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This is terrible "magic thinking" advice. Kids are VERY counterintuitive (mine at least). Our kid has had behavioral problems at school and at home. And it's e

by d--b 3y ago

This is terrible "magic thinking" advice. Kids are VERY counterintuitive (mine at least). Our kid has had behavioral problems at school and at home. And it's extremely difficult to understand the root of the issues (it turns out that the pandemic, moving houses, starting school and having a baby brother all at once can be a bit much for a 3 year old). Literally EVERYONE who is not a professional told us to smack our kid into submission. But by reading stuff and talking to professionals, you learn that some kids do have weird ways of expressing their emotions, and that acknowledging that and supporting them works. You have to completely turn the way you speak to them around. It's really hard to do cause nobody wants to confort a kid who's annoying, but it works. None of the stuff I do with my kids would have been possible had I not learnt it as an adult. Stop the magic thinking. Read about children, they're weird and wonderfully different.

pastage 3y ago
> smack our kid into submission What does this mean? I never talk child care in any significant way on the net, so I feel there are way to many ways too misinterpret this. Even the nice interpretation of this would border on illegal here. (FWIW I think I agree with you on all accounts and I have had it easy)
- kodah 3y ago
  Beatings. I'm in my 30s and I was beat as a kid. You'd be surprised how legal and still often recommended it is, especially with neurodivergent young boys. One of the founders of the DevOps movement once gave a talk on Dallas where he described striking a young boy who had hit his daughter because he thought especially young white boys need to learn consequences.
  - gabereiser 3y ago
    Especially in neurodivergent young boys, for sure. Speaking from experience.
    - roflyear 3y ago
      Getting hit as a kid didn't teach me anything positive.
      - lxxxvi 3y ago
        If hitting kids did anything positive, we'd be living in the worst not the best time to be alive.
        roflyear 3y ago
        What?
- d--b 3y ago
  I am in France, where hitting kids has become illegal only in 2019. There is a practice we call fessee which consists of slapping the butt of your kid, which sort of hurts but fades quickly. It’s been around forever here and when I was a kid in the 80s was the ultimate threat (our fathers got the “martinet” which is small whip). Anyways, although illegal, hurting your kid is a very common practice around here. On that subject: humiliation in school by teachers has been prohibited since 1953, and is still common here too. In the first school my kid went to, there was a board on the wall in the hallway where they would write the name of bad boys to public-shame them.
  - hotpotamus 3y ago
    In the US it's called spanking, and would be carried out manually, via a belt (using the buckle if you're a true sociopath), a "switch" - a small, whiplike sapling or tree branch, or a paddle which looks like a small cricket bat. When I was in primary school in the 90's, it was technically still allowed by the state, and was threated by teachers, but I don't believe it was ever actually done, and I believe is illegal now. That said, this entire thread is a shitshow and further convinces me that no one has any idea what they're doing or probably even any coherent idea of why they're raising children in the first place or what they want for those children, and reinforces my decision to opt-out of the whole idea.
    - fifticon 3y ago
      Also, car battery jumper cables are a timeless favorite for this purpose.
    - brazzy 3y ago
      > When I was in primary school in the 90's, it was technically still allowed by the state, and was threated by teachers, but I don't believe it was ever actually done, and I believe is illegal now. In the US? Of course not. Still allowed and in fact being done: https://theconversation.com/video-shows-students-still-get-paddled-in-us-schools-160592 https://theconversation.com/video-shows-students-still-get-p...
    - flippinburgers 3y ago
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
  >> smack our kid into submission > What does this mean? It only has one possible meaning: beat your child until they comply. A large percentage of parents have no other response. If they don't use physical violence they may use verbal or psychological violence instead. People have a biological urge to reproduce which they're happy to indulge but are often unprepared for the challenges of raising children. Exasperation and exhaustion make shouting at or striking your child an attractive strategy. Note that this is different to (effective) discipline in that these responses are often arbitrary and unpredictable, leading to anxious and depressed children.
  - recursive 3y ago
    > often unprepared for the challenges of raising children I don't think there's any way to really understand what raising a child entails until you've done it.
- fifticon 3y ago
  I don't think this was intended as "physically hitting". The intent was "ignore what the kid is requesting, and communicate to them 'no you don't want that, it is wrong to want that'". One way to do that would of course be to "hit", but the idea is about insisting that 'your view is right', and ignoring/not acknowledging the need the child is trying to communicate. My point being, this can do almost as much damage, even if you are not 'hitting'. Source: Am parent, was child. It is hard living some problem, and then experiencing that the people who are in charge of taking care of you, consistently communicate "No, there is just something wrong with you, you don't want that/that isn't really a problem".
  - brazzy 3y ago
    > I don't think this was intended as "physically hitting". I am very sure it was. In many parts of the world (including the USA) that is still completely accepted and normal.
  - zarzavat 3y ago
    FYI “smack” is British English for American English “spank” and they are just about synonymous, modulo cultural differences on what kind of smacking/spanking is acceptable.
goodpoint 3y ago
> Literally EVERYONE who is not a professional told us to smack our kid Respectfully, if that's true I urge you to find a new social circle.
- roflyear 3y ago
  Right? Kids are different, but honestly not that different from adults. Just more impressionable, because they are learning the world. And of course less knowledgeable and developed by definition. But they work a lot of the same ways. Would you make it practice to hit adults??? No? Why are you teaching kids that this is what happens? It makes no sense.
  - hackinthebochs 3y ago
    Of course it makes sense. Pain is the universal teacher. It's why every organism that can move under its own power experiences pain. We are extremely good at learning pain avoidance. We even used to hit adults (and far worse) to get them to behave. So yes, of course it makes sense. Whether it results in positive outcomes is the only legitimate question.
  - blharr 3y ago
    For many of these people, yes. They would absolutely make it practice to hit adults.
- rib3ye 3y ago
  They may be referring to close family members. These are the people mostly likely to offer unsolicited parenting advice in my experience.
  - TheNewsIsHere 3y ago
    That and (though I’m not speaking on behalf of OP) social media destinations like Facebook, where most of us are likely to have had “friends” we haven’t seen since high school and will never see again in person. The people in my family who smacked their kids aren’t professionals. Plenty of professionals hit their kids though.

by d--b 3y ago

pastage 3y ago

> smack our kid into submission What does this mean? I never talk child care in any significant way on the net, so I feel there are way to many ways too misinterpret this. Even the nice interpretation of this would border on illegal here. (FWIW I think I agree with you on all accounts and I have had it easy)

kodah 3y ago
Beatings. I'm in my 30s and I was beat as a kid. You'd be surprised how legal and still often recommended it is, especially with neurodivergent young boys. One of the founders of the DevOps movement once gave a talk on Dallas where he described striking a young boy who had hit his daughter because he thought especially young white boys need to learn consequences.
- gabereiser 3y ago
  Especially in neurodivergent young boys, for sure. Speaking from experience.
  - roflyear 3y ago
    Getting hit as a kid didn't teach me anything positive.
    - lxxxvi 3y ago
      If hitting kids did anything positive, we'd be living in the worst not the best time to be alive.
      - roflyear 3y ago
        What?
d--b 3y ago
I am in France, where hitting kids has become illegal only in 2019. There is a practice we call fessee which consists of slapping the butt of your kid, which sort of hurts but fades quickly. It’s been around forever here and when I was a kid in the 80s was the ultimate threat (our fathers got the “martinet” which is small whip). Anyways, although illegal, hurting your kid is a very common practice around here. On that subject: humiliation in school by teachers has been prohibited since 1953, and is still common here too. In the first school my kid went to, there was a board on the wall in the hallway where they would write the name of bad boys to public-shame them.
- hotpotamus 3y ago
  In the US it's called spanking, and would be carried out manually, via a belt (using the buckle if you're a true sociopath), a "switch" - a small, whiplike sapling or tree branch, or a paddle which looks like a small cricket bat. When I was in primary school in the 90's, it was technically still allowed by the state, and was threated by teachers, but I don't believe it was ever actually done, and I believe is illegal now. That said, this entire thread is a shitshow and further convinces me that no one has any idea what they're doing or probably even any coherent idea of why they're raising children in the first place or what they want for those children, and reinforces my decision to opt-out of the whole idea.
  - fifticon 3y ago
    Also, car battery jumper cables are a timeless favorite for this purpose.
  - brazzy 3y ago
    > When I was in primary school in the 90's, it was technically still allowed by the state, and was threated by teachers, but I don't believe it was ever actually done, and I believe is illegal now. In the US? Of course not. Still allowed and in fact being done: https://theconversation.com/video-shows-students-still-get-paddled-in-us-schools-160592 https://theconversation.com/video-shows-students-still-get-p...
  - flippinburgers 3y ago
dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
>> smack our kid into submission > What does this mean? It only has one possible meaning: beat your child until they comply. A large percentage of parents have no other response. If they don't use physical violence they may use verbal or psychological violence instead. People have a biological urge to reproduce which they're happy to indulge but are often unprepared for the challenges of raising children. Exasperation and exhaustion make shouting at or striking your child an attractive strategy. Note that this is different to (effective) discipline in that these responses are often arbitrary and unpredictable, leading to anxious and depressed children.
- recursive 3y ago
  > often unprepared for the challenges of raising children I don't think there's any way to really understand what raising a child entails until you've done it.
fifticon 3y ago
I don't think this was intended as "physically hitting". The intent was "ignore what the kid is requesting, and communicate to them 'no you don't want that, it is wrong to want that'". One way to do that would of course be to "hit", but the idea is about insisting that 'your view is right', and ignoring/not acknowledging the need the child is trying to communicate. My point being, this can do almost as much damage, even if you are not 'hitting'. Source: Am parent, was child. It is hard living some problem, and then experiencing that the people who are in charge of taking care of you, consistently communicate "No, there is just something wrong with you, you don't want that/that isn't really a problem".
- brazzy 3y ago
  > I don't think this was intended as "physically hitting". I am very sure it was. In many parts of the world (including the USA) that is still completely accepted and normal.
- zarzavat 3y ago
  FYI “smack” is British English for American English “spank” and they are just about synonymous, modulo cultural differences on what kind of smacking/spanking is acceptable.

goodpoint 3y ago

> Literally EVERYONE who is not a professional told us to smack our kid Respectfully, if that's true I urge you to find a new social circle.

roflyear 3y ago
Right? Kids are different, but honestly not that different from adults. Just more impressionable, because they are learning the world. And of course less knowledgeable and developed by definition. But they work a lot of the same ways. Would you make it practice to hit adults??? No? Why are you teaching kids that this is what happens? It makes no sense.
- hackinthebochs 3y ago
  Of course it makes sense. Pain is the universal teacher. It's why every organism that can move under its own power experiences pain. We are extremely good at learning pain avoidance. We even used to hit adults (and far worse) to get them to behave. So yes, of course it makes sense. Whether it results in positive outcomes is the only legitimate question.
- blharr 3y ago
  For many of these people, yes. They would absolutely make it practice to hit adults.
rib3ye 3y ago
They may be referring to close family members. These are the people mostly likely to offer unsolicited parenting advice in my experience.
- TheNewsIsHere 3y ago
  That and (though I’m not speaking on behalf of OP) social media destinations like Facebook, where most of us are likely to have had “friends” we haven’t seen since high school and will never see again in person. The people in my family who smacked their kids aren’t professionals. Plenty of professionals hit their kids though.