7 ms·
Not hurting children, including not making them do things they don't want to do. (If it's good, convince them of that first.) This applies to school attendance,
by qqq 18y ago
Not hurting children, including not making them do things they don't want to do. (If it's good, convince them of that first.) This applies to school attendance, yes.
- petercooper 18y agoIt has been shown that children under the age of about 9 / 10 have extremely poor risk assessment and decision making skills [1]. We are animals and logic is learned over many years. Logical appeals on a young child would work as well as on a dog. Parents are meant to make decisions for their children and children are meant to do things they don't want to do if it's ultimately advantageous. That people think otherwise scares the bejesus out of me, but perhaps explains why kids are so pampered and spoiled nowadays. Citations: http://www.faqs.org/abstracts/Social-sciences/Are-young-children-adaptive-decision-makers-A-study-of-age-differences-in-information-search-behavio.html http://www.faqs.org/abstracts/Social-sciences/Are-young-chil... http://ideas.repec.org/a/jdm/journl/v2y2007ip225-233.html http://ideas.repec.org/a/jdm/journl/v2y2007ip225-233.html
- qqq 18y agoIf children have no judgment, shouldn't it be real easy to convince them of whatever you want? They won't know any better than to listen.
- kirubakaran 18y agoAfter your 'convincing' argument, what do you do when they simply reply "no"?
- qqq 18y agoYou ask him why not. Try to find out what his misconception is, so you can explain about that particular issue. Then he'll learn about the specific area he doesn't know. If things are going right, sometimes he'll want to have a discussion. Other times he'd rather just do what you said without understanding it, so he can proceed now (nothing wrong with that if it's voluntary). And other times, just let him do it his way, if it won't be a huge disaster, and he can learn something from his mistake, and about how good your advice is.
- tptacek 18y agoI know people raised like this. Their parents were psychologists. You ever hear the old saw about the people raised by psychologists?
- qqq 18y agoNo you don't know anyone raised like this. If you give me a comprehensive statement of what they did, I will point out ten ways they hurt their kids. You may say I am wrong on every count, but you won't be able to dispute that what I advocate is different than what was done. People all the time come up and say they already do the stuff on the TCS website. So far the rate of that being true is exactly zero. PS I do not like psychologists.
- tptacek 18y agoWhat's this, you say? A novel, ideologically extreme child rearing philosophy that's so rarely applied that I couldn't conceivably know someone raised under it? Sold!
- qqq 18y agoYour attitude would reject all new ideas about parenting without any regard for their merit. The reason the things I'm advocating are especially worth consideration is that they are in line with long standing traditions our society already places very high value on, such as individual freedom and happiness, and control over one's own life.
- tptacek 18y agoNo, in fact most new ideas about parenting are not ideologically extreme. Uncomfortable, perhaps --- like attachment parenting, which put our kids in our bed for a year --- but not extreme.
- petercooper 18y agoYou ask him why not. Try to find out what his misconception is, so you can explain about that particular issue. Then he'll learn about the specific area he doesn't know. If you substitute in someone with the same level of rationality and decision making skills as a young child.. let's say.. a meth addict, does it still work? Sure, there are some kids - especially older ones - who can take part in discussions and come to logical conclusions, but this is a learned skill over many years. The ability to take control of yourself and be rational is very much part of the definition of being an adult. Asking a 4 year old kid if he wants to go to school or not is not rational parenting and a child should not make those sorts of decisions. I remember thinking a lot of things were unfair as a kid and thinking I could make better decisions than my parents - and I was considered a pretty smart kid. Now I'm of my parents' age, I know I was mostly wrong. Adults and parents are there for a reason. They can make skilled judgments, and kids can't.
- petercooper 18y agoHumans are not always rational. If their decision making skills are poor they don't stop making decisions. If you have poor judgment, you're likely to make a lot of poor decisions.
- tptacek 18y agoPresumably, you're not asserting that much of what parents and teachers do is "hurting" children.
- qqq 18y agoSure I am. For example, children who don't like a given set of homework problems are made to do it anyway. Doesn't matter if they have something else productive they want to do, it's outside of their interests, they have reasons (which have not been addressed) to think it's a waste of time, etc... That hurts.
- tptacek 18y agoWow, is that creepy.
- throw_away 18y agoDr. Foster: Would you please tell your son to stop? Ned's Dad: We can't do it, man! That's discipline! That's like tellin' Gene Krupa not to go [starts banging on the desk] "boom boom bam bam bam, boom boom bam bam bam, boom boom boom bam ba ba ba ba, da boo boo tss!" Ned's Dad: We don't believe in rules, like, we gave them up when we started livin' like freaky beatniks! Dr. Foster: You don't believe in rules, yet you want to control Ned's anger. Ned's Mom: Yeah. You gotta help us, Doc. We've tried nothin' and we're all out of ideas.
- nazgulnarsil 18y agothanks qqq. thanks for inflicting yet another monster on society, who thinks the world needs to justify itself to her. Hopefully the creature's teenage years will be a punishment enough for you.
- qqq 18y agoHere I am wanting no one to be hurt, and in return you hope I'll be hurt :(
- custardpie 18y agonazgul, you are recognising a stereotype of teenagers, who 'think the world needs to justify itself to them'. You see these kinds of adolescents all the time, which is why you recognise that stereotype. You have never met a TCS-raised child. Why do you think that TCS, which you have never encountered, will without doubt produce this stereotype of teenager, which you have encountered often?
- nazgulnarsil 18y agoI'm not talking about teenagers. I've seen the results of this in people in their 20's and early 30's. I live in one of the richest counties in the US. (formerly #1 actually). I see children raised like this ALL THE TIME. It is far more common to see a parent explaining themselves to a child who is throwing a tantrum than it is to see a parent putting their foot down. These children grow up totally unprepared for a world that does not make every concession to their current mood. With the exception of the ones who have trust funds (quite a lot around here) and thus don't ever have to face the real world, these kids almost universally wind up as only semi-functioning adults. I'd go so far as to say that it is inflicting environmental retardation on your child. You job as a parent isn't to be your child's friend. It is to socialize them and prepare them for life. If you want to be friends, you'll have to wait until they're an adult.
- custardpie 18y agoI guarantee you have never met a TCS-raised child. A TCS child wouldn't throw such a tantrum. When you throw a tantrum you are already in a state of coercion, of being hurt or frustrated. A TCS child trusts their parent to help them out before it gets to that stage, and a TCS parent helps their child out before it gets to that stage. Both parent and child are interested in, and have always been interested in, problem-solving. Not fighting or revenge or huring each other, but finding mutual preferences and both being happy with the outcome. I don't think I'd want to be friends with a person who had hurt and coerced me all my life. As for socializing, 'no man can use his brain to think for another man'. A parent can't socialize their child. The child must socialize themselves. The parent can only either persuade their child, trying to help them, or else coerce them, that is, harm them. One of these is the attitude of a human, the other of a monstrous tyrant. It is always alarming to hear a person say that for the individual, tyranny is the only way to a successful outcome, when time and time again it has wrecked whole societies who together were unable to withstand its corrosive effects.