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Comment by blub | Hacker News Reader

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.

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> 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.

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