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An excellent read, but my only doubt is whether this is effective because all your peers have been raised this way. Ie - If someone raises his/her child like t

An excellent read, but my only doubt is whether this is effective because all your peers have been raised this way. Ie - If someone raises his/her child like this in our western society it might be conflicting for the child to learn how to behave like this at home, and then spend the majority of their time at school where other children behave completely differently. I certainly recall being raised to never answer back to your adults. And then I saw other kids answering back to their parents (and getting away with it) and then all that upbringing went out the window.

tootie 8y ago
This is probably the entire crux of their parenting style. Kids take social cues from their peers, not their parents.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > Kids take social cues from their peers, not their parents Which makes our current system of isolating children by age group and then leaving them virtually un-attended look somewhat insane.
  - organsnyder 8y ago
    I've been amazed at how well my kids' teachers establish social norms in their classrooms, early in the school year. A single adult can be very effective at establishing an environment that promotes positive social interaction and behavior.
    - gowld 8y ago
      It takes a heroic person to achieve that in such an unnatural environment as a single-age classroom.
- jimmy1 8y ago
  I am not sure if this isolated anecdata or not, but I watched my daughter absolutely flourish when we put her in daycare. She barely could sit up on her own when we put her in. There were some "older kids" in the class that could stand and move around while holding on to the rail. By the next week or two, she was sitting up, and attempting to stand by pulling her self up. I am convinced it is because she watched the other little ones doing it constantly. If she stayed home all day with us, I am not sure where she would have learned this from.
  - folkrav 8y ago
    My boy just started spending some time with the older group in the last two weeks so the actual group change in a week is not too brutal. He went from being a bit lazy and not really trying to walk (he did stand up by holding on to things, and shuffled sideways) nor really say actual words, to trying to say a couple new words, standing up in place and trotting around the house all the time. I did 2 years in elementary teaching back in uni, one thing that stuck to my mind is that imitation is one of the main learning strategies in childhood, up to high school age where discovering their own individuality takes over a bit.
  - zoomablemind 8y ago
    I can assure you, should your baby daughter have stayed to grow at home, you'd have seen this same development. It comes from a natural drive to explore that all babies have. It's a constant adaptation to the environment, to parents, to new body, new everything. As for the daycare factor, you could sure think of an equivalent 'beam' in your home. That could've been a chair, a something 'interesting' higher up, say, mommy's voice coming from above - anything! Babies find the ways. Unless the home environment is devoid of attractions and baby is confined to safety of an infinite carpeted floor surrounded by soundproof glass. That's a sci-fi kind.
    - mixmastamyk 8y ago
      True, however it’s likely that exposure to older children helped accelerate things a bit, through imitation.
- mattdeboard 8y ago
  Kids do take social cues from their parents.
  - CodeCube 8y ago
    In my experience (anecdata abounds in this thread :P ), everyone here is right! Kids act like their friends in school, and then once in adulthood become more like their parents than they often would like to admit ... so the stuff you teach them as you raise them gets embedded deep, and resurfaces later on (arguably when it really matters ... school is so short in the grand timescale)
    - mixmastamyk 8y ago
      Also age is a big factor, grade 2 is a lot different than 4, when kids start to be focused on being cool. My kid complained about this specifically, because it was less fun.
- castlecrasher2 8y ago
  >Kids take social cues from their peers, not their parents How do you figure? Maybe it depends on the person but every interaction I have and have had with people has been framed by the lens of my relationships with family, not my peers.
  - mattdeboard 8y ago
    It's both, and more.
  - tootie 8y ago
    I don't have all the cites handy, but I highly recommend the book NurtureShock. It's evidence-based parenting. Twin studies and adoption studies show that children's personalities are about 50% genetic and 50% from peers. Adopted children reflect very little of their parents' personalities.
throw7 8y ago
It doesn't matter what they do. It matters what you do.
- koheripbal 8y ago
  In order for them to appreciate what you do, you need to explain to them WHY you do what you do.
  - paulcole 8y ago
    Why do you need them to appreciate what you do?
koheripbal 8y ago
I once told my daughter that intelligent decisions in life are made by being dispassionate and using logic to reason the optimal course of action. My wife then snorted and said "says who?". Parenting fail :(
- quacked 8y ago
  I'm probably projecting my own experiences onto your wife, but I always get annoyed with people who hear something like "be dispassionate and try to be as logical as possible" and immediately discount it- primarily because I notice they've never tried it. I used to make a lot of emotional decisions based on my gut feelings and intuition, and it took me a great deal of work to get over that and to start thinking about the "optimal course of action" whenever I had important decisions to make. My life has drastically improved, and all of my relationships are more stable and my goals have proved to be more attainable. But when I try to preach this to people, a lot of them give the same reaction your wife did- and I get annoyed, because I observe them constantly having their feelings hurt, getting frustrated, missing their goals, and feeling stressed out, because they're operating off of anything but "optimal course of action reasoning".
  - aabeshou 8y ago
    I think the reason why this type of attitude gets mocked is that it seems robotic and condescending to emotion, as if emotion is not a real, legitimate source of information. It shouldn't be the only source of information (and maybe that's what you're getting at). But the idea that once emotion enters the picture, the discussion is no longer "rational" is stupid to me. Maybe that is a straw man.
    - quacked 8y ago
      Well, I think that emotion isn't really a legitimate source of information, primarily because it's so subjective. How many relationships dissolve because one party is connecting their experience of an emotion to the actions of the other party, but it's all a complete misunderstanding? Emotion serves as an indicator, but not as justifiable evidence or information. I still get angry, fearful, heartbroken, elated, etc. but I now spend a great deal of energy trying to make sure that I don't attach my experience of an emotion to a belief that the emotion gives me real, trustworthy information about the true state of the world. I thought a great deal about this while I was reading "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman, which I highly recommend.
bipson 8y ago
In my experience, you acquire (i.a.) your behaviors, your values, and in particular your coping mechanism to most degree from your parents (or whoever raised you). Your peers never have enough lever on you. The way kids look up to and depend on the love of their main care-giver(s) is irreplaceable. I'm not talking about superficial things, like swearing, walking, etc. It is sometimes frightening to realize how much of you is "just acquired". The way you treat people, the way you react to situations, the way you talk to your loved ones when you're angry. Once you realize there would be other ways: shocking.

tootie 8y ago

This is probably the entire crux of their parenting style. Kids take social cues from their peers, not their parents.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> Kids take social cues from their peers, not their parents Which makes our current system of isolating children by age group and then leaving them virtually un-attended look somewhat insane.
- organsnyder 8y ago
  I've been amazed at how well my kids' teachers establish social norms in their classrooms, early in the school year. A single adult can be very effective at establishing an environment that promotes positive social interaction and behavior.
  - gowld 8y ago
    It takes a heroic person to achieve that in such an unnatural environment as a single-age classroom.
jimmy1 8y ago
I am not sure if this isolated anecdata or not, but I watched my daughter absolutely flourish when we put her in daycare. She barely could sit up on her own when we put her in. There were some "older kids" in the class that could stand and move around while holding on to the rail. By the next week or two, she was sitting up, and attempting to stand by pulling her self up. I am convinced it is because she watched the other little ones doing it constantly. If she stayed home all day with us, I am not sure where she would have learned this from.
- folkrav 8y ago
  My boy just started spending some time with the older group in the last two weeks so the actual group change in a week is not too brutal. He went from being a bit lazy and not really trying to walk (he did stand up by holding on to things, and shuffled sideways) nor really say actual words, to trying to say a couple new words, standing up in place and trotting around the house all the time. I did 2 years in elementary teaching back in uni, one thing that stuck to my mind is that imitation is one of the main learning strategies in childhood, up to high school age where discovering their own individuality takes over a bit.
- zoomablemind 8y ago
  I can assure you, should your baby daughter have stayed to grow at home, you'd have seen this same development. It comes from a natural drive to explore that all babies have. It's a constant adaptation to the environment, to parents, to new body, new everything. As for the daycare factor, you could sure think of an equivalent 'beam' in your home. That could've been a chair, a something 'interesting' higher up, say, mommy's voice coming from above - anything! Babies find the ways. Unless the home environment is devoid of attractions and baby is confined to safety of an infinite carpeted floor surrounded by soundproof glass. That's a sci-fi kind.
  - mixmastamyk 8y ago
    True, however it’s likely that exposure to older children helped accelerate things a bit, through imitation.
mattdeboard 8y ago
Kids do take social cues from their parents.
- CodeCube 8y ago
  In my experience (anecdata abounds in this thread :P ), everyone here is right! Kids act like their friends in school, and then once in adulthood become more like their parents than they often would like to admit ... so the stuff you teach them as you raise them gets embedded deep, and resurfaces later on (arguably when it really matters ... school is so short in the grand timescale)
  - mixmastamyk 8y ago
    Also age is a big factor, grade 2 is a lot different than 4, when kids start to be focused on being cool. My kid complained about this specifically, because it was less fun.
castlecrasher2 8y ago
>Kids take social cues from their peers, not their parents How do you figure? Maybe it depends on the person but every interaction I have and have had with people has been framed by the lens of my relationships with family, not my peers.
- mattdeboard 8y ago
  It's both, and more.
- tootie 8y ago
  I don't have all the cites handy, but I highly recommend the book NurtureShock. It's evidence-based parenting. Twin studies and adoption studies show that children's personalities are about 50% genetic and 50% from peers. Adopted children reflect very little of their parents' personalities.

throw7 8y ago

It doesn't matter what they do. It matters what you do.

koheripbal 8y ago
In order for them to appreciate what you do, you need to explain to them WHY you do what you do.
- paulcole 8y ago
  Why do you need them to appreciate what you do?

koheripbal 8y ago

I once told my daughter that intelligent decisions in life are made by being dispassionate and using logic to reason the optimal course of action. My wife then snorted and said "says who?". Parenting fail :(

quacked 8y ago
I'm probably projecting my own experiences onto your wife, but I always get annoyed with people who hear something like "be dispassionate and try to be as logical as possible" and immediately discount it- primarily because I notice they've never tried it. I used to make a lot of emotional decisions based on my gut feelings and intuition, and it took me a great deal of work to get over that and to start thinking about the "optimal course of action" whenever I had important decisions to make. My life has drastically improved, and all of my relationships are more stable and my goals have proved to be more attainable. But when I try to preach this to people, a lot of them give the same reaction your wife did- and I get annoyed, because I observe them constantly having their feelings hurt, getting frustrated, missing their goals, and feeling stressed out, because they're operating off of anything but "optimal course of action reasoning".
- aabeshou 8y ago
  I think the reason why this type of attitude gets mocked is that it seems robotic and condescending to emotion, as if emotion is not a real, legitimate source of information. It shouldn't be the only source of information (and maybe that's what you're getting at). But the idea that once emotion enters the picture, the discussion is no longer "rational" is stupid to me. Maybe that is a straw man.
  - quacked 8y ago
    Well, I think that emotion isn't really a legitimate source of information, primarily because it's so subjective. How many relationships dissolve because one party is connecting their experience of an emotion to the actions of the other party, but it's all a complete misunderstanding? Emotion serves as an indicator, but not as justifiable evidence or information. I still get angry, fearful, heartbroken, elated, etc. but I now spend a great deal of energy trying to make sure that I don't attach my experience of an emotion to a belief that the emotion gives me real, trustworthy information about the true state of the world. I thought a great deal about this while I was reading "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman, which I highly recommend.

bipson 8y ago

In my experience, you acquire (i.a.) your behaviors, your values, and in particular your coping mechanism to most degree from your parents (or whoever raised you). Your peers never have enough lever on you. The way kids look up to and depend on the love of their main care-giver(s) is irreplaceable. I'm not talking about superficial things, like swearing, walking, etc. It is sometimes frightening to realize how much of you is "just acquired". The way you treat people, the way you react to situations, the way you talk to your loved ones when you're angry. Once you realize there would be other ways: shocking.