Comment by logifail | Hacker News Reader

Comment by logifail | Hacker News Reader

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[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 :)

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.

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.

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