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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.
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
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.
My work here is dung.
For a moment there I thought you were talking about the old trouble and strife!
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
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.
...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...)
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!
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
Ball and chains are my fetish, and good luck trying to get it to stop me from alt+tabbing to my cowboy neal porn.
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.
It just needs a slight modification is all!
First time someone doesn't get out of a burning building, or tumbles down the stairs will spell the end of this company...
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.
I am officially gone from
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.
Doctors do Massage in Longview WA now, who knew?
Luckily it comes with a matching chamberpot.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
As evidenced by your post, no.
HA!
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.
Abaddon: An Xbox 360 Indie game
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
Have you ever tried simply turning off the TV? Sitting down with your children? And hitting them?
Do not taunt happy fun ball and chain.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Shoot, I'll pick up a couple just for weekend fun in my dungeon.
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.
I wholeheartedly endorse this product.
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.
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
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)
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.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
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.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
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.
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.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
These are the people commonly referred to as Engineers.
If you post it, they will read.
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.