Posted on 09/05/2010 9:07:19 PM PDT by Rhonda Robinson
Parenting is a tough job but a lot of people are doing it. In fact, currently there are 150 million active parents in the United States. The big question these people face is how to do it?
Does that quote strike you as odd?
It was the introduction to an article on parenting trends. Aside from stating the obvious, the opening line puts parenting in the same category as camping, skydiving or canoeing–just another interesting and popular hobby.
Assuming the author of said article is not visiting from another planet, one can only attribute the astounding lack of understanding of human nature, to the barrage of boneheaded parenting philosophies we have been subjected to. It began in the 1960s. Anything that resembled the values of “the greatest generation” was deemed foul and tainted. It only took a couple generations of parenting advice, heavy-laden with leftist social politics and psychology to come up with this mess…
(Excerpt) Read more at newsrealblog.com ...
I violate those guidelines with all my five results of reproduction.
They will one day be Concentration Camp guards no doubt.
The look on her face was priceless.
Stupid.
A.) Kids don't think like that. That is an adult who is insecure in his masculinity projecting his thoughts on the child.
B.) What toddler is really thinking "Can I pull it before she gets over here and smacks me?"
At the toddler stage kids are in "smack wrong, candy right" mode. If something sufficiently bad happens when they do something they will not do it again until the memory has worn off. Controversially if something sufficiently good happens when they perform an action then they are likely to repeat it until the good thing stops happening and the memory wears off.
Don't make kids more complex then they are.
My son’s hand wasn’t on the burner at the time. We could just tell that he was exploring. Naturally we told him to stay away from the stove top. The issue was whether we also turned off the stove, or just turned the burner down so that it would still be very uncomfortable.
You can’t turn the stove off every time a kid comes into the room. But you can set up a controlled environment where they can discover that if they don’t pay attention to Mom and Dad, there are sometimes good reasons.
As a grandfather to a two year old, I witness the conflicting impulses of obedience and rebellion with regularity. It’s an ongoing theme, and hard to miss.
What do you suppose Dr. Spock’s advice was, anyway?
What do you suppose Dr. Spock’s advice was, anyway?
I think I already answered that. It was a projection of a male, I will not call him a man, who had issues with parents. He was emotionally retarded and assumed that everyone else was as well.
To assume that the child's reward/loss calculation included "Am I am man or a mouse" is projection. The thought is too complex and abstract.
Having a TV in the house.
No you didn't. You only criticised and dismissed his characterization of the infant's state of mind. What did he say the mother should do?
It’s true.
I laughed at him. And said "Good luck with that"
He didn't like that much....
Boy, that's cold. I haven't seen the two year old that doesn't want to please his or her mother. My grandchild, even before the age of two, in fact at barely one year of age, internalized parental prohibitions. The earliest manifestation of this that I recall is the prohibition against ingesting found bits of detritus. Instead of eating them, she would bring them over to me, or someone else, and say, "No." So she was anticipating the event. Well, she was and continues to be precocious, but I can assure you that REBELLION is not dead.
I love it.
No has become too negative? LOL. So when his kid runs out into traffic or picks up a knife at age 2 or throws a fit and hits him what is he going to say that will replace NO the negative?
We HS'd our kids....starting back in the mid-80's...and they are both off successfully in the real world now.
“I had a philosophy which struck some of my contemporaries with horror. When my son was reaching up to put his hand on a stove burner. They thought I should turn it off. I was inclined to just turn it down. (It was electric; i.e., no flame.)”
This post is on the general topic, but I wanted to address something you guys/gals said too, so it isn’t personal.
While I realize your child may be grown, I wanted to comment on this post because I think it highlights a very important parenting concept. Natural consequences, and punishment, and the fact that parent’s don’t raise robots, they guide children to become adults. (Parent’s are not their kid’s “friend,” they are their provider, teacher, guardian, etc. Not to say they don’t love their children and can’t be friends). I don’t think either of you is inherently wrong, but I wanted to point out something.
Children, like adults (but not exactly the same), learn from experience, both positive and negative reinforcement. The concept of natural consequence is simple, you can’t beat a child into doing what you want. That said, I’ve always had the philosophy that there are times that you discipline and explain, and there are times that you prevent.
With anything that might injure, maim, or otherwise harm your child, I think it’s best to prevent. For example, the hand swat before touching the stove, the spanking before going into the street. You can’t wait until the child has 3rd degree burns or is hit by a car to “let them learn.” Until about the age of 9 or so, children can’t effectively understand cause and effect. They can associate the discipline/prevention (swat with stove, or burn with stove for that matter), but they don’t know that if they touch the stove they’ll be burned because it’s hot. (This is not an attack on the letting them touch the stove method, becuase that depends on what the situation was, ie. how hot, how close you were to fix a problem if one arose, and if you gave immediate first aid—if it even happened at all).
The second concept is natural consequence. If you smack a kid for everything they do wrong, they don’t understand what is going on. It’d be like getting caned for showing up late to work, etc. If they break something, they may just need to clean it up/pay for it (depending on the age). If they lose a toy, they may just have to do without one for a while, etc. In the adult world we have natural consequences, and punishment (for breaking the law), but as parent’s we have to understand how a child thinks/learns (and this is individual, I know), but not abandon good parenting. There is definitely a place for corporal punishment, but as pointed out in post #21:
“That is one of the most effective techniques, provided you have the patience to lay the groundwork for it, which principally involves (a) having the courage to carry through on your threat when you have to, and (b) not abusing the LOOK (or whatever you use - I use the count-to-three method, along with the use-your-full-name method) too often for things that don’t really matter, because then you either have to impose a draconian punishment on what was really a little pecadillo, or else you’re just bluffing and your bluff gets called.”
In any event, I just wanted to bring that up for the new parents that may be reading, or those not understanding why discipline may sometimes be ineffective. For example, spanking when kids fight (heated arguing) is generally not effective, because they just unintendedly learn that the punishment for things someone’s doing that they don’t like is to physically hit them. I learned that the time out worked best for my kids, for raised voices, arguing, etc. And I would talk to them about their behavior before they could “rejoin society.” If they physically hit one another, that was swiftly nipped in the bud right away, and thankfully, I had almost no problems with that.
Anyway, I know each child is different, I just wanted to share some thoughts on the matter. Some children will try the very best of parents, and some would be angels for just about any parent’s too. We all do our best, and in general, if parent’s care for their children, and not the nanny state, they tend to grow up alright anyway. Life teaches the best lessons, and I feel confident in saying, that like “the-Watchman” pointed out, life does a better job than we do, we just try and keep life from damaging them before they can learn, and we try to raise them the best we can, in spite of a cruel and wicked society that will pray on them (see: “Nanny state, and public educaation/indoctrination, for further reading”).
Thanks guys.
Hat tip to Oceander since I quoted you.
Mrs. Doomonyou and I just raised our kids with common sense and lots of love, and they are well adjusted, responsible, active at church, in college, and all I gotta say is we did it without this POS list.
Dr. Spock helped RUIN this country’s parents and children!!
Let’s see here:
“Not only are they interested in saving the environment through less diapers in the landfills, but want rid your home of stinky diapers as well, by letting babies go bottomless.”
I saw some of this years ago, in China. Mostly backwater places like Wuhan, etc. The footy sleepers just had a big piece of the backside cut out, and the lil’ one was allowed to go as he or she needed. Yuck!
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“Be your child’s BFF”
DINGDINGDINGDING!!! In my HBO (humble bachelor opinion), this is the #1 bad trend in parenting. Parents are there to love their children, teach them values, and raise them. They aren’t there to be their children’s buddy. Sometimes a parent has to be the bad guy for the child’s own good. As neanderthal as it might sound, there are even times when a child should fear the consequences of their actions. For example, I knew if I got caught playing with matches as a kid, I was going to be in BIG TIME trouble with both mom and dad. It didn’t mean I thought my parents didn’t love me, or that I couldn’t go to them if I had a problem. It just meant they were the boss, and I’d better listen to what they had to say. It’s a lot tougher for a parent to do that if you’re “just one of the gals” (or guys).
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“Corporal Punishment Should be Outlawed”
Not having kids of my own, I am unsure of my opinions about when mild physical punishment is the appropriate course of action. I will say that I only had to be spanked once as a kid. I was a goody-two shoes most of the time, and the few times when I acted up, being told not to do something or being put in time out (or, as my grams called it, “the sassy chair”) was more than enough. The one time I *was* spanked, however, I was doing something that could have gotten me seriously hurt or even killed, and had already been told not to do. Getting swatted on the butt got through to me when nothing else did or would.
Lack of discipline is a major concern, and I feel it will only get worse.
TV ads influence more than just buying preferences. Two in particular come to mind.
One is for paper towels, mom is baking a cake (?), her small boy uses the batter to draw a face on the counter. What does mom do? She smiles and adds lemon slices for glasses before cleaning up the mess with one swipe of the towel! The other ad is even worse. It’s for chewing gum, kids are drawing on a wall. Mom sees, smiles and asks what they are doing. “We’re cleaning our teeth!”
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