Ball And Chain To Force Children To Study

You haven't tried everything to get your kids to study until you've tried the Study Ball. The Study Ball is a 21-pound prison-style device that locks onto your child's leg and only unlocks after a predetermined amount of study time has passed. The homework manacles can't be locked for more than four hours, and come with a safety key. The product website states, "Quite often, students who are having problems concentrating tend to get up every ten minutes to watch TV, talk on the phone, take something out of the fridge, and a long list of other distractions. Were they to dedicate all this wasted time to studying, they would optimise their performance and have more free time available. Study Ball helps you study more and more efficiently." Stop Teasing Your Brother Pepper Spray coming soon.

Comments

Laughably Medieval

[eldavojohn]

Make the act of studying have a negative association with it in the child's mind. That way when they depend on themselves to learn things later in life, they'll be reminded of your horrible freedom inhibiting imprisonment technique.

This should work exactly as well as physically abusing your child when he or she does something wrong. That way when they are faced with conflict later in life, they follow in your steps and resort to violence.

Oh, by the way, 9.5 kg (21 pounds)!? What kid is that going to inhibit? I was walking up and down fields picking up rocks heavier than that by the time I was in grade school! If that stops your kid from moving, you've got other parenting problems to worry about ... or is this just about wearing a red letter 'A' around so everyone knows you should be studying right now?

Were they to dedicate all this wasted time to studying, they would optimise their performance and have more free time available.

Not always true. Read this article.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Tablizer]

Make the act of studying have a negative association with it in the child's mind. That way when they depend on themselves to learn things later in life, they'll be reminded of your horrible freedom inhibiting imprisonment technique.

Wouldn't the biological alternative, "parents", also trigger such an effect?
       

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Presto Vivace]

Does child protective services know about this?

Re:Laughably Medieval

[mapkinase]

Make the act of studying have a negative association with it in the child's mind. That way when they depend on themselves to learn things later in life, they'll be reminded of your horrible freedom inhibiting imprisonment technique.

This should work exactly as well as physically abusing your child when he or she does something wrong. That way when they are faced with conflict later in life, they follow in your steps and resort to violence.

Utter BS. I was physically punished when I did not do well in school by my mother in the beginning until I became an A student. Later in life I graduated college Magna cum laude and did my Ph.D.

The older I get the more thankful I get to my mother for those lessons.

You can claim other negative effects of corporal punishment later in life, but that particular effect you wrote about is complete nonsense.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

Make the act of studying have a negative association with it in the child's mind. That way when they depend on themselves to learn things later in life, they'll be reminded of your horrible freedom inhibiting imprisonment technique.

Actually, this is why I still resent my 3rd grade teacher, one of only two people in my life that I still hold some sort of grudge against. Not only did she practice collective punishment for the actions of a single student, but her favored form of punishment was extra homework, and she didn't assign homework on the weekends because she didn't want to "ruin" our weekends.

It was the first time in my childhood that I was introduced to the idea that homework wasn't fun. What a great life lesson, huh? I wonder what kinds of things I might have accomplished later in life if I hadn't had the joy of studying drained out of me at that age.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[morgan_greywolf]

Make the act of studying have a negative association with it in the child's mind. That way when they depend on themselves to learn things later in life, they'll be reminded of your horrible freedom inhibiting imprisonment technique.

Similar to "no friends, no phone calls, no going out, no playing [Wii || Xbox360 || PS3], no anything until your homework is done"?

Re:Laughably Medieval

[eldavojohn]

Make the act of studying have a negative association with it in the child's mind. That way when they depend on themselves to learn things later in life, they'll be reminded of your horrible freedom inhibiting imprisonment technique.

This should work exactly as well as physically abusing your child when he or she does something wrong. That way when they are faced with conflict later in life, they follow in your steps and resort to violence.

Utter BS. I was physically punished when I did not do well in school by my mother in the beginning until I became an A student. Later in life I graduated college Magna cum laude and did my Ph.D.

The older I get the more thankful I get to my mother for those lessons.

You can claim other negative effects of corporal punishment later in life, but that particular effect you wrote about is complete nonsense.

Ah, the magna cum laude doctor cites an anecdote of their own personal experience and considers my point rendered complete nonsense. I bow to your supreme intelligence, my lord.

So I assume you beat your child when he or she does poorly at school?

Nowhere did I say that corporal punishment leads to violence 100% of the time or that it has no positive effects. You could be a straight A student and still physically attack your opponents. Not that child psychology is a solid science but I think studies support my argument (there's more than just that).

Re:Laughably Medieval

[cml4524]

Did you really just ask if positive and negative reinforcement are similar?

Re:Laughably Medieval

[jcr]

The older I get the more thankful I get to my mother for those lessons.

Why do I get the feeling that we're going to be hearing about you as the central figure in a tragic event any day now?

"He was kind of a loner", said his not-very-surprised colleagues...

-jcr

Re:Laughably Medieval

[mosb1000]

I've never met a person who was a PHD, or who had straight A's that didn't have a personality disorder of some kind. Something has to be wrong with anyone who would be willing to put up with that much bs for that many years for almost no reason at all. It says something about your priorities.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

Make the act of studying have a negative association with it in the child's mind.

Yes, because your "D" student obviously views studying as "the funnest thing EV-AR"

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly you don't know me.
Just joking, my PhD is not finished yet...

Re:Laughably Medieval

[amilo100]

This should work exactly as well as physically abusing your child when he or she does something wrong. That way when they are faced with conflict later in life, they follow in your steps and resort to violence.

The old âoecorporal punishment is abuseâ spiel. You said initially that the negative association (chain&ball) with studying is going to condition the children to dislike studying later on their own. This is known as negative reinforcement and it is true phenomenon.

Then you jumped to the conclusion that negative reinforcement will not work if you teach your child not to do a certain action which is deemed as undesirable.

This is an illogical jump to a conclusion that has nothing to do with the previous discussion. Negative reinforcement will work in this case too. As an example: if a child hurts animals (which most children do at one stage or another) and you apply a slap, the child will be less likely to do that action in the future.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Fujisawa Sensei]

I've never met a person who was a PHD, or who had straight A's that didn't have a personality disorder of some kind. Something has to be wrong with anyone who would be willing to put up with that much bs for that many years for almost no reason at all. It says something about your priorities.

So? I've never met a person who didn't have a personality disorder of some sort.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[dbialac]

God, I agree with this 100%. If you want your kids to succeed in school, talk with their teachers an reward your kids based on their efforts. Communication shouldn't just happen at parent teacher conferences. It should be happening constantly so you know what is going on. Don't be a helecopter though -- don't try to influence the teacher. Just use that communication to provide the appropriate rewards and punishments to your child.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anrego]

In this debate people always assume corporal punishment means beating the daylight out of your kids.

I`m also in the same boat as mapkinase. If I didn't do homework (my parents never demanded I get straight A's .. but I had to at least be putting in reasonable effort) I'd get punished. As it turned out, this method worked very effectively.. and I did very well in school.. and now have a great job/life.

And despite what various extremist think-of-the-children types will say.. I`m not some seething bottle of rage who has flashbacks of getting yelled at and attacks people at random as a result.

The problem is that people try to think of kids as little adults when they are in fact just kids. You can't always reason with a kid.. because they don't have the same ability to weigh options that adults do (I know when I was a kid I sure didn't). A little negative re-enforcement (do something wrong.. get punished) is sometimes the best way.

And I truly believe that kids today have more problems as a result of being treated as fragile ornaments who will be screwed up for the rest of their life if you even look at them in a menacing way.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

no no no the BS comes many years before the PHD...

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Though "no playing games" and "here lets chain you to this desk a few hours" are a bit different. They may try to accomplish the same thing, but if that's really necessary, I doubt the kid would actually study, more sit there until the time runs out.

What if there's a fire? Unlikely, but would this really be worth it? Someone who tries to avoid studying that much won't learn anything, even if they do study.

There are more important things in life than a good job or a good college. Try happiness.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Chris Burke]

So? I've never met a person who didn't have a personality disorder of some sort.

Hm, interesting. So if personality disorders are, as a class, normal, and a "disorder" is by definition something functioning abnormally, then would this not mean that psychologists should recognize Lack of Personality Disorder Disorder?

Treatment for this disorder would be quite straightforward, though the ethics of giving someone Post Traumatic Stress Disorder to cure their Lack of Personality Disorder Disorder are questionable.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Fallingcow]

So? I've never met a person who didn't have a personality disorder of some sort.

It's so true. A big part of getting to know someone isn't figuring out whether they're fucked up in the head, but how.

That goes double for getting to know yourself.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[amilo100]

Utter Bullshit. In you initial post you did not give any evidence and you jumped from a conclusion that was completely unsupported.

In this argument you cite articles that talk of parental abuse â" which is completely different from corporal punishment. I can only assume that you did not read the cited article (that was written in 1969!). It is clear that this article references domestic violence (such as unwarranted assault, cigarette burning, etc...).
You do not make the distinction between well adjusted corporal punishment and abuse and try to use weasel words at every opportunity. You are not interested in discussion or evidence but the promotion of your own viewpoint.

So I assume you beat your child when he or she does poorly at school?

Here you use the word beat to try and suggest that he abuses his children. This is both incredibly dishonest and mischievous. The correct word is spank.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Chris Burke]

And despite what various extremist think-of-the-children types will say.. I`m not some seething bottle of rage who has flashbacks of getting yelled at and attacks people at random as a result.

Yeah. I got spanked as a kid -- there's a difference between "spanking" and "beating" -- and honestly all my worst memories and issues regarding my parents are from when they hurt me emotionally, not physically. Some of those spanking straightened me out faster than anything else could have when I really needed to be straightened out, yet I got over the physical pain almost immediately. On the other hand things my parents might say, not even in the context of discipline, stuck in my craw for years.

Now of course there are parents that go to far and beat their kids too hard or too often and it loses all meaning and simply becomes abuse.

Outside of that extreme, I'm much more horrified by the parents who use guilt and passive-aggression to "discipline" their kids than the ones who spank their ass and then say what's done is done.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[amilo100]

Not only did she practice collective punishment for the actions of a single student,
Collective punishment is a bad thing. But in a large way teachers are forced to do this because they are backed into a corner. There is simply no way to punish a problem child â" the best thing you can do is to phone their parents. But the sad fact is that the parents did not raise the child with discipline and that is why it is the teachers' problem.
Some teachers try to do the collective punishment so that the other kids resent the guilty kid. This is extremely bad and it can completely alienate an already problemed child.
In my experience children usually form strong relationships with a strict but fair teacher. They quickly see a strict teacher as a father figure. Maybe this is just in my country where most people often grow up without a father figure.

I wonder what kinds of things I might have accomplished later in life if I hadn't had the joy of studying drained out of me at that age.

The right way is to have negative reinforcement at the very bottom and positive reinforcement above that. It is sad when I see people who screwed up their life and limited their opportunities just because they couldn't be bothered to do their homework.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

You would be surprised by how effective a ball and chain can be. For my bachelor party, several of my "friends" immobilized me while we were playing pool (in a public pool hall) and shackled a 16 pound bowling ball to my leg. The chain had only about 1' of slack so I had to bend over to hold it while moving. It was quite uncomfortable to walk with it dragging by itself. It wasn't until we went to a club and the bouncer requested that it be removed for safety reasons that they removed it. Otherwise, I would have been wearing it until I was dropped off at home.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[sesshomaru]

Here you use the word beat to try and suggest that he abuses his children. This is both incredibly dishonest and mischievous. The correct word is spank.

Tomato, tomato....

Re:Laughably Medieval

[The Grim Reefer2]

Is it just me, or does the attached digital timer make it look like something Wile E. Coyote would blow himself up with while falling off of a cliff?

Re:Laughably Medieval

[JCSoRocks]

So? I've never met a person.

*posted from my cave*

Re:Laughably Medieval

[JCSoRocks]

I absolutely agree. I've spent years working with middle school and high school aged kids. Without a doubt, the kids with parents that don't believe in punishing them have zero self discipline. I honestly feel sorry for them. At times they know they're not making the right choice but they just don't have the discipline to do what they know they should.

People that pamper their children are doing them a disservice. Don't get me wrong - You should absolutely love and care for your kids, but part of that is teaching them some self control.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[SydShamino]

Actually, if you watch Better Off Ted, I think the character Ted is supposed to show someone completely lacking of any personality disorders. Part of the show's charm is how totally unrealistic he is.

I suspect a psychiatrist could find something wrong with his unusually cheerful demeanor and prescribe something right away.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[sdpuppy]

Too bad you posted AC... (Absolutely Correct)

First you get " Bull S#!^"

then you get "More of the Same"

and finally it's "Piled higher & Deeper" !

always wondered about double majors...

Re:Laughably Medieval

[YourExperiment]

So?

Re:Laughably Medieval

[bitt3n]

I can corroborate the GP post. I owe my Nobel Prize to my mother's constant beatings. While I received it for work in particle physics, these days she appears to be whipping me more in the direction of string theory.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[w0mprat]

This is why kids don't eat enough vegetables as adults, they remember being forced to eat all their greens under threat of punishment. This psychological association is a stark contrast to the strong reward from tasty sugary fatty treats with bright colours, oh and these are given to kids as rewards, when the parent was in a good mood. So kids learn to hate vegetables and love junk food, and when they become adults junk food becomes a comfort.

Thus, the obesity epidemic.

The same applies to education, co-erce your kid into working and they run the risk of becoming a learning-alergic adult. Now we've all encountered those.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[postbigbang]

And that's the reason this device shouldn't be used: safety.

Oh, gosh, let's run upstairs and unchain Billy and Jane because the house is on fire again.

The rest of the debate is easier, IMHO: you get more flies with honey with vinegar.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[WebmasterNeal]

"In this debate people always assume corporal punishment means beating the daylight out of your kids."

Nicely put, because that seems to often be the case.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[DarkIye]

Way to counter his point there, sport!

There isn't what you might call 'no difference' between the two things. 'Spanking' refers to using force on children strictly disciplinarily, possibly when the child is not yet old enough to understand verbal commands, and especially to stop them from doing things which might actually hurt them (such as playing with power sockets, stovetops, and the like). 'Beating' refers to hurting children because you're drugged up, sadistic, or both.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[bitt3n]

as my wife and I were unable to conceive, we adopted a monkey instead. I spanked my monkey daily, often with her enthusiastic participation, and even now I swell with pride at the thought of the fine upstanding citizen he has become.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[JavaTHut]

So? I've never met a person who didn't have a personality disorder of some sort.

Mmmm, try leaving slashdot

Re:Laughably Medieval

[kyliaar]

At one point does punishment by confinement become anything but a bad idea that is just going to make people even less anti-social?

I've heard great things about the use of jail as a form of rehabilitation... insane asylums, too.

These seems to stem from the same train of thought.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and people wonder why most kids are disrespectful little shits these days.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Fujisawa Sensei]

So? I've never met a person who didn't have a personality disorder of some sort.

Mmmm, try leaving slashdot

I have. The disorders are worse.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[cowdung]

The problem is that people try to think of kids as little adults when they are in fact just kids. You can't always reason with a kid.. because they don't have the same ability to weigh options that adults do (I know when I was a kid I sure didn't). A little negative re-enforcement (do something wrong.. get punished) is sometimes the best way.

And I truly believe that kids today have more problems as a result of being treated as fragile ornaments who will be screwed up for the rest of their life if you even look at them in a menacing way.

Dumb conclusion.

My wife was never spanked/beaten/slapped as a child and she was always very well behaved.

My teenage daughter was never spanked/beaten/slapped and is very very well behaved, known for her good discipline in school and is a model student and person.

Why do you assume that violence makes people better behaved? There are many ways of instilling discipline w/o the use of violence of any sort (yes: even spanking). That is why I applaud that kids don't get spanked in school anymore.

There are societies that believe that you cannot have discipline if you don't have a strong autocratic police society. But most civilized countries today disagree w/such notions. If such things apply at the level of society why do we assume that we need a strong autocratic police society at home?!

Children will behave if they are rewarded for good behavior and punished for bad behavior (just like adults). But such punishment does not need to include spanking. Other techniques like depriving them of what they want, making them take a "timeout" or stay for a while in their room to cool off.. work quite fine. And in my experience as a parent, such disciplinary actions are generally only necessary during the first few years and then the kid develops enough self-control to not get into trouble as a habit.

To me corporal punishment is the tell-tale mark of a parent w/no better ideas: uncreative, unthinking and often incompetent.

By the way I was "spanked" by my parents as I grew up.. and no.. I was NOT well behaved AT ALL.

I'm glad my wife had the experience she had (a very capable mother). This has allowed us to have a much happier and fear free family.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

I was physically punished when I did not do well

in school by my mother

Kinky !

The older I get the more thankful I get to my mother for those lessons.

Thank you ma'am, may I have another ?......*** THWACK ***

Thank you ma'am, may I have another ?......*** THWACK ***

Thank you ma'am, may I have another ?......*** THWACK ***

Re:Laughably Medieval

[DarkOx]

It kinda depends. I think if a parent is late to the party with RULZ then yea its going to create a negative association. You are after all infringing on what was a perceived freedom, with your demand that homework now be completed before these activities may be under taken.

On the other hand if you have some discipline from the start and play time always came after work time from their earliest memories, then you could create a positive association. IE Doing homework and or chores entitles one to these other activities which are otherwise not offered.

Now there is incentive to do the work. The message is work pays off. Which is generally true in most cases, and not a bad value to impart on children.

Disclaimer I am not a parent. I did have parents that more or less did the above. I would be exactly like my parents with children if I should have the opportunity.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Beyond Opinion]

I agree. I was spanked as a child and I know I am better for it.

The difference is parents who use spanking as a form of discipline, and spanking as a way to release their anger, which should never be done. I remember being about ten years old, maybe younger, and knowing whether I was being punished because I had done something wrong or punished because I had made someone angry.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

"Oh, by the way, 9.5 kg (21 pounds)!? What kid is that going to inhibit?"

Imagine it tied to your leg with a 1 foot chain. Imagine walking and the ball repeatedly bouncing on your foot. Realize you can't pick it up and hold it because the chain is too short. Got it?

Re:Laughably Medieval

[uberjack]

Yes, but that would require work on the parents' behalf. It's always easier to make someone (or in this case, something) else do it. Cue "Blame Canada"

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

It has been my observation that swift and severe retribution for bad behavior also makes praise for good behavior more effective.

My kids know that when I have to get involved it is thunderclap boom command voice drill instructor time. That instant deer in headlights look is the best sign of you having their undivided attention. They cry for a bit, calm down, and then we discuss what they did wrong. The older child even gets that momentary pause to make sure he is safe when he notices that I am watching him. Hell, if you have to do anything more than stand up you are doing it wrong. The only time I have had to smack either of them on the backside is when it is an immediate danger kind of situation. I would rather have them have the stinging butt than a serious injury.

The opposite end of that is that they light up much more when we praise their good behavior. It provides a better contrast for what is and isn't acceptable. The older child has been tearing through books because he gets a lot of praise for his progress in learning to read.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Thinboy00]

S?

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Propaganda13]

Actually, if you watch Better Off Ted, the character Ted has lots of issues. He's just more "normal" than the others. He needs everyone to like him. He has problems with relationships. He's competitive past the healthy point. He works for a company that doesn't know the meaning of ethics and most of the time is ok with it. I'm sure there's a lot more.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Parallax48]

Do you know for sure that you wouldn't have done as well or better without this sort of punishment?

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

That is dangerous thinking going on. They may not be little adults- but saying they don't reason is non-sense. If they didn't reason then they wouldn't react to punishment. Just because a child doesn't do what you want them to doesn't mean they can't reason. Children react to their surroundings and if you treat them different they will behave differently. I think the field of child psychology is full of crackpots myself- but the reason we shouldn't be hitting kids is that it is WRONG. While I have zero faith or believe that a supernatural entity exists their is at least one thing found in religious texts I'd agree with: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." and if you want someone to hurt you then by all means I'll come over and beat the living crap out of you- but the thing is if you want that you are mentally ill and I'd prefer separate you from the populous.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Endo13]

Physical punishment and physical abuse are not synonyms. You and GP are probably both correct, but you're talking about two different things.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[mishehu]

Hmmm... Is this thing manufactured by the infamous ACME company?

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Shoe Puppet]

That's absolutely irrelevant. Beating people, including children is agains human rights - regardless whether you call it "spanking" or "torture". Therefore it's inacceptable regardless of any potential positive effects.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.google.com/search?q=sense+of+humor+FAIL

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anrego]

That's some nice shallow thinking.. "because they use a different style of discipline, they must be unfit parents."

My parents used the style of techniques you mentioned.. time outs.. going to bed early.. etc.. in addition to spanking.

Point is the outcome is the same.. a well adjusted person. I'd propose that spanking isn't necessary, but is a viable option for negative re-enforcement. After all, it was used for many generations successfully.

Non-corporal methods can be as damaging if used improperly imo. Excessive corner time or scolding or such can be just as emotionally damaging as physical abuse.

And I don't think either is effective if used by a parent that doesn't know what he/she is doing. I'd say there are just as many mis-adjusted kids out there who were pampered as spanked.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[AnotherBlackHat]

In my experience children usually form strong relationships with a strict but fair teacher.

I think I've heard of that - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anrego]

And yet a huge majority of people who were spanked (myself included) as kids are very thankful now as adults.

And I`m not saying kids have the mental capacity of rocks.. but they arn't going to have the decision making power of an adult. Parenting requires an adult to sometimes save kids from themselves. Most kids, if the decision was _entirely_ up to them.. would never do their school work. By creating a negative re-enforcement (and an associated positive re-enforcement) to encourage a kid to do their work.. you are helping them in the long run.

I also think this style teaches long term cause and effect. You don't do school work.. get bad grade.. get punished. In short, "I do something wrong now for short term gain.. it bites me in the ass in the long run" .. which I think is a very important lesson.. and one that you can try and "verbally reason with" a kid till you're blue in the face and not get across.

I would like to say that the original article is just insane though... if you are considering that kind of solution, you're doing it wrong.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Darkness404]

...But that will, in later life make your kids believe you aren't to be trusted otherwise they will get in trouble. Such things can lead to them to hide from problems rather then just tell you about them.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[chunk08]

?

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Runaway1956]

Branding all corporal punishment as "abuse" is totally moronic. The ills our society suffers today are due more to permissiveness and lack of responsibility than any imagined affects of "abuse". There are any number of individuals in history who suffered genuine abuse, who went on to become famous. Does Alexander Graham ring any bells?

The individual who can use corporal punishment as an effective teaching tool is far superior to either the child abuser, OR the child "protector". Both the abuser and the overly protective idiot harm the child.

The magna cum laude you mock has most definitely put things into perspective, and found that a swat on the ass now and then is beneficial for irresponsible children. Prove him wrong, if you can.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anrego]

Bleh.. here comes the fragile ornament stuff.

When I was a kid and got punished.. I didn't see it as "my parents are the enemy and I can never trust them again and I`ll surely turn to this alcohol and cocaine stuff when I grow up". I saw it as "oh crap.. I did something bad and now I`m paying the consequences.. "

And I can _totally_ remember that "deer in the headlights" feeling from when i was a kid! And you know.. it set me straight. Yet I had and still have a very healthy relationship with my parents.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

pedantry:

negative-reenforcement means taking something bad away to encourage behavior

positive-punishment means adding a new stimulus that the subject does not respond favorably to in order to coerce the proper behavior

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Kral_Blbec]

There is a huge difference between "beating", ie abuse, and discipline. If you really can't see that then you should be bowing to the superior intelligence of a toad.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd just beat the fucking hell out of the parents. Put them in jail. Take their kids and let the state properly raise them.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Kral_Blbec]

& nbsp;

Re:Laughably Medieval

[martas]

Are you kidding? When I think back to all the times that I felt like I was literally going to suffocate under the weight of my own guilt... Oh, memories.

I was never punished physically. My parents didn't see the point in that, even when it's "mock beating", aka spanking, which doesn't really cause any significant physical pain. Guilt, disapproving and disgusted looks, cold attitude - these were their tools. And yes, for a kid these things can hurt more than any physical punishment. But there's another side to it - the feeling of relief you get once you finally do the "right" thing. As I said, they never spanked me as punishment (only for fun... I've said too much), so I don't have anything to compare to, but I'll never forget the relief and joy I felt when I made the choice to do what I knew was the right thing to do, and felt their approval and acceptance. The point I'm trying to make is that while spanking works simply through negative reinforcement, the "passive-aggressive" methods actually force the victim to acknowledge what the right course of action was, and what their mistake was, and what they needed to do to fix it.

Ultimately, I don't know which is better. I guess the guilt stuff is riskier, because if you screw it up, you end up with a nervous, fucked up little loser. But that's kind of true in any case - they say one of the biggest factors in the development of an incredibly large range of psychological disorders is unpredictability and inconsistency of one's environment, and more specifically a feeling of unpredictability of the reactions of parents/other adults.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[FatdogHaiku]

Yup, and it can't be that simple... he would hit the ground, then a large rock would land on top of him, THEN the thing would explode. What I like is that each event has it's own little puff of dust and "POW" sound. Such are the burdens of being a "super genius"...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPYAsbOpTtQ&NR=1

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

No he doesn't, he's a blowhard and a troll.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Hognoxious]

[[citation needed]]

Re:Laughably Medieval

[db32]

That all depends on how you handle the finer points of this method.

You just have to make sure your enforcement encourages coming clean. The best way to do this is to "not see" what happened and then question them. If it isn't serious then you let them off with a minor "don't let me catch you doing it again" as long as they come clean. If they lie, *KABOOM* extra severe punishments. Groundings, lost toys, etc. (One of my personal favorites is back against the wall and legs at 90 deg angle. I only had to use that one once and it broke the tantrum pretty quick.) Not only does that encourage the honesty portion, it enforces "holy shit, they see everything!".

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

So? I've never met a person.

*posted from my cave*

You know you're mom's going to eventually want to clean out her basement.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Darkness404]

It can work if parents don't start to micromanage.... Unfortunately most do. For example, theres nothing wrong with "natural" consequences such as you are lazy, fail a class and have to take summer school. There is however everything wrong with parents making artificial consequences such as you must have a B or higher in this class. Sure, you should strive to get a high grade, but if it doesn't happen, no big deal so long as you pass it and aren't in competition for a grade-based scholarship and even that would be a natural consequence.

It doesn't mean that you will turn to cocaine and alcohol, but lets say you aren't doing too well in a class. If your parents frequently yell at you for not doing what they consider "well" in it, are you going to really ask for tutoring or help from them? Or lets say that you, or a close friend have a problem, perhaps you realize you are becoming addicted to something such as drugs or alcohol. If your parents constantly yell at you, most people would hide the problem rather then confront it.

If parents stop making artificial consequences, people can learn from their mistakes, not do it again, and be happier. Really, getting a D in a class isn't the end of the world.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[kohaku]

I always thought it was "Bull Sh*t, More Sh*t, Piled Higher & Deeper"

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Hognoxious]

If they didn't reason then they wouldn't react to punishment.

Bullshit. Animals can't reason, but they react to punishment - it's no more thatn a conditioned reflex.

Now you explain to your two year old about the chemistry of combustion and how heat is really the molecules moving. I'll tell mine a firm "no" when he tries to play with matches, followed up by a tap if he insists. The one with fewer skin grafts wins.

if you want someone to hurt you then by all means I'll come over and beat the living crap out of you

No you won't.

I'll allow you some credit for mixing dippy hippy commufaggot and internet tough guy in one post, but you're still a sanctimonious wanker of the highest order.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Hognoxious]

And when the indisciplined children grow up to be spoiled brats with no sense of discipline or empathy and inflict far worse things on other people, they're just "expressing themselves".

Re:Laughably Medieval

[xaxa]

‌

Re:Laughably Medieval

[stonewallred]

Discipline is needed by kids, just as limits are. There is a huge difference between discipline and beatings. Beatings are when my dad sent me to the hospital three times before I was 8 for broken bones. Discipline was when my son was 8 and I popped him on the ass and sent him to his room.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Hognoxious]

Some teachers try to do the collective punishment so that the other kids resent the guilty kid.

I have to say that as a child I don't recall ever having suffered collective punishment. A few times we had the "if the person who did it doesn't own up...". They invariably did, within 5 minutes.

Now if it had happened, the individual who brought it on us would have been given a sound kicking by his classmates, or at the least sent to Coventry.

This is extremely bad and it can completely alienate an already problemed child.

No, it's an extremely good thing. And he would have got darn tired of doing it, for the reasons previously outlined.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[xaxa]

There's different kinds of punishment though. Examples:
- spanking
- no dessert
- confine to room
- no book, video game, no tv
- extra chores
- no treat/gift (works best when siblings still get it)
- no pocket money

Or, the one that hurt me most (the result of my parents receiving a letter from my school complaining about my behaviour):
- put off upgrading the modem from 14.4k to 56k for another 6 months (~1997).

If the child isn't putting himself in danger there are plenty of options for non-violent punishment. (I'm not yet a parent, but I understand that a smack is a good way to stop a 2/3 year old doing something dangerous, like touching pans on the stove.)

Re:Laughably Medieval

[stonewallred]

There is also the how big of a deal is it idea. My son when he was young, was not allowed to run through the house raising hell. When he would and it got on my nerves, I would give him the "Are you supposed to be doing that?" question in a loud voice. And he would stop running though the house, for ten to fifteen minutes (if I was lucky). Point being, it was not a big rule needing to be enforced with time outs, room time, taking or popping his ass. I had trouble getting my wife to understand that you make rules, and just like in the real world, some are minor while some are real important. Everything a lid does does not require punishment or discipline.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[stonewallred]

So when I take you wallet, rape your wife and strangle your little dog, you are going to do what? Yell at me? Because if it is a violation of human rights to beat a person, then it is wrong, no matter what the provocation is, be it playing with an electrical receptacle at age 3 or raping your wife at age 40. BTW, your opinion something is wrong does not in any way make it a fact. It is an opinion.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[nanoakron]

And interestingly, you could argue that as physical remonstration is used by many species to punish their young, children have well-developed mechanisms of coping with and learning from such punishments.

Compare these to the 'new age' time-out techniques and the like which are based on adult psychology and are probably completely inappropriate for immature minds. Probably far more damaging, but we won't know for another couple of decades or so...

-Nano.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[amilo100]

Nope, it is not that. Most people are not "trapped" by their teacher at all.

This parental relationship thing shows in the workplace too. An employee from a poor background (i.e. grew up without a father) will form a paternal relationship with his employer.

I suspect that this happens with strict teachers mostly because they show an interest in the child's life. In most of these people's lives they do not have a father and their parents are also apathetic to their existence. A lot of people gets passed on to their grand parents to raise them and alcoholism is the norm. As soon as a teacher shows discipline and an interest in whether they fail or succeed they will form a strong bond with them.

On a different note: One of my friend's father was a teacher at an extreme rural school. He was extremely disciplined in his classroom (homework not done: spanking, failed a test: spanking). He got an 80% distinction rate for Biology in a rural âoefarmâ school which is completely unheard of. That distinction would probably be the biggest accomplishment in most those kids' life and may at least help some of them to get ahead in life. That is way better than 99.99% of the apathetic teachers out there.

Some of his students even come and ask him for career advice 8-10 years after they finished studying and he is very popular among his ex-students.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

That's absolutely irrelevant. Beating people, including children is agains human rights - regardless whether you call it "spanking" or "torture". Therefore it's inacceptable regardless of any potential positive effects.

Beating people isn't against "human rights" if the beating is warranted.

Yes, "warranted" is subjective. So are "human rights". Talking about them outside of the context of a given culture is nonsense. One could replace "beating" with "talking to" in your post, and it would make as much logical sense.

You can say that a right exists in a given legal system, or that a particular legal system has a list of rights which it calls "human rights", but those can be changed. They're just a loose framework in place at a particular point in time.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[mapkinase]

Oh, yes. And if my mother were even more strict I would have done better in other areas as well

Re:Laughably Medieval

[kklein]

Under any circumstance, at any level of education (believe me--I've taught them all, from K through university), "strict but fair" will win the respect and cooperation of the class. I'd like to throw in, however, "funny and empathetic" too. I am one of the strictest teachers I know, and I am very careful to apply all rules to all situations. But my classes are energetic and I try to be charming and funny as I do them, and my door is always open to students if they have concerns--about class or otherwise.

I started teaching at a very rough high school, and I really learned the little social engineering tricks you have to do to control a group of people there. Now I'm lucky to have wonderful students (one of the top universities in the world), but the same social tricks apply. If you are strict but fair, you will be imprinted as a sort of parental figure, and even though people think that's not what they want, that's what they want.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[amilo100]

Completely unrelated:

I've seen an excellent comedy sketch by a black South African comparing punishments. He said that the usual middle class punishments would not work. If your mom said: "go to your room" you just tell her that you are in your room (shacks are often only one room).

I doubt that sending a kid to his room (with TV and a PC as many Americans apparently have) will be a really effective punishment.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

When I was a kid, I usually didn't do things I thought were wrong. If I did, and my parents convinced me of that, it didn't matter if they punished me; I learned. If they just punished me, I was angered and a little insulted. I saw through it: they were attempting to manipulate me by artificially creating a consequence for my action that would not have existed absent their presence. They were treating me like one of Pavlov's dogs (and once I was older, I even directly made that analogy to them).

I was not going to be manipulated. I am not a dog. So I didn't give into them by doing what they wanted and continued getting punished. Now I'm a well-adjusted adult who's moved out of the house (and come hell or high water I'll never live with them again), and they can't punish me anymore. I've earned my freedom and will never undervalue it.

I talk with my parents daily despite the lingering resentment, because I can see they were (sometimes) not being spiteful and (sort of) were doing what they thought was best. We have a good relationship. I'm sure they don't think they did anything wrong.

How successful would you call the parenting I received?

Posted anonymously for obvious reasons.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[amilo100]

One of my family members recently started teaching at a government school. The discipline at that school is completely broken â" it is basically a completely dysfunctional school. The country in which I live is experiencing a complete meltdown in its secondary schooling system. Just to keep the current (1:40) teacher ratio at the same level, 40 000 additional teachers should be trained more per year (this is not happening). The discipline is shocking (you would not believe the stories) but the few teachers that want to improve it are powerless to do anything.

Now I'm lucky to have wonderful students (one of the top universities in the world),

I never had a problem teaching at a university. Most people are there to study and classes are voluntary. The amount of school fees that they pay also tend to be an important incentive for them to pass. So there is not really discipline problems.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

"Animals can't reason"

Tell that to the Orangutan who recently escaped her enclosure here in Adelaide. She defeated BOTH the electric fences by grounding them with foliage
sounds like reasoning to me.

"you're still a sanctimonious wanker of the highest order."

Pot meet kettle.
--

AC to keep mod points.

Falconhell

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Belial6]

So I assume you beat your child when he or she does poorly at school?

Better than the other common form of punishment which is to mentally abuse your child. So, from your comments, I assume when your child does poorly at school, you mentally abuse them? If you don't leave marks, it ok, right?

Re:Laughably Medieval

[mapkinase]

Another thing: the punishment depends on the environment. In the rough neighborhood I grew up it was much needed. You see, a force needs to be counted with a similar force.

Yet another thing: it should depend on the abilities. If your hard working but a little slow student brings home Cs after hard night work on his homework, you do not beat him, or tell him off, you _reward_ him. If your gifted lazy-ass student (like I was in the beginning) gets home a C, you rightfully punish him in a manner that he takes seriously

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anrego]

Well, like I said earlier in some thread.. I think any style of discipline can obviously be done wrong (which it sounds like it was in your case).

Punishing a kid for doing something they didn't understand is wrong doesn't accomplish much imo.. which sounds like what you described.

Though I don't know if I agree with that entitled attitude (now we're really getting into flame war area) which seems to define the current generation.

If you're living in your parents house, eating your parents food, etc.. it's my opinion that what they say should go. That was how it was when I was a kid.. and maybe it's a generational thing.. but I never had a problem with that arrangement. You lived under your parents rule.. maybe grumbling from time to time but in general things were good.. then eventually you moved out and generally had _less_ freedom when you were living at home.

That's not saying you should be lorded over with an iron fist .. but I see kids these days having outright swearing matches with their parents over not being allowed to go out somewhere... and I think we've gone _Way_ too far in the other direction.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[hedwards]

Doesn't matter, any punishment severe enough to effect a difference is severe enough to cause personality and emotional problems later on. The result that parents look for when administering corporal punishment is in and of itself disorder.

It is terribly, terribly difficult to assess the real impact of an action on another people, so to assume that it's not a big deal is not a valid conclusion. Any use of physical force to make a kid do something should be given extreme consideration ahead of time. And you're not necessarily going to see the effects for a long time.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

And I truly believe that kids today have more problems as a result of being treated as fragile ornaments who will be screwed up for the rest of their life if you even look at them in a menacing way.

You've pointed out something very fundamental -- why psychology, sociology and the rest are called "soft sciences". (Aside -- they probably shouldn't even be called science because the word's origin means "knowledge".)

In math, physics, astronomy, chem, etc. the "scientists" can at least agree on the fundamentals -- atoms, prime numbers (hell, numbers themselves), force, solution and so on. Where they disagree strongly is at the edges -- string theory and other abstruse areas where knowledge is still expanding and various explanations are competing to find which fits reality (?) best.

With the other crowd, they can't agree on much else other than that they have something to do with humans. Some kids come out of war zones OK, many even before all the soft sciences were thought up. Some kids don't. Many of both groups may well have been exposed to exactly the same brutalities. People have individual differences.

Yet the "soft scientists" can't agree on the fundamentals. Some will say every cross word or action marks the child for life. Others will say kids are resilient, that they generally recover from or forget bad things in due time.

Well, maybe they're both right -- but it would be helpful if they'd just agree at root that this were so -- that there are many right answers, depending on the individual child. Instead, they act as if it's all a bar brawl that only one side can win.

No wonder so many parents will take their kids to these people only under a court order.

No wonder so many think these guys are, all of them, full of shit.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[LaskoVortex]

The ills our society suffers today are due more to permissiveness and lack of responsibility than any imagined affects of "abuse".

Nice way not to cite said ills. I'd call the ills of society these days (1) a high prison population, (2) collapsing economy, (3) health care cost increases that exceed the rate of inflation by 100%, (4) deteriorating investment in public education, (5) a near double-digit unemployment, and (6) a steady and very expensive rise in chronic disease. So how does a lack of corporal punishment produce these ills? (Unless you are referring to the fact that we need to beat a few legislators that have served over the past 30 years.)

Re:Laughably Medieval

[story645]

Compare these to the 'new age' time-out techniques and the like which are based on adult psychology and are probably completely inappropriate for immature minds. Probably far more damaging, but we won't know for another couple of decades or so...

What really pans out best is being consistent in whatever parenting style (authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, etc.) so time-outs are fine as long as they're actually enforced.
Anecdotal:
My mother managed to put me and my sib in a corner when we were 15, but she almost never used a belt on us when were kids. When I worked at a pre-school, time outs worked brilliantly at getting the rowdy kids sorted out.

citation:
  Inconsistent parenting: Is there evidence for a link with children's conduct problems?

I actually found a study that kind of supports your and the gp's claim: (though timeouts are common in authoritative parenting)
The relation of parenting style to adolescent school performance, but the reason the study gives for why authoritative has the highest correlation is that it's the most internally consistent.
and another, 'cause I'm feeling bored

But I wonder about the culture correlation-do families that tend to practice consistent authoritative discipline come from cultures where education is highly valued?

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure it's happened to others but one of my favorite Nethack tombstones was written after I tried to go down stairs after reading a scroll of punishment. My epitah read "Crunched in the head by an iron ball".

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anrego]

I don't necessarily agree with that..

And I think individual personality has a lot to do with it (which is up to the parent to judge in the case of their kids). You can find cases of kids who came from very strict upbringings and grew into healthy adults, and you can find kids whos parents never even looked at them in a menacing way and had all kinds of social problems later on in life.

I tend to take the attitude that most kids arn't as fragile as new-age thinkers tend to believe. There are a few that are going to be scarred for life because of a horrific stern talking to they got when they made a mistake... but there are just as many who are going to view that as "how they were raised" and never have it negatively effect their life.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[db32]

I agree in general, but I enforce that one specifically very strictly. But mostly because my oldest split his head on a corner after tripping and had to get stitches (two little metal staple things actually so they don't have to shave their head). Managed to cost me $600. Typically it is a timeout in the corner if I have to say stop more than once. If they have something in their hand it is an immediate swat and then into the corner. I would rather their ass sting then them getting seriously hurt and winding up in an ER again. The best part is..."do you want to go get staples again" pretty much stops any potentially hazardous misbehaving dead in its tracks.

To be honest I am a bit random with the minor rules. You don't want to be consistently lax on specific rules or they will never obey them and will start to pull the same thing on progressively more important rules trying to test the waters. The occasional hammer dropping on a relatively minor thing serves as a reminder "I told you not to do that". You don't have to discipline them all the time, and they are always left with that "I know I'm not supposed to do this...will I get busted this time?" thought that tends to make them police themselves. Gotta make them think about what they are doing, not just blindly follow specific behavior.

That and I really enjoy that cautious look as they realize they just broke a rule and wait in nervous anticipation for the judgment of their behavior. :)

Re:Laughably Medieval

[budgenator]

I think each child needs an individualized approach, one grandchild, Kevin telling him once in a calm voice was enough, Katelyn is always into mischief and any punishment devised is only effectiveness for a couple days. raising children isn't and has never been a one size fits all afair.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[crossmr]

Corporal punishment still works..
I moved to South Korea a year ago and they have it in droves. They have something like a 98% attendance and completion rate for young people going to university. But most importantly its apparently taught young people not to randomly go around destroying and stealing stuff. I'm amazed at some of the things they have here that just wouldn't be possible in the west. Like fire extinguishers just sitting around various sites. Not nailed down, not behind glass, not parked behind an attack dog. Just sitting wide out in the open in an area they might be needed. You can walk through a subway station and see 3 or 4 just sitting on a platform. Back in Canada I would expect within a week of putting those out a group of teenagers/young adults would set out to see how many they could use up before the night was out.

I was spanked as a child and after getting a genuine opportunity to compare two worlds where spanking is no longer okay and the other in which it is, I'm all for it.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

I did not "not understand" things were wrong. I disagreed they were wrong. And I still do. We're not talking about drugs or sex even -- just "life flow" (think things like "no TV before homework", though not exactly that). Now I have the flow I want, and there's nothing they can (or intend) to do about it. That's the lingering resentment part -- I never really got to say "F**K YOU IT'S MY LIFE!", because the minute I moved out for college, they stopped trying to control me substantially, only once or twice threatening to stop paying for college. I almost (but don't) wish they had, just so I could apply my substantial reserves of resolution and determination to pay for college myself, thereby proving to them that I didn't need them and that they couldn't control me. I'm now totally and completely financially independent from them, but I can't shove that in their faces, because they know that they can't control me and don't try. They denied me victory by ceasing to fight when they knew they would lose. I don't think this was how they saw it -- they saw it as "letting go" -- but it made finally winning against them much less satisfying for me than I'd hoped it would be.

In the important sense, I still won, of course -- they did not successfully imprint in me a different life flow, and I now have the kind of life flow I want. Living well is always the best revenge -- not that I want revenge against them, of course; I love them and all that. I just wanted the satisfaction of taking the essence of my psychological identity and freedom, after working so hard to preserve those things as they tried to destroy them through bludgeoning (metaphor!) me, from them by force, rather than having them calmly yield them to me JUST AT the point where I could have won in a fight.

I kind of wish I disagreed with my parents in more ways, so that I could better relish my reward for not allowing them to break my spirit, but, unfortunately, they're generally pretty smart and reasonable people, and we agree about most things. Ah well.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[BetterSense]

Negative reinforcement is NOT punishment. Major peeve. Negative reinforcement is the removal of an aversive stimulus in order to reward a behavior.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Runaway1956]

High prison pop? Due in PART to the aforesaid permissiveness and lack of responsibility. A lot of little kids never grow up, and as a result get in trouble with the law over trifling bullshit.

Collapsing economy? Due in LARGE PART to the same permissiveness and lack of responsibility. Washington permitted Wall Street to engage in asshat investment practices when they deregulated the investment industries. And, no one takes responsibility.

Health care? A smaller part of the problem there can be attributed to the same problem. Less so permissiveness, than responsibility. Like people who make use of emergency rooms instead of doctor's visits, because of insurance requirements. Union contracts that ask for more benefits than are reasonable. Insurance companies that try to cull the most needy, and retain the most profitable customers. Ultimately, no one is responsible.

Public education? Again - lack of responsibility. Parents don't get involved, kids don't try, teachers become disillusioned, beauracrats only see the money, politicians don't have a clue, special interest groups get involved to promote their own agenda. No one is ultimately responsible for the failure that we call a public education system.

As I pointed out - corporal punishment is a TOOL that can be used early on to help teach and reinforce the concept of responsibility. Responsibility that few people seem to learn, in this day and age. It is ALWAYS someone else's fault when your plans go to shit. NO ONE says, "Oh, I screwed up, didn't I? Now, I have to make things right somehow!"

Sometimes, that lack of responsibility costs lives. Remember Hurricane Katrina, and two worthless politicians (mayor and governor) who couldn't even take responsibility to call in the National Guard for 5 days? Did you ever hear either of those bumbling boobs take any responsibility? NOOOO, both just pointed their fingers at Washington.

And, pitifully, we just accept that sort of ineptitude in all walks of life.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[martin-boundary]

So? I'm pretty sure I exist, but as for you and everybody else, well....

*posted from my jar*

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

The VP just exposed the location of my cave, you insensitive clod!

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Gary Perkins]

I can add a little personal reference of my own. I'm one of those who didn't get much punishment for not doing homework. I can vaguely remember being a toddler, and if I did something REALLY bad, getting a spanking. However, past the toddler years, I can't really remember getting a corporal punishment for anything worse than breaking something really expensive. My mother gave the school permission to issue corporal punishment. In elementary school, I got one slap of the paddle for each "0" earned. I think the most I got in one week was three. I probably averaged about one a week for the first couple of years. I think I wore pants and two layers of underwear to school for the first few grades rather than consistantly do my work. I got away with this because my mother let the school discipline me rather than put forth the effort herself. She tried the reasoning thing, took some toys away, punished me to my room, etc. I did learn to read early and read well, and to this day enjoy a good book more than anything. However, I still have a hard time committing to anything for a long period of time. I did very well in school on tests. I had a knack for paying attention in class without doing the work, and scoring excellent grades on the tests. However, this caught up with me in high school when I was suddenly faced with the challenge of "projects" that were a significant part of the semester grade. I went from a Honors student to summer school in one year because I procrastinated and didn't complete the Project assignments. I scored 100 each year in summer school English. I practically had the entire class trying to read my work; it was funny, the answers would usually be underlined in bold. I could tell them the page number and they still wouldn't get it. I wound up dropping out of high school rather than deal with my issue. My mother still was no help. At the time I told myself it was because I was a geek/nerd and couldn't tolerate the overcrowding and picking I was starting to receive (I was raised never to fight, never to argue, etc, etc; I took everything they gave me and walked away. Now I wish I'd earned a little respect). In hindsight I walked away from my problems. My mother actually let me make that decision with very little argument. She wasn't much help when it came to college either. I didn't understand the forms, and the few friends I had who went on to college left town. She couldn't be bothered to sit down with me for anything. So my point is, I can testify that parents who treat their kids as though they can reason for themselves, and trust the school to deal with any educational problems, are setting their kids up for failure. The school isn't equipped to deal with kids individually; they expect the parents to be doing their part.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

in the west, intelligence is ridiculed, as shown by parent post trying to use generalizations they know aren't true.
Is it surprising that if cool means !smart then kids will try to be dumb and cool rather than study? With this attitude, a lock will just enforce the uncoolness of studying.

In Japan, intelligence is valued, and the cool kids at school were both the smart and the athletic, and some were both. They have problems with kids studying TOO much.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[marklark]

I mentioned this to two of my daughters (9 & 7) after reading it. They are both smart, but one of them is self-motivating, the other isn't. One of them was offended, the other was eager to get it.

The one who probably needs it wants it. Unfortunately, curiosite.com says it's unavailable... ;^)

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Hooya]

PhD: Permanent Head Damage.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, "I graduated college..." When used to mean receiving a degree or diploma, graduate is an intransitive verb. Might have been too busy with your Magna and "doing" a Ph.D. to bother with the English courses.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

conversely, have you contemplated the concept that you only noticed 'problem children' and not the ones that do fine? this would show some bias on your part.

Serriously, everyone tries to 'claim positive' but then they 'blame negative'

Steps:
1.- My Parents [Actions] Resulted in my [Positive] Growth!
2.- Your Parents [Lack of Actions] Resulted in your [Negative] Growth!

Considerations:
  -[Actions] do not always result in [Positive] Growth, what about all the failures? a minority success makes up for all the broken children?
  -[Lack of Actions] do not always result in [Negative] Growth, What about all the successes? same damned principle of the above

What is this, prove something right because one of them won the lottery day?

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

It was the first time in my childhood that I was introduced to the idea that homework wasn't fun. What a great life lesson, huh? I wonder what kinds of things I might have accomplished later in life if I hadn't had the joy of studying drained out of me at that age.

I once heard, and pretty much believe (but don't remember the source), that your career is the last thing you liked that school didn't succeed in killing for you.

A kid goes to school generally open to everything. They will lose interest in some things because of lack of aptitude. Due to individual temperament, other things will fall by the wayside. But, of the remainder, schools can easily kill each one -- by not allowing enough time or encouragement to explore it, by deprecating it as less important or just by making it a chore instead of an object of interest.

There is exactly one thing I remember about homework in grammar school -- long division. Up until nearly midnight, my head nearly on the table, with my mother saying, "three goes into seven how many times, write it down, now how many times does ...." The workbook, as I remember it, had two columns -- three long divisions across each column, fifteen deep on the page.

Sure, we didn't have to do them all at once, but each one seemed like another rock to roll up the hill. God, I hated those little fuckers. And still do so to this day.

Granted it might have been better if I'd been pushed to start earlier in the day or evening, but I doubt it.

Merciless little shits -- they just kept on coming. Damn their spiteful little souls.

How I ever got to be so damned good at math, I'll never know. But it had nothing to do with those devil-spawned little boogers. I just know it.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[YourExperiment]

tl;dr

Re:Laughably Medieval

[SerpentMage]

Wow... physical punishment works, yes?

Ok, there is the argument that you can reason with kids yes? So hence we must use physical punishment...

So here is an argument saying the physical punishment is actually very wrong. DOGS...

Can you reason with a dog? I don't think so... Dogs have the intelligence of about 1 year old. Dogs do react to discipline, much more than a human actually.

And the thing is how do you train a dog? By beating it? Sure it will listen to you, but out of fear. Will a beaten dog protect you? Not likely.

A dog is trained by non-contact discipline and paying attention to the needs of the dog. When a dog is made part of the "pack" it actually becomes a protector of the pack.

If people paid a bit more attention to this maybe people would understand that physical punishment is a weak response to not being able to deal with the situation.

BTW I was physically punished quite a bit, but it did nothing to change my habits. It only made more sneaky...

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Odinlake]

...psychologists should recognize Lack of Personality Disorder Disorder?

No one has been able to isolate a case - if you do it you can get your phd.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, the one that hurt me most (the result of my parents receiving a letter from my school complaining about my behaviour): - put off upgrading the modem from 14.4k to 56k for another 6 months (~1997).

That's a good one !

Behave yourself or the DSL modem gets replaced by a 56k modem

:)

Re:Laughably Medieval

[darthvader100]

But think about the Children... :o

Do they sell adult sizes for work?

Re:Laughably Medieval

[stasike]

I finished my bachelor and masters degree with straight A's. ALL my grades from ALL exams were straight A's. I just sat down and studied until I was prepared for exam. Systematic work during semester also helps. It also helps if your study specialization really interests you. And I am not aware of having a personality disorder.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[LurkerXD]

Outside of that extreme, I'm much more horrified by the parents who use guilt and passive-aggression to "discipline" their kids than the ones who spank their ass and then say what's done is done.

Tell me about it. My significant other's father is pretty much just that, and then some. Unsurprisingly he has some serious psych issues.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

There is simply no way to punish a problem child Ã" the best thing you can do is to phone their parents.

I'm not sure where you live, but in Alabama teachers and principals are allowed to paddle misbehaving kids, unless the parent has sent a note disallowing it. I see a lot of movies where the kids are portrayed as smart asses, disrespectful and disruptive, and this is somehow accepted and tolerated by the teachers. I don't know if that is common elsewhere in the country, but it's unheard of where I'm from.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you seen the episode where he gets his performance review and finds out one tiny demographic didn't rate him as perfect? I'd say he has his own issues. Charming, humorous issues; but issues.

I love that show, so glad it got renewed.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

Your point would come across better and be accepted more readily if you were not such an ass.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[rgviza]

>>This should work exactly as well as physically abusing your child when he or she does something wrong. That way when they are faced with conflict later in life, they follow in your steps and resort to violence.

If the kid is type A and pushing boundaries, sometimes all they understand is face down on the floor with a foot to the back of their neck.

Kids, boys especially, have a natural tendency to assert dominance or attempt to usurp the balance. It's biological. Everyone wants to be the chief. If stern words, and nothing else works, sometimes there's only one solution ;)

My son whacked me with a stick, I told him never to do it again, and he hit me harder. One sleeper hold later and he's never done it again and looks at me in a whole different light.

I did the same thing to my father and he had to put me in my place, once. That's all it took.

Every now and again they need to be put in their place. Of course you need to do it so you don't leave a mark or do any damage.

There are a lot of kids out there that could use a good asskicking. The ones that don't get it end up in prison, or continually get fired because they don't know when to shut up. Usually they are from a single parent household and being raised by a parent who doesn't have the stomach to instill proper discipline.

If you do it right you only need to do it once. Tough love is sometimes necessary. Anyone that says it isn't, and doesn't do what they need to, will pay.

Some people just have submissive kids and are lucky.

As always, every situation is different.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[ncmathsadist]

Psssssssstttt.... Hey, I'm into medieval!

Re:Laughably Medieval

[mapkinase]

You are an idiot by comparing dogs to children

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm so sorry you compared training a dog and teaching a kid...
You better not beat your dog because it's an animal and it may bite you back. Also you don't hit a dog as you spank a kid.
Animals are very soon in their life at the maximum of their intellectual capabilities on the contrary of kids which can rationalize later their past experiences.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[mapkinase]

That's it, slashdot gone down the road with digg and other juvenile sites. Incredibly moronic nonsense moronic comment gets upvoted to +5????

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll never forget the relief and joy I felt when I made the choice to do what I knew was the right thing to do, and felt their approval and acceptance. The point I'm trying to make is that while spanking works simply through negative reinforcement, the "passive-aggressive" methods actually force the victim to acknowledge what the right course of action was, and what their mistake was, and what they needed to do to fix it.

That's all well and good if the parents are right and kid has made a mistake. But what if he disagrees on that rather fundamental point?

I was taught fairness and sharing as a child, and as such I demanded parity in the way I was treated by my elders. This did not always go down well, especially when the adult realises you've seized the moral high ground. It tends to lead to rather irrational and emotional responses.

If they'd just smacked me one we could've moved on in the understanding that we disagree with each other, but that for the time being, they retain the power to discipline me. As opposed to screaming at me that I should do as they say and not as they do, and thereby losing all respect I had for them, and subsequently all control of the situation.

At least I reckon that's the moral of my story - my Ma reckons the moral is don't try to teach your children things like ethics and fairness. It gives them unrealistic expectations of the world and it makes it a bitch to teach them any lessons they haven't already learned.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[mosb1000]

Did you mean to say moronic twice? It seems redundant.

I think it's moded up because many people have notticed it as well. You have to be a workaholic to do those things, and as any addiction, it is a coping mechanism. If it makes you feel better, it was origionally flamebait.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[morgan_greywolf]

Positive reinforcement == "you got good grades this quarter, so i'm going to [grant you extra priveleges || give you a raise in your allowance || buy you a pony].

Denying priveleges is negative reinforcement.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[JimFive]

I'd propose that spanking isn't necessary, but is a viable option for negative re-enforcement.

Not picking on you in particular, but spanking is not negative reinforcement. Spanking is Punishment c.f. B.F. Skinner.

Reinforcement is for when you want to encourage a behavior. Negative reinforcement encourages a behavior by removing a negative condition. Positive reinforcement encourages a behavior by adding a positive condition.

Punishment, on the other hand, discourages a behavior by introducing a negative condition.

And Finally, Extinction discourages a behavior by not experiencing a positive condition

So: Negative Reinforcement: If you behave, I'll turn off the polka music.
Positive Reinforcement: If you behave, I'll buy you an ice cream.
Punishment: If you misbehave I will turn on the polka music.
Extinction: If you misbehave you will not get dessert.

As can be seen from these examples, Punishment and Negative Reinforcement are opposites.
--
JimFive

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Golddess]

Exactly, there's a world of difference between spanking the child's ass and clubbing them to within an inch of their life. The latter is child abuse. The former, regardless of whether someone thinks it is, is not.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[JimFive]

Not quite. You have Positive Reinforcement right.

Negative reinforcement encourages a behavior by removing a negative condition.
Positive reinforcement encourages a behavior by adding a positive condition.
Punishment, on the other hand, discourages a behavior by introducing a negative condition.
Extinction discourages a behavior by not experiencing a positive condition.

Negative Reinforcement: If you behave, I'll turn off the polka music.
Positive Reinforcement: If you behave, I'll buy you an ice cream.
Punishment: If you misbehave I will turn on the polka music.
Extinction: If you misbehave you will not get dessert.
--
JimFive

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

I speak as someone who was alienated as a child - not because of collective punishment I had imposed on the class, but simply because I was a very awkward, fat child.

Some teachers would try to insult me in front of the class in an effort to 'motivate' me. It only resulted in me being picked on worse, and probably the most pervasive nickname of my entire childhood was in fact given to me by this teacher.

I spent 7 years of primary school getting laughed at and kicked in. My first year of secondary school was the same. It wasn't until a large change in my personal life (my Dad died) when I was 13 that things at school started to change. I started hitting back - every little infraction against me was met with the same force that had been used against me for years - most kids ended up with nothing more than a bloody nose, but quite a few didn't know when to go down and had to be treated at doctors, and very rarely hospital. This of course alienated me further from these social groups - the physical abuse reduced, but the name calling kept on as strong as it had before.

It wasn't until my 4th year of high school when I found a group of friends that took me as I was - which at the time was a highly strung, violent, awkward fat kid. Their opinions mattered to me, they didn't really like the violence. So aside fro ma few 'do or die' situations I had to learn how to resolve my problems in a different manner.

DO NOT alienate ANY child EVER. Unless they're in a secure facility for mass murdering their whole class or something - make sure they have just 1 or 2 proper friends. All you're going to do by alienating them is push them further out of society and further towards the edge of their sanity.

No amount of discipline or punishments or rewards is ever going to make as much difference as the possibility of losing those real friends. I still resolve many of my problems with the threat of a good kicking (think what you like, but physical bullying is a reasonable response to intellectual/societal bullying) - but I make damn sure that I present the correct image to the right people, and resolve my differences peacefully if its possible.

     

Re:Laughably Medieval

[mapkinase]

What it has to do with the original claim of G..P that later on those people cannot learn by themselves?

In fact, physical punishment in learning process probably won't have any effect on the ability to learn after people get off from under parent wings, but it surely helps very important years of learning when under aforementioned wings.

As for your claim about what was it... disorders, I surely won't testify on myslef, because those things are subjective, but my collegemates were pretty normal nice people without any psychological abnormalities.

Do they teach "psychology of mad scientists" as an obligatory class in American schools (you are American, right?)?

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

I call bullshit. Corporal punishment does not automatically mean beating the crap out of a child.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Cowpat]

that's a bit redundant: acme - American Company which Makes Everything

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

Please mod as Funny.

Stockholm syndrome is caused by someone being held prisoner against their will and adapting to it in this specific way.

If the kids today deep down actually feel as if they are imprisoned against their will to their teachers (rather than just railing against authority which is quite normal) then the school system needs looking into.

I've had a friend that had stockholm syndrome and helped her through it the best I could. Public authority and stockholm syndrome are not comparable in a serious sense. Compare them only if kids start exhibiting strange symptoms like saying they love teacher A, go extremely out of their way to avoid teacher A, and then worry about teacher A's health/habits/hobbies.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Shoe Puppet]

There are other ways of punishment than beating.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Chosen Reject]

I hate the taste and texture of most vegetables and always have. I'm eating more now than I used to because I understand the health benefits, but it took a while to get past the gag reflex for some (cooked leafy greens especially). It also helps that my wife loves more kinds of vegetables than I knew even existed.

That being said, we are trying what you are (I think) implying parents should do. Treats for my daughter often include fruits and veggies. And it's already starting to pay off (my daughter is not yet 3), as the other day she finished off her broccoli and cauliflower while the chicken alfredo was only half eaten.

I'll also add that it's amazing how sweet even sour fruits can seem when you cut out the junk food sweets from your diet. It does take a while to get the tongue used to the less sweetened foods if you've been eating lots of sugary foods. That was one of the hard things for my wife when she moved from Vietnam to the states in her early teens. She couldn't eat a lot of American junk foods because they were too sweet. I've had the Viet version of Jell-o. It's not very good, but she thinks it is sweet.

Re:Laughably Medieval

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a mom of 4 (2 boys, 2 girls (one of each is ADD) and I can SO see the humor in this... lighten up

Phew!

[thewils]

For a moment there I thought you were talking about the old trouble and strife!

Re:Phew!

[NeverVotedBush]

I don't know... I'm thinking four of these, some tasty libations, a feather, some lube, some kind of electrical device (both vibrating and with conductive pads), and one could have a pretty good time! ;-)

Re:Phew!

[Anonymous Coward]

You really think you could fit four of them?

ADD/ADHD

[bradgoodman]

As a [former] child with ADD, and the parent of a child with ADD, I can say without doubt, that this device will do nothing to force someone of the sort to focus and study.

And it is quite apparent by the nature of the device, that it was either designed to - or would strongly appeal to be used in such cases.

Re:ADD/ADHD

[Lemmy Caution]

As someone who has followed the career of the Yes Men, I sense a merry blend of social satire and commentary in this product announcement.

Re:ADD/ADHD

[cayenne8]

From the article: ""Quite often, students who are having problems concentrating tend to get up every ten minutes to watch TV, talk on the phone, take something out of the fridge, and a long list of other distractions."

Hell, doing that stuff on multiple breaks was about the ONLY way I could study. Sitting still in a totally quiet room would not get anything done for me studying or writing papers.

Even while working I had to have music and/or the tv on at least in the background. If I'm in a totally quiet room, that's when my mind wanders and I get distracted...

Maybe it is kinda like sleeping, to fall asleep, I really almost need to have the TV on, it is my nightlight. I set the timer to turn itself off after I fall asleep so that a loud commercial doesn't wake me late at night when at a light cycle of sleep. But, I have a hard time going to bed in a quiet, dark room.

Re:ADD/ADHD

[imikedaman]

Since we're parading around misguided people's opinions as facts, here's another good one:

http://www.666ismoney.com/HolocaustAds.html

Re:ADD/ADHD

[vivaelamor]

They made a list of the most common symptoms of emotional discomfiture of children; those which bother teachers and parents most, and in a stroke that could not be more devoid of science or Hippocratic motive--termed them a 'disease.' Twenty five years of research, not deserving of the term 'research.,' has failed to validate ADD/ADHD as a disease. Tragically--the "epidemic" having grown from 500 thousand in 1985 to between 5 and 7 million today--this remains the state of the 'science' of ADHD.

Wait, what revelation is this? Psychology is different to other medical sciences? Wow, and this guys an MD! Maybe he can join the Scientologists in their vendetta against psychiatrists.

Due to the complex nature of the human brain, psychology often diagnoses based on a set of linked symptoms with no definite cause. If you think that is fraudulent then perhaps you believe depression and Asperger's are fraudulent too.

Maybe I'm wrong and the guy does actually have a good case against ADD based on poor methodology used in diagnosis but considering he goes out of his way to categorise psychiatric disorders and the like as 'non-diseases' which is a redundant statement, I think the odds on him being a zealous loon are in my favour.

Re:ADD/ADHD

[Anonymous Coward]

Please do tell me why ever since I learned to cook that I have a tendency to put food on the stove to cook at night and then forget about it and go to bed?

Subconscious suicide attempts?

Re:ADD/ADHD

[Lemmy Caution]

The difference is a bit one: a diagnosis is based on an observation that the patient has a significant different from some determined norm that is negatively affecting their well-being or shortening their lives. For medical conditions, this is generally an easy call to make.

For psychiatrical ones, the effect is to take social, cultural, and economic context and naturalize it completely (and often incorrectly.) A change in attentional regimes is supposed to make it difficult to adapt to the very society that creates a change in attentional regimes? What is the "natural" structure of human attention anyway? We learn how to attend when we participate in joint attentional fields, which change dramatically with changes in childrearing conditions and media climates, which vary wildly according to class, ethnicity, nationality, etc. To neutralize all that, determine a "norm" (usually as much about parental anxieties as it is about the long-term interests of the child), which is really the *previous* generation's attentional structure, is exactly the problem here.

I could use this...

[scubamage]

...to help me study for my CCNP exam. I keep finding ways to get distracted by more exciting material (squirrels, birds, my girlfriend, my rabbit, watching grass grow...)

Re:I could use this...

[Anonymous Coward]

If it weren't for the mention of a Cisco cert, I would have been puzzled by the placement of squirrels before girlfriend...

Re:I could use this...

[tarks]

If it weren't for the mention of a Cisco cert, I would have been puzzled by the placement of squirrels before girlfriend...

and in the same list with "watching grass grow"

Re:I could use this...

[Frosty Piss]

Since the "editors" failed to include a linky to the actual product, here it is: http://www.curiosite.com/scripts/product/enproduct.php?idproducto=19126738

Re:I could use this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are the squirrels married?

The House is on Fire!!!

[alta]

Everybody RUN!

1 hours later...
Fireman: WTF do you mean your child had a ball and chain strapped to their leg?!
Retarded Parent: It was to help them study, and it was easily heavy enough for them to lift.
Fireman: But it got stuck under the table because of the panic and now your child is a crispy critter.
Policeman: Sir, please put your hands behind your back.

Heh, no I'm not some liberal pansy that doesn't believe in doing things that are harsh. I just don't care for stupid. If my kids dont' study I beat them with the ball and chain, not strap them to it!

Re:The House is on Fire!!!

[silas_moeckel]

I have a better plan sit there with them while they study instead of watching tv surfing the internet etc. Traditionally this is what the kitchen table is used for. I know I know advocating parenting over some device so you can have more free time, if you wanted free time you should have skipped procreating.

Re:The House is on Fire!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

yesterday the carport next to my apartment caught on fire. Fire department came and took care of the whole problem before too much damage was done to the carport and fortunately no cars were destroyed or people hurt.

However, having just experienced looking out my window and seeing huge billowing flames 20 feet away, I can assure you that the amount of panic involved was non trivial. If you actual home was on fire and you had to use a safety key, I can only imagine that the amount of panic is going to increase significantly .. maybe to the point where using a safety key becomes difficult or impossible.

Re:The House is on Fire!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

My mother used to do this with my brother. He wasn't very focused and she would spend about 2-3 hours a day with him, this is of course after a full day's worth at work and then cooking dinner. He did well through HS and the first two years of college. Then FFXI came out and the almost all Fs the next two semesters and kicked out of school. Some people can't be helped but you can only try your best. He did end up with a degree after coming back home and go to a local college.

Re:The House is on Fire!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

1 hours later...
Fireman: WTF do you mean your child was wearing clothing?!
Retarded Parent: It was to help them keep warm, and it was easily heavy enough for them to lift.
Fireman: But it got caught under the table because of the panic and now your child is a crispy critter.
Policeman: Sir, please put your hands behind your back.

You can contrive a situation to prove any point. Bullshit that never happened doesn't make your argument valid.

Re:The House is on Fire!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

FFXI? Firefox 11? Firefox is only up to version 3. In any case I can hardly see how a browser can get someone kicked out of college.

Re:The House is on Fire!!!

[thewiz]

For shame! Beating your kids with your wife is child and spousal abuse! And it's your own fault for getting married!

Re:The House is on Fire!!!

[JTsyo]

FF= Final Fantasy. 11 was the MMO.

Re:The House is on Fire!!!

[Haoie]

Funny or not, I can seriously see this happening.

Maybe not a fire, but some other dangerous situation.

You hardly want a ball and chain attached when it happens.

Re:The House is on Fire!!!

[agrounds]

I love how "liberals" are to blame for pretty much everything now, including gag items in online stores like this one.

I don't know if you are an actual conservative or just a Limbaugh-mouthpiece, but there is so much more to the world than red vs blue, conservative vs liberal, etc. You should really try unplugging from everything for a while and maybe going outside for a bit.

Politicians and the media in general have been getting away with false dichotomies for far too long. People need to get some perspective.

I'd suggest riding a bike or just going for a long drive with the windows down and the stereo off. After an hour, you won't even miss the music/radio/phone/pager.

Go ahead! We'll still be here when you get back.

Re:The House is on Fire!!!

[DarkOx]

I don't think its reasonable to suggest that modern clothing causes anywhere near the sort of encumbrance a 21lb ball of unknown but form the picture maybe 7in diameter or there abouts ball on a two foot chain around ones ankle would.

I agree with the parent there is an obvious safety problem here.

Even if the house does not catch fire, you still have to consider that 21 pounds with a little momentum behind it could be a heck of alot of force. Simply tripping and falling down the stairs could be a lot more dangerous with such a thing tied to you. Its more likely to happen with something like that tied about your ankle as well.

Re:The House is on Fire!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

And you completely missed the point...

Re:The House is on Fire!!!

[Uberbah]

You can contrive a situation to prove any point.

WTF is "contrived" about household fires?!? If a girl can have her guts hydraulically sucked out by a pool drain, it's more than possible that a kid fitted with this medieval device will suffer a severe injury and/or death from being trapped in a fire/falling down some stairs.

Re:The House is on Fire!!!

[RealGrouchy]

This is why study halls should be prohibited from catching fire.

I'm surprised they aren't already.

- RG>

Re:The House is on Fire!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's contrived because that specific situation never happened and is highly unlikely. He is using fantasies to validate his argument which is think-of-the-children emotional bullshit.

Re:The House is on Fire!!!

[alta]

don't worry. We do homework together every night, only takes 30 minutes at their age. We eat at the table together with no TV, internet doesn't come out until after they go to bed, and they each get prayers before bed. 5yo & 7yo

Re:The House is on Fire!!!

[alta]

Sorry, I don't listen to Limbaugh, or any other talk radio for that matter. Didn't like bush, not a republican.

My point is that it seems to me, based on my own observations, not what I'm told, that the liberals are usually trying to use some sort of legislation to protect us from ourselves. Take for example the proposed soda tax.

So, I was saying that I don't think this thing should be banned for our own protection. I just think that any parent who uses this is a freakin idiot and if something bad happens should be tried for manslaughter.

Now all we need...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is to reinstate the wrack and we got ourselves a whole new definition of tough love.

Re:Now all we need...

[Anonymous Coward]

Who doesn't like a teacher's rack?

Little do they know...

[pwnies]

Ball and chains are my fetish, and good luck trying to get it to stop me from alt+tabbing to my cowboy neal porn.

What?!

[symes]

Surely making the subject fun, interesting would be a better way of encouraging students? I guess if you're a parent who can't be bothered and a teacher that can't teach then, sure, get the stocks out... but really. This must be a joke.

Re:What?!

[NotSoHeavyD3]

Surely making the subject fun, interesting would be a better way of encouraging students?

Ahh, I understand that you've never taken a foreign language course in college :-)

Re:What?!

[hey!]

Let's not get hasty and overhaul our entire academic system. Surely getting rid of telephones and televisions would be less drastic.

Re:What?!

[Quiet_Desperation]

Surely making the subject fun, interesting would be a better way of encouraging students?

Not really, no. I have a friend who used to teach at the middle school level. She was a good teacher, but there are just a lot of kids who don't care about education, are raised by parents who don't care about education, or come from subcultures that don't care about education. Generally, all three are in play, enforcing one another. There's nothing to be done from the outside about that, and the kids who do break out of the vicious cycle do so mainly through their own efforts, and a few who are just flat out intelligent enough to never get trapped by it. She helped the ones she could.

The ball and chain won't help, and it's only use is in being totally and completely hilarious.

Re:What?!

[Anonymous Coward]

In Middle School, they could probably have a beneficial effect if a cluster of them were displayed prominently outside the Vice Principal's office, since VP's are most often in charge of discipline. At that age, students could easily be influenced to at least suspect that the VP would actually use it on them. Kind of like suspecting that the VP is actually Freddy on the weekends. They wouldn't really believe it, but then again .....

Re:What?!

[xaxa]

"You can't give me detention, it's against the Human Rights Act"
"So what if I didn't do the homework? It's not the law."
"Mr Xaxa touched me, I'm calling the police!"

(My dad used to teach at one of the worst schools in England. The third quote is real, and would have been a lot more serious if the kids hadn't pissed off the police so much in the past. Pretty much the whole class didn't like their teacher, so they decided to all agree that he'd 'touched' one of the girls.)

Re:What?!

[lxs]

I'm sorry, but if kids don't learn to do things that aren't fun they'll be in for a HUGE disappointment by the time they grow up.

-"Jeffreys, are those TPS reports ready yet?"
-"Sorry boss, I didn't feel like it, because it isn't fun."

Sometimes you just have to suck it up and do things that aren't fun. The sooner the little ADD riddled monster learns that, the better.

Where's the foot icon?

[erroneus]

It just needs a slight modification is all!

Further uses

[Tablizer]

Is there one to make us stop trolling slashdot?
     

Re:Further uses

[BobMcD]

As evidenced by your post, no.

HA!

lawsuit waiting to happen

[freedom_surfer]

First time someone doesn't get out of a burning building, or tumbles down the stairs will spell the end of this company...

Re:lawsuit waiting to happen

[binarythoughts]

The amount of furniture this object could potentially destroy. Scratch floors Ruin table legs.

Re:lawsuit waiting to happen

[yenne]

You're both exactly right, which is why I'm ordering one while I still can.

Re:lawsuit waiting to happen

[freedom_surfer]

To scar your children or your furniture and floor? or both?
(the lawsuit route is sure to be too crowded to be worth your while...)

=)

For any kid stuck with this

[dkleinsc]

Use your pickaxe to dig a pit in the floor, drag the ball into the pit, and push a boulder into the pit.

Oh, wait, real life doesn't work quite like Nethack.

Re:For any kid stuck with this

[syntaxglitch]

Well, given the subject of the article:

YANI: Being punished increases chances of successfully reading a spellbook. ;)

Bathroom breaks?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, the idea could def help - even with adults w/ adhd like myself. But I'd imagine myself having to deprive myself of fluids to make anything like this work :P

Re:Bathroom breaks?

[nizo]

Luckily it comes with a matching chamberpot.

Re:Bathroom breaks?

[Chris Burke]

In that case I say just chain them to the chamberpot. The kid might still run around with the weight around their ankle, but they aren't going to dare do anything that might tip the chamberpot!

Re:Bathroom breaks?

[darthvader100]

Evil
Pure Evil
Glad I'm not your kid.

Though after the first few times they probably get used to it and start making crap sculptures that you can sell on ebay...

Re:Bathroom breaks?

[Anonymous Coward]

Failing that, after 4 hours you'd need to clean the seat.

Wow...just wow..

[markass530]

Capatilism gone wrong? Crazy parents gone wild? it's hard to pin point what the hell went wrong here, but it bears out the old idiom the truth is stranger than fiction, skimmed TFA and saw it's british, here in the US social services and society as a whole are overwhelmingly knee jerk on topics like this, and I wouldn't be suprised if a parent that put this on their child ended up in bracelets.

Cell Phone

[Psychotic_Wrath]

Don't most kids these days have cell phones? I really don't see this being very effective It isn't that hard to move with a 21 pound ball. It would prevent most physical types of activities, but just sitting around or moving the ball to the TV and watching TV really isn't going to be very difficult.

Re:Cell Phone

[Andy Dodd]

Also, nowadays even for middle and high school, kids are going to use a computer to do work and study.

Ball or not, they're gonna alt-tab to Facebook, etc.

Re:Cell Phone

[xaxa]

Also, nowadays even for middle and high school, kids are going to use a computer to do work and study.

Ball or not, they're gonna alt-tab to Facebook, etc.

Virtual desktops was pretty much the main reason I used Linux from when I was 16.

At least, until my mum said "why does the screen always flash when I walk into your room". I "accidentally" showed her a student chat room one day and pretended it was what I'd been hiding, I don't think she'd have liked the truth.

Bathroom?

[steelclash84]

It looks like the whole point of this device is to make it so the parents don't have to...be parents and help their children study... In that case, having to unlock the kid to use the bathroom seems counter-productive, unless it comes with a catheter (valued at $19.99), absolutely free! In all seriousness, this generation of parents that would actually consider buying such a device have worked very hard at removing themselves from an active parenting role. Parents of the new age are TV, video games, and ritalin.

Profit

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Child will not study because he's not interested or doesn't care
2. Strap a 21 lb short range weapon to the body of that child
3. Leave them locked in it for 4 hours
4. Claim insurance on all the broken shit in the house from his rampage
5. Profit!

This is not a study tool so much as an investment.

So...

[jellomizer]

You couldn't take the kids cell phone, make sure the TV isn't on when he suppose to study, and monitor heavily what he is browsing on the Internet.

Rantenki

[Anonymous Coward]

Good thing we don't have housefires anymore. One of those things would be really problematic if the kid needed to get out of the house in a hurry.

Just add..

[Ponder Stibions]

a slow fuse to the device. If the required task (math problem etc) isn't completed in the required time....BOOM. Simple incentive based learning.

Price: 75 Pounds??

[Cornflake917]

TFA said it costs 75 pounds. Not only would you be a retarded parent for torturing your kid and making him associate studying with confinement, but you would be retarded because even if you wanted to such a stupid thing, you could do it for much, much cheaper.

Re:Price: 75 Pounds??

[MostAwesomeDude]

If only it weighed 75 pounds, too. By the time I reached middle school, I had no problem carrying around 30lb+ computers and monitors. Now, to be fair, I'm more athletic than most geeks, but a 20-pound ball isn't gonna do shit against kids.

Re:Price: 75 Pounds??

[The Grim Reefer2]

I'm more athletic than most geeks, but a 20-pound ball isn't gonna do shit against kids.

True, but the kid can use it to knock some sense into the parent for making them wear the stupid thing.

Re:Price: 75 Pounds??

[the_humeister]

If only it weighed 75 pounds, too. By the time I reached middle school, I had no problem carrying around 30lb+ computers and monitors. Now, to be fair, I'm more athletic than most geeks, but a 20-pound ball isn't gonna do shit against kids.

Uh, its price is 75 pounds-sterling, as in the currency that's used in the UK. The thing actually weighs 21 pounds.

Re:Price: 75 Pounds??

[MostAwesomeDude]

-EPARSE. Re-read my post.

Re:Price: 75 Pounds??

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize it is on a 1 foot chain dont you?

Try carrying 21 pounds whilst bent over double and you might get the idea!

Re:Price: 75 Pounds??

[Anonymous Coward]

There's your problem, you're bending your back whilst picking up heavy objects, you'll do yourself an injury if you keep that up. You should be bending at the knees.

Besides I can easily lift twice that with one hand. I don't know what I could have managed as a child since I didn't do weights then, but since legs are stronger than arms I'm certain most if not all children (excepting those with disabilites, of course) would be able to lift this weight using the leg it was attached to.

Seriously?!!!

[kilgor]

Checking the date.... Nope, not April 1st... WTF!!!

Re:Seriously?!!!

[anagama]

Maybe not April 1st, but still, it says that it uses AAA batteries. There does not appear to be a wire stretching from ball to manacle. The manacle is incredibly thin -- where are the batteries going to fit? Or for that matter, where is the electrically actuated lock works going to fit? I'm skeptical that it is a real product.

I hope

[scharkalvin]

that it comes with diapers!

Straight out of the Stainless Steel Rat books

[StCredZero]

The sons Harry Harrison's famous sci-fi super-criminal, the "Stainless Steel Rat," were sent to the harshest military academy in known space, because no other institution would be able to get them to do even a little of their studying. Apparently, the boys did do their studies because the instructors kept recapturing them and chaining them to their desk. As a side effect, they also became expert lockpicks.

http://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Stainless-Steel-Harry-Harrison/dp/0441004229/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242671490&sr=8-1

Home Waterboarding?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Indeed. I think more modern techniques should be offered.

Home Waterboarding?

Nothing inspires the will to learn in a child like the fear of drowning.

Re:Home Waterboarding?

[ksheff]

If you had older brothers and a pool/lake was nearby, it is possible something similar was done to you.

Whats with parents?

[Volda]

Have you ever tried simply turning off the TV? Sitting down with your children? And hitting them?

Re:Whats with parents?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever tried simply turning off the TV? Sitting down with your children? And hitting them?

No. Nope. Why, yes!

Re:Whats with parents?

[steveo777]

With or without the ball and chain?

I'm confused here.

is a waterboarding kit next?

[Anonymous Coward]

For those "where were you when you broke curfew last night?" moments...

(I hope the original post is fake, this is all so ridiculous)

Will no one say it?

[frovingslosh]

Do not taunt happy fun ball and chain.

Re:Will no one say it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do not bounce happy fun ball & chain on pavement.

Motivation

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember: in this house, we finish our math homework. Then we go poop.

Welcome to the old economy

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a parent's duty to introduce their children to the corporate slavery, that is their future, at an early age. Slavery has been the economic model of the ages. It is a simple solution to a working economy. An economy is defined by the rich. According to its definers it is working when the rich are getting richer.

fun, fun fun

[jd142]

Shoot, I'll pick up a couple just for weekend fun in my dungeon.

Re:fun, fun fun

[tech_fixer]

Just wait until they release the Electronic Chastity Belt to complement the Ball. ;)

Re:fun, fun fun

[Chris Burke]

Shoot, I'll pick up a couple just for weekend fun in my dungeon.

And this "fun" involves enforced study time??

Worst. Dungeon. Ever.

Re:fun, fun fun

[Jesus_666]

I could imagine someone picking one up just to cut off the manacle part. Last thing I heard the selfbondage crowd was aways looking for new ways to pseudo-safely tie oneself up. A manacle with a built in timer would fit that bill perfectly.


But hey, this really is a great thing to buy for your children. Prepares them for adulthood. And next birthday little Timmy gets his first bullwhip...

Re:fun, fun fun

[Anonymous Coward]

I know several people who would love this in their dungeon!

Re:fun, fun fun

[Anonymous Coward]

Shoot, I'll pick up a couple just for weekend fun in my dungeon.

They weigh next to nothing and open after four hours! What kind of sissy dungeon do you run?

Sadomasochism

[indre1]

<-- title says it all.

When I was a kid...

[jcr]

It would have taken me about five seconds to smash a contraption like that to bits.

-jcr

Re:When I was a kid...

[Chih]

When I was a kid... I would have used a contraption like this to smash everything else. Parents beware 8D

Wont' work

[Anonymous Coward]

So instead of the child wandering off from studying every once in a while to watch TV, the child will pick up the ball, wander to the TV and watch for a bit. Then any inclination to go back and study will be counteracted by the thought that he'll have to pick up the weight again, and he'll go back to TV.

You mind your place mister...

[Sponge Bath]

...or you'll be wearing concrete galoshes.

Parenting tips from (old school) Scotty.

They should...

[tech_fixer]

...use these on Microsoft developers!

Maybe then we can get a workable Windows XP replacement.

Am I the only one

[Bardez]

... who thinks that this would be a great way to induce creative thinking in kids? They could discover how to MacGyver the thing into letting them go, short circuit the timer, break the chain, etc. Also, it would be useful as a weapon; help the neighborhood bully with his homework and leave him in the basement, starving. Or, you could work extra chain links to make it longer, and make it useful for sneaking out at night!

Ok, enough kidding. This thing is ridiculous.

Off the cuff

[rumblin'rabbit]

And what, prey tell, is wrong with the good ol' fashion genital cuffs? I know water boarding is the "in" thing these days, but there's no reason to abandon traditional methods when they work just fine.

I was raised on the cuffs, and my scholastic performance was excellent, thank you very much.

Creative applications

[Fujisawa Sensei]

Now this might not be feasible for use by children, but I'm certain many of managers out there would love to implement it in their office.

You've got to be kidding me!

[n1hilist]

This is a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Was this designed by a Concerned Parent (TM) or a dominatrix?

Re:You've got to be kidding me!

[Ender_Stonebender]

what makes you think it wasn't designed by a concerned parent who is also a dominatrix? They're not mutually exclusive, you know!

http://thewaronkidspresskit.blogspot.com/

[Anonymous Coward]

'Nuff said.

Won't work

[Anonymous Coward]

- Parents bent on "forcing" their children to study will frequently force their children to study for a minimum period of time. If the child doesn't want to study at that time, they will counter this by doing "BS studying"--pretending to read and absorb the text.

- If the parents went out for the evening, locked the child inside the house, and the child subsequently died in a fire due to their inability to escape, there would be hell to pay. I cannot imagine this product being legal to use on a child in any developed country. Plus, I could go to Home Depot and, for about $20, have a chain and padlock perfectly suitable for forcing a child to stay in their seat.

C'mon Fess up.

[happy_place]

+Okay so this seems cruel and barbaric, but c'mon nowadays most parenting techniques involve a parent getting emotional and then going out and buying their child something because they feel bad they were upset at their child. Exactly how did your parents get you to study, if you were one who didn't want to stay put? I know there were times when this particular ball n chain solution was quite a bit more humane. And sometimes children need a little humiliation to choose something that's better for themselves... then again, I've a two year old... and were it not for the fire safety, I've contemplated putting the locks on the outside of his bedroom. Meh...

Re:C'mon Fess up.

[Malenx]

Most parenting techniques these days are stupid. It's about spineless parents who can't say no to a child.

My Dad used to spank me with a belt if I acted up too much. But situations like studying, I'd just start losing all privileges until I was bored out of my mind. Give that a few months and you'll study just to be entertained.

When he did spank us, he'd send us to our rooms until he could calm down and think about it. Usually 1/2 hourish later he'd have us come in and talk about what we'd done. Then he'd have us pick a belt. His belts were arranged by thickness and hardness. If you picked too pansy of a belt then he'd make you get this thick huge rhine-stone covered cowboy belt that hurt like crazy. If you picked a heavier belt, you'd usually get off with less punishment.

Man, I didn't realize my dad was doing psychological warfare until I was twenty.

Oddly enough, I think he did the best he could, and the fact that he's never hit us while angry or unfairly made me really respect that form of punishment.

It wouldn't work for every kid, and I hope I'll never need any kind of punishment for my future kids like that, but for me it was probably the only punishment they could do. (ADD incarnate)

Re:C'mon Fess up.

[Anonymous Coward]

Locks on the outside of bedrooms are warranted sometimes.

My parents locked my sister in at night when she was little since she would get up in the middle of the night and bake.

Re:C'mon Fess up.

[petermgreen]

Locks on the outside of bedrooms are warranted sometimes.
If it's absoloutely essential to lock someone in for thier own or other peoples safety I'd preffer a simple bolt that can be undone without looking for a key. Or better still an electromagnet that automatically releases when the fire alarm goes off (and can also be manually released in a fail-safe manner)

My parents locked my sister in at night when she was little since she would get up in the middle of the night and bake.
A lockout on the cooker would seem a much safer way of getting arround that problem.

Re:C'mon Fess up.

[k-macjapan]

Reminds me of a skit from Russell Peters(Funny Canadian Comedian)

'Somebody gonna get a-hurt real bad! Somebody. I'm not going to say who. Oh I think you might know him very well!'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzKHQX59Wso

Marital aid

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought this was a device created for husbands, not children.

I hate kids :-)

[Quiet_Desperation]

I wholeheartedly endorse this product.

John Lennon said it best

[earlymon]

From Working Class Hero:

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school,
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool,
Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules,
A working class hero is something to be,
A working class hero is something to be.
When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years,
Then they expect you to pick a career,
When you can't really function you're so full of fear...

Entertainment my ass - this is just sad.

Fake

[Sheik Yerbouti]

It's shopped clearly someone is having a bit of fun and you all fell for it LOL.

lol

[Anonymous Coward]

Internet hoax alert!

May not do much for studying

[Megahard]

But will help prepare the kid for marriage later on.

Hoax!

[moosehooey]

Look at the photo, it's an obvious photoshop. The shackle is too thin to contain an LED display, and I don't know of any curved displays like in the photo. Also, the shackle is too thin to contain batteries, there's no wire from the ball if it were to have them, and there's no room that I can see for any kind of electrically-powered solenoid or locking device. It looks like a Halloween costume prop with a display photoshopped onto it. Besides the fact that it's totally ridiculous. Someone is messing with us.

This is a great symbol for American education

[undecim]

Being a high school senior, I can tell you this is pretty much what the whole educational system in America is like. People who are supposed to be helping others learn instead just do whatever takes the load off their shoulders.

They assign long work with no educational value, or give their students an assignment, go back to their computer and claim to be "grading" assignments, yet the next day give papers to other students to grade.

If parents or teachers really cared about learning they would help their kids learn, not try to associate learning with punishment as a way to keep kids out of their hair.

Punishment should be a tool to aid in learning, not the other way around.

Re:This is a great symbol for American education

[MickyTheIdiot]

One of my big concerns (and BEFORE you read this, let me preface this saying I am 37 now and I still feel this way) is that we actually give "teenagers" (in quotes) too few freedoms while giving them huge responsibilities at the same time. It's a combination that just asks for an explosion of some kind.

Basically the way the US system works now is that we incarnate them at a school (sometimes the school is even dangerous to life and limb) then our legislatures keeps working on taking away civil right after civil right while at the same time heaping responsibilities on top of them. Think of how many teenagers get tried as adults these days. Well, when so many personal rights have been taken away there is no way they should ever be considered adults. You can't have it both ways.

If you looked how our "teenaged" population is treated and didn't know what age range you were talking about you wouldn't be surprised that it's a powder keg ready to explode. For societies across the world giving a populace huge amounts of responsibility without corresponding rights can indicate that that particular society is rife for a revolution. Why do we think it's different with "teenagers" who almost have the mind of an adult?

I put teenagers in quotes above because I believe it is mostly a made period of life that westerners have come up with in the last 100 years. In most societies on Earth now and throughout history 14 would usually be considered grown up, and I reject the argument that "they're not fully formed" people. Most of their personalities are definitely formed by 14, however don't get me wrong I am not saying guidance isn't necessary as they certainly don't have the experience of someone older and that is definitely important.

Anywho... I am kind of sad to yet something else that tends to put "teenagers" into a captive-like state. I don't think they deserve that and I can see why there is a natural urge to rebel.

Shock Pants!

[Prof.Phreak]

I say go with Shock Pants... Works on employees too!

ball and chain to force study

[nimbius]

battle-axe and frigid-bitch unavailable for comment as both were found locked in heated honeydew debate.

Re:ball and chain to force study

[genner]

battle-axe and frigid-bitch unavailable for comment as both were found locked in heated honeydew debate.

Why would yuou heat a honeydew?

If I may...

[denzacar]

Let me try and describe this device as if it were a topic of an article at Telegraph.co.uk.

Gun Camera to make people stop killing
To end all gun violence once and for all, guns will be replaced with gun cameras.

Your boss asks you to do the impossible, your mom tortures you to get you to clean up your room, your friends stand you up, your girlfriend cheats on you... instead of taking out your aggression on the first innocent victim you find, we suggest you get one of these 100% harmless guns.
It'll take a picture each time you press the trigger.

Aimat is a very basic, utterly unsophisticated photo camera. It was designed by Franziska Dierschke, a German student at the Bauhaus Academy in Weimar.
Two years ago, she presented it at Desifnmai, a design conference held in Berlin, but it's only now started catching on over the Internet.

It's a pinhole camera, the kind anyone can make at home because they don't require any sort of extensive understanding of photography.
These cameras produce an image using light that passes through a tiny hole.
Any sort of container can be used to make a pinhole camera; all you have to do is drill a hole in it.
And what better way to "shoot" your photos than straight out of a gun?

This camera has no focus, viewfinder, or lenses and makes very interesting photos, with a darkened frame around them like you get with the Lomo.
A camera/toy that will help you reduce tension and also have fun running after your girlfriend, your mother, your boss, and your friends.

Why am I mentioning this?
Because they (Telegraph.co.uk) found the Study Ball at that same site.

IT IS A JOKE ITEM!

Not actually intended as a study device.
You know... like the Periodic Table Shower Curtain.

Re:If I may...

[Itninja]

Dude! Don't knock the Periodic Table Shower curtain. I have one of those and it's awesome! I have an 9 y/o son that has already memorized the atomic weight of nearly every element. I want to get the weather-cycle shower curtain from the same company (Thinkgeek gets these from Simple Memory Art).

Re:If I may...

[darthvader100]

That works very well and all. Till an innocent bystander decides to save/avenge your sister/mom/girlfriend/dog, by shooting you with his Gun(non-camera).

Tell Saint Peter it was a mistake... can you please go back?

Re:If I may...

[Kruemelmo]

The device most likely does not exist.

The picture clearly shows a LED display with a certain depth behind the transparent cover, but the cuff is far too slim for that.

Re:If I may...

[PoliticalGamer]

I thought it was a joke when i first saw it. Good to see i am not the only one.

Worse... It is a joke novelty item.

[denzacar]

Worse... It is a joke novelty item.

You know... Like stuff at ThinkGeek.

Designed and manufactured in Spain.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to say- I didn't expect this.

Is it still April 1st?

[deets101]

This is a joke, right?
I guess you could give your kid Frosted Krusty-O's with the jagged metal Krusty-O in every box to go with that.

Pay kids to go to school. Really.

[gilgongo]

America is the richest nation on earth, with the most riches available for those who can pay for them. So:

Introduce an educational pay scale for students, starting aged 8, with remuneration based on performance and attendance. The scale is designed to ensure you are at least financially independent from your parents by the time you leave college, provided you have managed your education well enough: hounded out bad teachers, rejected time-wasting crap like sports, ensured you have plenty of teaching in things like mechanical engineering, bio-tech and accounting. You'll be able to afford the finest recreational sex, electronics and politicians by the time you are 20 -as long as you keep up the good grades and attendance. At that point, you should not only want to get a high-paying job in order to keep you in the style to which you have become accustomed, but be able to so so.

America then becomes the world's most highly-educated nation, and the world's most successful economy, in one generation.

Best of all, it would probably cost the country about the same as it does to pay for recreational "incentives" like balls on a chain.

Re:Pay kids to go to school. Really.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why was your comment voted "funny"?
Financial incentives seem like at least an interesting idea.

I mean, I'm doing all this work at school for some reward that's years off at best?
Screw that.

Alternately, diminish child labor laws and let children earn their own money instead of chilling in school doing nothing and learning as little as possible.

Re:Pay kids to go to school. Really.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just an Fyi, the article is in a British paper on a British site about a product from a Spanish company that sells to the EU and USA.

The only thing the USA had to do with it was talking about it on slashdot.

Re:Pay kids to go to school. Really.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, per capita, the United States is, at best, only the 10th richest (nominal GDP) or 4th richest (purchasing power parity GDP) country in the world--Luxembourg, Norway, and Singapore tend to top the list. And per capita is the number you want to pay attention to when it comes to provisioning social services.

If you wanted to a bit more accurate, you'd take into account the actual number of school-aged children, and the country's education budget. Americans have one of the lowest tax burden in the developed world, which is why core government functions--such as education--tend to be chronically underfunded.

Sorry if I burst your "America is the best country in the world!" bubble, but while we enjoy a high standard of material wealth, it's not the absolute greatest. And that's not even taking into account non-tangible factors.

I'm an American, and think this country has its positives and negatives--particularly when it comes to political freedom, there's nothing quite like the First Amendment in other countries--so no accusations of anti-American bias, please.

Re:Pay kids to go to school. Really.

[Anonymous Coward]

Even as a commie I love this idea! If only because it so crass and disgusting that even the kids will be able to see it for what it is.

Go for it! You disenchant them throughout their childhoods, and we'll scoop them up as cynical 20-yr-olds primed for life in the party :P

Re:Pay kids to go to school. Really.

[kthejoker]

time-wasting crap like sports

Ahh, Slashdot. Your nerdiness is a ray of sunshine peeking into the dark heart of my smelling faintly of Cheetos and solder basement.

Appears to be unavailable.

[BitterOak]

The website that appears in the product photograph seems to list the product as unavailable. It doesn't say if it is out of stock or if there is some other reason. And the product page seems to indicate it is targeted at older student (college, for instance) to help them study rather than for parents to use on their kids. I'm not sure if it is meant as a joke or not.

works for programmers too

[Anonymous Coward]

We utilize these devices during release crunch time.

Again another anecdotial evidence

[aepervius]

But the same hold for me. I can evry clearly remember my parents (or more precisely) my mother) having with me a particular hard scolding (without hitting me) and crying afterward, and still have my heart "hurt" over it. I can't remmber ANY spanking at all. My family i got some.

This can't possibly end well

[ThanatosMinor]

When I was a kid, if I was locked up against my will and given something to swing, they would have had to take me down with a tranquilizer gun, and by then half the house would have been broken. This is not how you motivate people to do well.

25lb weight on a chain?

[internerdj]

So does the company offer a warranty for my flooring?

Nah.

[JustNiz]

Just nail your kid's foot to the ground.

Re:Nah.

[colinrichardday]

You don't read much Sophocles, do you? Unless you want the kid to kill his father and marry his mother.

I'm calling bullshit on this

[taustin]

It's got to be a hoax, expecially covered in a UK news site.

Either it significantly impedes a child's movements, or it doesn't. If it doesn't, what's the point? If it does, it's prosecutable criminal child abuse. End of story.

Gotta be a hoax.

Re:I'm calling bullshit on this

[AnotherBlackHat]

It's got to be a hoax ...

Joke probably, but hoax?

Google "studyball" and you'll see dozens of links like http://gizmodo.com/5252291/the-study-ball-enslaves-your-lazy-kids
If it's a hoax, it's a damn good one.

Mod parent up!

[feldhaus]

+1 Insightful

I'd do it myself if I had modpoints.

We can't use this!

[fiannaFailMan]

If we start chaining them down, kids will start having sedentary lifestyles!

Hang on...

I can personally attest to a lot of this.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can personally attest to some of the things experienced by wearing a vibrating belt. I built a similar device, which used a compass and gps receiver to direct you to way points. After about a week of testing and pretty steadily wearing it I could consistently point you in the direction of our first test way point. Even after taking it off, I was still feeling phantom vibrations for a few days afterward. The human body does a remarkable job taking new information and making use of it. As someone else on this thread noted, you can greatly increase the apparent resolution just by fading vibrations between motors.

Project is here [cornell.edu]

It's not intended for children

[91degrees]

It's intended for yourself. It's so you can force yourself to study.

Have you ever had trouble motivating yourself? Finding distractions that you know are just displacement activities but you still do them? You really need to study but can't? That's what it's for!

And it probably doesn't really exist.

Re:It's not intended for children

[colinrichardday]

Finding distractions that you know are just displacement activities but you still do them?

Like reading Slashdot?

Fire

[Anonymous Coward]

And how practical is it when you find your children with this thing on, when there is a fire in the house?

fucked up

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes I wonder, what's wrong with the UK, because they always invent strange stuff to make kids 'behave' or to remove them from places, where they are unwanted.
Imho that's fucked up ! Personally, I had some true respect for my parents and they respected me. If that hadn't been the case, I probably would have been a complete rebel.

So if they had suddenly attached such a thing to me one day, I would have smashed it into the door of my room or the window and then I would have run away. lol.

Whos got the money?

[Anonymous Coward]

Too expensive.

Personally, I just beat my kids whenever they misbehave.

Attn /.

[Anonymous Coward]

YHBT YHL HAND.

Voluntarily a good idea.

[senorpoco]

Often times I have strapped my leg to a chair with a belt, to keep me working on a Bio assignment. If it is enforced by your parents it is cruel and possibly illegal, if is self inflicted it is helpful or possibly kinky.

Just great

[Locke2005]

I assume that they indemnify their customers against being arrested by Child Protective Services?

I am getting one for my girlfriend

[holychicken]

for when I want to have sex and the timer will only need to go up to two minutes.

The ironic name is just a plus.

Don't knock the shower curtain

[raymansean]

The ball and chain is a joke as it has little educational value, however the shower curtain is pretty useful and has educational value.

Re:Laughably Medieval ... loads of fun

[noshellswill]

First time I locked the lead ball, I'd drop the lil' heavyweight b*stard OVERBOARD. HA! Swim for it laxer! Now that's a lesson ya mostly need to give only once. While the few that survive ... they instantly become serious students.

Oooh

[Anonymous Coward]

At first glance I thought it was an extremely manly Skip-It [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skip-It].

Awful and freakish!

[eyenot]

What a complete atrocity. This is bad news waiting to happen, I can see it.

As to those who responded that this is funny, how laughable is it looked at it this way: old codgers in the news with their children chained up in their basements, hardy fucking har?

Is schadenfreud so pervasive in our society that the mass response to this is jolity? I really wouldn't have predicted that the prime response from slashdotters to this would be to guffaw, or that the tags would read "awesome entertainment". Are non-nerds right in stereotyping nerds as bad eggs, psycho hatchet wielders waiting to strike, perverts, and so on? Hell, *WHY* feed into it? WtF?!

Re:Awful and freakish!

[rumblin'rabbit]

Have you considered the possibility that this story is a joke?

The Rumsfeld Option

[Prototerm]

If you want to get your kids to study harder and do better in school, I have one word for you: Waterboarding. Hey, if you're going to get medieval on their butts, why stop with the ball-and-chain?

And fire safe!

[Xenious]

How about when said child needs to quickly move in a life threatening situation (like a fire) and is slowed down or immobilized by this. What a crock.

Any self respecting slashdotting husband from t'UK

[dr_labrat]

Would say quite honestly that its her job to make sure that the sprogs are doing their schoolwork.

And there I was giving my kid speed...

[KarmaRundi]

Is this really much worse than the drugs we give them for "ADD"?

Dr. Shay

[martas]

This reminds me of Dr. Shay's alternative to Ritalin in South Park ep 403 ("Timmy 2000").

Re:Any self respecting slashdotting husband from t

[justinlee37]

Clearly, men have no responsibility to raise their children. Wait, what?

Stupid hippy

[Hognoxious]

Other techniques like depriving them of what they want

What if they just take it?

making them take a "timeout" or stay for a while in their room to cool off..

Making them? You have a mind control laser or something?

So, what if they come out? You hit them with a full-on verse of "kum ba yaa"?

Re:Stupid hippy

[xaxa]

Other techniques like depriving them of what they want

What if they just take it?

Take it back. I'm sure you can outwit a child. Put the item out of reach, hide it if necessary.

making them take a "timeout" or stay for a while in their room to cool off..

Making them? You have a mind control laser or something?

So, what if they come out? You hit them with a full-on verse of "kum ba yaa"?

Increase the punishment ("no chocolate for a month!"). But you have to stick to it.

Re:Stupid hippy

[Anonymous Coward]

Destroy it, preferably in front of them.

Re:Stupid hippy

[Anonymous Coward]

Same can be said of spanking and other corporal punishments.

What if they hit you back?

What if they take the belt off you and put it somewhere you can't get it?

Hell, what if they get off on you hitting them?

Discipline in any form only gets you so far. There is no catch-all answer to raising your kids correctly, no formula to instant good behaviour. Every child is a unique individual that needs to be treated as such - what will work on one, will screw another up.

Well, there's the Lack of Personality Disorder

[jlowery]

These are the people commonly referred to as Engineers.

Re:Well, there's the Lack of Personality Disorder

[Anonymous Coward]

I would have modded you funny, but you deserve karma for that one (-:

Ac to keep mod.

Re:Well, there's the Lack of Personality Disorder

[SerpentMage]

And here is why people don't go into engineering. I happen to be an engineer (4th generation) and my wife is an engineer. YET my mother is an artist, and I happen be able to paint as well.

Want to know why you think engineers are the way they are? Because engineers tend to be problem solvers and tend to think in a systematic approach.

YET things like politics and social life is anything but systematic. Witness the California social queen event, and Fox News.

The conflict is actually pre-programmed.

It is this kind of rationality that leads people to sell when they should buy, and buy when they should sell...

Four hours, huh.

[rantingkitten]

I hope it comes with a bedpan too.

Mandatory for anyone with a toddler

[petrus4]

Now you no longer need a playpen!

Also good for wives, girlfriends, grandparents, and inviting your employer on a trip to the beach. Has endless possible uses!

Ball and chain surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm rather surprised that this ball and chain is legal for use on children in the USA. Over here, I suspect you'd be charged with Deprivation of Liberty and/or have your child taken away by the Welfare Dept for child abuse if they ever caught you using it.

More...

[kklein]

You raise the critical point there: "spanking" vs. "beating." As I've written on these very pages before, a spanking--which is what I occasionally got--is primarily a correction ritual. The pain is instantaneous and fades in a few minutes. It lets you know Mom and Dad are serious about this one.

The effectiveness is completely destroyed if it's employed all the time. It becomes normal, and fosters resentment of the parents. And I'm not even going to comment on actual beatings, which I remember friends in grade school talking about--things that leave marks, slaps on the face or head, hitting with implements... Sorry, that is child abuse, and yes, those kids all grew up to be fucked up.

It's all about the kind of world model you give your kids. Being rational and consistent with the discipline of your kids, leaving some kind of physical punishment only for the worst or most dangerous infractions, sets up a world model that is very close to that of the adult world--there are a lot of negative consequences that you don't want for behaving incorrectly, and if you behave really incorrectly, you will really, really regret it.

The world model set up by parents who fly off the handle and beat children, out of anger, and as a normal course of events is this: You are at the mercy of capricious and unjust forces who will smite you whenever they feel like it. This either makes kids pull into themselves and try to avoid doing anything that might result in a beating, or it makes them say "fuck it" and do whatever occurs to them because it won't alter the consequences one bit. The latter is especially difficult when they get into the real world where punishments are ramped. Getting a drunk driving ticket sucks, yeah, but it's better than getting beaten, and who cares anyway. The lower-level punishments, which seem really bad and dire to someone who has a correct world model in their head, mean nothing to someone who is used to being hit all the time.

This is, I think, the problem with any of these discussions. What is the operational definition of corporal punishment? Just like the parent, I barely even remember being spanked, but things my parents have said have had a much, much worse impact on me that the silly little spankings ever did.

Re:More...

[icebrain]

Precisely. I was rarely spanked as a small child, and only when I was caught red-handed or otherwise in the middle of misbehaving. The spank was one swat on the ass, delivered immediately, not some kind of ritualized thing--and certainly not a beating. It was just a quick "stop that right the fuck now" kind of thing; true punishment was nonverbal and nonabusive, but far worse. Knowing you really let your parents (and God forbid, your grandparents) down was the ultimate low.

Corporal discipline should be used very sparingly and only in the most deserving of circumstances. I further believe that it's kind of like housetraining a puppy--you need to administer the punishment right then and there rather than after a delay, else the kid's just "why is mommy/daddy hitting me?"

Re:More...

[N1AK]

Precisely. I was rarely spanked as a small child, and only when I was caught red-handed or otherwise in the middle of misbehaving. The spank was one swat on the ass, delivered immediately, not some kind of ritualized thing--and certainly not a beating. It was just a quick "stop that right the fuck now" kind of thing;

One thing I have never understood is what they planned to do if it didn't work. You've already hit them, so what do you do if they don't stop? Hit them harder? What do you do when they do something worse? Hit them repeatedly? If the answer isn't more violence, then why use violence in the first place?

A joke

[Demonantis]

It is a gag gift the inventor thought of making. The slashdot article doesn't do the actual article justice.

Child abuse and well-marketed distractions

[KudyardRipling]

The following content may exhibit USA-centric bias.

Like DWI, child abuse was not a public policy concern until it was addressed in the popular culture. It took Pat Benatar to record "Hell Is for Children" in 1980 before people began to notice. State legislatures began passing laws against child abuse. Then children began to misbehave knowing that the government would be on their side if the parents tried to effectively discipline (by beating the shit out of) them. How many of us threatened to call Child Protective Services when we 'did not get our way'? As for the 'new age time-out' thing, I had seen it employed first hand in a family. The mother swore by it. Then I saw the plaque on the wall of the home office that had her name on it and read among others: "MASTER'S DEGREE IN SOCIAL WORK". That explained EVERYTHING! She even looked like Pat Benatar in the day! That was scary.

The worst is having to grow up in a household where the husband who was not one's father is a police officer. Not just any garden variety LEO, but one who came out of the military with MP experience, e.g. U.S. Army Aberdeen Proving Grounds in the late 1950s to early 1960's. To whom could a kid turn? Don't let anyone say that there is no Blue Wall of Silence. How many of us fabricated intrusion detection systems before the age of ten to keep snoopy nonconsanguine marital partners in their place.

IMHO, I say the real scourge is not this restraint device; it is the skateboard. There is something about skateboards and skateboard culture that have been made to appeal to young males of European origin. I do not understand why; all I know is that this is so. Everywhere I see skateboards, I see youthful Euro males and only Euro males and my city has a significant multi-ethnic mix. It is as if some nefarious conspiracy the origins of its members I will not discuss is marketing this scourge to keep this class of people wasting its time on skateboarding instead of excelling in school so they'll have to settle for dirty trade jobs or enlist in the military. Dare I say the same could be made about basketball for African Americans and soccer for Latinos?

There was a skateboarding store in my neighborhood that closed recently. Maybe some Euro males in the area will have a chance some day to attend college and earn a degree because that distraction was removed. Maybe he will have a chance to work in a clean office environment with homeowner pay. Maybe he will not have to drive a van and breathe harmful chemicals and/or work with hazardous equipment and have to pinch pennies to rent cockroach infested "affordable housing". Maybe he won't have to enlist in the military and return in a body bag so those who come here can pick the Tree of Liberty bare with little or no thought for its defense.

Say what you will, but even those perceived as racist fuckheads have rights too.

Re:Child abuse and well-marketed distractions

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I know my day is a little bit weirder after reading that .

Next up

[Master of Transhuman]

Eat Your Spinach Guillotines.

You have thirty seconds to finish your serving of spinach before the guillotine drops.

To quote one of my favorite movies...

[ViciousJello]

"Sir, are you certain this method works?"

"On intellectuals, I find this is much more effective and MUCH quicker."

"And if he should turn out not to be an intellectual?"

"Then we try a little physical culture."

Supposed to be studying

[GreenCow]

Good timing on this article. I'm supposed to be studying for finals and here I am reading and writing on slashdot. I don't think this device would help me out now.

I can relate to losing lots of study time to getting up for something trivial. A light snack when I wasn't even really hungry, a quick post to slashdot, I just wanted a diversion. It takes a good chunk of time to get back to where I was at in studying. Avoiding these delays would indeed give me more free time after, perhaps to cook a nice meal.

Better than a ball and chain is having a study buddy who can help you through problems and help you understand the material better by helping them out. And importantly, keeping the focus on the work.

Seems fake to me

[Anonymous Coward]

A curved led display? That thin? Where is the battery?

That the product is not available is a bit of a clue as well. Think somebody did some photoshopping.

Oh, and those led displays tend to be fairly large, this thing would slip of an elephants leg let alone a childs.

Useless

[sam0vi]

I can't wrap my mind around the idea that someone thought this had the slightliest chance to work. The first thing i thought when i saw this was "do they really believe teenagers wont be able to lift a whole 21 pounds ball??" Useless...

Even more useless for ./ers

[sharperguy]

Trying to revise. It's not getting up to go to the fridge that's the problem. It's going to redtube.com instead of mylearningfaculty.edu

let's forget about

[juenger1701]

remotes, cell phones, the internet, game consoles with wireless controllers, hand held games

I never had to do home work, at home.

[dwiget001]

I could always get my home work done at school, between classes, lunch time, during "skate" classes that didn't give home work, etc.

Besides, I had and still have an aversion to "home work". I had things to do and people to see when I was at home.

As far as I am concerned, school work should be just that, work you do at school.

Home work, IMHO, is just a sly way of getting people used to the idea that their work (when they get to working age) is something you can never escape, you have to bring it (or some of it) home to do, etc.

Which, with my 30 years in the working world now, I have had to do only twice. I have always been able to get my work done (and more) at work.

Kids have lives, just like other people, home work should be banned for the good of society.

This is dumb

[chord.wav]

I can guarantee that if you strap your kid with that, all his energies during that time will be entirely focused on how to get rid of it. And it's going to be fun for him!

Got a better way?

[pikine]

If someone sees that corporal punishment helped in their life, of course it logically follows that they would do the same to their children to help them the same. Those who see this undesirable are the outsiders who do not receive corporal punishment and thus do not enjoy the benefits of it.

How did corporal punishment start in a family? Possibly at one point, a parent became frustrated with his own problems and wanted his children to live a different life. Such person might not know a better way to discipline except by physical means. If you know a better way to discipline, feel free to use it. However, it is no denying that discipline will lead to success and a better life. Telling a parent that he is not allowed to discipline his children is just plain arrogant. Enforcing that systematically, you get a civilization of sloths, which is what America is becoming to.

I wonder

[kehren77]

I wonder if my school can get a grant for these.

Drop the ball, save money, get better results

[Anonymous Coward]

That ball is not nearly heavy enough to be effective. For those who really think this approach might work, the much easier and cheaper way would be to chain the kid to a wall. Even the time lock feature is already available for purchasing out there, so...

Eating

[Drunken_Piper]

Wait a minute... eating is a waste of time? So why are people complaining about other people not getting enough to eat?

Not available

[Anonymous Coward]

If you look at curiosite.com, which is the original source of all this, the product is marked "This product is not available", with no explanation.

I wonder whether the whole thing might be a joke. Snopes has nothing about it, at least as yet.