Why young parents should focus on building trust with their kids

But I was also a kid who'd beg nonstop to open my presents early. I knew if I opened something early, that was more time with a cool game or something. If I waited, well, that was less time with the cool game. Plus most of the presents weren't interesting. There was just one thing I wanted in particular and the other stuff could be forgotten.

Why didn't your mother step up to support that?

If a mother can replace a father in this role, why can't a teacher?

Why doesn't a child need some freedom and independence to discover their own internal motivations and creativity?

Shoutout to the adults like myself that grew up like this. On the one hand, you develop outside the box thinking, because you had to learn everything via trial-by-eroror - no one taught you how to think inside the box. On the other hand, it's tough to trust or ask anyone for help.

[0] "Delay of gratification and adult outcomes: The Marshmallow Test does not reliably predict adult functioning" https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cdev.14...

Bravo! Love that phrase. Some freakonomics shit happening there...

I’m perfectly content with being with my own thoughts for hours, but being forced to do nothing for a crummy reward when a better alternative is right there is not compelling.

[0]: https://anderson-review.ucla.edu/new-study-disavows-marshmal...

But once a pack is open and I get one, whole pack just goes. I find texture quite satisfying and since I eat them once in couple years it feels like something new and different from normal stuff I eat so it ends up "just one more" until there is no more.

Everybody around me likes them. I have no idea why. It could be cultural. I moved to the US when I was about 19. Tried my first marshmallow when I was maybe 25. Ick. Its mostly a ball of sugar. I don't like Vanilla ice cream either. For similar reasons.

Nah. It wouldn't work if it was irresistible. You need a candy crapy enough to be resited by some people sometimes, but good enough to be desired by some people sometimes.

Experimenters tried the same setup with a turkish delights once. Things went sideways so fast that they needed to get a talking lion to calm the situation down. Kids were betraying their own siblings even without further prompting or promises of more turkish delights.

Dogs hold you accountable in the most beautiful way. The best boss.

Everything is a trust relationship. I recall finding myself offended when I had difficulty pitching ideas at my workplace. A lot of times it felt like "hey, why don't you trust me or my idea". I only had maybe one or two of those moments, but I have also witnessed other people going through a trust battle just like the one I described at work.

This can happen in a family, in a romantic relationship, work, or in society. When the arena becomes entirely about trust, people act out. That's why kids rebel, that's why marriages fall apart, and that's why people leave companies.

> I will make sure that what I communicate (either verbally or non-verbally) is congruent with my actions. I believe that this, is the surest way to build trust.

Everyone think that way during the beginning, until having an hour of free time during a week becomes a dream, you don't sleep at night anymore, things get exhausting to do.

Then you get the belt out and teach the kids how to behave. i have been taught that way, most kids until 20 years ago were taught that way.

Physical pain is part of life, the very first event of a kid's life is his mother tearing herself painfully to get him out of her belly.

Since the focus of the article is on child development, it's reasonable that it limits its scope to parents of young children, and not e.g. parents of 50-year olds, even if building trust might be nice there too.

Is it really for no real reason, though?

> Like the race or location of the parent determines their childhood?

You might not be aware, but different cultural backgrounds do result in different life experiences. You might have even noticed that that's the whole point of the article. What you try to downplay as "race or location" is actually different social environments and contexts where kids grow. They are used as concrete examples lending support for the hypothesis. It is a behavioral issue that is determined by each one's experience living in a specific social circle with specific social norms.

But of course it does. In fact the rest of your comment is about how kids absorb the environment they grow up in!

The bad news is that they can be too good: It's hard to change yourself if you don't want them to learn something. ("Do what I say, not what I do.")

I did that, but a cardboard laptop!

You have two kids, one ate ten boxes of marshmallows yesterday, the other didn't eat for two days. Which one is going to wait more for marshmallows?

It's pointing that the Marshmallow test was flawed. Which doesn't surprise me (most social experiments are very flawed).

Basically, when you account for socioeconomic factors, the correlation goes away, or so I heard. Rich kids are more successful in life than poor kids, who knew?

It's also fun when it happens in the other direction: child invents a totally new word, parents think it's funny and copy it, it becomes a word used only within that family, but perhaps it stays around long enough for some of the grandchildren to pick it up. But everyone has to pay attention not to use it outside the home because outsiders would be very confused by it. We have a few words like that.

I think you inserting the objections to the culture/country part yourself. I don't think they are present in the actual article.

The central idea here is that children are shaped by their environment, the people around them and those people's behaviour. They sponge up behaviours of their parents, peers and such.

But... it's not all mimicry and habits. It's also a response to incentives in their life. That's the writer's point about trust... and the marshmello test. Does the child live in a world where trust and patience pay off... or a world where you get what you can while you can? The socio-economic correlation to patience in the marshmello test is a proxy... demonstrating his point.

as a child of the 80s in an emotionally barren household with domestic violence, I also built myself a whole computer lab out of cardboard boxes at the age of 5 to mimic my father!

Ignoring the fact that you inserted a narrative that wasn't present in the article, YES OF COURSE THIS HAS A MAJOR IMPACT.

I'm a half-Dutch, half-Chinese man who spent the first years of my life in Ghana being blissfully happy and welcomed in the local community, and then the rest of my childhood being miserable in a Dutch village because I was excluded from that local community, all because I was "the local ethnic minority".

And I'm half-Asian, with parents from a higher-education background who had a good income. I only had to deal with "diet racism" compared to pretty much any other ethnic minority/social background in the Netherlands.

I've lived this and the fact that people like you keep insisting that my life experiences do not exist because they did not experience it is infuriating.

Anyway, fair points about the phone being a serious issue. But for goodness sake stop pretending that race and socio-economic background has no impact just because it makes you a little uncomfortable.

EDIT: and the kids are not all right.

I guess it is still an isolated activity from the kid, but at least the message is "read books" over "stare at addictive device".

You can also talk about the book with your kids and they see different covers each day and may be curious (and may pick it up)

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practice_theory

This seems like a dishonest characterization of some of the points in the article.

Unfortunately, we do live in a society. A childhood is not just determined by the house the child lives in, but the community the child lives in as well, and the parents are also affected by the community they grew up in, which affects the way they parent.

Cultures differ significantly in how they raise their children. My dad grew up in a Bangladeshi village. He has this story where a cousin was sick and asked for lobster (which back then was a widely available food in the villages). His parents told him they’d make it for him the next morning, but he died overnight. My dad always invokes that story when I try to impose limits on my kids. When my brother and I were growing up, they put a lot of expectations on us academically, but no gratuitous self denial in terms of food or toys or anything like that.

By contrast my wife is an old stock American WASP. She has a very different parenting style than my parents. She makes my kids wait for everything and tells them everything they want is too expensive (even though we could easily afford anything they want).

> The marshmallow test also doesn’t account for cultural differences. In some cultures, waiting is baked into daily life. Think about Japan, where kids are often taught to wait quietly for meals or gifts. Compare that to the US, where instant gratification is practically a way of life. These cultural norms shape how kids approach situations like the marshmallow test. It’s not just about personality; it’s about the world they live in.

That's it. That's the entire quote about the effect of culture.

I see no mention of race or location—I see an argument that "the world they live in" affects children's ability to wait, and that culture is an important aspect of the world that kids live in.

Given that this is the actual text you're responding to, I'm not actually sure you disagree with them, because you go on to point out that smartphones are a dangerous component of modern culture.

The mention of culture is not out of place in the article, as the marshmallow test (which features quite prominently in it, including in its actual title) does have different outcomes in different cultures, and, in addition, it is hardly controversial to suppose that the way children are brought up is an important factor in establishing and maintaining a culture's cohesion.

> And I tell you, I wish I never had a smartphone at all.

Being self-aware of phone use is 80% of the battle.

I also read a lot on my phone. Most of my screen time is in the books app.

Early on I decided to leave the phone on the charger in the mornings and evenings before the kids are in bed. Problem solved.

The biggest trap I see in my circle is the mental gymnastics of blaming everyone else for their own excessive phone use. It becomes easier to overuse a phone when they blame the algorithm or the companies for “making” them use the phone more than they want. Some people read stories about apps being made to be addictive and feel relieved because it offloads responsibility away from their decision making.

In the addiction treatment world it’s acknowledged that if someone can’t control their own behavior then they need even more controls and accountability, not to cede all responsibility for their actions to the addictive thing they’re drawn to. That usually means making decisions to shape their environment to keep them away from addictive behaviors, but for some reason many people see headlines about “the algorithm” and addictive apps and decide it’s futile to resist.

Making the decision to leave my phone on the charger during kid time was one of the higher ROI decisions I’ve made in my life. I used a smart watch to get any urgent notifications if I really needed them.

Me too, and I was almost 40 before I had my first. Worse, the affects of age is already showing in my body and so physically I'm less prepared than when I was 20.

For others reading this, you will never be ready. However it is still worth it. I encourage you take the plunge, and don't wait to long. You will never be ready. (of course not having kids is the right choice for some of you, I'll let you judge your own reasoning - if it is just fear go for it, but there are plenty of good reasons not to)

Kids are great at detecting hypocrisy. You can't tell them to not be addicted to their phone when you yourself are addicted to your phone. You have to set a good example.

I'm not much of an "idle scroller" but I try to limit my phone use to after the kid is in bed. When I visibly use my phone in front of her, I make it a point to show that I'm using it as a tool to do something, and then I put it away when that something is done. If they see you sitting on the couch all evening mindlessly scrolling Instagram, they're going to think that's OK. Just like past kids saw their parents sitting on their couch all evenings watching TV.

That has a huge impact btw. If you don't think so you're insane.

- Someone who grew up in 2 different continents.

Geez this hits hard. I've been pretty aware of it though, so I try to spend as much time with my daughter as possible without smothering her. I tell my wife almost daily that she's going to regret not getting off her smartphone and spending more time with her when she could. I'm not some soothsayer, but it seems pretty obvious to me.

If all you have is a racism hammer, everything looks like a racist screed I guess.

The only point I saw made is that cultures matter. There should be nothing wrong with that. You're reading malevolence into it. Stop that, please.

I feel that it's a matter of sticking to principles and being predictable for the kids, but maybe I'm biased and just have "easy" kids.

How old are these iPad kids generally? Never heard of this descriptor before.

Seeing 3 year olds zonked out is what worries me. That's a lot harder to untangle, imo.

https://drgabormate.com/book/hold-on-to-your-kids/

I've seen people with an instinct to resist everything when under pressure or stressed. I also know people who don't seem to have the instinct for understanding authority and hierarchy that most people do ("if I have to listen to the teacher, why doesn't the teacher have to listen to me?").

I'm sure having people with these behaviours can be very adaptive and beneficial for the whole society in some situations (I bet they do better on the Milgram experiment for example), but in many cases in modern life it can make it feel like everything is an unnecessary fight. I think for people dealing with such individuals the key is to understand that it isn't directed at you personally. I'm not sure what the best advice is for those with those instincts, but I would imagine that it's a combination of learning to use those instincts appropriately and not being too hard on yourself when it goes wrong.

A shy child might not develop productive, healthy confrontation and resolution skills if nurture isn’t sensitive to that factor and willing to create an environment where those skills are learned.

My nature affected my parents nurture, as well as my other caregivers, mentors, and teachers. I think that’s the more significant role of nature. Nurturers could be much more attuned to this and more mindfully think through how to test for and pursue the right end goals, given different natures.

A given event might wipe out Child A, might cause adaptation in Child B, and might be within the recoverable range but above the adaptive threshold for Child C. The reliable path to growth is small but sufficient challenge, response, adaptation and recovery, repeat as frequently as is beneficial.

I don't really know. I could understand if it was for zesting, but then you're supposed to use untreated oranges anyway because the pesticides don't wash out easily because of the oils on the orange's skin.

For a bit of fun, try the same idea with a few dirty potatoes. Wash two thoroughly, and leave one unwashed. Peel a washed one, peel the unwashed one, and peel the last washed one. You'll observe that both of the latter two are much dirtier than the first one [0]. It won't be as dirty as what you started with, but it'll still be enough to cause some minor taste issues and (depending on the type of soil) make the dish feel gritty as you eat it. Contaminants you can't physically see/taste/feel are transferred the same way.

[0] There's a minor confounder in that potato flesh can oxidize, and that discoloration might be perceived as dirt. It's not as bad as with, e.g., apples though. Just work quickly, and the difference in dirt levels should be apparent.

The way she remembered it as a child was that she was told nothing. But being older and knowing her parents and her aunt as an adult, she realized that there was no point where the adult with her wasn't telling her exactly what was happening. She just couldn't comprehend it at that age. She didn't understand what a month felt like. She didn't understand that there were distances a thousand times longer than the length of her village. She didn't understand what a city was, or that her parents intended for her to come live with them there if they found good work. It just wasn't possible for her to understand. It didn't matter if she trusted her aunt or not, her parents were supposed to be there, and they were not.

I went the complete opposite direction as the result of violent and abusive parents and had never considered that the opposite also occurs, but of course it must.

For whatever reason, the more violent my parents became with me, the more violent and defiant I became…and not just with my parents. I came to see everyone and everything as a threat to my safety and began to respond accordingly.

Given the whole fight or flight thing, I am wildly predisposed to choosing fight. It took years and I mean years to learn to control this.

Does that mean they are neglected or that they are spoon fed everything?

And any good parent knows, you don’t negotiate with terrorists!

You are correct. This is the delusion that peasants feeds their kids so that life appears to be worth living. In the west it's the similar rigmarole of mortgages, debt, divorce, unstable jobs etc that their parents did. Not saying that there is no value to discipline, but it has to be intelligently applied ( not easy) else you will loose. For example saving for a house (vs taking a large mortgage) will not do you good if the inflation is high.

Note the last sentence:

> And who knows, maybe one day they will pass their own version of the marshmallow test

The marshmallow test is just a rhetorical symbol for patience and virtue. I.e. "If I do well as a parent, my child will grow up to be patient and virtuous".

Not, "If I get my kid to do well on this random pop-psych experiment right now, they'll grow up to be successful".

The article also has a strong whiff of: the author has one young, neurotypical child and is now pretty sure he's got this whole parenting thing figured out, decides to blog about it. Then the overwhelmingly young, male, childless HN brigade descends with virtue-signaling responses about what amazing parents they'd be if, you know, they had kids, and how easy it would be.