Thought provoking article from WSJ

[Atash Hagmahani]

I don't necessarily agree with it, but it got me thinking: social pressure can derail disciplinary plans.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703407304576154823958400118.html?

It seems to me that I recall when I was a lad, when other kids got grounded, it meant for example no birthday parties. (I never got grounded. I was never allowed to do anything in the first place.)

I understand that you don't want to punish the kid whose birthday it is. I can see how social pressure can derail discipline. I think that grounding means "no fun" and part of the punishment is having son/daughter hand over the present early or late, while delivering an apology for not being able to attend due to being grounded for offenses committed.

That said, I was a pushover. But my kids usually behaved appropriately, especially outside of the home.

Perhaps as important, and possibly even more important, is the reprimand itself. There is a certain art to delivering one--including to adults--for example, people you supervise at work. The general form is

"You did this thing, and as a result, this thing happened, which produced consequences that you have negative emotional attachments to, so now you need to change your behavior in a specific way, so that next time X happens, you will do Y, so that the future will be that much better."

The usual form of a reprimand is "you bad boy, you did this thing, I can't believe you're so inconsiderate, no good, this is what I get for trusting you, why oh why don't you EVER listen to me, you ALWAYS do this, yackity yack, yackity yack (don't talk back)..."

In other words, parents are prone to criticizing the child not the behavior, and getting stuck in the problem not the solution.

Keep the attention focused on the behavior: what (s)he did wrong, and what (s)he needs to do instead. Where attention goes, energy flows.

There does need to be a "sting" in the reprimand; you need to tie the consequences to something the child has strong emotional attachments regarding. For example, "you make me SO MAD!" only works if the child has a strong need to keep you happy. Which might be true, but you're also instilling the idea that the child is responsible for your moods. Bad message.

Better bad news is something that is more of an objective fact, and the child is highly likely to care about:

"Now your friends don't trust you anymore"
"Now Grandma feels bad that her favorite dish collection is missing the one you broke."
"Now your cousin can't play in the game, because he got hurt because of your horse-play".

Then you work the conversation towards the solution, which involves a specific change of behavior in a form comparable to "the next time this happens, you'll do this new behavior, which will produce this improved result".

[The Future]

The approach we use is to consider developmental activities and priviledges in seperate categories.  We never take away developmental activities in response to a violation of protocol.  We always can pull from a list of priviledges.  The tricky part for some is being able to seperate developmental from priviledge.  In my world, golf is a priviledge.  The same discipline applied there can and should be applied elsewhere.  All sports do involve some discipline but rarely if ever will deprivation over some short to medium term have long term consequences that can't be gained elsewhere.  Academic activity, say reading, is not something I deprive my child of, though ironically, it would be a great consequence given my child's keenest to read.  What works for us, in this and all aspects of life, is to keep in mind what kind of BEING we are dealing with.  If you aren't convinced of the infinite potential of the child - you can fall into the social pressure trap measured against some short term finite social pressure.

Golf, parties, not seeing friends, any sporting event...all of it is a priviledge.  The foolish idea that OTHER kids are somehow suffering from the loss of my child's priviledge is insanity.  The logical (or should I say irrational) conclusion then is they can completely violate the rules and still enjoy priviledge with their friends' collective experiences as ransom and some mythical irreversible loss of developmental opportunity via a priviledge.  Please.

I don't do "punishment" so much as consequence, akin to Atash's cause and effect relationship.  Truth be told, youngster's have yet to connect the dots and the job of parents is to create artificial consequences that are not permanent to avoid the irreversible consequences later.  E.g. little Amare loses the priviledge of attending soccer for a week is better than getting possibly killed due to pulling a wheelie on the main road...etc.

[Lady Lilya]

So, the next time little Amare feels inclined to pull a wheelie on the main road, what should be the thoughts going through little Amare's head?

* I shouldn't do that because it is dangerous

* I shouldn't do that because it will stop me from attending soccer next week

* I should try to sneak to do this so Mom and Dad don't take away soccer again

* some other option?

[Atash Hagmahani]

Ideally, "I shouldn't do that because it is dangerous". However, oddly enough, un-natural consequences DO work if delivered correctly.

The way that you move from un-natural consequences to natural consequences is through the reprimand you deliver when you announce the un-natural consequences. You ask the child to imagine the natural consequences for herself. And in announcing the un-natural consequences, you say something like

"I'm taking away soccer this week to help you remember not to pull a wheely on the main road, because I love you and don't want you to do dangerous things that might cause you to be hurt in an accident".

Think of it this way, Lilya:

Two things do not have to be logically related, for humans or any other animal with a brain to develop a conditioned association between the 2.

Here is the typical way that a phobia develops:

Child sees his aunt point to something. He looks and sees a spider, and as he sees the spider, his aunt lets out a blood-curdling matter-of-life-or-death scream. She's an arachnophobe.

He correctly interprets the nature of the scream and his own adrenaline level spikes as if he were about to be killed.

His brain instantly records what is happening, and develops a conditioned association between his fight-or-flight reflex that his aunt triggered with her screaming, and the sight of the spider.

Now he's an arachnophobe too. It sometimes takes a few cycles but the process is started and will develop quickly. There is no logic involved. People develop phobias of fairly harmless critters like squirrels and ducks.

Now guess what--you learned to talk by seeing, say, a spoon, and overhearing someone talk about the spoon. You learned the word "door" because you overheard someone say "door" in the context of seeing or feeling or hearing a door. Probably more than once, but that was the pattern.

WE LEARN TO TALK BY OPERANT CONDITIONING. Just like we learn arachnophobia, or Pavlov's dogs learned to salivate when he rang a bell.

Words trigger conditioned associations. If you use the right words, you can trigger the right series of associations. A certain person I know triggers a sense of dread in me every time I see her or hear her voice or even just her name, because I've been conditioned to associate it with her nonstop chatter about lurid, maudlin subjects.

She doesn't even have to actually say anything, and I DON'T HAVE TO EXPERIENCE THE LURID MAUDLIN TOPICS (say, Satanic Ritual Abuse).

That's because you can set up a series of triggers so that one fires off another fires of another fires off another.

So, if you say the right things to a child, you can trigger either aversions or attractions to an activity, without any direct experience of, say, the danger involved.

[The Future]

Indeed, we are "plastic" beings with an infinite capacity to be attracted to or repelled from stimuli (think: there are people who pay a good looking woman to beat them  ).  The question of what thoughts should be going through little Amare's head is paramount.  Ultimately, it is the thoughts we entertain that justify our actions, for better or worse.  Based on what kind of being we understand ourselves to be (animal? human? metaphysical? etc.) will dictate the scope of the thoughts we entertain.  Further, the thoughts we entertain dictate what kind of being we are.

In the initial stages of life, children must be given age appropriate content to reason over.  I for one do not underestimate my child's capacity to reason - they are very good at it - but at the same time must present information at a level they can process.  For example, when it comes to our dietary choices I don't go into the physiological and form/function reasoning behind it - it is simply "eating this way keeps us healthy, eating other items will make us sick". 

Easy.

As a child matures, the indepth reasoning must graduate with indepth capacity to reason.  So for a young child, the potential for loss of priviledge will suffice.  They are too young to comprehend maiming, death, insurance claims, being paralyzed etc.  As they mature, those things can form the basis for reason and further as they come into adulthood reasons based on more universal law become the basis for all reasoning about the specific and general situations in life.

It is important they make it to adulthood!

[Panthira]

Yeah, take away the very thing the kid is passionate about the most - golf. Now the child will build resentment toward you and it puts a negative spin on the thing he is loving atm.

I can see your point, about not wanting a child to play in the street, but the direct correlation would be something like, no more bike for now till you can learn the rules. WTF does soccer have to do with riding a bike in the street? Nothing. Why go that route? It makes no logical sense. It's an easy thing to control a child through coercion, and many parents do not see the challenge lies in getting the child to make logical choices. Ride in the street with the bike = no bike = no way for child to ride in the street. Now if the child wants that bike, he or she can learn the proper rules, because at that point it's a safety issue.

In the case of the WSJ article, talking back and then creating random punishments by the parents is just a form of retribution, and has nothing to do with safety. I don't like you talking to me that way, so I will take your things and make sure you have no fun because of it. How old is this parent? It sounds childish, imo. I know firsthand, because I have a 19 yr old daughter, and my husband (her stepfather) tried that form of punishment for years. It never, ever worked, and if anything it has made her less apt to see the connections between "bad" choices and the consequences of those choices. My .02c.

[The Future]

Resentment stems from a lack of clarity, not from consequences.  Respect comes from establishing clear rules, consequences and delivering on those consequences.  In fact I suggest a few simple steps, applicable to most age groups:

1. Establish the guidelines/rules
2. Establish the benefits enjoyed from following the rules (which includes indirectly related priviledges)
3. Establish the consequences of breaking the rules (including loss of indirectly related priviledges)
4. Follow through on those consequences in an objective manner (establishing them up front avoids the knee jerk and irrational response in the face of a serious incident)

Back to the example of Amare, taking the priviledge of the bike away would only be relevant if little Amare was really in to the bike.  If he couldn't care less about the bike, the consequence would be irrelevant and thus the GENERAL behaviour - inappropriate risk taking - actually is reinforced and encouraged.  I've never seen a situation where parents went to the lengths of laying out the expectations and consequences where the child didn't ultimately respect them.  Resentment comes from spontaneously applied punishments and the lack of understanding they promote.

Ultimately understanding is what we are cultivating (cause and effect) and a response to what we as parents say in the short term.

[Dame]

I work on the premiss that first we need a live child and keeping them that way can become a serious challenge at times.  Children are not born good at seeing natural consequences, that is why unnatural consequences are at times applied by caregivers.

[opsec]

I work on the premiss that first we need a live child and keeping them that way can become a serious challenge at times.  Children are not born good at seeing natural consequences, that is why unnatural consequences are at times applied by caregivers.

This assumes that the caregivers have the child's best interests in mind. As it is, I tend to think that a great many caregivers are not very caring and simply impose consequence on their child as a means of making life more convenient for themselves.

[Atash Hagmahani]

I work on the premiss that first we need a live child and keeping them that way can become a serious challenge at times.  Children are not born good at seeing natural consequences, that is why unnatural consequences are at times applied by caregivers.

This assumes that the caregivers have the child's best interests in mind. As it is, I tend to think that a great many caregivers are not very caring and simply impose consequence on their child as a means of making life more convenient for themselves.

That's why it's important to train parents.

You get a parent who's not naturally a good fit for a parent, and have him/her deal with a screaming or uncooperative child without knowing how to handle it, and that is a recipe for potential child abuse.

However oddly enough people who are naturally the best parents are the most likely to take the time and initiative to learn how to do things right, and so you have the not uncommon situation of a threshold whereby a small difference in parenting ability is not evened out, but instead, exaggerated.