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Putting Time Out In Time Out: The Science of Discipline
An anonymous reader points out this story at The Atlantic about new research and approaches in the science of discipline. "At the end of a gravel road in the Chippewa National Forest of northern Minnesota, a group of camp counselors have gathered to hear psychotherapist Tina Bryson speak about neuroscience, mentorship, and camping. She is in Minnesota by invitation of the camp. Chippewa is at the front of a movement to bring brain science to bear on the camping industry; she keynoted this past year's American Camping Association annual conference. As Bryson speaks to the counselors gathered for training, she emphasizes one core message: At the heart of effective discipline is curiosity—curiosity on the part of the counselors to genuinely understand and respect what the campers are experiencing while away from home....She is part of a progressive new group of scientists, doctors, and psychologists whose goal is ambitious, if not outright audacious: They want to redefine "discipline" in order to change our culture. They want to rewrite—or perhaps more precisely said, rewire—how we interact with kids, and they want us to understand that our decisions about parenting affect not only our children's minds, but ours as well. So, we're going to need to toss out our old discipline mainstays. Say goodbye to timeouts. So long spanking and other ritualized whacks. And cry-it-out sleep routines? Mercifully, they too can be a thing of the past. And yet, we can still help our children mature and grow. In fact, people like Bryson think we'll do it better. If we are going to take seriously what science tells us about how we form relationships and how our mind develops, we will need to construct new strategies for parenting, and when we do, says this new group of researchers, we just may change the world."
What is the point of putting kids in the middle of the forest if you can't beat them without anybody hearing? It was good enough for us, it ought to be good enough for these spoiled little kids.
Camp is there to weed out and identify the weak minded.
If you want to be coddled and understood, go to frickin' band camp. ;-)
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Many people want/prefer a less assertive/aggressive child. They do what they are told, instead of trying to invent/create new things to do on their own.
That makes for a less assertive/aggressive adult. They do what they are told, instead of inventing/creating.
Another clear example is the 'polite rage'. Studies have shown that the more polite a society, the more seething rage develops inside it. Where a traditional brash American northerner gets angry, but never fights for honor, a traditionally polite American southerner stays polite until you go to far and then goes for blood.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
I have five young kids. There's no way to survive this as a parent if you don't let your kids cry themselves to sleep at times. There simply aren't enough parents and time to go around otherwise.
Every child is different, but my five only cried for a long period for about 2 weeks or less. Then it generally reduced to about 30-90 seconds. Over the course of their first year of life, they learn to sleep, in stages. There are regressions associated with certain development stages, but so be it.
My family size was average until the last 2-3 generations. Is is abundantly apparent that the reduction in family size provides the luxury of a lot more choices in parenting. That's a positive thing. But because there is so much variety to the human condition, it is illogical to suggest that 'crying it out' is new or terribly sub-optimal.
The whole point of punishment/discipline is not retribution for stepping out of line, but a means of teaching children where the line is and not to cross it. If there is a more effective way of teaching those things that doesn't involve punishment, why not try it?
Maybe my children just have a different personality, but I never hit them and have rarely yelled at them. We don't have a concept of "time out" at our house. Yet people frequently remark about how well-behaved my kids are, probably because I use other techniques like empathy ("how would you feel if somebody did that to you?") and consequences ("if you don't put your PJs away, you won't be able to wear them to bed tonight").
Of course camping is more about independence and responsibility than behavior, but I think the same methods could apply.
dom
Anecdotes aren't evidence, but they are data: my parents were pretty hard on me. I think they'd freely admit that they were too harsh at times. However, I never received any form of physical discipline after the age of 8, and no verbal discipline after the age of 13. By these ages I was pretty firmly set in my behavior with regards to honesty, politeness, respect, and obedience to authority. Today my friends joke that I'm "lawful-stupid" because I won't break minor rules for convenience. Overall, I am thankful for my upbringing and I hope to raise my children in much the same way (albeit with the hindsight of more compassion and understanding for the poor bewildered child, who needs [NEEDS] to know WHY they are being punished).
My sister, on the other hand, was my parents' favorite. I cannot recall her ever receiving a spanking, and she did get more toys than I (but then, she asked for them, and I did not). As she grew older, however, she grew more and more entitled, (think Veruca Salt, and you're not far off), with her teenage years turning into a whirlwind of temper tantrums and shouting matches. Eventually she got into drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, and jail, and 20 years later she is dying of liver failure.
Look, I don't exactly know to what degree our respective upbringings affected our life choices, but the conservative approach dictates that I try what I know works. I'm not going to experiment on my kids, because the stakes are high. Rearing children into success is hard enough as it is. And I am deathly afraid of raising my children into my sister.
Dear Slashdot,
I apologize for my critical comments about Slashdot Editors. It appears that the ability to look up the correct spelling of a phrase is not required in modern publishing, e.g "right vs rite of passage", "corporal vs corporeal punishment". I am not a grammarian, nor an expert in child rearing, however this article makes me feel that I am a veritable genius.
TL:DR version:
Don't beat your kids, it can act as an interruptive stimulus but has little lasting effect. (No kidding?)
Don't use time out. It's almost as bad as beating, and can cause emotional dissociation from the parents without time-ins (UmKay...)
Time-ins are the secret magical ingredient that parents didn't know about before the specific identification of the mirror neuron. Therefore, all of those parents that used coaching to illustrate logic empathy and consequences, you knew not what you hath wrought. ( Yeah, whatever.)
Cynics Summary: Hey, being a good parent means treating your child like a human being, and trying to establish a rapport such that your requests make sense to the child. Coaching your child about consequences for actions (good and bad) are still the primary method of behavioral training. Punishments should be used sparingly to be of good affect.
I know my grammar probably sucks. I don't get paid, nor do I want people to click on my article to generate ad revenue. This is a public service announcement. ;P
I'd be curious to read what exactly these people recommend in place of timeouts. I mean, I'm always up for learning new parenting techniques, but I just don't see how a "teachable moment" tactic will work in the real world. Certainly with younger children.
As you well know, when a parent corrects a young child's behavior, the typical response is to either engage in a debate or to throw a tantrum. In neither case is the child internalizing the lesson behind the "teachable moment". A timeout effectively avoids both of those responses because once the child is placed into a timeout, there is no one to argue with, and there is no one to watch the tantrum.
So that would be my question: how does this new technique compensate for the real-world problem of toddlers acting like toddlers?
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
You're really making a supporting argument here. Punishment like time outs and spankings, etc. are exactly the types of things that lead to the kids you observe in your college job. Kids that are afraid to fail. That need their parent's approval/blessing for everything.
Challenging your kid to work through their issues, to think critically, to resolve their frustrations, to redirect their energy, to do all the kinds of things the article is getting at...are exactly the things needed to produce the kinds of students you would like to see.
Don't know why so many people on slashdot are misunderstanding the gist of this article as sheltering or babying kids and instead are in favor of making kids suffer for the sake of suffering. Perhaps these are people who suffered so much as kids themselves and are defending this as a way to justify their own upbringing?
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
I'm not a parent, but I have observed Japanese parents with young children and they tend to recognize that 2 year olds are not really responsible for many of their actions. Maybe he lost his grip on the toy, maybe he didn't understand that the car can't catch it or doesn't like having things thrown at it. They tend not to shout anyway, and I've noticed that Japanese children tend to be a lot quieter and calmer which may be related.
Instead they will calmly explain that the cat doesn't like that. Play stops, the child is faced with their parent and even if they don't understand exactly what is being said they understand the tone of voice and facial expressions. They might try to explain that only dogs like to catch things, making it a teachable moment.
So, kinda like what you do but without the need for shouting and time-out. I see the logic - punishing a 2 year old for not understanding seems somewhat unreasonable, since being a 2 year old you can't really expect them to have understood. For repeated behaviour it goes to loss of privileges, like taking the toy away.
It seems to work pretty well. Japanese kids seem quite mature, and some of the toys they get are kinda surprising for a westerner... Fairly sharp woodworking tools, for example. I dunno, I'm not an expert, but I think I'd like to at least understand what they are saying before making a judgement and unfortunately TFA doesn't really explain it, as you pointed out.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The thing most people seem to fail at understanding is that training children is a lot like training dogs. They are habitual creatures (even adults are to a large extent) and learn a lot of behavior through mimicking and repetition. You don't always need to explain with words. Taking a toddlers hand when they are calm and stroking the family cat nicely while explaining with a very positive tone is the same as teaching the child to not hit the cat. Hitting a child for negative behavior is teaching them to hit others for behavior they personally find disagreeable. Its not a perfect 1:1 corellation of behavior because we all have conflicting habits that balance each behavior like a neural net.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.