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It is acceptable to teach children "emotional intelligence" and to say that children are poorly behaved and need to be medicated[1] or sent for reprogramming or need behaviour modification plans. For some reason it's not acceptable to suggest that some parents need parenting lessons.

Thus, we teach children to say "Mommy, I don't like it when you scream at me", and we don't teach parents how to deal with children so they don't get to the point of screaming at them so often.

And while that's going on we have children being raped and murdered by their parents. About 5 children per day die in the US because of abuse or neglect. (http://www.childhelp.org/pages/statistics/)

(https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/factsheets/fatality.cfm)

(http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/childmaltreatment/data...)

(http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/cm_datasheet2012-a...)

> In 2010, an estimated 1,560 children died from child maltreatment(rate of 2.1per 100,000 children)

> Of the children who died from maltreatment in 2010, 40.8% experienced multiple maltreatment types, 32.6% experienced neglect only, and 22.9% experienced physical abuse only.

> Of child maltreatment fatalities in 2010, 79.4% occurred among children younger than age 4; 11.1% among 4-7 year olds; 3.6% among 8-11 year-olds; 3.8% among 12-15 year olds; and 1.8% among 16-17 year-olds

[1] Obviously some children do need to be medicated. But there's a worrying amount of over-prescribing of strong psychoactive meds among young people without much evidence of efficacy or need.

However you may wish to teach parents about this sort of thing, I believe you'll agree that's it's a hopelessly uphill battle to try to affect parent's behaviors by anything we could conceivably teach the children in school.

This is part of what I mean by brutal honesty. There's a nontrivial percentage of the children who will be going home to an environment in which nicely expressing your own feelings is, to put it nicely, not going to work. However much this fact sucks, it needs to be faced up to and handled. A curriculum that assumes all parents are perfectly enlightened liberal angels all the time is going to end up anti-teaching the children. (After all, even the most enlightened of us get frazzled at one time or another.) A curriculum that could do that would actually be extraordinarily useful, which is why I say I'm not intrinsically against the idea... but I'll cop to believing that the actual educational institutions and educators we have are ill-suited to this, though.

But that is impossible. There's also an uncomfortable truth about kids that needs to be taken into account :

Kids are completely amoral. And as attractive as that sounds to some people here, let's just say that without adult oversight it won't take more than a week or so until the first murder happens (depending on age, but at 3-4 years, definitely).

So teaching children to be more closed and more sophisticated makes them more dangerous as well as better able to deal with the world. You may want to wait until the idea that you can't just kill, steal, and so on has sunk in (we're talking 7-8 years at least, preferably later).

The parenting you're asking for here is just (usually) unscientific "behavior modification plans" and "reprogramming." Most things boil down to operant conditioning.

Source: raised by the daughter of a behavioral scientist.

Sometimes, children need to be screamed at. It's good for them.

Assuming for the moment that you're correct: How often is acceptable?

How about every day for a child less than a year old?

How about more than four times a day for an eight year old?

How about more screaming than talking for a fourteen your old?

But I reject your statement. Children almost never need to be screamed at, and it is not good for them.

Let's phrase it this way. How often is it reasonable for a parent to raise their voice at a child? For example.

Child goes to touch sharp/hot/poisonous item

My likely response would be "Leave it alone" or something similar, in a considerably louder and more imperative voice than normal instruction. Why? Because the change in tone conveys importance, and the shock will institute an instant response from a child.

This is entirely separate from telling a child off for a misbehaviour already having occurred, which I agree rarely (if ever) should require "Screaming" as a method of conveying displeasure and attempting to prevent recurrence. Inevitably it will happen, because parents are human too and make errors of judgement and lack patience.

You reject his statement but then you say that children "almost never need...", so you accept that sometimes they might need?

I am lost.

Why is screaming almost intrinsically "bad"?

You are trying to quantize behaviour and, sorry, it cannot be done. Would you ask how many times it is good to kiss one's mother? One? Ten? One hundred? Every time the child leaves? Just once? Uhu?

Perhaps you've never been screamed at. Where by "screamed at" I mean "the recipient of uncontrolled, unfiltered, absolute maximum strength, irrational, untempered, terrifying rage." I don't believe that's ever appropriate.

If a child steps into the road without looking and is in imminent danger of being killed, I'd scream at them, as would any other sane parent.

As someone who worked in a school all of last year, I disagree too. I never screamed at any child, and I had fewer problems with discipline than the teachers that did.

For me it is better to explain why I am angry or disappointed with a child's behavior in private, and if I don't see a change then implement a punishment like missing recess, changing seats, or sending the child to talk to a counselor/principal. I worked with younger kids, so these were pretty effective punishments.

If you resort to screaming right away, the child won't open up to you about problems at home, problems with teasing, etc. that are important to understanding why they might be acting out. If the child trusts and likes you, they'll try harder to behave for you... it's really not very different than an adult relationship.

Mmm, if it's not acceptable to scream at an adult, it's not any better to scream at a child.

There is such a thing as justified anger. I wouldn't use the word "scream", but I would raise my voice at adults under certain circumstances.

OK, so I don't quite have kids yet but I would tend to disagree... it's possible to be firm without screaming. I mean what is screaming, basically? It's expressing frustration or anger by "me-me-me"-ing your environment: blocking out what anyone else might be saying or doing, potentially while demanding them to behave how you wish them to. Not so different to a politican or an Oprah argument, really. Isn't that exactly the kind of antisocial habit that parents should be teaching children not to engage in?

I am assuming they are teaching the kids to make "I" statements.... don't make excuses, don't argue, don't blame other people, don't yell back. It's a skill I was lucky to learn later in life. (marriage counseling).

Another thing they are likely to learn... disconnect yourself from the outcome. Yeh your mom may not react the way you want. But at least you have been honest about your feelings and not disrespected the other person. You can only control what you do... not how others react.

I've sunk a fair amount of time thinking about this as well (therapy) and agree with you completely regarding only being able to control what you do. For adults, I think this also includes listening and acknowledging other's feelings, but not feeling like it's your problem fix the problems that cause them to feel they way they do. If you are like me and ended up having to prioritize your parent's problems over your own, you might do well to read this book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Drama-Gifted-Child-Revised/dp/0465.... I'm glad someone else figured this stuff out so I could learn from it!

I did not grow up with any sort of crazy parent situation but I imagine I am not unique in the fact that if I asked my mother to "please stop screaming", I would have received about 20 more minutes of screaming + a wooden spoon. I really like the idea of teaching EQ, however, I agree that the example you point to is entirely unrealistic.

This is one of the problems with teaching emotional intelligence. It's subjective, and most people feel very strongly that they way they were raised was the (only) right way.

From my perspective (and probably that of most psychology and behavioral science researchers) that behavior on the part of your mother is unhealthy and not to be tolerated. You are also unlikely to find support among academic for the notion that a grown woman's inability to control her emotions justifies inflicting severe pain on an largely helpless child. (There is some research supporting spanking, but almost never out condoning spanking while upset.)

> received about 20 more minutes of screaming + a wooden spoon

That doesn't sound normal to me...

But hey, free wooden spoon!

Not so useful if it's broken in the process...

This should sound normal if live anywhere with a significant immigrant community, and if you do you probably just aren't listening.

One more reminder that normal is different for everyone I suppose.

Talking back is a cardinal sin in the south. It is not how I will raise my kids, but my parents even grew up with corporal punishment in catholic school, so I don't really blame them.

In other words, teachers themselves must have sufficient skill in emotional intelligence.

EQ, I think, is best taught as the emotion arises. But if you're going to actually teach it as a cirriculum, you can't simply use words. That misses the point of the emotional aspect of the interaction.

Instead, use roleplaying where you have to move your body, as if you are in a play. And actually be able to generate the emotions coming up so that you feel it, and it leaks out as body gestures and facial expressions. Otherwise, it won't even be a "feel good" exercise, merely a checkbox to tick off on paper.

Absolutely, but just consider that modern neuroscience is still new, and scary, to the vast majority of teachers. When you consider their sole job as brain training, emotions very much included, the profession is made much simpler in many ways. The problem is we are likely looking at another two decades before these brain science methods are more mainstream. IMHO growing brains is the exact and, dare I say, only purview of educational programs.

That's a misconception. "Growing brains" is the idealized intent of educational programs. The actual function of education is to indoctrinate future citizens and condition obedient workers.

It is far, far easier to control a society when the people have very little emotional intelligence.

Coincidentally, I was browsing through my copy of Robert Greene's 48 Laws of Power:

    Look at the part of a person that is most visible -- 
    their greed, their lust, their intense fear. These are
    the emotions they cannot conceal, and over which they
    have the least control. And what people cannot control,
    you can control for them.

In the same chapter, Greene advises one to find the "helpless child". Pretty much all emotional vulnerabilities come from childhood hangups. You find the conditions that will regress someone into a helpless child, and they will come to depend upon you.

Those who understand power dynamics have no incentive to teach emotional intelligence. And for most people, actually working with emotions is very difficult and brings up a lot of ugly stuff. People generally don't want to.

I've heard the term "ecologically valid social skills"[1] in the world of child ASD social skills training. I think much of the information from successfully teaching skills to children with ASD would apply to teaching normal children.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJwq7gg2Pw0&t=5m57s