Parenting Bratty Kids? This Book is For You!

Barbara

Thu, Sep 16 2010, 3:36 pm

Hatemywig wrote:

I just read a couple of pages from the 'Piling On' chapter, I must admit, I'm not easily shocked or horrified, but here I truly am.

I can't figure out a way to copy-paste, so I'll briefly give my opinion, as a matter of fact, very briefly:

This method sounds almost spiteful!

Actually, it sounds abusive. A child commits a relatively minor infraction (calling his mom a *jerk* in the heat of the moment), and he recommends that the child receive a long-term, undefined punishment. Basically, mom gets to do whatever she wants to him, as long as she wants, without defining it. When I got to not only are you not going to practice, I'm sending you to bed right after dinner tonight (a week after the infraction), I stopped reading.

I want my kid to know and understand the difference between right and wrong, and to choose to do right. Not to be terrified of me, and cowering to hide any mistakes. And that's whet this promotes.

shalhevet

Thu, Sep 16 2010, 3:38 pm

Grace wrote:

Quote:

I'm very impressed that your children are natural tzaddikim and are happy to do the right thing just because it's the right thing

Is that sarcasm? erev YK? tsk tsk

I'H my children will grow up to be tzaddikim and so will yours - amen

Why do you think it's sarcasm? First I thought your avatar was a picture of one of your children.

Second, you were shocked that I thought I might have to "bribe" my children (translation: reward them) to do something good, and think

Quote:

Surely we must teach our children to do the right thing because thats the right thing and not because there will be a reward for it at the end.

So I was just impressed that you managed to impart that to your children, and you never have to reward them or punish them or reinforce good behaviour, and that you just tell your children what's the right thing to do and they do it. Want to share your secrets?

BTW, you forgot to mention how old your children are.

And most certainly I say amen to your bracha, and wish you too that your children grow up to be tzaddikim.

marina

Thu, Sep 16 2010, 3:39 pm

Quote:

That's not the Jewish view. We believe that everyone has a yetzer hara (temptation to do things that may be wrong), but that doesn't define us. It isn't the essence of our being, and our G-d-given souls, at their core, are essentially good.

Sorry, I am going to have to disagree with you here. I am pretty sure the Jewish view of children isn't roses and flowers as you describe it, a man is born like a wild donkey, etc, etc.

In my experience, children are not bad or good, those terms have very little meaning for me. They are just selfish and cute. They will do whatever suits them best and our job is to train them to squelch those insticts for the greater good.

Quote:

Among other things, avoiding negative labels. It seems like a little thing, but it has a huge impact. So, in the lying example, avoid actually calling a child a liar. Instead, say that it is important to be honest. Mom can say simply that sometimes we are tempted not to be completely honest, so if this happens she'll need to check everything until the child shows that they can be trusted resist this temptation and develop a reputation for always being honest.

His book very much emphasizes that you must speak to your children as if you have the fullest confidence that they will fully obey you. He also talks about unconditional love a lot.

I would never call my kid a liar, maybe you misunderstood. That would be like calling a kid an idiot or a freak. Verbally abusive. I did treat him like a liar, but I would never use that word. I just referred to him as someone who had broken our trusting relationship.

Last edited by marina on Thu, Sep 16 2010, 4:03 pm; edited 1 time in total

marina

Thu, Sep 16 2010, 3:47 pm

Quote:

A child commits a relatively minor infraction (calling his mom a *jerk* in the heat of the moment)

I am sorry that you think this is a minor infraction.

Compared to, say, stealing a car, this is certainly a minor infraction, but compared to the respect I expect my children to show for me even when they are upset, having a child call his mother a jerk is a huge infraction.

In my house, that would certainly warrant considerable punishment, probably grounding and a letter of apology at the very least.

Abusive? Since we are comparing, compared to what does a series of punishments seem abusive? Parents who scald their kids with hot water? Parents who beat their kids with objects?

I can agree that piling on consequences is abusive. Compared to taking the kid out for ice-cream as a reward for expressing his honest feelings and calling mommy a jerk.

marina

Thu, Sep 16 2010, 3:55 pm

Quote:

I want my kid to know and understand the difference between right and wrong, and to choose to do right. Not to be terrified of me, and cowering to hide any mistakes. And that's whet this promotes

Everyone wants their kid to know the difference between right and wrong. That is part of the job of being a parent. Another important part is teaching the child simply to obey.

Writing that sentence was difficult for me because I am REALLY not into the whole Obey Authority thing and it would actually horrify me if my children began obeying authority blindly. But teaching my kids that it's okay to challenge me and question my authority and disrespect adults would be a complete failure of my job as a parent, not to mention a huge increase in household stress.

I'll let you know when my kids become terrified of me and cower to hide mistakes. Anyone who knows my kids and family, knows that is so laughable. The other day they woke me up by putting a ferret on my face. I am sure they are on their way to being terrified of me and cowering to hide mistakes.

Last edited by marina on Thu, Sep 16 2010, 4:29 pm; edited 1 time in total

PinkFridge

Thu, Sep 16 2010, 4:29 pm

marina wrote:

Quote:

I want my kid to know and understand the difference between right and wrong, and to choose to do right. Not to be terrified of me, and cowering to hide any mistakes. And that's whet this promotes

Everyone wants their kid to know the difference between right and wrong. That is part of the job of being a parent. Another important part is teaching the child simply to obey.

Writing that sentence was difficult for me because I am REALLY not into the whole Obey Authority thing and it would actually horrify me if my children began obeying authority blindly. But teaching my kids that it's okay to challenge me and question my authority and disrespect adults would be a complete failure of my job as a parent, not to mention a huge increase in household stress.

I'll let you know when my kids become terrified of me and cower to hide mistakes. Anyone who knows my kids and family, knows that is so laughable. The other day they woke me up by putting the ferret on my face. I am sure they are on their way to being terrified of me and cowering to hide mistakes.

Is waking you up, with a ferret on your face yet verboten? Something you've told your kids, or assume they should know since they have some seichel? Just wondering how you handled this. Were there consequences? Did you laugh it off and did your kids find it consistent? Have they ever done this before?

marina

Thu, Sep 16 2010, 4:32 pm

I yelled : aaaagh, what is that, aaaaagh! And they burst out laughing.

And I said omg, why did you bring that rat in my room and they said oh, mom, it is not a rat, it is so cute. See how cute it is? See? See?

And I said, did you eat breakfast and they said yes. And I said make sure that thing doesn't poop in my room.

And that was it.

There was no punishment for waking up mommy with a ferret. Sorry to disappoint Smile

They have done this before. It is a funny thing in our house. I pretend to be afraid of animals and they pretend to scare me.

PinkFridge

Thu, Sep 16 2010, 4:39 pm

marina wrote:

They have done this before. It is a funny thing in our house. I pretend to be afraid of animals and they pretend to scare me.

No disappointment, guess I'm just seeing this as the proverbial Martian anthropologist, not one of your kids, who could make the distinctions because they know you.

Barbara

Thu, Sep 16 2010, 4:41 pm

marina wrote:

Quote:

A child commits a relatively minor infraction (calling his mom a *jerk* in the heat of the moment)

For consequences -- or even punishments -- to work, they need to be known and clear. I didn't have a problem with the initial consequence. I'd even go along with grounding for a known period of time. But its the capricious, *and your little dog too* nature of the punishment that is problematic.

When you used your example with your son, I thought the time periods were overly long to earn back trust, assuming that your son was actually acting in a manner to earn that trust. But at least he knew the consequences. Its not that, a week later, after his sister took a cookie, you said *no cookie for you because you lied last week* -- out of the blue, with no warning. Its that *there can be a new punishment, out of the blue, no warning, for an old infraction, just because Mom feels like it* that's abusive.

JRKmommy

Thu, Sep 16 2010, 4:44 pm

Re Jewish view of children:

I'm too tired and busy today to start looking up all the sources, so if someone else wants to do it, be my guest. The basics that I learned (and which resonated with me and made sense) were that we are each given a neshama (soul) from G-d, which is inherently good and which wants to connect with G-d and do the right thing. [Insert appropriate Hebrew phrases...I'm too tired.] However, we are also human. We have free will. We have a yetzer hara (evil/selfish inclination). It may feel good deep down in our souls to gize tzedakah, for example, but the immediately gratification of spending the money on ourselves may win out.

I don't like the Christian view that children are born inherently sinful, but of course children are naturally focused on their own immediate needs and need to learn delayed gratification, discipline, socialization, etc.

Marina - Of course, I know that YOU are capable of using these techniques in a reasonable way, and I wasn't trying to suggest that you would negatively label your kid. I am concerned that Rosemond uses negative labels and images to describe children based on HIS religious views. This concerns me in part because I've spent far too long arguing about spanking on places like Babycenter and being absolutely horrified by some of the things being advocated by people in the name of evangelical beliefs. It's a different headspace.

marina

Thu, Sep 16 2010, 6:07 pm

Barbara: I can agree that advance knowledge of a consequence is much more fair and I think most normal parents would certainly discipline that way.

But in real life sometimes consequences are not explained in advance and "piling on" really does happen. I am doing an internship in a juvenile justice clinic right now and all we see are kids who just smoked a little weed, just got into a fight, just skipped school... and suddenly they have a domestic violence record, a drug record, a truancy charge. They did not know that this would result in a "piling on" of consequences- not only the initial court disposition, but the mandated therapies, the difficulty finding a job, the difficulty getting into Job Corps, the difficulties with getting college loans, the problems with immigration... So no, I don't think "piling on" consequences is fair and I don't think that it would be my first choice as a parenting tactic, but it is not abusive and with some children it is simply necessary.

JRKMommy: I think anything can be misused and most certainly Rosemond's book. I really doubt, however, that anyone here on this site is going to be using this book to promote child abuse, in the real sense of the world.

Barbara

Thu, Sep 16 2010, 6:41 pm

marina wrote:

Whether or not the consequences were actually known to those kids, they were knowable, and should have been known.

The world appears to be an arbitrary and capricious place for us. Good people die, are hurt, are sick -- and we don't know why. But that doesn't mean that we should emulate that iin our discipline of our children, and that seems to be what Rosemond suggests in piling on.

ora_43

Thu, Sep 16 2010, 7:05 pm

shalhevet wrote:

Grace wrote:

Quote:

f I am pretty sure a child has lied I will assure them they won't get punished for what they did, and force them to admit it, even to the point of promising a reward for telling the truth.

To encourage good and honest behaviour via bribery shock

THAT is horrifying.
Surely we must teach our children to do the right thing because thats the right thing and not because there will be a reward for it at the end.

I'm very impressed that your children are natural tzaddikim and are happy to do the right thing just because it's the right thing. My kids are just human and need rewards (sometimes) to reinforce good behaviour.

Reinforcing good behavior with rewards is one thing. What you're describing could, for some kids, reinforce bad behavior. Because if you're a generally truthful person, you're unlikely to get a reward just for stating the truth easily and naturally like you almost always do, but if you hide the truth at first, maybe you'll get a reward. (or am I misunderstanding what you said?)

I'm not saying that rewarding kids for telling the truth teaches them to lie as a general rule, but it could have that effect for certain kids. And for some kids (like yours) it works.

And what marina describes wouldn't work for some kids, but for some (like hers) it works. Like she said, it's all about having a bigger arsenal of tactics.

Hashem_Yaazor

Thu, Sep 16 2010, 9:13 pm

I believe the proper Jewish hashkafah is NOT to question authority. We obey G-d because He said so, even if we don't understand.
Our relationship with our children is a human analogy of our relationship with avinu shebashamayim.
Teaching kids to question authority is wrong, and it does lead to mixed messages at home.
We need to obey authority even if we don't agree!
Parents, teachers, rabbinic advisors, policemen, and KV"C G-d.

JRKmommy

Thu, Sep 16 2010, 11:00 pm

Hashem_Yaazor wrote:

Really?
Blind obedience may be a value in some corner of the Jewish world. I wouldn't know, because it is so totally NOT in mine.

Yes, there is obedience to G-d, and chukim as basically "because I said so" commandments. However, even back in the Torah, we tended to have trouble with the whole obedience thing. When we did, G-d uses both punishments and rewards....but that's not all. G-d also reminds us of the existing relationship, saying in effect, "Hey, I'm the One Who Brought You Out of Egypt, so show some respect". The obedience isn't just about fear; it's about having a relationship with enough love and trust that even an illogical request is respected.

IRL, the Jews I know are far more likely to (peacefully) challenge authority than non-Jews. Growing up, blind obedience was associated with Eichmann's "just following orders" mentality. Then again, I also grew up with stories about protests and organizing subversive left-wing Jewish groups during the era of McCarthyism....

Tova

Thu, Sep 16 2010, 11:17 pm

Hashem_Yaazor wrote:

OK, thinking out loud here as my kids are young enough that I've never dealt with these issues before.

Do you really want to impart absolute authority when (in an extreme example ch"v) adults sometimes do very bad things? Or (not so extreme) let's say their Rebbe DOES handle something wrong - maybe by reprimanding the child for something he didn't do. In that situation I'd tell my child that even adults/Rebbe's etc. can make mistakes.

I don't think I agree with your first sentance. YES vis-a-vis what HASHEM tells us to do, but human beings are not perfect authority figures. Gosh I know as a parent I'll likely make a lot of mistakes. I want to be able to apologize to my kid and say "Mommy made a mistake."

---------------------------------------------

I really feel like the ikkar is to make our home a loving happy place where they see their parents enjoying LIFE and doing ratzon Hashem, and then just dealing with infractions as they come. [OK - tall tall order and this is what I hope to work on this coming year - I have some practical ideas that would work for our family.] I don't see a need to lay down the law or whatever. This evening my son was TOTALLY bothering his sister, taking toys away, taunting her, etc. and my husband just picked him up, gave him a kiss, and said "Mommy and Abba love you" and took him to the couch (as a means of separating the kids) and read him a book. Zero discipline. None was needed; he knew what he was doing was wrong. He probrably just needed some attention which he got.

anon

Fri, Sep 17 2010, 12:38 am

OK, I read the excerpt on Piling On and I was completely disturbed. It is veangeful, childish, unforgiving...and all about DEFEATING the child. At the end of the story, he was forced to admit that the punishment was fair, even though he felt it was unfair. Are a child's feelings and opinions worthless? It was almost too much to read. I stopped reading in middle of The Doctor method because it was ridiculous. I'm sorry his children had to be his guinea pigs Sad

.

I don't care how difficult a child may be. There has got to be a better solution than this horrible book. These suggestions should not be part of anyone's "toolbox".

And Marina, while I don't think I would follow your "lying" method, I did think that it was a logical consequence and not a Piling on method. The Piling On method was drastically different and downright cruel.

Please, parents, I beg of you not to use this book, it's toxic.

Btw, Marina, what do you know of Dina Friedman's course?