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> There's a pattern parents are supposed to follow now. When a child does something undesirable, you criticise the individual action. When they do something des

> There's a pattern parents are supposed to follow now. When a child does something undesirable, you criticise the individual action. When they do something desirable, you praise the overall quality. I have been seeing this advice a lot lately. I wonder whether some of the value of that you get from following this advice as a parent is that you consciously decide to minimize the impact of the fundamental attribution error (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error). Being on the receiving end of that kind of error can feel unpleasantly unfair and can hurt your relationship with the person who makes it ("when X bad thing happens to me, I was unlucky; when it happens to you, it's your fault for being unprepared").

specialist 8y ago
I missed that parenting memo. I will share a tip that seemed to work pretty good, most of the time. All negatives can be stated as a positive. For example, instead of "Don't run!" maybe say "Please walk". Takes a lot of practice. The biggest change, of course, is in me (ourselves), a shift in attitude, trying to figure out positive vs negative reinforcement.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  Not all negative actions have positive replacements. * Please don't lick your knife. * Please stop asking for X as I've already told you we can't afford it (I sometimes do offer to help them find a job though, or suggest an entrepreneurial idea; depends if it's a short term demand or a long-term or capital item.) You could create a dummy action (distraction/redirection), which I see often -- it seems needlessly passive to me. One could say "please take care with your knife" but that assumes the child knows what "care" means which is often a bad assumption with a child. One could also give the child a rubbish knife to remove the risk (I'd rather they have usable tools). With commands like "don't run" by using the more passive "please walk" one is limiting unnecessarily. "Please skip, or jog, or walk, crawl, roll, sidle, shuffle, hop, shimmy, or ..." sometimes it's better to be direct (but maybe not always). FWIW, you're getting your psych terminology mixed up AFAICT: "Please walk!" is a negative reinforcement, it's an admonishment to increase an action. "Thank you for walking" would be a positive reinforcement (only if they're already walking). In contrast "Don't run!" is a positive punishment, an admonishment to reduce an action. For completeness, a negative punishment would be taking away something to reduce an activity, maybe stopping smiling at a child when they misbehave. I do agree it's good to reinforce desirable behaviour. One of the things that's difficult about being poor is finding no-cost pleasant stimulii for reinforcement. One can easily use food, which I think is possibly one of the factors in the obesity crisis.
  - gota 8y ago
    Well, its hard to give positive reinforcement right at the instant where bad behavior is happening. I think what he meant was something like * You were behaving really well ("like a grown up", which some kids love) when you were using your knife to cut the food only before I see how this might take some practice to do on a regular basis. I think it should be easier if the positive/negative feedback is verbal only (that's good/that's bad and not much more), which relates to your point about no-cost reinforcement
- mherdeg 8y ago
  Yeah I read a similar piece of advice recently to the effect "toddlers hear a lot of No. Limit the No and when possible offer them a qualified yes instead." Something like: * Can I eat another banana? * After we go for a walk, you can eat another banana. Apparently another important part of the parenting process is consistency -- if you promise "after X, we will Y" you should do it or explain why not / what changed.
  - jeffdavis 8y ago
    I think promises to children should generally be rare and meaningful, not just thrown around. The conditions always change with children. If you already promise ice cream and then the kids start behaving badly, what can you do? You either get into threatening mode ("no ice cream for you then!") or break your promise or you put up with it. Furthermore the kids don't even enjoy it unless it's unexpected. As soon as they feel entitled to the ice cream, they are more likely to argue about who has more than to just smile and eat it.
    - xorcist 8y ago
      I have anecdotally found this true as well. Toddlers and small children have a terrible working memory. It really is what's limiting their ability to count, speak coherently etc. Promises often needs to be repeated to stick. Therefore they need to be made meaningful. Making promises about a banana when working memory have purged that information five minutes later just makes promising stuff pretty empty (for really small children, that is).
fjsolwmv 8y ago
Right. Are you really sure your kid is a rotten person, or would you rather assume that they are a good kid who made a fixable mistake?
- beobab 8y ago
  Pretty sure I'd go with option 2 for all my children. :)

specialist 8y ago

I missed that parenting memo. I will share a tip that seemed to work pretty good, most of the time. All negatives can be stated as a positive. For example, instead of "Don't run!" maybe say "Please walk". Takes a lot of practice. The biggest change, of course, is in me (ourselves), a shift in attitude, trying to figure out positive vs negative reinforcement.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago
Not all negative actions have positive replacements. * Please don't lick your knife. * Please stop asking for X as I've already told you we can't afford it (I sometimes do offer to help them find a job though, or suggest an entrepreneurial idea; depends if it's a short term demand or a long-term or capital item.) You could create a dummy action (distraction/redirection), which I see often -- it seems needlessly passive to me. One could say "please take care with your knife" but that assumes the child knows what "care" means which is often a bad assumption with a child. One could also give the child a rubbish knife to remove the risk (I'd rather they have usable tools). With commands like "don't run" by using the more passive "please walk" one is limiting unnecessarily. "Please skip, or jog, or walk, crawl, roll, sidle, shuffle, hop, shimmy, or ..." sometimes it's better to be direct (but maybe not always). FWIW, you're getting your psych terminology mixed up AFAICT: "Please walk!" is a negative reinforcement, it's an admonishment to increase an action. "Thank you for walking" would be a positive reinforcement (only if they're already walking). In contrast "Don't run!" is a positive punishment, an admonishment to reduce an action. For completeness, a negative punishment would be taking away something to reduce an activity, maybe stopping smiling at a child when they misbehave. I do agree it's good to reinforce desirable behaviour. One of the things that's difficult about being poor is finding no-cost pleasant stimulii for reinforcement. One can easily use food, which I think is possibly one of the factors in the obesity crisis.
- gota 8y ago
  Well, its hard to give positive reinforcement right at the instant where bad behavior is happening. I think what he meant was something like * You were behaving really well ("like a grown up", which some kids love) when you were using your knife to cut the food only before I see how this might take some practice to do on a regular basis. I think it should be easier if the positive/negative feedback is verbal only (that's good/that's bad and not much more), which relates to your point about no-cost reinforcement
mherdeg 8y ago
Yeah I read a similar piece of advice recently to the effect "toddlers hear a lot of No. Limit the No and when possible offer them a qualified yes instead." Something like: * Can I eat another banana? * After we go for a walk, you can eat another banana. Apparently another important part of the parenting process is consistency -- if you promise "after X, we will Y" you should do it or explain why not / what changed.
- jeffdavis 8y ago
  I think promises to children should generally be rare and meaningful, not just thrown around. The conditions always change with children. If you already promise ice cream and then the kids start behaving badly, what can you do? You either get into threatening mode ("no ice cream for you then!") or break your promise or you put up with it. Furthermore the kids don't even enjoy it unless it's unexpected. As soon as they feel entitled to the ice cream, they are more likely to argue about who has more than to just smile and eat it.
  - xorcist 8y ago
    I have anecdotally found this true as well. Toddlers and small children have a terrible working memory. It really is what's limiting their ability to count, speak coherently etc. Promises often needs to be repeated to stick. Therefore they need to be made meaningful. Making promises about a banana when working memory have purged that information five minutes later just makes promising stuff pretty empty (for really small children, that is).

fjsolwmv 8y ago

Right. Are you really sure your kid is a rotten person, or would you rather assume that they are a good kid who made a fixable mistake?

beobab 8y ago
Pretty sure I'd go with option 2 for all my children. :)