I must say that while I agree with Pinker in the main, he does fall into the category of those who are able to give advice mainly because they haven’t actually had any kids and therefore haven’t made any mistakes yet. Still, I’d take this one step further. Don’t overanalyze your parenting and have fun with the kinderlachen.
Teach your values by demonstrating them and involving the kids with the things that matter to you.
As for play … if you play with your kids in ways that they enjoy then you will almost certainly be doing that which is developmentally ideal for them at that moment. That is why it is fun. Things that are too easy tend not to be so enjoyable, things above our capability are just frustrating. The most enjoyable play is right at the cusp. Fortunately most parents do this automatically.
Then enjoy who they are.
Spoken as a very imperfect parent who is grateful that his children’s innate strengths are probably enough to offset me.
Right. But my point is that to the extent your child does not exist in a vacuum, that child will be taught what is important.
So depending on where you live, you may need to teach them to sit up or you may need to teach them to speak in a particular way. Or you may need to teach them not to walk until they are three (lest they wander off into the Amazon) or you may need to teach them not to bolt out into the street (lest they get hit by a car). The long term doesn’t matter very much if in the short term your child is either dead or, in a lesser case, removed from the dominant society.
The difference is, every human will developmentally learn to speak and to sit up, if they are in the same sort of environment humans have been in for the past ten thousand years. The second two examples are things that kids won’t pick up due to their instincts.
You don’t need to teach a kid to speak; they’ll do it on their own if they’re around speakers. You do need to teach a kid not to bolt out into the street.
Okay, I’ll keep it simple, then. I do not disagree with you as far as you go. I suggest that you do not go far enough. People do not live in a vacuum. A child who does not sit up in the time window necessary to the society in which s/he lives is in one way or another set apart from that society. A child who does not speak in a particular way in the time window determined to be normal within the society in which s/he lives is in one way or another set apart from that society.
Set apart, to wit, is not participating in the way necessary for a child of that age, as determined by that society. The consequences of that also will vary.
But if you are a parent not living in a vacuum, not raising a child to live in a vacuum, you do in fact need to teach that child those things. It isn’t about the skills themselves; it is about what those skills translate to. Certain skills are like cultural icons if you like; they speak to other needs of the larger society.
My advice on kids to parents who do truly love their kids (and it appears you do) is to go with your instincts. Kick the parenting books aside, and do what you think is natural and right for that child AND you regardless of what that is.
I have a 21 year old daughter, an only child, and got a LOT of flack while I was raising her because I did it purely on instinct and what I thought was best for her. In the end, it turned out to be right.
I raised my child in an utterly unconventional way. I, illegally I might add, never sent her to school, let her enroll in college at age 15, drug her all over the world with me while I worked, let her at times live with her various grandparents for very short periods of time… it was what was best for her AND me. Today, she’s an independent, well traveled, well loved, brilliant, driven kid. She’s nearly 21 and working on an MBA and is balanced and happy.
Do what’s right for you and your kid regardless of what other people tell you is right or wrong. You know them best, you love them best, YOU do what’s best and don’t listen to what other people say or write.
What do you mean by “punishment?” I don’t see how the last example is any less a punishment than the first two. In all three cases, as a result of his resistance, the kid is made to undergo a process he finds unpleasant.
Maybe the distinction you see is that in the third case, the unpleasant process actually ends up accomplishing what the kid was supposed to accomplish in the first place?
If that’s the case, what do you suggest one does in response when a kid hasn’t failed to do something he was supposed to do, but rather has done something he was not supposed to do? I assume you would not suggest some kind of consequence be imposed in any procedural sense, as this would (I think) amount to a punishment.
As a related question, what is your basis for the claim that no toddler should ever be punished? I assume you have succeeded in raising your own children without using punishments. But I also assume you have more evidence than just “it worked for me and my kids.”
Seems to be to be an attempt at natural consequences, a la Parenting With Love and Logic, which I heartily endorse, and has lots and lots of data and cites showing its effectiveness.
When a kid has done something he shouldn’t, he has to clean it up. This might be literal (kid spills milk due to monkeyplay, kid gets mop and paper towels) or it might be a bit figurative (kid acts up in class, kid “pays back” teacher for each minute of wasted class time by teaching the next lesson or by sorting paperclips by color during recess), but it should be somehow connected to the infraction in a logical way. The inherent consequences should be “punishment” enough - let nature be the bad guy, you, the parent, get to be the idea guy and the love and empathy guy (“Jeez, I understand you’re cold. When I don’t wear a coat in January, I get cold too, and that’s really not fun. How will you solve this problem? Maybe next time you could bring a sweater in your backpack if you don’t want to wear it when you leave the house.”)
Kid doesn’t want to eat what you make for dinner? Okay. Kid can A. go hungry B. make something else or C. pay Mom (out of your allowance) to make an alternate dinner or D. pay Mom for the extra food in the pantry you use to make your own dinner. Any of those is a natural consequence of not eating what everyone else is eating - which one(s) you allow in your house is up to you as a parent. But getting screamed at or spanked or sent to your room for not eating dinner are neither natural consequences nor useful parenting strategies, in most cases.
I’m still not seeing how the above suggestions don’t constitute suggestions as to how to punish a child. Maybe I just use the word differently than you two.
I’d never let it my kid’s eating or not eating become a matter for “punishment.” He can eat if he wants, if he doesn’t want, he doesn’t have to.
I think there are cases where there are no “natural” consequences (esp. “natural” consequences that a toddler can understand) other than those that one should naturally expect will be imposed by an act of will from others. For example, today my kid was hit by another kid. What “natural” consequences follow upon hitting someone? For one thing you’re likely to get hit back, but I certainly don’t want to see the kid who hit my kid get hit back. So that’s a no go. Another natural consequence of violent habits (if not exactly of a single act of hitting) is a kind of estrangement from your peers, or else, attachment to unhealthy peers. But its a tall order asking a toddler to grasp these kinds of concepts. Another consequence that’s pretty natural, though only in virtue of our living in the actual society we do live in, is that when you hit people, you are restrained and your life is made no fun for a few minutes. It seems reasonable to me to think a toddler ought to be roundly scolded and made to sit in a corner or something once he hits another kid. This consequence isn’t “natural” (except in the funny sense I just mentioned) but then, I don’t see how any of the “natural” consequences could be acted out in a way that the toddler could understand.
Of course there’s the matter of proactively finding opportunities to lead your toddler into finding better ways to solve his problems. Well and good. But there’s a difference between “there’s a better way for you” and “what you just did is not acceptable.” Taking care of getting the first across is different than taking care of getting the second across, and both seem to me to be things that need to be gotten across. (Do you disagree?)
Perhaps this is simply a failure of imagination. Still, in general, I don’t think that all of the things toddlers can do which are in some sense “bad” actually have “natural” consequences that can be grasped by those toddlers. In such cases, artificial consequences appear to me to be the way to instill in these toddlers some sense that there’s something not quite right about doing the “bad” thing in question.
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I found a list of articles on that website, but nothing clearly indicating actual studies and other kinds of research somehow demonstrating the method’s effectiveness. Can you be more specific?
I think so. I’m also not quite so absolutist: I wouldn’t say “never” punish a toddler. Sometimes, frankly, the natural consequences of an action are that you piss Mama off and she gets “mean” (ie, sends you to your room, says no TV today, cancels our trip to the zoo, whatever) as a result! It’s important that those times not be frequent, though.
Absolutely I (personally) think that’s a natural consequence, more or less. But I don’t scold, instead I commiserate: “Oh! Oh, dear. Hitting people isn’t nice. You must be tired or frustrated. When I get tired and frustrated, it’s really hard when someone’s bugging me and I need some space for myself. Take a few minutes for some space for yourself, honey, and when you feel better, we’ll figure out what to do.” And the time out isn’t a “punishment,” exactly, but an opportunity for the kid to get control of herself without the other kid egging her on (in the way that toddlers do.) After a while (a surprisingly short while), the kid will claim a time out for herself before hitting. My 3 year old is having a lot of trouble sharing right now. When she starts to feel herself get heated up, 7 times out of 10, I can see her turn red, *think *about hitting, and then she stops and says, “Mama, need some space,” (she’s much more succinct than I am) and she takes herself off to the corner for a few moments to get herself together before addressing the dispute over the toy.
Is it functionally a “time-out?” Of course. But I’m not punishing her, I’m showing her a technique to keep control of her actions when her emotions run high. When she’s 30, she can still use it, and it’s not an externally imposed sanction, it’s an internal tool for self-empowerment.
One could claim it’s a semantic difference, but I think it’s a huge psychological and behavioral difference.
Absolutely. But being completely self-centered, it helps to tell them why it’s not acceptable in ways that affect them. “No, you should* *not *pull the cat’s tail. You’ll make her angry and she’ll scratch you!” And then let the cat take care of it. Obviously, remain in the room and give reminders, but when the cat’s had enough, she WILL scratch, and that will show the kid the cat’s boundaries more effectively than your words will, AND it will show the kid you’re not making shit up.
Maybe. It takes a while sometimes to find the natural consequence and highlight it for little ones. And it’s harder still to *allow *it - we naturally want to save our kids from pain we can see coming that they can’t. What’s the natural consequence of not doing your homework? Not getting decent grades, and maybe being held back a year. That’s a damn hard thing to let happen as a parent. But I wish I’d allowed it when my son was in first grade and it didn’t matter so much.
The only thing I can think of is running into the street. Yep, I’ll give you that one. On that topic, I’m just a big ol’ meanie who won’t let her walk across the street without holding a grown-up’s hand.
Other than literal bodily harm that would be fatal to demonstrate, if it honestly has no consequences (for anyone, not just for the kid), then maybe you need to rethink why it’s a rule.
There’s not one optimal way to raise kids. Kids are people, and people are individuals. What motivates one kid to do something you want them to do might not motivate another kid; what is a dreadful punishment for one kid might not be so bad for another.
An example. When I was in high school, my parents glommed onto the idea that making a big deal out of praising me and my sister for good grades was a good idea. Perfectly sound, in theory. But didn’t take into account my shy personality and how embarrassed I would get at effusive praise, especially in public. The result was that I made sure I didn’t get better than about a 3.7, since that seemed to be the optimal result for my goal of “getting my parents to leave me alone about my grades”. I could have done better, but I didn’t want the fuss that went along with that, so I didn’t- sometimes to the point of deliberately doing badly on a quiz.
You are deluding yourself if you believe you can turn a kid into what you want. There are lots of people who raised their kids pretty much the same and one came out a criminal and the other did not. You direct and educate ,but they will not be programmed beyond a set range. Just like much of your health is inherited through generations ,your mental makeup is somewhat set at birth. Just hope you get lucky.
And if you try, and if what you want doesn’t mesh well with the kid’s own personality and interests, you’re just going to make your relationship with the kid more strained than it needs to be. That will make you, the kid, and everybody else in the family miserable, or at least less happy than you could have been. And the kid will still turn out pretty much the way he or she was going to in the first place, so it will all be for nothing.
Your kid could turn out to have very different values than you do- you could be a conservative Christian, and your kid could turn out to be a liberal non-Christian as an adult- that happened to my parents with both my sister and me. And there’s not much you can do about that. My parents certainly tried- until we moved out of the house when we went to college, we had to go to church with my mom every Sunday during the school year.
No matter what you do or don’t do, your kid is probably going to make at least one major life decision that won’t be what you would have chosen for them. Some examples would be:
[ul]
[li]whether and where to go to college[/li][li]what to major in[/li][li]where and with whom to live[/li][li]what career to pursue[/li][li]how much emphasis to put on having a prestigious job and/or making a lot of money[/li][li]what political views to have[/li][li]what religion (or lack thereof) to have[/li][li]who to choose as a life partner[/li][li]whether and when to get married[/li][li]whether, when, and how many children to have[/li][li]how to raise any children[/li][/ul]
I’m sure there are more. I certainly decided differently than my parents would have chosen for me in several of those areas. I’d guess that most Dopers (and, probably, most people) have made a decision different from what their parents would have made in at least one of these areas.
There’s nothing you can do about it, either. You can try to shelter your kid from everything you don’t want them to do, but that doesn’t always work (whether or not you’re a Buddhist, that part of the story of the Buddha’s life does sound plausible). I suspect it’s even easier now, with the internet, to get information on lifestyles that appeal to you but that your parents don’t want you to know about.
