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The author writes, > I was reckless, taking my mom’s car out for joy rides without permission, skipping class That may be after 16 years of doing outrageous t

The author writes, > I was reckless, taking my mom’s car out for joy rides without permission, skipping class That may be after 16 years of doing outrageous things to get attention at home. Some psychologists in the 1950s [1] suggested kids will do whatever gets them attention while striving for a way to participate in the family. That can include bad behavior. If they don't receive attention for good behavior, then they can gradually find their way towards things that will definitely get attention, like getting into mom's makeup, throwing around food or dirty diapers or whatever. Today, many psychologists suggest using positive discipline [2] to reinforce good behavior while weaning bad behaviors. Often a family might have one "good" kid who excels in school while another struggles. Why is that? Aforementioned psychologists suggest it is because each kid finds a way to "stand out" in their family, and families who dote on the good child may reinforce the chosen behavior of both children. In your case, maybe your family did effectively use positive discipline, or you were an only child, or you were the "good" one in your family. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Dreikurs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Dreikurs [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_discipline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_discipline

thrashh 5y ago
One thing I’ve learned at this point is that almost l no kid or adult is actually irrational. If someone seems irrational, it’s because their shoes are so different from any that you’ve been in. You simply have never experienced anything like their life (because if you did, you’d be like them). And you can’t actually ask someone to explain their own behavior because everyone only lives one life and they rarely know in what way their shoes are different from someone else’s.
- unityByFreedom 5y ago
  > you can’t actually ask someone to explain their own behavior Yeah I think that's best done with a therapist who will take time to guide someone through their past. Asking a kid why they acted out, or an adult why they did something crazy, is almost rhetorical. They're not going to know the answer without a deep dive into how they grew up.
  - noduerme 5y ago
    OTOH it's a little shocking if you actually ask people and get them to think about it. Like, my friend's 8 year old kid was always hitting his 6 year old sister, so [my friend, the mom] would hit him and punish him when he did it. I said did you ever ask him what he thought his sister felt when he did that to her? So next time he hit his sister, my friend sat him down and said "What do you think that felt like to her, being hit by her older brother?" And didn't let it go, she demanded an answer. The boy was dead silent for about a minute and then buckled and apologized, and apparently hasn't hit his sister since then. The mom thanked me when I saw her and says she never would have thought of that approach. Far be it from my childless ass to give parenting advice. She's a very, very smart woman. But I think we too often think of self-reflection as some kind of adult thing we can't do on our own, or need deep therapy for, when sometimes someone just holding up a mirror to you can do it in an instant.
    - unityByFreedom 5y ago
      That was nice of you to ask him to reflect. Some psychologists suggest that kids fight because they subconsciously know it gets their parents' attention. So when a parent breaks up fights it can unintentionally reinforce that behavior.
- noduerme 5y ago
  This goes along with my own observation that when someone you just met says "I'm a really fucked up person," you should believe them no matter how attractive they are.
  - DiggyJohnson 5y ago
    This inspired me to stop saying this as a joke lol
    - noduerme 5y ago
      Heh. Yeah, avoid it. One girl who said that to me killed herself by hanging a couple years later with an electrical cord in the backyard of a rehab facility. And the girl after her who said something similar is in rehab now. Ain't no joke. I think when people say that jokingly, they know something I don't. I appreciated the honesty I thought they were giving me, but I was too young to realize how seriously they meant it. I don't even know if they thought they were being serious. But they knew. I'm a dude who thinks about intentionally walking into propellers or windmills to take my face off, and turn into a fine red mist. So it's not totally weird I'd date women with suicidal tendencies. But yeah, if you say that kind of shit out loud, it's usually coming from somewhere true. I'm a pretty fucked up person. I'm trying with all my strength not to be one, to the people who matter to me and the people who count on me. But recognizing the dark ones so they don't fuck with you is essential to survival.
- kayodelycaon 5y ago
  I’m probably a rare person because I can and do understand other people and myself to the level they aren’t foreign to me. What I’ve noticed is all humans seem to operate on the same frameworks. It’s just filtered through their nature and experiences. Mental illness is just another filter. Maybe it’s because my bipolar brain has a lot of hard, untreated mileage in it. I’ve experienced so many emotional and mental states that there is little I find difficult to relate to.
- treis 5y ago
  >If someone seems irrational, it’s because their shoes are so different from any that you’ve been in. You simply have never experienced anything like their life (because if you did, you’d be like them). I disagree with this. As an example, a video came out the other day of a Chicago Transit Authority employee getting into an altercation with some guy. "Some guy" pushed him to the ground and walked away. The employee very slowly (he was quite obese) rose to his feet, pulled a gun, walked after the guy, and then shot 14 times hitting him 3 times. In short, he murdered the guy on video in the middle of a crowded station. There's no way that's not irrational behavior.
  - unityByFreedom 5y ago
    I think the parent commenter is suggesting that employee may have experienced some past trauma before that event. None of that excuses the behavior, nor does it excuse them from the consequences. Also, I would not call it "rational". I think that comment is just saying the hate could come from some past incident, and that it can be helpful for society to know the roots of violent behavior.
  - thrashh 5y ago
    You can be 100% rational but 100% wrong. A computer is 100% rational but whether the output is right or wrong depends entirely on its input. I make this distinction because if you want to change someone's mind or behavior, assuming that they are irrational is a non-starter. You won't make any progress. Once you get past that, you realize that they are actually being rational and that there are deeper obstacles that need attention.
    - treis 5y ago
      >You can be 100% rational but 100% wrong. A computer is 100% rational but whether the output is right or wrong depends entirely on its input. Yes, but people are not computers. They are, at times, driven by emotion and impulse.
  - legacynl 5y ago
    > I disagree with this. As an example, a video came out the other day of a Chicago Transit Authority employee getting into an altercation with some guy. "Some guy" pushed him to the ground and walked away. The employee very slowly (he was quite obese) rose to his feet, pulled a gun, walked after the guy, and then shot 14 times hitting him 3 times. In short, he murdered the guy on video in the middle of a crowded station. There's no way that's not irrational behavior. "If someone seems irrational, it's because you don't understand the person" "Thats not true, because I didn't understand why somebody did something, so he must be irrational." IDK if you know what circular reasoning is, but you're suffering from it. The video in your example doesn't fully explain the situation. You don't know these people, you don't know what happened before, you don't know if they know each other, you don't know what the other guy said/etc. I personally don't know what the circumstances are, but I do at least admit, that in the infinite amount of possible circumstances there are at least a couple which allow for a sane/rational person to shoot somebody in broad daylight. > There's no way that's not irrational behavior. There's a book called 'Thinking fast & slow' that talks about questions like these. "Is someone's behavior rational?", is a very hard question to answer for your brain, unanswerable even. Still your brain quickly comes up with an answer: 'it's irrational', disregarding the fact that this by itself might arguably be irrational, how does the brain do this? What is this answer based on exactly? To answer hard questions quickly like that, your brain has a trick: it doesn't actually answer THAT question, but secretly gives the answer to a different question, that merely looks a lot like the original question. In this case, I suspect your brain is actually answering: "If I had an altercation on a crowded station, and somebody pushes me to the ground, WOULD I slowly get up, draw a gun, and shoot the guy 14 times?" The answer is no, so the 'answer' to the question is this guy being rational is also 'no'. So basically your brain is transplanting your own experience, your own set of learned behavior, yourself, into the situation that you saw in the video, and then decides: "Well, I wouldn't do that, so conclusion: this guy is crazy". But ofcourse out of all the possible upbringings, experiences, lifes you could have, you only have 1. So you will never truly know how it is to be someone else. The only way to know if the shooter in your video was rational or not, is to ask why he did it.
wolverine876 5y ago
IIRC a tenet of developmental psychology that the worst thing for children is neglect - it's worse than abuse (and that isn't downplaying abuse in any way), because the abused child is getting attention. Children are absolutely dependent on their parents for survival (literally, food, water, shelter, protection, safety), for understanding the world, for learning. Neglect, the absence of parenting, is terrifying.
- unityByFreedom 5y ago
  A toddler can get your attention by breaking something if you neglect them. Physical abuse of a toddler is far worse and teaches them to internalize, rather than express, their emotions.
- selfhifive 5y ago
  I was neglected and it has made things difficult for me. I learnt how to smile by practicing with a mirror and have no reference point for what a genuine relationship is. Never been hugged and still am terrified of getting touched affectionately. Anti-social and feel lightyears behind my peers in social aptitude. Don't know how to respond to affection and tenderness and have responded with angry outbursts in the past. It's a hole that takes some getting out of.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    It's heartbreaking to here, and to think of, including imaginging the child. FWIW, from some random person on the Internet with no expertise, and without knowing you at all ... one of the best things I've learned is to start with the relationship with yourself. Have compassion for and love yourself (in a healthy, not a narcisisstic way). That's a relationship you always will have, no matter what happens outside, and as it grows you can extend that love to others. Maybe that's helpful (and maybe you've already heard that!).
paganel 5y ago
> taking my mom’s car out for joy rides without permission, skipping class Those are all just "things that kids do", or they used to be some years ago, pretty sad that "skipping classes" has transformed into a "reckless" thing that risks getting you, as a kid, quasi-institutionalised.
- dillondoyle 5y ago
  That was my reaction too. Especially if joy rides means a licensed kid taking the car without permission.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  It's not to be normalised though. I sorta-knew a kid like that (he ended up living at his grandma across from our street after his family fell apart due to marital reasons); he was also mid teens or so and went joyriding in her car. Which nobody would probably find out or care about, but he ended up parking it against a tree if you catch my drift. He was unharmed thankfully, but it could have ended badly. It might be "things that kids do", but it shouldn't be normalized or tolerated. Especially children, there's a lot of things that, until they can understand themselves, they need to be Told. How many things did you (dear reader) do growing up that, in hindsight, you think "wow that was stupid / reckless / I could've died"?
  - paganel 5y ago
    I agree, but there's a difference between "needing to be told" and "institutionalising your kid" because of it.
noduerme 5y ago
>> maybe your family did effectively use positive discipline, or you were an only child, or you were the "good" one in your family. You omit the many sadly common cases for legitimate rebellion and escape, such as sexual abuse from stepparents or foster parents. Those unfortunately can't be remedied with "positive discipline" and they don't make a child the "bad" one.
- unityByFreedom 5y ago
  Right because neither the OP nor the parent comment gave any hint they had been abused. There's no question that abuse is harmful. One of the tenets of "positive discipline" is that disagreement and rebellion are expected. By accepting such behavior, a trained therapist may earn a child's trust. And, that can be helpful to a school or therapist to discover if abuse is occurring. That said, if you know a kid hasn't experienced abuse, you might wonder whether or not they receive any attention for doing good things. They may be acting out more because that's what got them attention. What constitutes "acting out" is very personal for each family and individual.
- DiggyJohnson 5y ago
  Are you extending the conversation on purpose? Sexual abuse and trauma don’t seem to weigh into this story at all.
  - noduerme 5y ago
    No, often the reasons why kids act out in ways that adults don't understand is that those kids have suffered abuse. A kid who's been abused may end up being violent, suicidal, addicted to drugs or all the above. The schools and parents may not know about the abuse, so their answer is to use extreme discipline. This just makes things worse. I brought it up because it is usually an underlying reason for kids doing crazy shit because they don't give a fuck anymore. It's not always the reason, but it's way more often than most people realize. You think your kid hasn't been molested. There's a good chance he has. 43% of men report having been sexually assaulted or harassed in America. Actual penetrative rape numbers are around 20% of women and 5% of men, which equates to 20M+ men in the US at a minimum [1] [1] https://www.nsvrc.org/statistics https://www.nsvrc.org/statistics
Gareth321 5y ago
>"Today, many psychologists suggest using positive discipline" From Wikipedia: >"It is based on the idea that there are no bad children, just good and bad behaviors." Given the fact that we've known for decades now that behaviour is roughly 50% nature (and 50% nurture), this foundational (implied) premise is unequivocally and demonstrably incorrect. Some children are "bad" and need to be taught not to hurt others. This parenting style is growing in popularity and I don't think it's a surprise that we now see an epidemic of kids with mental health problems. I recommend listening to this lecture from Jonathan Haidt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5IGyHNvr7E&t=569s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5IGyHNvr7E&t=569s Children certainly need boundaries and rules. They need corrective measures when children rebel. I think it's clear that a lack of negative punishment is leading to all kinds of negative outcomes for children.
- mxkopy 5y ago
  >This parenting style is growing in popularity and I don't think it's a surprise that we now see an epidemic of kids with mental health problems. Mmm, let's ignore the profound changes in society, as well as the life-altering technologies... Yeah, being nicer to your kids is making them fucked up.
- unityByFreedom 5y ago
  > Some children are "bad" and need to be taught not to hurt others. The title of this post is relevant. OP "obliged" because he was told he was bad. The point is to not do that. > Children certainly need boundaries and rules Rules are paramount in "Positive Disipline". From the section "Creating Rules" [1]: > In her book entitled Positive Discipline, Jane Nelsen emphasizes the importance of not only creating clear rules, but of making them fair... Positive discipline is anything but permissive parenting. The point of the statement you quoted is simply that all kids can be guided towards good behavior, because as you said, nurture and nature both contribute. > I think it's clear that a lack of negative punishment is leading to all kinds of negative outcomes for children. To each their own, but I agree with Dreikurs that natural consequences are enough to teach kids the lessons they need to learn. Forgot your lunch money? Figure it out. Maybe it's hard to convince your kid to brush their teeth because the consequences are so far in the future, but if you take a moment to explain the importance of healthy teeth, they will hear you. The idea is to build a forthright, trusting relationship with kids so they feel comfortable coming to you with the harder problems later. I'd argue that using harsher measures pushes kids away so that when they do struggle with more advanced concepts later, they feel left adrift. On the other hand, if your parents were "tough" with you and you still have a good relationship then maybe that works for you. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_discipline#Creating_rules https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_discipline#Creating_r...

thrashh 5y ago

One thing I’ve learned at this point is that almost l no kid or adult is actually irrational. If someone seems irrational, it’s because their shoes are so different from any that you’ve been in. You simply have never experienced anything like their life (because if you did, you’d be like them). And you can’t actually ask someone to explain their own behavior because everyone only lives one life and they rarely know in what way their shoes are different from someone else’s.

unityByFreedom 5y ago
> you can’t actually ask someone to explain their own behavior Yeah I think that's best done with a therapist who will take time to guide someone through their past. Asking a kid why they acted out, or an adult why they did something crazy, is almost rhetorical. They're not going to know the answer without a deep dive into how they grew up.
- noduerme 5y ago
  OTOH it's a little shocking if you actually ask people and get them to think about it. Like, my friend's 8 year old kid was always hitting his 6 year old sister, so [my friend, the mom] would hit him and punish him when he did it. I said did you ever ask him what he thought his sister felt when he did that to her? So next time he hit his sister, my friend sat him down and said "What do you think that felt like to her, being hit by her older brother?" And didn't let it go, she demanded an answer. The boy was dead silent for about a minute and then buckled and apologized, and apparently hasn't hit his sister since then. The mom thanked me when I saw her and says she never would have thought of that approach. Far be it from my childless ass to give parenting advice. She's a very, very smart woman. But I think we too often think of self-reflection as some kind of adult thing we can't do on our own, or need deep therapy for, when sometimes someone just holding up a mirror to you can do it in an instant.
  - unityByFreedom 5y ago
    That was nice of you to ask him to reflect. Some psychologists suggest that kids fight because they subconsciously know it gets their parents' attention. So when a parent breaks up fights it can unintentionally reinforce that behavior.
noduerme 5y ago
This goes along with my own observation that when someone you just met says "I'm a really fucked up person," you should believe them no matter how attractive they are.
- DiggyJohnson 5y ago
  This inspired me to stop saying this as a joke lol
  - noduerme 5y ago
    Heh. Yeah, avoid it. One girl who said that to me killed herself by hanging a couple years later with an electrical cord in the backyard of a rehab facility. And the girl after her who said something similar is in rehab now. Ain't no joke. I think when people say that jokingly, they know something I don't. I appreciated the honesty I thought they were giving me, but I was too young to realize how seriously they meant it. I don't even know if they thought they were being serious. But they knew. I'm a dude who thinks about intentionally walking into propellers or windmills to take my face off, and turn into a fine red mist. So it's not totally weird I'd date women with suicidal tendencies. But yeah, if you say that kind of shit out loud, it's usually coming from somewhere true. I'm a pretty fucked up person. I'm trying with all my strength not to be one, to the people who matter to me and the people who count on me. But recognizing the dark ones so they don't fuck with you is essential to survival.
kayodelycaon 5y ago
I’m probably a rare person because I can and do understand other people and myself to the level they aren’t foreign to me. What I’ve noticed is all humans seem to operate on the same frameworks. It’s just filtered through their nature and experiences. Mental illness is just another filter. Maybe it’s because my bipolar brain has a lot of hard, untreated mileage in it. I’ve experienced so many emotional and mental states that there is little I find difficult to relate to.
treis 5y ago
>If someone seems irrational, it’s because their shoes are so different from any that you’ve been in. You simply have never experienced anything like their life (because if you did, you’d be like them). I disagree with this. As an example, a video came out the other day of a Chicago Transit Authority employee getting into an altercation with some guy. "Some guy" pushed him to the ground and walked away. The employee very slowly (he was quite obese) rose to his feet, pulled a gun, walked after the guy, and then shot 14 times hitting him 3 times. In short, he murdered the guy on video in the middle of a crowded station. There's no way that's not irrational behavior.
- unityByFreedom 5y ago
  I think the parent commenter is suggesting that employee may have experienced some past trauma before that event. None of that excuses the behavior, nor does it excuse them from the consequences. Also, I would not call it "rational". I think that comment is just saying the hate could come from some past incident, and that it can be helpful for society to know the roots of violent behavior.
- thrashh 5y ago
  You can be 100% rational but 100% wrong. A computer is 100% rational but whether the output is right or wrong depends entirely on its input. I make this distinction because if you want to change someone's mind or behavior, assuming that they are irrational is a non-starter. You won't make any progress. Once you get past that, you realize that they are actually being rational and that there are deeper obstacles that need attention.
  - treis 5y ago
    >You can be 100% rational but 100% wrong. A computer is 100% rational but whether the output is right or wrong depends entirely on its input. Yes, but people are not computers. They are, at times, driven by emotion and impulse.
- legacynl 5y ago
  > I disagree with this. As an example, a video came out the other day of a Chicago Transit Authority employee getting into an altercation with some guy. "Some guy" pushed him to the ground and walked away. The employee very slowly (he was quite obese) rose to his feet, pulled a gun, walked after the guy, and then shot 14 times hitting him 3 times. In short, he murdered the guy on video in the middle of a crowded station. There's no way that's not irrational behavior. "If someone seems irrational, it's because you don't understand the person" "Thats not true, because I didn't understand why somebody did something, so he must be irrational." IDK if you know what circular reasoning is, but you're suffering from it. The video in your example doesn't fully explain the situation. You don't know these people, you don't know what happened before, you don't know if they know each other, you don't know what the other guy said/etc. I personally don't know what the circumstances are, but I do at least admit, that in the infinite amount of possible circumstances there are at least a couple which allow for a sane/rational person to shoot somebody in broad daylight. > There's no way that's not irrational behavior. There's a book called 'Thinking fast & slow' that talks about questions like these. "Is someone's behavior rational?", is a very hard question to answer for your brain, unanswerable even. Still your brain quickly comes up with an answer: 'it's irrational', disregarding the fact that this by itself might arguably be irrational, how does the brain do this? What is this answer based on exactly? To answer hard questions quickly like that, your brain has a trick: it doesn't actually answer THAT question, but secretly gives the answer to a different question, that merely looks a lot like the original question. In this case, I suspect your brain is actually answering: "If I had an altercation on a crowded station, and somebody pushes me to the ground, WOULD I slowly get up, draw a gun, and shoot the guy 14 times?" The answer is no, so the 'answer' to the question is this guy being rational is also 'no'. So basically your brain is transplanting your own experience, your own set of learned behavior, yourself, into the situation that you saw in the video, and then decides: "Well, I wouldn't do that, so conclusion: this guy is crazy". But ofcourse out of all the possible upbringings, experiences, lifes you could have, you only have 1. So you will never truly know how it is to be someone else. The only way to know if the shooter in your video was rational or not, is to ask why he did it.

wolverine876 5y ago

IIRC a tenet of developmental psychology that the worst thing for children is neglect - it's worse than abuse (and that isn't downplaying abuse in any way), because the abused child is getting attention. Children are absolutely dependent on their parents for survival (literally, food, water, shelter, protection, safety), for understanding the world, for learning. Neglect, the absence of parenting, is terrifying.

unityByFreedom 5y ago
A toddler can get your attention by breaking something if you neglect them. Physical abuse of a toddler is far worse and teaches them to internalize, rather than express, their emotions.
selfhifive 5y ago
I was neglected and it has made things difficult for me. I learnt how to smile by practicing with a mirror and have no reference point for what a genuine relationship is. Never been hugged and still am terrified of getting touched affectionately. Anti-social and feel lightyears behind my peers in social aptitude. Don't know how to respond to affection and tenderness and have responded with angry outbursts in the past. It's a hole that takes some getting out of.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  It's heartbreaking to here, and to think of, including imaginging the child. FWIW, from some random person on the Internet with no expertise, and without knowing you at all ... one of the best things I've learned is to start with the relationship with yourself. Have compassion for and love yourself (in a healthy, not a narcisisstic way). That's a relationship you always will have, no matter what happens outside, and as it grows you can extend that love to others. Maybe that's helpful (and maybe you've already heard that!).

paganel 5y ago

> taking my mom’s car out for joy rides without permission, skipping class Those are all just "things that kids do", or they used to be some years ago, pretty sad that "skipping classes" has transformed into a "reckless" thing that risks getting you, as a kid, quasi-institutionalised.

dillondoyle 5y ago
That was my reaction too. Especially if joy rides means a licensed kid taking the car without permission.
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
It's not to be normalised though. I sorta-knew a kid like that (he ended up living at his grandma across from our street after his family fell apart due to marital reasons); he was also mid teens or so and went joyriding in her car. Which nobody would probably find out or care about, but he ended up parking it against a tree if you catch my drift. He was unharmed thankfully, but it could have ended badly. It might be "things that kids do", but it shouldn't be normalized or tolerated. Especially children, there's a lot of things that, until they can understand themselves, they need to be Told. How many things did you (dear reader) do growing up that, in hindsight, you think "wow that was stupid / reckless / I could've died"?
- paganel 5y ago
  I agree, but there's a difference between "needing to be told" and "institutionalising your kid" because of it.

noduerme 5y ago

>> maybe your family did effectively use positive discipline, or you were an only child, or you were the "good" one in your family. You omit the many sadly common cases for legitimate rebellion and escape, such as sexual abuse from stepparents or foster parents. Those unfortunately can't be remedied with "positive discipline" and they don't make a child the "bad" one.

unityByFreedom 5y ago
Right because neither the OP nor the parent comment gave any hint they had been abused. There's no question that abuse is harmful. One of the tenets of "positive discipline" is that disagreement and rebellion are expected. By accepting such behavior, a trained therapist may earn a child's trust. And, that can be helpful to a school or therapist to discover if abuse is occurring. That said, if you know a kid hasn't experienced abuse, you might wonder whether or not they receive any attention for doing good things. They may be acting out more because that's what got them attention. What constitutes "acting out" is very personal for each family and individual.
DiggyJohnson 5y ago
Are you extending the conversation on purpose? Sexual abuse and trauma don’t seem to weigh into this story at all.
- noduerme 5y ago
  No, often the reasons why kids act out in ways that adults don't understand is that those kids have suffered abuse. A kid who's been abused may end up being violent, suicidal, addicted to drugs or all the above. The schools and parents may not know about the abuse, so their answer is to use extreme discipline. This just makes things worse. I brought it up because it is usually an underlying reason for kids doing crazy shit because they don't give a fuck anymore. It's not always the reason, but it's way more often than most people realize. You think your kid hasn't been molested. There's a good chance he has. 43% of men report having been sexually assaulted or harassed in America. Actual penetrative rape numbers are around 20% of women and 5% of men, which equates to 20M+ men in the US at a minimum [1] [1] https://www.nsvrc.org/statistics https://www.nsvrc.org/statistics

Gareth321 5y ago

>"Today, many psychologists suggest using positive discipline" From Wikipedia: >"It is based on the idea that there are no bad children, just good and bad behaviors." Given the fact that we've known for decades now that behaviour is roughly 50% nature (and 50% nurture), this foundational (implied) premise is unequivocally and demonstrably incorrect. Some children are "bad" and need to be taught not to hurt others. This parenting style is growing in popularity and I don't think it's a surprise that we now see an epidemic of kids with mental health problems. I recommend listening to this lecture from Jonathan Haidt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5IGyHNvr7E&t=569s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5IGyHNvr7E&t=569s Children certainly need boundaries and rules. They need corrective measures when children rebel. I think it's clear that a lack of negative punishment is leading to all kinds of negative outcomes for children.

mxkopy 5y ago
>This parenting style is growing in popularity and I don't think it's a surprise that we now see an epidemic of kids with mental health problems. Mmm, let's ignore the profound changes in society, as well as the life-altering technologies... Yeah, being nicer to your kids is making them fucked up.
unityByFreedom 5y ago
> Some children are "bad" and need to be taught not to hurt others. The title of this post is relevant. OP "obliged" because he was told he was bad. The point is to not do that. > Children certainly need boundaries and rules Rules are paramount in "Positive Disipline". From the section "Creating Rules" [1]: > In her book entitled Positive Discipline, Jane Nelsen emphasizes the importance of not only creating clear rules, but of making them fair... Positive discipline is anything but permissive parenting. The point of the statement you quoted is simply that all kids can be guided towards good behavior, because as you said, nurture and nature both contribute. > I think it's clear that a lack of negative punishment is leading to all kinds of negative outcomes for children. To each their own, but I agree with Dreikurs that natural consequences are enough to teach kids the lessons they need to learn. Forgot your lunch money? Figure it out. Maybe it's hard to convince your kid to brush their teeth because the consequences are so far in the future, but if you take a moment to explain the importance of healthy teeth, they will hear you. The idea is to build a forthright, trusting relationship with kids so they feel comfortable coming to you with the harder problems later. I'd argue that using harsher measures pushes kids away so that when they do struggle with more advanced concepts later, they feel left adrift. On the other hand, if your parents were "tough" with you and you still have a good relationship then maybe that works for you. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_discipline#Creating_rules https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_discipline#Creating_r...