclusions :)

(that and, how are you sure you're not experiencing confirmation bias?)

That seemed like an oddly specific filter.

Unless there's some condition that make them more likely to know about first born males of male psychiatrists, I would have bet on "definitely small sample" too

I'd suggest that 1. Psychiatrists and very different to psychologists 2. Intra job variation of personality and parenting style probably exceeds inter job variation 3. Anger at dad may not be a consequence of their job

I had one of each (Psychologist, Psychiatrist) as parents. Could have been worse. Almost no anger 40 years later!

As the first-born son of a psychiatrist, I feel inclined to add the data point that I do not recognize this in myself. I have a fairly neurotic personality, though, maybe that's the word you are looking for? Then again I don't think my father's profession has had a significant impact on my personality.

Maybe it has more to do with a type of personality that professions like psychiatry attract? It's hardly disputed that your parents' personalities tend to rub off on you.

i have two boys, 3 and 5. You cannot ignore what they are doing. If one of them starts to something wrong the other one joins so you have a double chance of trouble. And if we are outside and they start to misbehave in public you cannot ignore them. If they start to throw things at objects or people you cannot ignore them. If they start to say things that are not appropriate, you cannot ignore them (they favourite word right now is shit). when they start fighting i cannot ignore it. Im reading those opinions online and cannot at all connect it with what im seeing with my kids.

Of course you have to stop them if they are misbehaving or causing harm. A good book on this topic is "How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen: A Survival Guide to Life with Children Ages 2-7".

"And listen so kids will talk". Very important part!

I’m just finishing “What Do You Say,” which is a follow up to the self driven child. I am really enjoying it and wishing I read both sooner!

> You cannot ignore what they are doing [all the time]

You are obviously correct here and the giant pitfall of parenting advice is generalisation.

Your kids are bickering on a car journey? You have choices in how to respond.

Your kids are throwing stones at passers by? That has to stop right now as fast as you can apply influence with a transition from verbal to physical based on distance.

Don't take anything you read here as gospel. Note the myriad of parenting attitudes and common child behaviours globally. Accept you are doing it wrong, we all have/do/will.

I don't think anyone is saying ignore it, just that how you address it really matters. I grew up with a sibling and we got up to all sorts of trouble/fights and our parents were severe about it. all the punishment did was make sure we didn't do x or y in-front of the parents. Like it did teach me to be a great liar and sneak and we got up to all the hijinks, but I don't think that is the ideal parental outcome despite how well it has served me in life.

I've seen that. Kids just get sneaky and they don't trust their parents.

The comment we're replying said just that:

"Better even is giving positive feedback on positive behavior while of ignoring bad one."

No one told you to ignore them. Why is that the action you default to when you're told that screaming at them, hitting them, etc results in a negative outcome?

To extend he discussion, its safe to assume when a parent screams / hits that the other options didn't work. So it could be helpful to provide an example. Here's a sample scenario: Your toddler throws a rock at a stranger. You ask them to stop. They do it again. You get between them. They throw the rock at you. You restrain them (as gently as possible). They spit at you and then try to bite and scratch you. What next?

(Genuinely curious of your approach, I'm usually out of options at that point).

> Safe to assume when a parent screams / hits that the other options didn't work.

Most of my life experience contradicts this - parents gets angry and emotional, ignore needs of their children, do not think through their actions and do not realise possible alternatives.

I have witnessed parents 'giving away' kids to grandparents, spensong no time with them, and threatening physical punishment for poor gradea instead of offering any help

Lastly, you example is of a kid acting like a feral animal - by the time you get to the point it seems something has already royally fucked up

> Lastly, you example is of a kid acting like a feral animal - by the time you get to the point it seems something has already royally fucked up

Toddlers skip directly to that point with varying frequency and intensity depending on the child. Some will do it for obvious reasons, some will do it for less obvious ones. Some will do it literally at random. It would be great if all toddlers followed a step wise progression from obvious stressor to obvious meltdown, like you read about in the common parenting books, but that's not how they all work.

Of course there are bad parents out there too. But theres also plenty of parents who do everything by the book, never spank, set clear boundaries with clear signals and set good routines. And they get rewarded with random slug fests that come out of nowhere. Parenting is an unimaginably challenging experience for these folks and there's little they can do about it.

im more responding to parent comment, talking about ignoring is better than yelling, you cannot just ignore it. In a given day if you spend time with your children there are situations where that would not work. For example, my wife goes to work early, so it's on me to wake them up ready them and drive to kindergarten before i go to work. I cannot ignore them because im on time pressure, and we have to go. Im not hitting them but threating to take the toys and take them if they wont do. I scream if that does not work. And they still sometimes won't listen.

it's a lot different then what i imagined before i had kids. And the thing is most of people have the same problems. It's just that we all fake it in front of others. Like we are great and so on. But im in the years, where a lot of out friends have children with same experience.

The key to dealing with time pressure is to just start the process earlier (and avoid scheduling things too close together). The solution for hard wake-ups is to go to bed earlier and allow natural light into the sleeping area. In some parts this is basically impossible, though, as mandated start times require waking up before dawn. Pure folly.

If you do issue punishments, try to make them relate to the crime. Take away toys that get thrown at a sibling, or that don't get cleaned up from the hallway, but don't take away toys because the kid refuses to put their shoes on. That's just bullying and it will confuse the child.

Maybe the punishment for being late to school is an hour earlier bedtime that night. This is less of a 'punishment' and more just a rational correction to the problem.

What studies? Empirically, ignoring wrong behaviour is a clear recipe for ending up with a completely spoiled menace on ones hands.

The alternative to punishment is therefore not ignoring, it's explaining things and setting boundaries which will have to be enforced somehow.

> Parents should also be reminded that physical punishment may cause tantrum behavior to intensify and lengthen. Such parental behavior also teaches children that hitting is permitted when the punishment is physical (Kyle, 2008; Murphy & Berry, 2009)

> The best recommendation for parents in this situation is to remain calm, try to distract the child, and ignore the tantrum if possible.

[1] https://sci-hub.st/https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23006014/

> Ignore the tantrum.

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK544286/

> "Getting into it teaches the kid the way to get your attention is to have a big fuss," he said. "If you ignore that outburst, they're less likely to do it."

- neuropsychologist w/ lots published on quality and duration of tantrums in toddlers

[3] https://www.today.com/health/real-reasons-your-toddler-cryin...

[4] https://sci-hub.st/https://doi.org/10.1097/00004703-20030600...

[5] https://sci-hub.st/https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024173

> Any behavior that gets attention will continue

- clinical psychologist

[6] https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/how-to-respond-to-tantru...

Obviously there's lots of nuance and this is mainly advice given for tantrums in toddlers, primarily attention seeking tantrums in toddlers without development issues.

But it does generally follow 'praise good behavior, ignore bad behavior'.

Do you mind sharing how you got those references? I.e. which search strings/websites you used, or if you had them at hand with f.e. Mendeley or maybe already knew about them?

I wanted to read some papers in the subject a few days ago but couldn't come up with a good search strings nor good initial references. It's not my field of expertise :x

I think I started with google 'study ignore tantrum' because I had seem some studies on it before.

From there I hit up pubmed and google searches (ex. site:researchgate.net) based on terms, references, and authors from the initial studies I found.

It certainly wasn't exhaustive and I would not be surprised if I missed some studies with contradicting information.

Ignoring bad behavior is fascinating to me -- does that actually work for most people? I've noticed in my own (and others) toddlers, who are generally speaking well behaved and docile, that ignoring is usually the worst option. Distraction is always the best, but only works ~1/3 or 1/2 of the time and I've been told I am exceedingly good at it.

Ignoring tantrums makes sense. They’re doing it because they want something, and ignoring it shows that won’t work.

Ignoring other bad behavior isn’t the same. If a child is hurting someone, is being destructive, or ignoring what you say you absolutely should do something about it. I’ve seen plenty of parents that don’t and it doesn’t work.

Yes, if the kid is being destructive the sources even say not to ignore that behavior. They also give suggested intervention strategies (though I didn't see a lot of evidence for why they chose those intervention strategies).

And obviously some kids have psychological issues that make all of this meaningless.

I imagine ignoring a bipolar toddler's tantrum is not going to have a meaningful impact. Or at least that is my experience from dealing with bipolar adult tantrums.

It's true that punishment as in: "I am going to do unpleasant things to you because you misbehaved" isn't very effective. What works is enforcing consequences of actions: "the rules of this trip are such, it's ok if you ignore them but then you will not be part of it anymore" or "playing time comes after cleaning up after dinner, if you choose not to clean up no one is going to play with you". As long as the rules are clear, make sense and others follow them they work.

Another thing that works is making the child aware that their behaviour hurts you. "What you do makes me sad/tired/feel/makes my work harder". You are not angry, just making them aware how their actions affect others.

Needless to say you should never ever give in to a tantrum. Giving in to tantrums is not part of the structure everyone abides by.

Source: my gf works with children, often with disabilities and is a psychologist interested in behavioral science. Children actually like you more if you're someone enforcing the rules and structure than a pushover who will do as they please if the tantrum is long and loud enough.

I am glad I am not your child!!

> Screaming tantrums are hard to give rational explanations over. Do you wait your turn to speak between screams or just talk over them?

What is the point of being disrespectful over tantrum? Other then you venting own emotions that is.

Whenever I hear parents act like victims of normal childhood behavior, it's almost always to justify their own poor responses to it, like this or worse.

> their own poor responses to it, like this

What poor response have you identified in the parent comment?

Are you suggesting that it is disrespectful to talk to a child while she/he is screaming? That’s not even disrespectful to an adult.

In almost all cases this is because of hunger or lack of sleep. Disclosure : have a 2 year old.

Yeah same, I don’t think I can recall a tantrum my kids had that wasn’t “rational”. Obviously all kids are super different, but for us it’s always low blood sugar, lack of sleep or being “trapped” where he wants do do something he can’t be allowed to.

If your kid is normal. Tantrums can indeed happen regularly and without addressable cause depending on the child.

Could also be sickness or someone fed them juice and ice cream for lunch.

[Full disclosure: we have three kids]

> Screaming tantrums are hard to give rational explanations over. Do you wait your turn to speak between screams or just talk over them?

Screaming tantrums are a great demonstration of just how irrational young humans can be. I was (and am) firmly of the opinion that even when confronted with crazy it's crucial to [attempt to] remain rational in your response ...

Speaking of irrational, one of our favourite anecdotes (one of several thousand...) when our eldest was a toddler, he was playing in the garden and for no good reason decided it would be a great idea to throw small rocks .. at our parked car.

I was in the house and heard this strange <clunk> <pause> <clunk> <pause> <clunk> sound coming from outside...

I stepped outside, he'd done about a dozen rocks by that point, judging by the dents in the panels of the car.

I was so angry I recall managing to tell him firmly to stop but then having to actually walk away, leaving my wife to explain that "Daddy is so cross he can't actually speak right now..."

He never did it again, thankfully. He's 12 now :)

Remaining calm and explaining things is great, as long as it's clear that this will sometimes (maybe many times) not achieve anything. I like to think that they'll think about what they were told once they calm down :-)

I find this to generally be true, but it’s hard to be calm in the moment, so you get angry first, and then talk it through later.

Another child might keep doing that or do it to other cars too. You had a well behaved child regardless of this one action. Some children are not well behaved

One question is if punishment (of what sort) will make "not well behaved" children any better behaved. Based on my observation, I wouldn't count on it. I see lots of "not well behaved" children getting strictly punished and their behavior just gets worse and worse.

I know especially in the USA we want to talk about "what people deserve" rather than "what works" (vaccines and general covid response anyone? like we'd rather have someone to blame and have the right people have bad outcomes we think they deserve, than actually do things that work?), but what a mess.

I'm actually kind of glad that some children are not well-behaved. There's something reassuring in knowing that despite thousands of years of effort some humans cannot be easily controlled.

Of course, that does not mean it's a good thing that some humans destroy property and make other people's lives miserable, but it's nice to know that the indomitable still exists within us.

If you label someone as inherently “not well behaved” you yourself are not going to be able make any progress with them, because you will not be able to see their potential or their experience.

We're bystanders, though, so let's focus on the truth rather than how it would affect our parenting of those children we will never parent.

Screaming tantrums are a sign that something is wrong. It's your job as a parent to help the child deal with that situation. Not always figuring out the actual percieved problem (as they're humans, it's almost certainly never anything to do with logic and as toddlers it's probably impossible to even express). Probably not fixable in the moment.

But yes, waiting, connecting with them, and helping them to calm, and process the emotions.

OK but sir this is a Wendys and there are 12 people on their lunch break lined up behind you. Please collect your child from the floor, shut them up and move along.

That's not incompatible. Of course you can't do that in the middle of the floor.

> Probably not fixable in the moment.

Precisely

Sometimes (often) that something is merely a transient disconnect between their lizard brain reward/fear-centers and their rational cortex. There's not much to be done other than wait for the jello computer to stabilize itself.

This is surprisingly applicable to humans of all ages.

Misbehave != tantrum. Normal child misbehave way more than they have tantrums (source: I have 2 children myself and my wife is a trained nursery nurse).

Regardless with a tantrum you wait till they are calm then speak to them and explain to them what's the correct thing to do in that situation.

I think I understand your sentiment here.

Being a father of two (2 and 4), I think children younger than certain age cannot connect the negative result with the action they did. I yell, I lose candy, so what? I get to yell. Also, telling kids what not to do is different from what to do. You can tell kids don't do this, don't do that all day and they still fail to behave . My 2-yo tends to yell when he couldn't get the things he want. Telling him don't yell is futile. Taking snacks off his hand is even more futile. Giving him the stuff once he claim down and say "thank you" seems to help.

On the other hand, punishing has its place. But use it sparingly. I always send both of them to time out if they fail to share toys or fight each other. There is no one size fit all. Every kids are different.

pro-tip: send the toy to timeout instead. Consequences should be logically connected to behaviors.

I never screamed or threw tantrums after 2 or 3 years old.

Screaming and tantrums happen only if parents show to the children that that is an easy way to get attention.

I observed that catering to children and their tantrums does indeed result in problems down the road. I also observed that punishment never works.

My dataset is 5 people.

Disclaimer: I don't have children.

This, I think, depends a ton on the child and the relationship between the parent and child. One of the most amazing moments I can remember was at a dinner party with my ex’s extended family. There were lots of kids. During dinner, one of the kids (around 5 years old maybe?) started making a fuss about something. His mom leaned over and whispered something in his ear, his expression changed from upset to… kind of quizzical for a moment, and then I hear him whisper back “thanks!” His demeanour was perfect the rest of the meal, but in a happy friendly way, not the quiet sulking you often see after a child is chastised.

After dinner I absolutely had to figure it out. He didn’t say “sorry” he said “thanks”?! I go up to the mom (who I’d never met) and say something like “that was amazing! What on earth did you say to him?”

“Oh, all I said was ‘you’re being inappropriate.’ He’s a super conscientious kid, he doesn’t really need to be punished most of the time, he just needs a bit of clear, unemotional feedback. For him and me, yelling or threatening punishment escalates things, but this works great for us! Now, my daughter… that’s entirely different!”

5 is totally different from 2. At that age they aren't even usually fully able to engage in a verbal discussion, which can be frustrating for them.

I find patience and a tiered approach of punishments helps. Too many people jump to harsher punishment or longer timeouts and it's just punishing themselves because they have to miss that playdate or hold that kid in timeout.

Start small and work your way up.

Oh absolutely, lol 2 is the unfortunate stage where they've gained the capacity for rapid mobility without a whole lot of higher-order brain development yet. And I totally agree on high-patience and slowly escalating :D. I've only had to deal with this with nieces and nephews, not full-time for a year, but yeah... patience patience patience.

Parents have strong opinions, but I suggest the following exercise.

Observe parents with their children. But instead of focusing on the kid throwing tantrum or one listening to their parent, focus on the parents. See what their approach is, how much attention they give to the kid and in what way they treat them - not just when handling the difficult situation.

Kids are very different and definitely not rational. But if you spend some time doing the above, you can't help but notice some patterns. Some are genetics, sure, but I'm talking about their approach to the kid, this is something that's up to them.

Also, there are many books compiling data from papers about both short and long term results of different parenting approaches. Specific approaches offered in books differ, but data, especially long term studies, is pretty consistent.

Of course everything depends on your optimization function. One may choose kid's depression in later life over feeling embarrassed at Wendys ;) But more seriously, it really does depend what you want to achieve. You may want your kids to be happy, altruistic, empathetic, hard working, clever successful, well behaved, social, open minded or creative. These are different things, parts of them conflicting with one another, you can't have them all. I think this is a big part of the reason why there are so many disagreements about parenting.

I have a 2 year and a 5 year old. Screaming tantrums are exceedingly rare, and when they happen it is usually because I have failed as a parent with basic things like forgetting snack time, or they didn't get enough sleep. Who in their right mind thinks that yelling at the kids or punishing them in these kind of situations would improve the situation?

I tell the child "I can't understand you when you talk to me using that voice" over and over until the child calms themself down and delivers their grievance at a normal volume. Then I explain why things are the way they are and the tantrum re-erupts (usually) so we repeat the process two or three times. This technique requires a huge amount of patience, though, and it certainly doesn't get you to school on time.

The global society is currently trying to overcome gender, race and sexuality issues, while our children are still being treated mostly like slaves - it's for the sure the next fronteer, but maybe it will take a while.

in no particular order:

a. their freedom of speech is largely limited;

b. their freedom of movement is almost non-existant;

c. they do not have the right to own property;

d. parents have an immense power over them, with zero oversight in most cases, in a manner analogue to egypt pharaoh's or something (also, like pharaohs, they claim the children are THEIR PROPERTY, just like slaves in commerce);

e. they are ridicularized and treated as incapable a lot of times and get harshly criticized while adult society is a clear disaster;

f. they get their creativity and will to live supressed, repressed;

g. they are coerced into taking part in school brainwashing, a lot of times having more responsabilities than their parents;

h. they don't get paid for their work;

i. the child can escape from the cancer of nuclear family, but in most cases if they choose to do so they will end up in even worst swamps;

j. children get lied to, tricked and manipulated all the time;

k. beyond being denied the freedom of speech, a lot of times they are more deeply denied the broad freedom of thought, being forced into some religious brainfuc* of some sort;

l. not to mention all direct abuse like free labor, physical and/or verbal abuse, all kinds of prejudice, etc;

m. marginalized everywhere by cities, places and adults that ain't safe or fun;

etc

"All that which might be destroyed should be destroyed, in order to free children from slavery" A saying from an old revolutionary.

I wish icould re-parent my kids, i made so many mistakes. But, talking to others, everyone does. It's how they end up that cou nts. I've never read so mu

100%. I don't know where the seemingly common believe that being a kid is easy. It's simple in the sense that you have no choices to make, but that lack of choice is exactly what makes it so difficult. Being an adult is so much easier than being a kid because you can care for yourself and self-determine

Will definitely take a long while. People in general aren't up to be criticized on that one, even indirectly.

Children are like cute kitties: no one wants to see them tortured, but they don't really get to be treated respectfully in any way or form. The flag for "do I respect them?" is always set to True and yet it is almost never reflected in the actual behaviour towards them.

People are at least willing to entertain the thought that you aren't an absolute idiot, might be acting in good faith and have some sort of internal capacity for morality or ethics if you're an adult.

Yeah. It's not like it's parents to blame 100% for it. Most of it is inconscient behavior, and also in a lot of cases there's few options for the parents - it's not like they live the lives of Pharaoh's lmao.

The way I see it, the current state of children won't change directly, as in parents learning better ways directly by being convinced by rationality(this happens, of course, but it's weak force). It takes a full society change for this state to evolve. But I don't think it will take that long, if you ask: history is moving fast and there's a lot going on - I'm an optimist.

> h. they don't get paid for their work;

Flip side is that means I can charge them for room & board. Bring it on.

The worst part in this _advice_ to me is that they are basically teaching their child that littering is okay.

If you want to punish your child because you are not patient enough to teach them correctly how to behave, at least don't do it while putting garbage everywhere.

And also, using candy to _train_ kids is a good way to teach them bad food habits. But we came from different sides of the Atlantic so obviously we don't have the same opinion on food.

On top of that: if they thought that kid before that littering is bad, the kid might spot that inconsistency and take away a different lesson altogether — that rules don't need to be followed if you are making them.

But there is a lesson. That the other person may or may not like you depending on how you behave and may or may not be willing to extend courtesy based on that. Some things in your life are your rights, but some things you only get when you actively try to make people around you happy.

Obviously parents are taking care of your basic needs and it is hard for them to switch between parent, teacher and friend at the right moments, but they are never just one thing.

Kids probably should not learn that parents are demigods who make the rules.

I trust that my kids will learn that I am imperfect, without me intentionally misbehaving.

> But there is a lesson. That the other person may or may not like you depending on how you behave and may or may not be willing to extend courtesy based on that.

This might be true on an symbolic level. But I am afraid children don't learn all that well on an symbolic level. They learn by imitation.

What you proposed would work if the parent refused to do something they would normally do (e.g. lift the kid on their shoulders), to teach them that it is okay to refuse to do something for others if they are mean to them.

What doesn't work is if the parent does something they ordinarily wouldn't do and blame it on the kid aka "look what you made me do". What this teaches the kid is that they can blame their own behavior on others if they think these others give them a valid reason to do so.

Parents always teach by what they do not by how they explain it.

Also what are the kids going learn when you get pulled over and fined $10k for littering? Karma?

Unfortunately the candy bit is not the only bad piece of advice on the list. It's honestly a very mixed bag.

> Anything you say before the word “but” does not count.

This gets repeated a lot but it's still BS. Lots of things are nuanced. Deal with it.

> When you forgive others, they may not notice, but you will heal. Forgiveness is not something we do for others; it is a gift to ourselves.

Another one. Forgiveness is the result of a process, not the start. You have to heal before you can forgive, not as a result of it. I suspect anyone who claims otherwise simply has no idea what they're talking about. This is such basic stuff.

> Life lessons will be presented to you in the order they are needed.

Guess he should tell that to people who've been the victim of war crimes or similar. Dangerous advice to give out in general.

> To rapidly reveal the true character of a person you just met, move them onto an abysmally slow internet connection. Observe.

I hope he's only joking here.

> For a great payoff be especially curious about the things you are not interested in.

The only thing that that accomplishes is having a bad time. Double down on your strengths and delegate the rest instead.

> Anything you say before the word “but” does not count.

This is particularly stupid, because you can simply switch the sentence. If you know someone who goes by this credo, just: Yes, but no -> No, but yes.

> Life lessons will be presented to you in the order they are needed.

This is like the catholic mantra of. 'God challanges us' and 'evil is in this world to test us'

Blins to the horrors of the world and all the ruined lives of innocent people

I don't know. Have you met my kids? Not all kids are the same. Assuming the candy bag is big enough tossing a few isn't the worst thing to happen.

I do agree that, as I read this and thought that there's some really nice advice in there this one struck me as slightly off putting.

I can only speak from experience with my own kids and while I try to encourage them and to be respectful there are situations when they need to learn what happens when you cross the line.

I'm not sure people turn out ok if they never experience painful moments and I'm not sure protecting our children from every repercussion is the best way. I'm undecided on this very topic and I certainly try to be positive and encouraging in every situation.

I mean, tossing candy out of the window is littering. Unless you are the kind of parent who allows your kids to litter they will pick up on this inconsistency.

This is the cardinal mistake many parents make: They assume you can just tell kids how they are supposed to behave, and they will somehow extract the right lesson from your words and learn it.

In reality kids observe and learn from your behavior. That means the lesson here could as well be: "If you are the stronger one, you can make the rules. And the rules don't have to make sense and if you are in the right position you can break them yourself and be mean to others."

Which is ofc the polar opposite of what you sought to teach them. If you reason with your kids even of they are unreasonable, you teach them that reasoning is a good way of dealing with problems. If you explain to them why they are not allowed to do certain things you teach them there are reasons and they should be curious about the reasons behind the rules.

Completely agree. The littering is a no go for me.

But the idea that the bag is some reward and that you can lose some of it if you miss-behave and then maybe earn it back. That's reasonable.

I typically employ a progressive punishment in the form of a timeout. Go to your room for 5 minutes. If they don't respect that, it's 10 minutes up to 15 minutes. Culminating in: no iPad for you today.

Sometimes I ask them what the consequences for breaking the rules should be. And I get very reasonable suggestions.

Here's a 10x better way to do the same basic idea: get a bag of candy for yourself. and every 5 minutes they are well behaved, give them a piece.

I hate that the reward here is candy because I absolutely detest sugar. And in this scenario I'm conditioning my kids to eat candy when they do good.

I try to reward good behavior more so than I punish bad behavior. Things we're definitely simpler when they were younger but now they lie and make up stuff. I never lie or make stuff up. So, where does this behavior come from? And I never punish them for telling the truth.

Treat them with respect, sure, but set clear boundaries. There's a lot of parent that try to be reasonable and respectful to their kids, going into long rants about what they did was wrong and all that, but at some point you need to be curt, direct, and blunt, and take a stand.

Like on the car road trip, instead of dragging it out with individual pieces of candy (that'll take forever), stop the car and give them a Stern Talking To. Interrupt the flow of the moment.

Haha, I did that multiple times back from school with my boy. If he was acting wrong or making a "tantrum" (probably after a hard long day at school), I would just stop the car somewhere and say "Do what you want but I'll restart the car once you are calm".

It worked every time. He stopped after a minute or two. And then we were able to talk about what was wrong.

Just interrupting the flow shows that something must stop now for the normal life to continue. And then everyone can speak calmly.

willfully hurt? Come now. Sometimes kids are completely irrational, and like adults, need punishment. They aren't always in a state where they can absorb an "explaining". Sometimes they need to see that there are negative consequences of certain actions, especially when lines have been drawn and their actions cross those lines.

Without armchair parenting: people always say this, but the better parents in my life I have have never ever seen using punishment, only consequences that were clearly communicated ahead of time. And for those parents, looking disappointed or hurt seems to cut their kids like knives without any further punishment needed.

Those parents were fortunate not to have a sociopathic child. It was scary to see all the ways she’ll manipulate, and she’s not even 8.

Punishment is unfortunately the only thing that she understands. You could call them consequences, but you’d be sugarcoating the truth. Her having a nuclear meltdown due to being sent to her room isn’t the parents’ fault, and it was eye opening to see just how genetic it is.

(Her sister is as sweet as can be, and they were raised identically by the same parent. Interestingly, both kids are from the same two parents, but the father sadly died.)

I’m not sure why siblings are so different, but I recently noticed it even in dogs — our doggo is an extroverted ham, whereas her sister is standoffish and proud.

One grew up initially with no other sibling around and was an only child, while the other has always had an older sibling around and never been an only child. The experience of having an older sibling is completely different to the experience of having a younger sibling. The two are inevitably treated differently by their parents in some ways due to the age difference.

If they go to the same school one of them had to go in ‘cold’ while the other went somewhere familiar they had heard the older sibling talk about and had probably visited before, where the teachers already knew the elder sibling and knew some of their friends.

It’s a very different experience and situation to live in.

https://twitter.com/paulg/status/773140615068606464?s=21&t=v...

https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1364302749307928580?s=21&t=...

Not to outsource my thinking, but it’s not my idea. I only noticed the effect once he pointed it out, and then it seemed obvious.

The refutation to this is three children. If it was true that someone’s character wasn’t inborn, then we should see consistent effects on a middle child on average. But middle children seem equally random. My wife’s sister is an introvert and her other sister an extrovert, and it’s hard to square that with upbringing.

I predict in the future embryo selection will become a new cultural battleground. We’re having a daughter nine months after June, and we know this because it’s now possible to select which gender you want during IVF. It seems a matter of time till the introversion genes are similarly selected for.

People think 'oh, same parents, same environment...' but this seems patently impossible. Untill someone figures out double-blind parenting the confounding factors are endless. I've seen parents that claim they treat their kids "exactly the same," but they really don't.

Punishment and consequences are the same thing.

> looking disappointed or hurt

That’s punishment

> only consequences that were clearly communicated ahead of time

Like throwing out candy when they misbehave?

Throwing out candy they might or might not get if they behave. Perfect way to add uncertainty, fear and stress into situation. The initial situation is described as "irrational kids" who "cant absorb explaining".

And also, at least where I live, it is actually against road rules to throw away your crap out of window while you drive. It is kind of littering, except more dangerous as you are at speed.

consequences are natural and logical, not arbitrary, so children can reason and intuit about them.

Like not being able to hear the audiobook they are playing, or missing a turn or crashing the car due to distraction (don't do that).

If a behavior has no consequences and you need to invent punishment, why is the behavior wrong? Just because your personal preference trumps your kids?

> for those parents, looking disappointed or hurt seems to cut their kids like knives

You met my mother then?

I mean punishment is definitely not my style either, but the idea of "better parents" is a pretty tricky one. Kids are like cards out of a deck. You really can be dealt a very tough hand.

Chances are, they will melt down and cry/yell instead of improving after throwing that candy. It is not even meaninful, it is making you feel like you got vengeance.

And it is pretty much guaranteed they will try to throw away siblings something is sibling is not doing whatbthey want next time. Kids minic and how you treat then is how they treat other kids in conflict.

Moreover, small kids in car are tied. Literally worst they can do is noise.

Right but it doesn't have to go down like that. It's certainly a risk but it can also serve as a reminder that there are costly consequences associated with bad behavior. Question is, how far will they go for a piece of candy...

I think more context is needed here.

It does not have to, but it more likely will go like that.

> Question is, how far will they go for a piece of candy...

You are here trying to bank on them acting on rational self interest. But, the initial situation was described as "kids are completely irrational". Threat of throwing away candy they don't have adds even more emotionality and confusion into situation. There is even no initial guarantee they would get candy if they behaved.

Irrational kids wont become rational just because they got scared for candy.

> I think more context is needed here.

I actually agree here.

No, nobody needs punishment. It may achieve momentary compliance, but always sabotages long-term important goals of trust and safety.

Negative consequences are best experienced naturally, e.g., “You made art on the walls with crayons even after I asked you not to? Well, here’s my advice on how to clean the wall.” Punishment imposes additional suffering (“consequences”) in hopes that it is a deterrent. In fact, mostly it deters the victim from the punisher, not the behavior.

If someone is capable of dealing with the consequences of their actions, they are an adult, not a child. A three-year-old could easily make more of a mess trying to clean something. Plus, you need to supervise. The child could easily learn that drawing on walls is a great way to get your attention and play a new "cleanup game".

People who believe in zero punishment have either no experience or a selective memory. Granted, punishment is often overused, but it can be underused, too.

I have vastly more experience with punishment than anyone should, thank you, and an excellent memory. My teenager has literally never been punished; he’s healthy, happy, respectful, responsible — and he trusts me, because I’ve never hurt him on purpose.

Obviously one’s advice must be age-appropriate, and of course a three-year-old would need some supervision. That’s not an argument in favor of punishment, only parenting.

And if the three-year-old does learn that drawing on the walls is a “cleanup game,” so what? They’ll get better at cleanup. My house isn’t a surgery. After a while they’ll get bored of washing walls, and then have a direct and visceral connection between “1 minute of fun drawing on the walls” and “30 minutes of cleanup afterwards.” That sounds like a great lesson to me.

Punishment apologists lack imagination, and are usually more interested in protecting their own ego and authority instead of providing a safe and useful environment for their kids. There is no “underuse” of punishment; it is always the lesson of sadomasochism: teaching kids that they must love someone and fear them at the same time.

You seem to interpret "punishment" as "inflicting pain".

What about denial of privileges or a simple "stand in the corner"? If a kid is being obnoxious right before going to a birthday party, maybe stay home or go late. Or if you're already out, maybe say "this isn't fun anymore" and go home?

I guess you could argue over where the line is between "punishing" and "not rewarding". But I don't think that's a very useful discussion. It's more about how the kid interprets it, and if it's less than they normally get, it feels like a punishment.

Roughly yes, I think of punishment as intentional infliction of suffering in order to modify behavior. If there’s no behavior modification goal then of course it’s just abuse.

I agree with you that POV matters. Telling a young kid, “You can’t have dessert tonight since you’re puking” can easily be interpreted as punishment :D

Some of the things you talk about sound like what I could call “natural consequences,” like cleaning the wall. I don’t think there’s an unambiguous bright line between punishment and consequences. I’ve spent years trying to stay on one side of it, but I don’t think I’ve done it perfectly.

Going late to a birthday party because a kid is “being obnoxious” — I think we could view that several ways. Some parents would call backtalk or opposition or argument “being obnoxious,” and I think that’s entirely wrong — I want him to challenge me, and stick up for what he wants.

If the kid makes a clumsy mistake before the birthday party, maybe he can clean it up when we get back (e.g., spilling Lego, but not milk). If the kid deliberately makes a mess before a birthday party, I might delay and ask them to clean it up first. It’s not always possible for me to understand intent, so if he claims something was an accident I’m very likely to act as if I believe him. There’s less harm in that, I believe, than in attributing malice to an accident.

FWIW I try not to reward or praise him, either; those are both inappropriate uses of power. Those have fuzzy lines, too; “you’re so smart” is praise and I avoid it. “I admire how hard you worked” is talking about my own reaction to empirical facts, so I wouldn’t call it praise.

Paying him $10 for each A on a report card is reward, and I avoid it. Watching a movie on Thursday nights if we get the house cleaned in time seems like natural consequences to me, and I wouldn’t call it a reward.

My own parents provided me many excellent counter-examples and anti-patterns, so before I had a kid I knew I wanted to do it very differently but I didn’t know exactly how. Alfie Kohn’s book, “Unconditional Parenting” informed my thinking about this significantly.

Behavioral science suggests that punishment is the worst way of teaching any human to behave. Even just ignoring bad behavior is better.

What works best is ignoring bad behavior and rewarding good one randomly (so not every time).

And I would warn against overly relying on food as a form of reward and punishment, unless you want to give your kid an eating disorder for the rest of their life.

I wasn't aware that using food as a reward is a risk factor for eating disorders. I mean it has an elegance to it, but equally, most elegant ideas don't play out well in reality. Could you add a reference or some detail?

> Behavioral science suggests that punishment is the worst way of teaching any human to behave. Even just ignoring bad behavior is better.

Citation? And is this actually reproducible?

By default I don’t trust any social / behavioral science study. The field is broken.

I don't know if that really match but I have an anecdote about (absence of) punishment as a teenager.

As a teenager, on one of my first parties involving alcohol, my father said something like this : "Try not to drink a lot, but if you do and feel like you want to come back home, call us and we'll get you home, we will not reprimand you whatever would happen. Don't ride one of your friends car, just call us."

Well, contrary to all my friends who acted like their parents should not know they would drink alcohol, I had a great party with moderately high alcohol consumption. "Fun fact" is that I had to call the emergency services for someone who has had an ethyl coma.

Interestingly, and I think it's correlated, I continued to drink alcohol at parties but my first real hangover was more than 5 or 6 years after, on a place and with people I felt safe with.

_All_ of my friends who were taught that they'll be reprimanded if they drank a lot started to drink a lot secretly at every parties. Most of them aren't even my friends anymore.

Same vibe as diners who put down money on the table and take some away every time they don't feel doted on enough

They were probably mistreated this way as children!

The two main problems with that are 1) caused by tipping in the US being awful and 2) it being patronizing.

We should fix tipping, and it's not inherently a problem to be patronizing to children.

As someone who already thinks very little of people throwing their cigarette butts out of the window, I would not want to set an example that littering is acceptable to my own kids.

Parenting styles differ, yours isn't one of discipline.

If I hadn't had discipline at that age, I'd be hopelessly undisciplined now (in hindsight, I reckon my parents probably should have disciplined me even more than they did). Taking away my favorite things when I misbehaved worked wonders for me - I then did what I was told.

"But never, never, never willfully hurt them by throwing away their favorite candy. So wrong on so many levels"

Why, what are those levels? Discipline works by first explaining the rules and the reason for them then enforcing the rules with rewards and sanctions. It works for kids, it's the same for army recruits - in fact everyone.

Mollycoddling kids who then never have a day of remorse throughout childhood deprives them of resilience later on in life. Resilience is so important that not instilling it into kids early on in life is of itself abuse.

There's a huge difference between disciplining kids and willfully hurting them. In the above scanario the candy is thrown away but the parent has a choice of whether he or she is administrating discipline or undue cruelty.

It's how one goes about it that matters.

Yeah, no. Obviously you can explain why what they are doing is bad (even if that’s just “it makes papa annoyed when you jump up and down on the backseat”), but after you’ve told them the consequences of proceeding to act that way, you have to follow through on it.

I have a vivid memory around the late 90s on a family roadtrip throug the rocky mountains seeing the car drive in front of us a bit erratically until a fucking entire ass nintendo 64 connected to a couple of controllers came flying out of the window of that car and we had to dodge it.

Uh yeah don't throw shit out of car windows to punish your kids. It's literally littering, and it's really dangerous. Always wondered why anyone would think this is OK and I wonder how much insanely weird parenting 'tips' like this have to do with it

Actually, I find that idea kinda funny and with some minor adjustments, I think it can be good parenting.

So maybe you don't want to throw the candy out of the window, because that is not the proper way to dispose candy. However, if you add an empty bag for you, where you put the candy every time the kids misbehave, the kids will probably learn how to preserve their stash. In addition, you might want to add some rules, how they can get the candy back which has landed in your bag (like every time you 'misbehave'). That way you would level the playing field and it might become a game.

After all, it is candy. Nothing the kids rely on to survive, but rather some pleasure drug.

I love the advice he gives - even that piece. If the kids are being bratty, they need to learn - beseeching them to be sensible will only get you so far.

Throwing some sweets out the window is hardly a bad thing anyway - the way I see it, the more you throw away, the kinder you are being to your kids! Though that might not be how they see it...

It's literally turning a teachable moment into a resentful one while simultaneously teaching them that littering is okay.

Please point me to the parts of this method that are good or effective.

Just take the candy out of the wrapper. Sugar disintegrates.

"Anything you say before the word “but” does not count." :D

The worst thing about this is using food as a reward/punishment. Sets up a really bad relationship with food.

> But never, never, never willfully hurt them by throwing away their favorite candy. So wrong on so many levels.

Let's not be hyperbolic. Nobody is hurt by throwing away candy. I agree that it is a childish and probably unproductive method, but candy is NOT important.

It is to a 4 year old.

I think this is a case where it varies hugely. For some kids I’m some families sweets are a huge deal and can be a contentious issue, to others they’re really not a big deal.

I think the point is predicated on a situation where the candy is important ("favourite candy"). Substitute for anything else precious to the child. Intentionally destroying something precious, even a small thing, is indicative of something nasty. It serves only to build disconnection.

I don't read it as destruction. Kids should never be entitled to sweets, so the candy is not in any way theirs. And I don't think that they should receive sweets as a reward for being decent human beings.

Sweets are extra. A sign of affection. A toast to achievement.

I imagine a captain pouring a bottle to the sea every time someone gets to a fight an ship crossing the ocean.

(I say this as someone who doesn't give their child sweets!)

IMHO if a child is behaving in a way that you don't like, it's your job, not theirs, to close that gap. Are you putting them in an overwhelming position, asking too much of them, emotionally distancing yourself? Do they have the mental capacity at that age to balance behaviour regulation with delayed gratification? (e.g. a long drive they can't cope with, the promise of sweets if you're "good")

If you're bribing good behaviour with the promise of something, and you have that thing in hand, throwing it away just seems mean. That's different to not giving it to them. It's an irretrievable act, and shuts down any continued negotiation.

Stigmatising natural behaviour, and then washing your hands of the situation (because you can't get that sweet back) doesn't sit right with me.

I’m surprised you see those two pieces of “advice” as being different schools of pedagogy, because to me they are very much the same. The latter is a better approach, but it’s still a very flawed approach to childcare that were largely ”deprecated” in the 90ies in my country. Because neither of them deals with the child as more than a piece of clay, or an, animal as the author even highlighted.

Don’t get me wrong. Both ways work, and more modern pedagogy builds on the lessons learned from these approaches, but the best way to deal with crime and punishment isn’t these methods, it’s to deal with children rather similar to how you would deal with an adult but then comfort them as though they are children. If that sounds weird to you just imagine how annoying it would be for you if your boss started complimenting you on every thing you do that aligns with what they want to cultivate in you. I know some people might like that, but most of us would feel like we were being treated like idiots. The effect is a little different in children, but some will still feel that way and others will grow up to be very compliment seeking and spend decades in therapy learning how they I be themselves.

What you’ll want to do is to calmly explain why X behaviour is amazing and how proud you are of it. When that is actually true, and then only for as long as it takes for your children to learn that saying thanks when someone give them something is good. Similarly you calmly explain why Y behaviour is terrible, but it’s not like you can’t use reasonable amounts of punishment to teach about consequences. By reasonable I mean things similar to “if you don’t stop hitting the cat in the head with your doll now that I’ve explained why not to do so 20 times, then I’m going to take the doll away for the rest of the day”.

The biggest influence, and most important advice, is consistency. If you say that you’re going to take away the doll for the rest of the day, or when you say no to ice cream, then you absolutely have to follow through. Except when you were wrong, or when you’ve greatly miscalculated the importance of something, and if you’re consistent enough otherwise, then this will simply teach your child that it’s ok to be wrong and admit it. On the flip side of this, you actually have to say yes. One of the biggest challenges I personally faced when I had my first child was that it’s ok to sometimes have ice cream along with your breakfast within modern pedagogy. But it turned out that by saying yes when there is no reason not to, then it becomes really easy to say no because a no is just accepted as your offspring knows that it won’t always be a no.

I think a lot of good parenting is working on yourself though. I mean, why are you getting worked up over what a 4 year old is doing? You have an infinite amount of patience compared to them.

The thing about being biased towards saying yes, but insisting they ask, seems to be very powerful. We’ve never hidden sweets, we don’t have a lot around but when we do they’re accessible. We’ve always told the children to ask if they want sweets and that the answer will usually be yes unless there’s a reason, like it’s meal time soon or we’re saving those sweets for some reason.

Trusting us that the answer would be yes (and we had to follow through on that occasionally), but having to ask created just enough of a barrier that our girls rarely bothered with sweets. They’ve never been a big deal to them, but I know a lot of parents have huge problems with sweets ‘stealing’ and sometimes when other kids come round we find out afterwards all our sweets have been cleaned out.

Unfortunately all children are not created equals and some will crave sugar som much that Your method would fail miserably. I see this in children of my neighbours. Mine are almost same as Yours (especially older one) - they like sweets, but often they will leave them laying around not touching them for days. But if You do this with children of my neighbours they will behave like little addicts and they are like this since when they were like 3. I think this works a bit like with drugs or somkes - some people just do not have addictive personality and it seems like they are born this way (maby its some chemistry in their brains working better or sth).

That's quite possible, I really don't know, but kids learn a huge amount by the time they're 3. They'll cue off adult behaviour, and you can very easily accidentally teach them really bad behavioural habits very early on. If the adults exhibit addictive behaviour or magnify the significance of indulgent behaviour then kids will start learning that from day 1. So sure individual biochemistry can make a big difference, but a child's basic personality is largely established by age 4. Those early years make a huge difference.

But if that's the problem, then that insight doesn't do anything to keep them from overeating candy, it just assigns blame. And it doesn't really work as advice to new parents except to say "be more perfect!"

>This was a big surprise for me in this list as I mostly agree with the items before it.

It doesn't matter if someone agrees or not. These are Kevin Kelly's advices, things he believes as being true and useful.

You can start your own list.

Also, "modern parenting" as in treat the children like adults, never contradict children, never punish children, children are always right while adults are always wrong, seems to me that failed to produce successful adults. It produced selfish adults that think they are entitled to anything without putting any work.

Came here to say this. Also, the littering aspect is not so great.

As you say, this item seems out of place on an otherwise surprisingly consistently convincing list. Another child-related one is good advice "For the best results with your children, spend only half the money you think you should, but double the time with them."

I think kids are so varied that it's hard to find universal advice for how to punish kids, except when it is sufficiently broad.

That one also stuck out at me. If I were a kid in that situation I’d find it funny that my parent was littering every few minutes.

> throw a piece out the window

Also, don't throw thrash out the window and don't teach your kids to do it.

It is an appalling thing to do. That is the whole point! They will not be learning to do it, they will be learning to try to prevent it.

From the list:

> Anything you say before the word “but” does not count.

I'll agree with this one regarding your comment.

> If they "misbehave", talk to them and explain why this is not good. If you can't find an explanation, chances are you are wrong and you should reevaluate your position.

Tell me you've never had kids without telling me you've never had kids.

This is the type of parenting that made a wide appearance on Super Nanny back in the day.

Periodic reminder that Super Nanny is scripted TV show. And just like other TV shows it is entertainment and not a documentary or manual.

Children misbehave because they are intrinsically evil, as all humans are. With experience comes manners and the understanding that suppressing your evil nature is beneficial to yourself.

Are you treating other unleashed monsters with the same respect?

Children are naturally ‘wild’ in some sense. They don’t know what the social rules are, can be selfish and resentful. They also have inherent social traits though, they are capable of love, they understand give and take, you can make agreements with them and negotiate. Often when they break social rules it’s a mistake rather than premeditated wrongdoing. Hungry or tired children can be particularly unruly.

None of this adds up to evil. Some children can be very wicked. Usually that’s a consequence of a very unpleasant home environment. Some kids have unbelievably awful parents.

define evil?

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