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Why Children Aren't Behaving and What We Can Do About It

256 points by sudouser 8y ago

avip 8y ago
I'm not sure what are the root causes of the kids' behavioural crisis (I'm not even sure there is one), but let me tell you with 100% confidence what will not solve them: Yet another parenting book.
Cd00d 8y ago
Why the text only version link? I prefer the formatted: https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/06/02/611082566/why-children-arent-behaving-and-what-you-can-do-about-it https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/06/02/611082566/why-chi...
- ekingr 8y ago
  Not to have to accept the tracking cookies policy, I guess.
deleted 8y ago
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Someone1234 8y ago
> certified parent educator There doesn't seem to be any legitimacy to that claim. Meaning there are places that claim they can certify you, but they themselves have no real legitimacy (e.g. no specific educational track, just a broad philosophy you agree to adhere to). The article is worth reading, but it is more accurate to describe the author as a journalist with three kids, they have no specific qualifications.
- weeksie 8y ago
  Bingo! This is hocus pocus lifestyle bullshit. I live with a psychologist and child behavior is something that has been studied extensively. There are well researched techniques to help a child behave and nothing in that article made me believe the author had a clue about them.
AmVess 8y ago
From the article: "Two or three decades ago, children were roaming neighborhoods in mixed-age groups, playing pretty unsupervised or lightly supervised. They were able to resolve disputes, which they had a strong motivation to because they wanted to keep playing. They also planned their time and managed their games. They had a lot of autonomy, which also feeds self-esteem and mental health." Neighborhoods used to be packed with kids running around all the time. Now they are empty. There are quite a few kids in my neighborhood, but the only time you see them is when they get off the school bus. None of them roam the neighborhood or anywhere. There is a huge park in my neighborhood, too. It's always empty. I never see packs of kids walking on the sidewalks going to the theater or to corner stores. School playgrounds are empty and stay empty unless school is in session. When I was growing up from age 6, my mom would tell me to be home by dinner, and I'd spend all day running around with friends or adventuring by myself. This was the norm for every kid I grew up with.
- nighthawk1 8y ago
  As a youth I definitely had the experience of going off on my bike and being home by dinner. The difference though now is there is a lot more for kids to do inside the house. Video games, netflix, smart phones and the like are heavily influencing behavior.
  - LoSboccacc 8y ago
    A lot of kid grew up playing at home and reading books it’s not just a technology problem even if for sure it’s not making thing better Introvert kids still had to socialize and learn to cope in school. Now that any negatove expression is heavily suppressed and everyone is interacting on social trough technology with a moltitude of aliases there’s little feedback a kid gets to correct his behaviour
- aedocw 8y ago
  We are pretty lucky to live in a neighborhood with kinds in the same age range as ours. All the parents know each other and the kids know where they're allowed to go. This includes a few acres of forest. Our kids are allowed to go out and roam, they just have to give us a general idea of where they're going to be playing (or they just bring a cheap walkie-talkie and check in occasionally). It's exactly how I grew up and I'm grateful for it. It makes me sad to see how many kids are growing up without the autonomy they need.
awat 8y ago
The part about being “unemployed” to me immediately made me think about the prevalence of future tense pressures for modern kids. I’m in my mid 20s and I went through it. While my parents had good intentions and many others I’m sure did too. You start building this monster of future pressures about colleges, social media emphasizing what you should like, and lots of other pressures you can’t actually resolve in Elementary or Jr. High but you are made aware of them and focused on them by your surroundings.
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rubicon33 8y ago
I think this has a lot to do with the housing crisis. Hear me out... When I was a kid I was lucky enough to be raised in a new development community packed with YOUNG families. Imagine this. These were 1st, or maybe 2nd home buyers (age 23-32) who were STARTING their families there. It was a time when young people could afford a nice home in a safe neighborhood, AND support kids. The result was amazing. Kids. Lots of kids. Kids roamed the streets. The sense of community was abundant. Halloween and Christmas were a BLAST as all the families went to great lengths to dress up their home. Nowadays? I live in a different neighborhood. People are RENTING. There's no safe, nice, affordable neighborhood for new families to settle. Sense of community as a result is diminished. People don't feel planted and invested in the home so they're less likely to be invested in the community. I don't see any kids these days. Halloween, could be any other day.
- abalone 8y ago
  You raise a good point, but it's important to note that many families, especially working class families, will continue renting in cities. Many do not even have enough savings to cover a $400 emergency expense yet alone a down payment on a condo. This is exactly why you'll find that working class communities want affordable housing built but also strongly defend rent control.
- tux1968 8y ago
  As a counterpoint, I grew up in a relatively poor neighborhood, in a rented home. Was part of a huge community of kids who all played together unsupervised, especially all summer long. In the school yard, downtown, down by the river, in the park, we ranged pretty far as we got older. Once you had a bike there were unsupervised day trips to wooded areas where we played a poor-man's predecessor to paintball using slingshots and pilfered grapes. From my limited experience, home ownership is not a requirement for free-range children.
  - astura 8y ago
    Yeah, no kidding!! Literally every single person I know rented growing up and the streets were filled with kids. In fact, since apartments are smaller, it's more incentive to get outside.
ravenscrow 8y ago
That's strange considering we've been told that kids today are the best behaved. "Today's teenagers are the best-behaved generation on record" https://www.vox.com/2014/5/25/5748178/todays-teenagers-are-the-best-behaved-generation-on-record https://www.vox.com/2014/5/25/5748178/todays-teenagers-are-t... "Today's Teens Better Behaved Than Their Parents" https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/the-kids-are-more-than-all-right/ https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/the-kids-are-more-... "Wonkblog Today’s teens are way better behaved than you were" https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/13/todays-teens-are-way-better-behaved-than-you-were https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/13/today... But it's summer ( notoriously slow news season ) and what better to sell than fear to parents. The other parental fear piece within the last 24 hours. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17214841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17214841
- badcede 8y ago
  That's consistent with the children being phobic.
- strictnein 8y ago
  The definition of "behaved" in use in those articles has to do with drug use and unprotected sex. You don't do drugs and have unprotected sex if you stay home all day. The lack of opportunity to misbehave doesn't make you more "behaved".
- microcolonel 8y ago
  The distinction is between being so pathetic that you couldn't misbehave if you tried, and actively behaving.
- exolymph 8y ago
  Hmm, maybe headlines aren't a 1:1 match to reality.
anigbrowl 8y ago
This is a terrible article that just uncritically assumes the worst of the 'kids today!' stereotype (which has been around since Plato's time) as a starting premise. I know it's Sunday but I'm surprised to see such fluff high up on HN.
- Pulcinella 8y ago
  “The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers." -Plato/Socrates (though incredibly likely this is apocryphal)
  - tarr11 8y ago
    Apparently this was not Plato or Socrates. However, the author wrote it in 1909 so the point still stands! https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehaving-children-in-ancient-times/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehaving-childre...
  - neaanopri 8y ago
    I mean, if we attribute this to the period during the Peloponnesian wars, the kids were definitely not alright. The generation of Athenians after Alcibiades definitely didn't do anything good, and Athens ultimately lost the war.
- linkmotif 8y ago
  People cite the case of Socrates in this way and in my opinion therein lies the fluff. I suspect Socrates was, in fact, corrupting the youth, and the desire to execute him was probably well justified by the norms of that society. Everything is cyclical. Just because things happen repeatedly doesn’t mean they’re “invalid.”
abalone 8y ago
> far more children today struggle to manage their behavior [than in the past few decades]. What evidence does the book cite to support this premise? Also, a plea: let's please answer this question before everybody posts their personal hot takes on children and parenting.
- dreadpirateryan 8y ago
  I'm so glad you asked this question. I rarely see people question assertions like this with regards to parenting or children's behavior. Alfie Kohn's book, "The myth of the spoiled child", spends a lot of time pointing out that evidence behind claims like this are not only deficient of data, but are claims that seem to be made continuously throughout history of the latest generation of children.
- acct1771 8y ago
  Amount of psychiatric drugs stuffed down their mouths as a hotfix.
  - acct1771 8y ago
    Oh, you said the book - apologies.
- itronitron 8y ago
  I'm never going to read the book, so here is my personal hot take :) I don't know any child that struggles to manage their behavior. Adults that I have heard complain about this seem to be experiencing some panic over not being able to control children's behavior (i.e. less screen time). And it is worth noting that perhaps they are being over-protective.
- noxToken 8y ago
  This is what I was looking for. Lots of "I think" and "I believe" in the article, but very little in the way of organized study. The interviewee might be right on every point, but on the surface, this piece is no different from the 100s of mommy blogs who claim to have the secrets to good sleepers, good eaters, and well-behaved children. I was hoping to find some credibility through the interviewee's name, but her own bio states she "is an award-winning independent journalist, author and speaker". Again, this isn't inherently bad, but it boils down to her making a bunch of observations that juxtaposes her children to others.
jpm_sd 8y ago
As a father of three elementary school kiddos, here's my anecdotal-evidenced perspective: I see a lot of other children who are experiencing a simultaneous excess and deficit of parental authority. Their parents rarely or never correct behavior that is disrespectful, self centered, or too demanding. From my point of view, they should be saying "No" much more often - firmly and respectfully. At the same time, the kids are forced into endless regulated, supervised activities and given little or no free time. Or what free time they have is spent on YouTube. Seems to result in kids who are rude, fragile, and ignorant of normal human interaction.
- aidenn0 8y ago
  I am the father of 4 kids with the youngest starting kindergarten in the fall. My anecdotal evidence is exactly the same. I'd like to add though that many parents I've seen say "No" but then completely fail to follow through; either giving in after repeated requests or failing to provide any consequence for disobedience[1] If a few more HNers can chime in, we'll have enough anecdotes to call it "data!" 1: This is not new with the current generation either. My sister and I used to complain to our parents that they were too strict, so they talked to my friends parents and told us "Your friends' families have almost exactly the same rules as us!" And our response was "But they don't get into trouble when they break the rules!"
  - krusty76 8y ago
    Father of 2, checking in! Grade school aged, but very similar assessment.
  - itronitron 8y ago
    In my opinion, schools have a discipline problem in that schools (teachers) tolerate/ignore disrespect from students toward their teachers and the learning environment yet at the same time except discipline outside of school hours, in the form of excessive homework. The net effect is that schools are a poor environment for learning or constructive socializing, and time at home is spent on homework which severely cuts into social activities and free-play.
newnewpdro 8y ago
From what I've seen, parents aren't parenting like they used to. Mom and dad, if they're even in the same household, often both work full-time jobs. These fundamental changes in the average family have consequences.
- sudouser 8y ago
  interesting viewpoint, hadn’t thought much about it but hits a big issue. So, now instead of mom or grandma watching and teaching the kid(s), it’s youtube and its infinite content
  - sudouser 8y ago
    more thoughts: tv is pretty different from youtube-instagram-facebook-etc in the sense that tv (for our generation) we could only watch was on on one tv, or find something else to do. now kids can watch anything anywhere! tvs, tablets and phones make it possible to visit youtube and facebook for hours and hours with no end...
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  I was a full-time mom for a lot of years. I say such things to my adult sons. Trying to say it on HN tends to go bad places. It isn't politically correct to observe that the lack of time to parent could negatively impact parenting. No matter how neutrally I say it or how carefully I word it, I am inevitably accused of sexism, as if my position is "Women should all be barefoot and pregnant." Oy.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- astura 8y ago
  Except parents actually spend MORE time parenting now then they ever did in the past. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/09/30/parents-spend-more-time-children-now-than-they-did-50-years-ago/91263880/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/09/30/pa... I hardly ever spent any time with my parents growing up, I spent the vast majority of the time playing either alone or with friends or siblings either outside or in another room. Same with my peers, I never even met half my friend's parents, ever. Parents today seem absolutely obsessed with spending massive amounts of time with their children, something I simply cannot understand. Just doesn't seem healthy to me.
sjclemmy 8y ago
I think it’s Adults who are supposed to manage their own behaviour. Children? Not so much. This sounds like a rehash of the ‘Kids today’ perspective. Children have always been children and Adults have always struggled with their behaviour. Adults have always romanticised their own childhood ‘it wasn’t like that in my day, I’d have never gotten away with that’ etc. I just don’t buy it.
- cwp 8y ago
  Are you a parent?
  - hycaria 8y ago
    Was anyone a parent in the 80s and now ?
  - sjclemmy 8y ago
    Yes. And they’ve both turned out fine so far.
AndrewKemendo 8y ago
As a father of three here is what keeps me from just sending my kids out to play: Other parents. Other parents see your kids alone and freak the fuck out. Some will call the police, and then threaten you that they will call CPS/DPS if they need to and report neglect. In fact I was out with the kids on their bikes the other day and they were a bit ahead of me when they stopped safely at a crosswalk to wait for me. A woman pulled up and started chastising them for being unsafe because they weren't with a parent, when I walked up. She said "You're lucky I came along because some other people around here would run them over or call the police." So yea, I'm not sure what's wrong with these other parents, but I'd love to send my kids to play outside all day without me worrying that I'm gonna get a cop on my doorstep.
- frabbit 8y ago
  My blood boils. Truly. I would hope my kids would tell her to fuck off.
- jeffnappi 8y ago
  Utah has recently passed explicit amendments to their child neglect statutes to clarify that otherwise well cared for children allowed to play unsupervised is not child neglect. Other states should follow suit. https://le.utah.gov/~2018/bills/static/SB0065.html https://le.utah.gov/~2018/bills/static/SB0065.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/well/family/utah-passes-free-range-parenting-law.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/well/family/utah-passes-f...
  - AndrewKemendo 8y ago
    I saw this and thought it was great, but simultaneously thought all hope is lost if Utah is setting the standard for being reasonable.
- Ascetik 8y ago
  I absolutely think you're on to something here. I as well as other people I know in my circle have observed the same thing. In the past 20 years or so it seems like people have gotten angrier and angrier. It feels like no one minds their own business anymore and constantly assumes the worst about any given situation when they do not know the circumstances or intentions of the occurrence. One of my friends got CPS called on her because her kids were playing in their own yard barefoot. Yes. It happened more than once too. It was surreal. What is wrong with people today?
frabbit 8y ago
It's all down to cars. In two ways, one of them less facetious than the other: 1) Automobiles have a vast amount of land space dedicated to them. And the land that is not physically occupied by parking lots and roads is subdivided, separated and made inaccessible[1]. And this trend is continuing[2]. It's why other large mammals (bears, moose, wolves) face significant problems in reproduction. Add to this the noise and the light pollution and even if you did not fear that your neighbor, reaching back to pass an organic fruit-leather to the fruit of his loins, would mow down your child, the available outdoors is just not what it was. 2) Paedophiles and rapists are greatly facilitated by the availability of fast, relatively anonymous, convenient transport. The same characteristics that make said automobiles attractive to terrorists (when they're not actually directly driving them into people as a weapon that no one acknowledges). 1. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2016/12/19/roads-impact-on-ecosystems/ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2016/12/19/roads-i... 2. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/358/6362/442 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/358/6362/442
- elktea 8y ago
  I agree the automobile is at the heart of it. Everything from land use and distance, as you mentioned, to the danger of roads for kids. Children these days are driven everywhere, even to the local park or for soccer on the weekends.
thx11389793 8y ago
Having seen a whole tide of articles like this recently, I wonder how long it will be before popular opinion and parenting practices trend back toward giving children appropriate amounts of autonomy. I hesitate at the thought of raising children here (or at all) for a variety-pack of reasons, one of which is that I was rather over-protected as a child, and I'd rather not pass the results of that that on to my kids. Any current American-kid-havers care to comment on how difficult it actually is to raise non-sheltered kids in the modern age? Is it a big problem or perhaps overblown for the NPR crowd?
- RobertRoberts 8y ago
  I am wary of joining this conversation in general. But I have kids, and I have lived both in big cities where stuff was stolen from our porch on a regular basis (we needed a neighborhood watch) and in small towns where we never had to lock our doors. I've lived in incredibly liberal and conservative areas as well. Some places were very religious with a church for every few hundred in the populace, and where you couldn't even find a church. Across the board, the liberal, non-religious, high-populace areas had the worst behaved children in public. But religious groups control public perceptions better (my opinion) so privately they could be just as bad or worse off, but that doesn't seem to be the point of this article. But what I found as a parent, was that children mimic their parents. Period. Even if you have vacant parents, the kids will still have enough time around them to copy their beliefs and act on them. I taught in college for 12 years, and the kids that came into my class room changed dramatically from early 2000s till I was done. Something changed in society the past 20 years in a way I can't understand. One thing is for certain though, you can take a nice decent kid, and give them everything they want, and they can turn into brats when you try and take anything back. I learned this the hard way with cellphones. My first kid turned super nasty as soon as she got a phone. Partly because all her friends ignored her, she was the only one without a phone in the group settings, so she sat by herself with no one to play with. So we got her an ipod touch, and we instantly had behavior problems. In retrospect, she was copying my problems as a person, so it's not her fault. But any discussion where the blame isn't placed squarely on the parents first and foremost, is in my opinion, either deceitful with a motive or simply ignorant and possibly a parent in denial. A parent can raise decent children in almost any environment as long as they are willing to stand up against the negative influences around them.
dsnuh 8y ago
I'm a parent of two, and step-parent to two, between the ages 5 -11. I think a lot about this, and one of the biggest issues I see (besides the many valid points I feel the article raised) is that with the rise of Internet video, we are showing kids to kids more often, if that makes sense. I grew up in the 80's, and cartoons were most of the media I consumed. You usually saw anthropomorphical characters depicting behaviors. When you did see live action, it was usually centered more around adults teaching or mentoring the kids (or Muppets), and when kids did appear, they were polite unless being used to illustrate bad behavior. Today, with so much self-published content, kids are seeing other kids, often acting in outrageous ways to get views, likes, followers, and fans. When media became decentralized, I think we lost a powerful cultural platform for shared experience and norms, and it is starting to show.
- musage 8y ago
  And even that is made seem harmless by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsagate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsagate To wit, endless channels with endless videos including adults dressing up as babies, cartoon kids doing all sorts of fucked up stuff, adult hands pretending to enjoy playing with toys or unpacking things (and/or pop colored balloons and do the finger song, so children can "learn colors nursery rhymes"). And the best part is, so much of it is aimed at kids that can't talk. > On November 28, Forbes presented Elsagate as an example of the "dark underbelly of the digital age". The article's author commented that the "gargantuan scale" of the problem seemed to indicate that children's content on YouTube had become "a monster beyond our control" and that "it's terrifying to imagine how many toddlers have been affected" by Elsagate, "in ways beyond our comprehension". By the way, don't think just because many talk about it in past tense or picked themselves up quickly with some fluffy rationalizations after they stumbled onto the subject, instead of actually looking at it, that the issue is over. New channels are still made, old videos constantly get reuploaded, and new material is still made. But even in November 2017, some articles referred to it in past tense. Amazing.
- krolley 8y ago
  As a parent of a two year-old, one thing I will not allow (for as long as possible) is unrestricted YouTube. I've seen my nieces watch unboxing videos and videos of kids acting like babies. It seems addictive and utterly devoid of any value.
ouid 8y ago
You know who are terrible models for learning human behavior? Children. Why do we expect our children to learn good models of human behavior by interacting with other children?
jancsika 8y ago
The reason children aren't behaving (at least in the U.S.) is because a large number of parents never practice parenting and never seek out advice from reliable resources. For example-- I've heard numerous vacuous rationalizations from parents young and old for spanking their children. What's the research say on spanking? The vast majority over decades says that it doesn't improve behavior and in fact increases the likelihood of aggression in children. So why would parents continue doing it? It's the same reason an ineffectual guitarist keeps starting over on Stairway to Heaven. Because, "Gosh, I had it perfect once out of 200 failures in my bedroom by myself last week." So it is with parents: "Gosh, I don't get why they're acting out, they were so good that one time out of 200 outbursts while I was paying a moderate amount of attention to them last week." Edit: clarification
- frabbit 8y ago
  Agreed. Obviously you are being voted down by people who are spankers, but just can't reach you through the intertubes, no matter how hard they try. We have never had to spank. Maybe we'll regret it when they turn into heroin addicts in their 20s, but right now they are decent, loveable people.
- alien_at_work 8y ago
  >never seek out advice from reliable resources. What reliable resources would those be? Poorly defined, crap studies done by people who've never had children and the study was never independantly reproduced by anyone? In the beginning, pain is the only means of communication (although we didn't actually spank, a little tug on the side burns did the trick). In my experience, once a child is old enough to understand time-based punishment (e.g. you don't get to watch TV tomorrow) a little and what it will mean, that becomes more effective.
- bambataa 8y ago
  There is a general belief that parents inherently know best for their own children and to hell with any experts or professionals who might experience from more than their own children.
crankylinuxuser 8y ago
We've been reading and seeing this shit since Socrates. “The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.” Lets frame this a different way. 1. Crime has gone down in all measurements. (Theories state its likely lack of lead pollution.) 2. More people renting, and less engagement in the community. 3. People whining about kids these days 4. Older adults realizing they dont younger generation doing what they did 5. Kids now have more inhouse distraction (computers, games, etc) that their friends are on 6. Parent(s) working long hours and cant take kids to friends houses 7. Scare articles like this one whipping parents into a frightful frenzy
- petagonoral 8y ago
  > We've been reading and seeing this shit since Socrates. No, we haven't. That beautiful self serving quote is from a students dissertation from 1907 - https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehaving-children-in-ancient-times/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehaving-childre... Novel quotes which have a ring of truth don't get to invalidate peoples' opinions.
major505 8y ago
Spanking. No kiddin. You don't need to put your children in a hospital. But a little slap in the buns never killed nobody, and as a last resort toll. can be really effective. Of course, go for ligth mesures before, and then scalate. Take the things the kid like first, for a while, like no videogames fo a week, or two. If the nocive behavour dosen't go away, increase the time.
- Ascetik 8y ago
  I agree. Spare the rod, spoil the child. It works. Parents need to get off their phones, computers, TV's and spend time with their kids. I live on a street of maybe 30 or so houses. And I have two small children. I know there are other families with small children and I have never once in the 4 years I've lived on this street seen them outside playing with their kids. I play with my kids outside everyday, when weather permits. It is sad. Technology, especially TV and computers, and cars have destroyed community. Not totally, but almost. Don't even get me started on teenagers with phones. My children will be getting flip phones for calls only and very limited texting.
- stephen_g 8y ago
  There's probably something to this. I don't have kids so luckily I don't have to think much about it (yet, at least). While there are plenty of studies about psychological issues from spanking, but I've always been uncomfortable about the definitions. There is a fair difference between a single sharp smack on the butt (clothed, not bare) like I and my siblings, friends etc. used to get (and deserve) as kids, and actual abuse (i.e. beatings, using implements, hits to the face, arms, torso, etc.), but I feel like most of the studies lump them in together. It's also hard to control for whether it's a single spank for discipline used only when the situation warrants it or routine, arbitrary or random spanking. There's probably going to be psychological abuse or neglect coming along with it if it's the latter but far less likely for the former.
  - NLips 8y ago
    I have children (too young for this to matter yet) and I have the same discomfort. I was 'smacked' on the bottom sometimes as a child - no real idea about the frequency as this would now be a long time ago. Small children don't have the same sense of reasoning / looking forward as e.g. teenagers or adults, so I appreciate something more primeval should work better (and I'm not going to take away their food). But while all the data suggests hitting or spanking a child is bad, there seems to be no mentions of discriminating between genuinely physically harming the child (e.g. lasting damage like a bruise) and something which hurts but has zero long or medium-term physical effect - just a temporary stinging of the skin over a heavily muscled or fatty area like the bottom. My personal feeling is that if researched well, the data would probably show that in small children, some form of physical punishment would be shown to be effective and leave no lasting psycological issues. I just don't think there's any good evidence either way.
basejumping 8y ago
140 comments and almost none about why children aren't behaving and what to do about it. Just like the article
Fukkaudeku 8y ago
Because the generation that gets all high and mighty about their childhood being more fun and outside (i.e. Gen Xers) are now the ones that are raising the next generation of children to be safe and are also complaining about it.
outsidetheparty 8y ago
> asks why so many kids today are having trouble managing their behavior and emotions. ...For starters, is there evidence that this is actually a thing? Once it gets down to the details it sounds like Generic Parenting Advice From Any Point In The Last 50 Years: don't use bribes, make consequences clear, give kids some control but not too much, when you're overwhelmed walk away... but the initial premise is a pretty big one to just throw out there unsupported.
adanto6840 8y ago
20 years ago, my father attributed the general "change in children" to the widespread availability & use of household air-conditioning. Granted this won't be true throughout all climates, but I recall thinking it had a lot of merit at the time and I continue to think so today. My father would tell me that, when he was a kid, they'd either sit at home in a 90F+ house on Long Island with the windows open -- miserable, as I can attest from living it when we'd visit as a kid -- or they'd go outside and play "stick ball" in the same weather with their friends. For them, it was an easy choice. Today, children either play on their devices at home (often interacting with 'friends' online) or they go to the home of their friend and, likewise, they often play indoors. I truly believe that the climate-controlled dwellings of today are a large part of the reason; I know that personally I'd generally far prefer to be indoors in my climate-controlled 72F dwelling versus outdoors riding a bike or similar and I'd imagine the same, unfortunately but not surprisingly, holds true for children as well. As a fairly new parent with another on the way, I'm not sure to what extent we'll try to combat this; as a child myself "screen time" was often a point of contention though in my case it was also the early start of my career.
known 8y ago
Parents should teach kids to appreciate diversity and accommodate adversity
lurquer 8y ago
Most children are raised with single parents. That implies daycare and possession schedules. Both have the potential to drastically screw up a kid. (Imagine being bounced back and forth between two homes throughout the month. It would drive you mad.) Strange that he article doesn't mention it. The utter lack of stable and consistent housing for children (due to possession schedules) is perhaps the biggest societal 'experiment' ever run.
- fibbery 8y ago
  "The Majority of Children Live With Two Parents, Census Bureau Reports" https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2016/cb16-192.html https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2016/cb16-192...
  - lurquer 8y ago
    I'd be interested in seeing how 'parent' is defined. Does it include step-parent?

256 points by sudouser 8y ago

avip 8y ago

I'm not sure what are the root causes of the kids' behavioural crisis (I'm not even sure there is one), but let me tell you with 100% confidence what will not solve them: Yet another parenting book.

Cd00d 8y ago

Why the text only version link? I prefer the formatted: https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/06/02/611082566/why-children-arent-behaving-and-what-you-can-do-about-it https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/06/02/611082566/why-chi...

ekingr 8y ago
Not to have to accept the tracking cookies policy, I guess.

deleted 8y ago

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Someone1234 8y ago

> certified parent educator There doesn't seem to be any legitimacy to that claim. Meaning there are places that claim they can certify you, but they themselves have no real legitimacy (e.g. no specific educational track, just a broad philosophy you agree to adhere to). The article is worth reading, but it is more accurate to describe the author as a journalist with three kids, they have no specific qualifications.

weeksie 8y ago
Bingo! This is hocus pocus lifestyle bullshit. I live with a psychologist and child behavior is something that has been studied extensively. There are well researched techniques to help a child behave and nothing in that article made me believe the author had a clue about them.

AmVess 8y ago

From the article: "Two or three decades ago, children were roaming neighborhoods in mixed-age groups, playing pretty unsupervised or lightly supervised. They were able to resolve disputes, which they had a strong motivation to because they wanted to keep playing. They also planned their time and managed their games. They had a lot of autonomy, which also feeds self-esteem and mental health." Neighborhoods used to be packed with kids running around all the time. Now they are empty. There are quite a few kids in my neighborhood, but the only time you see them is when they get off the school bus. None of them roam the neighborhood or anywhere. There is a huge park in my neighborhood, too. It's always empty. I never see packs of kids walking on the sidewalks going to the theater or to corner stores. School playgrounds are empty and stay empty unless school is in session. When I was growing up from age 6, my mom would tell me to be home by dinner, and I'd spend all day running around with friends or adventuring by myself. This was the norm for every kid I grew up with.

nighthawk1 8y ago
As a youth I definitely had the experience of going off on my bike and being home by dinner. The difference though now is there is a lot more for kids to do inside the house. Video games, netflix, smart phones and the like are heavily influencing behavior.
- LoSboccacc 8y ago
  A lot of kid grew up playing at home and reading books it’s not just a technology problem even if for sure it’s not making thing better Introvert kids still had to socialize and learn to cope in school. Now that any negatove expression is heavily suppressed and everyone is interacting on social trough technology with a moltitude of aliases there’s little feedback a kid gets to correct his behaviour
aedocw 8y ago
We are pretty lucky to live in a neighborhood with kinds in the same age range as ours. All the parents know each other and the kids know where they're allowed to go. This includes a few acres of forest. Our kids are allowed to go out and roam, they just have to give us a general idea of where they're going to be playing (or they just bring a cheap walkie-talkie and check in occasionally). It's exactly how I grew up and I'm grateful for it. It makes me sad to see how many kids are growing up without the autonomy they need.

awat 8y ago

The part about being “unemployed” to me immediately made me think about the prevalence of future tense pressures for modern kids. I’m in my mid 20s and I went through it. While my parents had good intentions and many others I’m sure did too. You start building this monster of future pressures about colleges, social media emphasizing what you should like, and lots of other pressures you can’t actually resolve in Elementary or Jr. High but you are made aware of them and focused on them by your surroundings.

deleted 8y ago

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rubicon33 8y ago

I think this has a lot to do with the housing crisis. Hear me out... When I was a kid I was lucky enough to be raised in a new development community packed with YOUNG families. Imagine this. These were 1st, or maybe 2nd home buyers (age 23-32) who were STARTING their families there. It was a time when young people could afford a nice home in a safe neighborhood, AND support kids. The result was amazing. Kids. Lots of kids. Kids roamed the streets. The sense of community was abundant. Halloween and Christmas were a BLAST as all the families went to great lengths to dress up their home. Nowadays? I live in a different neighborhood. People are RENTING. There's no safe, nice, affordable neighborhood for new families to settle. Sense of community as a result is diminished. People don't feel planted and invested in the home so they're less likely to be invested in the community. I don't see any kids these days. Halloween, could be any other day.

abalone 8y ago
You raise a good point, but it's important to note that many families, especially working class families, will continue renting in cities. Many do not even have enough savings to cover a $400 emergency expense yet alone a down payment on a condo. This is exactly why you'll find that working class communities want affordable housing built but also strongly defend rent control.
tux1968 8y ago
As a counterpoint, I grew up in a relatively poor neighborhood, in a rented home. Was part of a huge community of kids who all played together unsupervised, especially all summer long. In the school yard, downtown, down by the river, in the park, we ranged pretty far as we got older. Once you had a bike there were unsupervised day trips to wooded areas where we played a poor-man's predecessor to paintball using slingshots and pilfered grapes. From my limited experience, home ownership is not a requirement for free-range children.
- astura 8y ago
  Yeah, no kidding!! Literally every single person I know rented growing up and the streets were filled with kids. In fact, since apartments are smaller, it's more incentive to get outside.

ravenscrow 8y ago

That's strange considering we've been told that kids today are the best behaved. "Today's teenagers are the best-behaved generation on record" https://www.vox.com/2014/5/25/5748178/todays-teenagers-are-the-best-behaved-generation-on-record https://www.vox.com/2014/5/25/5748178/todays-teenagers-are-t... "Today's Teens Better Behaved Than Their Parents" https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/the-kids-are-more-than-all-right/ https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/the-kids-are-more-... "Wonkblog Today’s teens are way better behaved than you were" https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/13/todays-teens-are-way-better-behaved-than-you-were https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/13/today... But it's summer ( notoriously slow news season ) and what better to sell than fear to parents. The other parental fear piece within the last 24 hours. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17214841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17214841

badcede 8y ago
That's consistent with the children being phobic.
strictnein 8y ago
The definition of "behaved" in use in those articles has to do with drug use and unprotected sex. You don't do drugs and have unprotected sex if you stay home all day. The lack of opportunity to misbehave doesn't make you more "behaved".
microcolonel 8y ago
The distinction is between being so pathetic that you couldn't misbehave if you tried, and actively behaving.
exolymph 8y ago
Hmm, maybe headlines aren't a 1:1 match to reality.

anigbrowl 8y ago

This is a terrible article that just uncritically assumes the worst of the 'kids today!' stereotype (which has been around since Plato's time) as a starting premise. I know it's Sunday but I'm surprised to see such fluff high up on HN.

Pulcinella 8y ago
“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers." -Plato/Socrates (though incredibly likely this is apocryphal)
- tarr11 8y ago
  Apparently this was not Plato or Socrates. However, the author wrote it in 1909 so the point still stands! https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehaving-children-in-ancient-times/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehaving-childre...
- neaanopri 8y ago
  I mean, if we attribute this to the period during the Peloponnesian wars, the kids were definitely not alright. The generation of Athenians after Alcibiades definitely didn't do anything good, and Athens ultimately lost the war.
linkmotif 8y ago
People cite the case of Socrates in this way and in my opinion therein lies the fluff. I suspect Socrates was, in fact, corrupting the youth, and the desire to execute him was probably well justified by the norms of that society. Everything is cyclical. Just because things happen repeatedly doesn’t mean they’re “invalid.”

abalone 8y ago

> far more children today struggle to manage their behavior [than in the past few decades]. What evidence does the book cite to support this premise? Also, a plea: let's please answer this question before everybody posts their personal hot takes on children and parenting.

dreadpirateryan 8y ago
I'm so glad you asked this question. I rarely see people question assertions like this with regards to parenting or children's behavior. Alfie Kohn's book, "The myth of the spoiled child", spends a lot of time pointing out that evidence behind claims like this are not only deficient of data, but are claims that seem to be made continuously throughout history of the latest generation of children.
acct1771 8y ago
Amount of psychiatric drugs stuffed down their mouths as a hotfix.
- acct1771 8y ago
  Oh, you said the book - apologies.
itronitron 8y ago
I'm never going to read the book, so here is my personal hot take :) I don't know any child that struggles to manage their behavior. Adults that I have heard complain about this seem to be experiencing some panic over not being able to control children's behavior (i.e. less screen time). And it is worth noting that perhaps they are being over-protective.
noxToken 8y ago
This is what I was looking for. Lots of "I think" and "I believe" in the article, but very little in the way of organized study. The interviewee might be right on every point, but on the surface, this piece is no different from the 100s of mommy blogs who claim to have the secrets to good sleepers, good eaters, and well-behaved children. I was hoping to find some credibility through the interviewee's name, but her own bio states she "is an award-winning independent journalist, author and speaker". Again, this isn't inherently bad, but it boils down to her making a bunch of observations that juxtaposes her children to others.

jpm_sd 8y ago

As a father of three elementary school kiddos, here's my anecdotal-evidenced perspective: I see a lot of other children who are experiencing a simultaneous excess and deficit of parental authority. Their parents rarely or never correct behavior that is disrespectful, self centered, or too demanding. From my point of view, they should be saying "No" much more often - firmly and respectfully. At the same time, the kids are forced into endless regulated, supervised activities and given little or no free time. Or what free time they have is spent on YouTube. Seems to result in kids who are rude, fragile, and ignorant of normal human interaction.

aidenn0 8y ago
I am the father of 4 kids with the youngest starting kindergarten in the fall. My anecdotal evidence is exactly the same. I'd like to add though that many parents I've seen say "No" but then completely fail to follow through; either giving in after repeated requests or failing to provide any consequence for disobedience[1] If a few more HNers can chime in, we'll have enough anecdotes to call it "data!" 1: This is not new with the current generation either. My sister and I used to complain to our parents that they were too strict, so they talked to my friends parents and told us "Your friends' families have almost exactly the same rules as us!" And our response was "But they don't get into trouble when they break the rules!"
- krusty76 8y ago
  Father of 2, checking in! Grade school aged, but very similar assessment.
- itronitron 8y ago
  In my opinion, schools have a discipline problem in that schools (teachers) tolerate/ignore disrespect from students toward their teachers and the learning environment yet at the same time except discipline outside of school hours, in the form of excessive homework. The net effect is that schools are a poor environment for learning or constructive socializing, and time at home is spent on homework which severely cuts into social activities and free-play.

newnewpdro 8y ago

From what I've seen, parents aren't parenting like they used to. Mom and dad, if they're even in the same household, often both work full-time jobs. These fundamental changes in the average family have consequences.

sudouser 8y ago
interesting viewpoint, hadn’t thought much about it but hits a big issue. So, now instead of mom or grandma watching and teaching the kid(s), it’s youtube and its infinite content
- sudouser 8y ago
  more thoughts: tv is pretty different from youtube-instagram-facebook-etc in the sense that tv (for our generation) we could only watch was on on one tv, or find something else to do. now kids can watch anything anywhere! tvs, tablets and phones make it possible to visit youtube and facebook for hours and hours with no end...
DoreenMichele 8y ago
I was a full-time mom for a lot of years. I say such things to my adult sons. Trying to say it on HN tends to go bad places. It isn't politically correct to observe that the lack of time to parent could negatively impact parenting. No matter how neutrally I say it or how carefully I word it, I am inevitably accused of sexism, as if my position is "Women should all be barefoot and pregnant." Oy.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
astura 8y ago
Except parents actually spend MORE time parenting now then they ever did in the past. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/09/30/parents-spend-more-time-children-now-than-they-did-50-years-ago/91263880/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/09/30/pa... I hardly ever spent any time with my parents growing up, I spent the vast majority of the time playing either alone or with friends or siblings either outside or in another room. Same with my peers, I never even met half my friend's parents, ever. Parents today seem absolutely obsessed with spending massive amounts of time with their children, something I simply cannot understand. Just doesn't seem healthy to me.

sjclemmy 8y ago

I think it’s Adults who are supposed to manage their own behaviour. Children? Not so much. This sounds like a rehash of the ‘Kids today’ perspective. Children have always been children and Adults have always struggled with their behaviour. Adults have always romanticised their own childhood ‘it wasn’t like that in my day, I’d have never gotten away with that’ etc. I just don’t buy it.

cwp 8y ago
Are you a parent?
- hycaria 8y ago
  Was anyone a parent in the 80s and now ?
- sjclemmy 8y ago
  Yes. And they’ve both turned out fine so far.

AndrewKemendo 8y ago

As a father of three here is what keeps me from just sending my kids out to play: Other parents. Other parents see your kids alone and freak the fuck out. Some will call the police, and then threaten you that they will call CPS/DPS if they need to and report neglect. In fact I was out with the kids on their bikes the other day and they were a bit ahead of me when they stopped safely at a crosswalk to wait for me. A woman pulled up and started chastising them for being unsafe because they weren't with a parent, when I walked up. She said "You're lucky I came along because some other people around here would run them over or call the police." So yea, I'm not sure what's wrong with these other parents, but I'd love to send my kids to play outside all day without me worrying that I'm gonna get a cop on my doorstep.

frabbit 8y ago
My blood boils. Truly. I would hope my kids would tell her to fuck off.
jeffnappi 8y ago
Utah has recently passed explicit amendments to their child neglect statutes to clarify that otherwise well cared for children allowed to play unsupervised is not child neglect. Other states should follow suit. https://le.utah.gov/~2018/bills/static/SB0065.html https://le.utah.gov/~2018/bills/static/SB0065.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/well/family/utah-passes-free-range-parenting-law.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/29/well/family/utah-passes-f...
- AndrewKemendo 8y ago
  I saw this and thought it was great, but simultaneously thought all hope is lost if Utah is setting the standard for being reasonable.
Ascetik 8y ago
I absolutely think you're on to something here. I as well as other people I know in my circle have observed the same thing. In the past 20 years or so it seems like people have gotten angrier and angrier. It feels like no one minds their own business anymore and constantly assumes the worst about any given situation when they do not know the circumstances or intentions of the occurrence. One of my friends got CPS called on her because her kids were playing in their own yard barefoot. Yes. It happened more than once too. It was surreal. What is wrong with people today?

frabbit 8y ago

It's all down to cars. In two ways, one of them less facetious than the other: 1) Automobiles have a vast amount of land space dedicated to them. And the land that is not physically occupied by parking lots and roads is subdivided, separated and made inaccessible[1]. And this trend is continuing[2]. It's why other large mammals (bears, moose, wolves) face significant problems in reproduction. Add to this the noise and the light pollution and even if you did not fear that your neighbor, reaching back to pass an organic fruit-leather to the fruit of his loins, would mow down your child, the available outdoors is just not what it was. 2) Paedophiles and rapists are greatly facilitated by the availability of fast, relatively anonymous, convenient transport. The same characteristics that make said automobiles attractive to terrorists (when they're not actually directly driving them into people as a weapon that no one acknowledges). 1. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2016/12/19/roads-impact-on-ecosystems/ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2016/12/19/roads-i... 2. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/358/6362/442 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/358/6362/442

elktea 8y ago
I agree the automobile is at the heart of it. Everything from land use and distance, as you mentioned, to the danger of roads for kids. Children these days are driven everywhere, even to the local park or for soccer on the weekends.

thx11389793 8y ago

Having seen a whole tide of articles like this recently, I wonder how long it will be before popular opinion and parenting practices trend back toward giving children appropriate amounts of autonomy. I hesitate at the thought of raising children here (or at all) for a variety-pack of reasons, one of which is that I was rather over-protected as a child, and I'd rather not pass the results of that that on to my kids. Any current American-kid-havers care to comment on how difficult it actually is to raise non-sheltered kids in the modern age? Is it a big problem or perhaps overblown for the NPR crowd?

RobertRoberts 8y ago
I am wary of joining this conversation in general. But I have kids, and I have lived both in big cities where stuff was stolen from our porch on a regular basis (we needed a neighborhood watch) and in small towns where we never had to lock our doors. I've lived in incredibly liberal and conservative areas as well. Some places were very religious with a church for every few hundred in the populace, and where you couldn't even find a church. Across the board, the liberal, non-religious, high-populace areas had the worst behaved children in public. But religious groups control public perceptions better (my opinion) so privately they could be just as bad or worse off, but that doesn't seem to be the point of this article. But what I found as a parent, was that children mimic their parents. Period. Even if you have vacant parents, the kids will still have enough time around them to copy their beliefs and act on them. I taught in college for 12 years, and the kids that came into my class room changed dramatically from early 2000s till I was done. Something changed in society the past 20 years in a way I can't understand. One thing is for certain though, you can take a nice decent kid, and give them everything they want, and they can turn into brats when you try and take anything back. I learned this the hard way with cellphones. My first kid turned super nasty as soon as she got a phone. Partly because all her friends ignored her, she was the only one without a phone in the group settings, so she sat by herself with no one to play with. So we got her an ipod touch, and we instantly had behavior problems. In retrospect, she was copying my problems as a person, so it's not her fault. But any discussion where the blame isn't placed squarely on the parents first and foremost, is in my opinion, either deceitful with a motive or simply ignorant and possibly a parent in denial. A parent can raise decent children in almost any environment as long as they are willing to stand up against the negative influences around them.

dsnuh 8y ago

I'm a parent of two, and step-parent to two, between the ages 5 -11. I think a lot about this, and one of the biggest issues I see (besides the many valid points I feel the article raised) is that with the rise of Internet video, we are showing kids to kids more often, if that makes sense. I grew up in the 80's, and cartoons were most of the media I consumed. You usually saw anthropomorphical characters depicting behaviors. When you did see live action, it was usually centered more around adults teaching or mentoring the kids (or Muppets), and when kids did appear, they were polite unless being used to illustrate bad behavior. Today, with so much self-published content, kids are seeing other kids, often acting in outrageous ways to get views, likes, followers, and fans. When media became decentralized, I think we lost a powerful cultural platform for shared experience and norms, and it is starting to show.

musage 8y ago
And even that is made seem harmless by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsagate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsagate To wit, endless channels with endless videos including adults dressing up as babies, cartoon kids doing all sorts of fucked up stuff, adult hands pretending to enjoy playing with toys or unpacking things (and/or pop colored balloons and do the finger song, so children can "learn colors nursery rhymes"). And the best part is, so much of it is aimed at kids that can't talk. > On November 28, Forbes presented Elsagate as an example of the "dark underbelly of the digital age". The article's author commented that the "gargantuan scale" of the problem seemed to indicate that children's content on YouTube had become "a monster beyond our control" and that "it's terrifying to imagine how many toddlers have been affected" by Elsagate, "in ways beyond our comprehension". By the way, don't think just because many talk about it in past tense or picked themselves up quickly with some fluffy rationalizations after they stumbled onto the subject, instead of actually looking at it, that the issue is over. New channels are still made, old videos constantly get reuploaded, and new material is still made. But even in November 2017, some articles referred to it in past tense. Amazing.
krolley 8y ago
As a parent of a two year-old, one thing I will not allow (for as long as possible) is unrestricted YouTube. I've seen my nieces watch unboxing videos and videos of kids acting like babies. It seems addictive and utterly devoid of any value.

ouid 8y ago

You know who are terrible models for learning human behavior? Children. Why do we expect our children to learn good models of human behavior by interacting with other children?

jancsika 8y ago

The reason children aren't behaving (at least in the U.S.) is because a large number of parents never practice parenting and never seek out advice from reliable resources. For example-- I've heard numerous vacuous rationalizations from parents young and old for spanking their children. What's the research say on spanking? The vast majority over decades says that it doesn't improve behavior and in fact increases the likelihood of aggression in children. So why would parents continue doing it? It's the same reason an ineffectual guitarist keeps starting over on Stairway to Heaven. Because, "Gosh, I had it perfect once out of 200 failures in my bedroom by myself last week." So it is with parents: "Gosh, I don't get why they're acting out, they were so good that one time out of 200 outbursts while I was paying a moderate amount of attention to them last week." Edit: clarification

frabbit 8y ago
Agreed. Obviously you are being voted down by people who are spankers, but just can't reach you through the intertubes, no matter how hard they try. We have never had to spank. Maybe we'll regret it when they turn into heroin addicts in their 20s, but right now they are decent, loveable people.
alien_at_work 8y ago
>never seek out advice from reliable resources. What reliable resources would those be? Poorly defined, crap studies done by people who've never had children and the study was never independantly reproduced by anyone? In the beginning, pain is the only means of communication (although we didn't actually spank, a little tug on the side burns did the trick). In my experience, once a child is old enough to understand time-based punishment (e.g. you don't get to watch TV tomorrow) a little and what it will mean, that becomes more effective.
bambataa 8y ago
There is a general belief that parents inherently know best for their own children and to hell with any experts or professionals who might experience from more than their own children.

crankylinuxuser 8y ago

We've been reading and seeing this shit since Socrates. “The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.” Lets frame this a different way. 1. Crime has gone down in all measurements. (Theories state its likely lack of lead pollution.) 2. More people renting, and less engagement in the community. 3. People whining about kids these days 4. Older adults realizing they dont younger generation doing what they did 5. Kids now have more inhouse distraction (computers, games, etc) that their friends are on 6. Parent(s) working long hours and cant take kids to friends houses 7. Scare articles like this one whipping parents into a frightful frenzy

petagonoral 8y ago
> We've been reading and seeing this shit since Socrates. No, we haven't. That beautiful self serving quote is from a students dissertation from 1907 - https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehaving-children-in-ancient-times/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/01/misbehaving-childre... Novel quotes which have a ring of truth don't get to invalidate peoples' opinions.

major505 8y ago

Spanking. No kiddin. You don't need to put your children in a hospital. But a little slap in the buns never killed nobody, and as a last resort toll. can be really effective. Of course, go for ligth mesures before, and then scalate. Take the things the kid like first, for a while, like no videogames fo a week, or two. If the nocive behavour dosen't go away, increase the time.

Ascetik 8y ago
I agree. Spare the rod, spoil the child. It works. Parents need to get off their phones, computers, TV's and spend time with their kids. I live on a street of maybe 30 or so houses. And I have two small children. I know there are other families with small children and I have never once in the 4 years I've lived on this street seen them outside playing with their kids. I play with my kids outside everyday, when weather permits. It is sad. Technology, especially TV and computers, and cars have destroyed community. Not totally, but almost. Don't even get me started on teenagers with phones. My children will be getting flip phones for calls only and very limited texting.
stephen_g 8y ago
There's probably something to this. I don't have kids so luckily I don't have to think much about it (yet, at least). While there are plenty of studies about psychological issues from spanking, but I've always been uncomfortable about the definitions. There is a fair difference between a single sharp smack on the butt (clothed, not bare) like I and my siblings, friends etc. used to get (and deserve) as kids, and actual abuse (i.e. beatings, using implements, hits to the face, arms, torso, etc.), but I feel like most of the studies lump them in together. It's also hard to control for whether it's a single spank for discipline used only when the situation warrants it or routine, arbitrary or random spanking. There's probably going to be psychological abuse or neglect coming along with it if it's the latter but far less likely for the former.
- NLips 8y ago
  I have children (too young for this to matter yet) and I have the same discomfort. I was 'smacked' on the bottom sometimes as a child - no real idea about the frequency as this would now be a long time ago. Small children don't have the same sense of reasoning / looking forward as e.g. teenagers or adults, so I appreciate something more primeval should work better (and I'm not going to take away their food). But while all the data suggests hitting or spanking a child is bad, there seems to be no mentions of discriminating between genuinely physically harming the child (e.g. lasting damage like a bruise) and something which hurts but has zero long or medium-term physical effect - just a temporary stinging of the skin over a heavily muscled or fatty area like the bottom. My personal feeling is that if researched well, the data would probably show that in small children, some form of physical punishment would be shown to be effective and leave no lasting psycological issues. I just don't think there's any good evidence either way.

basejumping 8y ago

140 comments and almost none about why children aren't behaving and what to do about it. Just like the article

Fukkaudeku 8y ago

Because the generation that gets all high and mighty about their childhood being more fun and outside (i.e. Gen Xers) are now the ones that are raising the next generation of children to be safe and are also complaining about it.

outsidetheparty 8y ago

> asks why so many kids today are having trouble managing their behavior and emotions. ...For starters, is there evidence that this is actually a thing? Once it gets down to the details it sounds like Generic Parenting Advice From Any Point In The Last 50 Years: don't use bribes, make consequences clear, give kids some control but not too much, when you're overwhelmed walk away... but the initial premise is a pretty big one to just throw out there unsupported.

adanto6840 8y ago

20 years ago, my father attributed the general "change in children" to the widespread availability & use of household air-conditioning. Granted this won't be true throughout all climates, but I recall thinking it had a lot of merit at the time and I continue to think so today. My father would tell me that, when he was a kid, they'd either sit at home in a 90F+ house on Long Island with the windows open -- miserable, as I can attest from living it when we'd visit as a kid -- or they'd go outside and play "stick ball" in the same weather with their friends. For them, it was an easy choice. Today, children either play on their devices at home (often interacting with 'friends' online) or they go to the home of their friend and, likewise, they often play indoors. I truly believe that the climate-controlled dwellings of today are a large part of the reason; I know that personally I'd generally far prefer to be indoors in my climate-controlled 72F dwelling versus outdoors riding a bike or similar and I'd imagine the same, unfortunately but not surprisingly, holds true for children as well. As a fairly new parent with another on the way, I'm not sure to what extent we'll try to combat this; as a child myself "screen time" was often a point of contention though in my case it was also the early start of my career.

known 8y ago

Parents should teach kids to appreciate diversity and accommodate adversity

lurquer 8y ago

Most children are raised with single parents. That implies daycare and possession schedules. Both have the potential to drastically screw up a kid. (Imagine being bounced back and forth between two homes throughout the month. It would drive you mad.) Strange that he article doesn't mention it. The utter lack of stable and consistent housing for children (due to possession schedules) is perhaps the biggest societal 'experiment' ever run.

fibbery 8y ago
"The Majority of Children Live With Two Parents, Census Bureau Reports" https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2016/cb16-192.html https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2016/cb16-192...
- lurquer 8y ago
  I'd be interested in seeing how 'parent' is defined. Does it include step-parent?