No Spanking, No Time-Out, No Problems - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/03/no-spanking-no-time-out-no-problems/475440/ <comment><USER2> Quoting the article:

> "Sarah, put on the green coat or the red sweater. We're going to go out, > okay?" Choice among humans increases the likelihood of compliance. And > choice isn't important, it's the appearance of choice that's important.

I've gotten this exact advice from so many articles and pop psych pieces. Maybe they are written by non-parents or their children are much easier, but it never works for me. My 4 year will always ask for a 3rd option that isn't there, or just reject the framing entirely.

I suspect much of this advice depends on your child's temperament. Tips that work for one family will not work for another, and it will even vary between kids in the same family. For me personally, having kids has resolved the nature vs nurture debate squarely in the "nature" side.

<comment><USER3> That's the problem with one-size-fits-all methods. Kids are just different and what worked for one child doesn't necessarily work for another child. Even if you do exactly the same thing.

My girlfriend used to train dogs for a living. She always said "it's the owner's fault, not the dog's". Now we have a Chihuahua who won't listen, doesn't respond to rewards, doesn't respond to punishment. She just does her own thing. My girlfriend is much more humble now. I wish a lot of these child psychologists would have to deal with a difficult child day in and day out, not just once a week. Maybe they would also lose some of the confidence in their advice.

<comment><USER4> I think some breeds are just kind of fundamentally flawed.

Were chihuahuas bred to be obedient or were they bred to be toys and possibly food?

<comment><USER3> No idea. They are very good lapdogs. Our dog is actually very nice and cute but she just doesn't learn anything. T

<comment><USER5> I have agree with you half don't, I train Australian Shepherds and I can say without a doubt that positive enforcement works better then positive punishment. I have worked with 2 Chihuahuas in my lifetime, but were little pieces of shit that don't respond to anything either way.

So I guess we should clicker train our black/brown haired fat kids and the blonde skinny ones are screwed.

Seriously though, your post makes me think about how dogs/child teaching is all in what you have and psychologist (maybe news) try to apply one method to all of them. It just doesn't work, some kids need one thing and others need something else. We live in such a crazy complex world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Let's say you have an adolescent daughter and she says to you, "Mom, you are > such a bitch. What have you ever done for me? You only think of yourself."

> The teen may be at the dinner table and just being quiet and not saying > negative things. Well, when you're starting out, one of the positive- > opposites can sometimes be reinforcing the non-occurrence of the behavior. > And you just say, "Marion, it's nice having dinner with you, it's nice that > you're here." What that does is reinforce the likelihood that Marion will be > at the dinner table and not say negative things.

So, I love this here.

Taming the 4 year old requires a psychological trick on the 4 year old. Taming the 14 year old apparently requires a psychological trick on the 40 year old.

For the teens, the psychologist's advice is literally _" Well, maybe don't be such a bitch in the first place, Mom."_

<comment><USER7> > Let's say you have an adolescent daughter and she says to you, "Mom, you are > such a bitch. What have you ever done for me? You only think of yourself."

Maybe it's because I grew up as a kid in another culture (Eastern Europe) and some time ago (I'm 36 now) but do kids nowadays really call their parents "bitch"? My parents almost never laid their hands on me (the couple of times they actually did I had deserved it) but, nevertheless, it would have been out-of-this-world for me or for any other kid to call their parents names like these. It reminds me of this Eddie Murphy sketch: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldUbxfOtjqw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldUbxfOtjqw) .

<comment><USER8> No, I'm 20 and from the US, and never would've dreamed of calling my parents a word like this. I mean never. We may of had disagreements but this was one line I would never cross.

<comment><USER9> Similar experience but I know this exists. Some people going through their teens get pretty cruel.

Definitely a minority

<comment><USER10> Sometimes, they are "cruel" in response to having been subtly (or not so subtly) treated cruelly themselves.

<comment><USER9> Definitely, I didn't mean to discount the agency of the kid. There are many more abusive households than we'd like to admit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > Tone of voice dictates whether you're going to get compliance or not. > "Sarah, put on the green coat or the red sweater. We're going to go out, > okay?" Choice among humans increases the likelihood of compliance. And > choice isn't important, it's the appearance of choice that's important. > Having real choice is not the issue, humans don't feel too strongly about > that, but having the feeling that you have a choice makes a difference.

My son has dry skin and has to have a special cream on his face before he goes to bed - normally when he's tired and terribly uncooperative.

In order to get him to allow us to put the cream on his face, we often just give him the choice of which side of the face we should start with. I don't give him the choice to have the cream or not. It works brilliantly. A friend told us that tip. Awesome.

<comment><USER12> This is also a very effective technique when brushing a toddler's teeth. "Top or bottom teeth first?"

My other tactics for routines are "Which animal should we brush teeth like tonight?", "OK, we're going to brush your ears. Teeth!? No. No, maybe your eyebrows. OK, teeth then." and "Close your eyes and I'll choose your clothes and get you dressed so it will be a surprise."

<comment><USER13> With my son, "time for a bath!", no matter how excited, yields crying. "Would you rather watch trains or buses after your bath?" yields an excited choice.

(As with all parenting advice: usually.)

<comment><USER12> If you want to avoid promising TV/iPad as a reward, good alternatives are:

"If you get in the bath, I'll go and choose a bath toy that you've never even played with before." (And then I find something random in the kitchen - ladle, colander, Tupperware, etc.)

or "If you get dressed, I'll tell you something interesting about Mercury." (Or owls, or bullet trains or anything you can come up with.)

Used the Mercury one with my 4yo, planning to tell him about the massive valley recently discovered. He shot back immediately "Dad, I already know it's really hot on one side and cold on the other side!"

If they're out of control and won't listen to reason, I often just talk somewhat quietly to them about something I know they'll find interesting, and they usually stop screaming so they can hear what it is.

<comment><USER14> > or "If you get dressed, I'll tell you something interesting about Mercury."

Gonna have to try this one - my son loves collecting facts. Thismay prove very helpful. Even if it turns out not - thanks for the idea, it's a good one.

<comment><USER12> I like that this tactic is educational and costs nothing, so you don't need to fall back to a treat. It becomes almost a form of currency within the house. My daughter is younger so in her case (for incentives or distracting her out of a tantrum) I'll talk about the neighbour's cat or birds doing things, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > Punishment might make you feel better, but it won't change the kid's > behavior. Instead, he advocates for a radical technique in which parents > positively reinforce the behavior they do want to see until the negative > behavior eventually goes away.

We adopted a puppy a little more than a year ago and this was the exact advice we were given for how to train her. Puppies and little kids are remarkably similar, and the key to training a dog is not to "punish" them when they do something wrong (they'll just get scared of you), but rather to reinforce the good behaviors, reward them when they listen, and essentially just ignore them when they don't.

In practice, after a year, this technique has worked great. Our puppy listens to us, respects us, and despite being absolutely crazy, will drop everything if she hears us call her. We didn't even need to train her to avoid eating the baby's toys since I think she understood that she received more praise when playing with "her" toys.

Our baby is only six months old so we'll have to report back in a decade as to whether this approach works well with kids too. :)

<comment><USER16> _Punishment might make you feel better, but it won't change the kid's behavior._

This claim (from the article) is nonsense. I've changed the behavior of my kids countless times with punishment.

I realize that the attitude I am supposed to take is that when someone with Ivy League credentials espouses a currently fashionable theory that my own observations contradict, I am supposed to believe the theory and not my own lying eyes or I'm "anti-intellectual". Credentials over evidence.

I'll take the risk. But I'm still interested in these theories, because I'm always looking for better ideas to try. A theory that is false overall can have useful parts. Maybe "punishment won't change behavior; reward will" is wrong, but some variation such as "lots of reward with a bit of punishment work much better than lots of punishment with a bit of reward" IS true, or is true for at least one of my kids. (But then, this weaker claim is something I already believe and it abandons the "never punish" enlightened part that was what really made it attractive to The Atlantic.)

Also, theories like these, even if not true, remind me not to overgeneralize from my own observations.

Their theory: Punishment doesn't change behavior. My observation: Yes, it does. So my theory: Punishment changes behavior. The truth: No, it doesn't. (As in, not necessarily) Me: Oops.

So, I'll keep reading and considering, but no, the basic claim of "don't punish, because it doesn't work" is wrong even if rewards also change behavior.

<comment><USER17> Punishment always changes behavior only when you're looking/enforcing. You'll never know if you police kid enough.

Is that your goal?

<comment><USER16> Replace your first word with "Reward" and re-read it.

My own observation is that both of these claims are partly true but that there is some effect that remains even when they think they are not observed. Parents often see what kids think they don't, so I have empirical evidence of this (as all parents do).

<comment><USER18> I don't buy the idea that punishment and reward are just different sides of the same coin.

Reward works well for building a healthy rapport and relationship. I don't think punishment is _entirely_ ineffective, but if it isn't rare and judicious it may well end up causing more harm than help. The problem is that the response to punishment is visible immediately while the downsides may only appear many years later.

<comment><USER19> Rewarding someone when they do what you want is just as sleazy and manipulative as punishing them when they do what you don't want. It might be the fact that a child doesn't realize that, but an adult undoubtedly (eventually) would, and be just as resentful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> While this is framed here as a "radical" technique, it's just BF Skinner's Operant Conditioning, which has been one of the foundations of behavioral psychology for nigh on 100 years.

If you're wondering if it really works, yes, it does. One of the key elements of it, especially when using it on people, is accepting that the subject is likely to execute the behavior _badly_ for the first few iterations, but you have to positively reinforce it just the same as if they'd done it perfectly if you want them to get better. If you can't manage this, and you get angry at them, you're jeopardising the whole thing.

There's a nice clip from one of Jordan Peterson's lectures here, talking about these techniques in the context of intimate relationships:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VM1UA0pCMQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VM1UA0pCMQ)

<comment><USER21> So... this is one of my pet peeves about developmental psychology.

This "punishment doesn't work" mantra is rampant in the field, and it's totally unsupported by the scientific evidence.

What _is_ true is that punishment _on its own_ is relatively ineffective, and that you need to reward desired behavior to shift it from something undesirable to something desirable.

But if you read the learning literature, it's pretty clear that the most effective way to change behavior is to punish undesired behavior and reward desired behavior.

The article is promulgating this ideological distortion of operant conditioning that's common in developmental psychology.

Maybe there are better or worse ways of implementing punishment, and the best thing is to combine it with rewards; in fact, sometimes rewards on its own will work. But the idea that punishment is ineffective is incorrect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> What I've learned about parenting:

* Your kids may grow up to act like you, so act in a way that you want your children to emulate.

* Talk to them in a way and have expecations of them that are developmentally appropriate. Use your wisdom and conscience to determine how to do this.

* Expect your children to have certain responsibilties and behave in a certain way, to start working for the familiy or for others when they become old enough (possibly to make their own money), volunteer to help others, and respect their parents, family, others, and themselves.

Beyond that, it just depends on the situation.

I've seen some bad parenting, though. It usually involves anger, psychosis, manipulation, spoiling, irrationally defending their child, drug use, etc. If you or your child is the common thread in problems, it's probable that you or your child are at fault. If you can't handle things, get outside help. And if your kid is exhibiting bad or dangerous behavior to themselves or others, get help.

</comment><comment><USER23> I couldn't read more than a paragraph of this article it's so ridiculous. The idea that positive reinforcement is a radical idea? Ridiculous. The idea that you can ignore destructive behaviour until it goes away? Ridiculous.

It's about addressing the situation. As a parent the best thing is when I get to positively reinforce my child's behaviour, because it means I've seen them do something wonderful. (Helping a sibling, taking initiative, etc.) But if I didn't stop them when they are throwing toys at their little brother or sister then we've got bigger problems.

<comment><USER24> That's the core issue. Lots of bad habits don't lend themselves well to only positive reinforcement because the habit itself provides a positive reinforcement to the individual. They'll continue to do whatever because it's fun even if it's self-destructive in the end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> _" Sarah, put on the green coat or the red sweater. We're going to go out, okay?" Choice among humans increases the likelihood of compliance. And choice isn't important, it's the appearance of choice that's important. Having real choice is not the issue, humans don't feel too strongly about that, but having the feeling that you have a choice makes a difference._

This was the main take away for me. It seems like it might be useful for managing employees / colleagues too.

<comment><USER26> I don't understand how people think this is honest. You're clearly using your cognitive advantage (or in the case of a boss, usually an organizational info advantage) to trick the other person. I remember as I grew up noticing when adults were doing this, and I resented them for it. Why would I want my kids to feel that way about me?

<comment><USER27> It's not "tricking", unless you're letting your toddler dictate whether you should leave the house. Toddlers don't have a choice over that; instead, you're giving the toddler a choice appropriate to their level. That helps build their cognitive abilities and takes the focus away from whether they want to leave the house (a choice they shouldn't make), to whether they want the sweater or coat (a choice reasonable for them).

<comment><USER26> You're using a cognitive advantage to distract them from expressing displeasure about something they reasonably don't like. Just because the toddler doesn't have a say over whether you're leaving the house doesn't mean you're not tricking him.

If two people are dating, the boyfriend is well within his rights to unilaterally break off the relationship. But if he broached the issue with his girlfriend by saying "Would you rather be just friends or simply not see each other any more?" in order to distract her from the breakup, she would rightfully be resentful. (That example is extreme to illustrate the point, but the idea is the same.)

<comment><USER28> Are you suggesting 4-year-old children are emotionally mature enough to properly express their displeasure with something in a productive manner? Maybe some are, but others are very hair triggered with their emotions and interpret not getting their way as if they were being murdered. Perhaps working around these fatal emotion exceptions is better than running into them every day, at least until the child's brain has had time for a few major revisions.

In your second paragraph, are you suggesting there is no such thing as an amicable breakup? One where exes can still be friends? The "I don't have romantic feelings for you, but would like to remain friends" tactic is quite popular. Obviously the recipient of that message will interpret it in a variety of ways depending on their investment in the relationship. If the person has a negative reaction to it, they likely wouldn't have responded any better to "I am leaving you, goodbye" either.

<comment><USER26> > Perhaps working around these fatal emotion exceptions is better than running > into them every day, at least until the child's brain has had time for a few > major revisions.

Perhaps. Parenting is complicated. But we shouldn't pretend it's not a trick, and that we aren't doing something the child may rightfully resent.

> In your second paragraph, are you suggesting...

No.

> If the person has a negative reaction to it, they likely wouldn't have > responded any better to "I am leaving you, goodbye" either.

The point of being honest is not necessarily because it secures the best response.

<comment><USER28> If the goal of the parent is "get child to grandmas, so I can go to work to continue to take care of this child", while the child's goal is "I want to continue to watch cartoons in this very spot and not move, and I'll have a tantrum if I am told to move due to poor impulse/emotional controls in my under-developed brain, unless I am 'tricked'", then who's goals are more important? If the child resents such a "trick" later in life, then the child is still showing traits of emotional immaturity, and a lack of understanding on how the world operates.

Also don't put honesty on too high a pedestal. Being honest about every single thing can have very damaging effects and negative consequences. Having no social tact so you can ride an honesty high horse is not necessarily superior to little white lies and/or trickery.

<comment><USER26> You are attributing large sweeping claims to me that I'm not making.

<comment><USER28> To be honest, I am actually not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> If you're implementing the 'positive reinforcement over negative' approach into your life, it's important to trust the large body of research that demonstrates its effectiveness. Be skeptical of your own internal perception of its effects. I find that when I'm working to make positive reinforcement work, the outlier failures stand out so much larger in my mind. I struggle to understand that it's working in the long run despite my infrequent emotional reactions of anger, frustration, failure, etc.

There's some fascinating reading on the cognitive biases that are at play here in Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow)

</comment><comment><USER30> This is possibly a good long term approach, but what to do when you need to put the situation under the control quickly, and kids just don't cooperate? I had such experience when my 4yo kid was at some point fascinated by kitchen stove, turning the gas knobs on/off. It's just something that you can't slowly teach him not to do, you need to draw the line right away, for his own safety. You can't reason with kid that small, and it's too dangerous to let him learn the lesson by trying, so you just have to scare him out of it.

<comment><USER31> A workmate once told me that he found his young son fiddling with the dials next to a hot stove. So he took his son's hand and briefly placed it on the hot part. The son ran away crying but he learned his lesson.

<comment><USER32> This is what rational me says I should do, because it makes sense. But I can't imagine my wife understanding, and the questions at pre-school, etc. Assuming it was a small burn, because that's what would cause a child to cry. Plus I might hate myself for doing it. It's a short jump from "I touched my son's hand to the hot stove to teach him it's bad" to CPS knocking on my door.

<comment><USER33> Intentionally burning your kid is not good. Also, you run the risk of teaching them that it's mom or dad that's dangerous, rather than the stove. If you're willing to burn them, let them do it to themselves. If not, then teach it without hurting them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> "No negative reinforcement" is what gives us kids that run screaming around in restaurants and stores. Sorry, I disagree with an absolute ban.

As a parent, I think that there is something far more important than positive or negative reinforcement. In my opinion, the fact that the child should believe at a very deep level that you are far more stubborn than they are is the single most important thing.

Without that, the child knows they can avoid the consequences altogether.

<comment><USER35> Yeah, they need to be sure you are crazier then them and you will followup on most things you promise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> How you modify your children's behavior is beside the point, IMO. What's really important is whether the modification is in the child's best interest, or merely convenient or beneficial to the parent.

Some folks get it and won't fuck up their kids too badly, even with bad technique. Others don't and will do lasting harm, even without using abusive techniques to get compliance.

<comment><USER37> Good point. My dad with his behavior might have gotten me and my brother to behave. But the problem is that it permanently destroyed his relationship with us and caused issues for us later in life. I do keep in touch with my dad and care about him but I can never really be close to him because of they way he has always acted.

I think people have to realize that kids also have to be kids. One can't expect them to be as quiet and well behaved as grown ups. I am very much against the popularity of French child raising as it seems to frequently create subdued children, who can sit quiet at the restaurant but who has lost the spark.

I remember some fellow Norwegians married into a french family comment on how when they were at a park the Norwegian kids ran around and had fun and the French kids looked at dumbfound with: You can do that?! Can we do that as well?

I assume this is not the average behavior. Or I hope, but I think it gives an idea of how you don't want your kids to end up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> This article is dangerous. On the surface it may sound good, but there is behavior so vile and harmful to the child, family or neighbors that never showing negative reinforcement is extremely dangerous with some children.

It does have some merits though, showing plenty of positive reinforcement will likely reduce the amount of negative reinforcement needed.

<comment><USER39> You don't want _never_ negative, or never stern to put a lighter touch on it—but many people, probably the audience of this article at large, simply don't know enough behavior theory to even know of the alternative.

Save the negative reinforcement and punishment for situations where it's absolutely clear and necessary—that's the best way to keep it an effective tool anyway. Maybe 60% positive, and 10% negative, with the other part just not being reinforced (an incredibly powerful behavioral tool all on its own).

It's the same with dogs (not as a derogatory comparison—just the truth of the science). I negatively reinforce for biting only, and only after they're at an age where they can comprehend the association between the bite and the punishment. It's remarkably effective. For nearly everything else, positive reinforcement is orders of magnitude more effective.

Overall, the most important part is to be a majority positive player, which makes you an overwhelmingly positive symbol in your child's (or pup's) life. This has primary effects that far outweigh the alternatives and negative side- effects of negative punishment and negative reinforcement methods.

I don't agree that the article is dangerous—people are unlikely to give up negative reinforcement altogether, but being introduced to a wider diversity of well-proven methods will only help, and we need more of it.

<comment><USER40> Note that negative reinforcement is reinforcement. It reinforces (i.e. encourages) a behaviour by stopping something unpleasant. e.g. your kid asks you nicely to turn off that dad music, you flip the stereo off, your kid feels better and learns to ask nicely. e.g.2. your kid screams that he hates carrots, you take the carrots off the plate, your kid feels better and learns to scream. When you say negative reinforcement you mean punishment.

<comment><USER39> Correct—I meant Positive Punishment (which is hard to remember, since it's decidedly not positive in the obvious sense).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I like some of the ideas in this article, but brushing off punishment as ineffective seems short-sighted.

For parents with kids who end up at a clinic because of problem behavior, punishment is ineffective. There is a selection bias going on here. Punishment, as noted in the article, is the first go-to for most parents. In situations where that works, they don't end up at a clinic for problem behavior.

If the first go-to for parents were offering shallow choices and rewarding desirable behavior, clinicians would probably find that problem behavior can't be solved that way. They might even be finding that the most effective way to deal with problem behavior is to just punish it immediately and decisively.

In other words, there is a large toolkit to be used to solve behavioral problems. Different tools work in different situations.

<comment><USER37> I agree that punishment sometimes has to be used. But I think the reason why they emphasized why it didn't work, is because punishment is the go to tool for parents almost no matter what you tell them. Despite know all this advice I easily fall into the trap myself, and I see clearly how inefficient it usually is.

Punishment is often the simple way out when you are too tired to really put the effort into doing it the proper way. Making sure you observe proper behavior and complement on that requires more effort. If I got a good amount of energy I am also usually able to convince my child to go with what I want them to without shouting, or threaten with punishment. But that often requires more imagination and when you are tired and worn out, there is no energy left to be imaginative.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> _Choice increases the likelihood of compliance. And choice isn 't important, it's the appearance of choice._

Oh, ha ha ha. Maybe for some kids, but not for most high IQ kids. They tend to not fall for that, recognize they are being gamed and "what's good for the goose (parent) is good for the gander (offspring)." So let the games begin! Because they will take that and run with it.

That sort of manipulative crap isn't even good parenting. It's a nice trick sometimes, but it is often badly misused by parents who have no real intentions of doing right by their kids and are just trying to figure out what's most convenient for the parent.

</comment><comment><USER42> > Punishment might make you feel better, but it won't change the kid's > behavior. Instead, he advocates for a radical technique in which parents > positively reinforce the behavior they do want to see until the negative > behavior eventually goes away.

The first sentence as written is incomplete. Of course punishment changes behavior. This is well established through a long line of experiments going back to the 1940s or earlier. To complete the sentence, there should be a "permanently" added to it somewhere, since the association between the punishment and the behavior wears off over time.

The association between positive reinforcement and behavior also wears off over time, but that is easy to maintain by occasionally rewarding the good behavior. You don't have to reward it every time. You might reward frequently when trying to to teach the good behavior and then you can decrease the frequency.

I think a good way to think of reward and punishment is that reward encourages repeating the behavior that is rewarded, whereas punishment encourages not repeating the behavior that is being punished. When you punish a bad behavior, that doesn't necessarily lead toward good behavior. It could simply lead to different bad behavior.

That's not to say that there is no room for punishment of bad behavior. Rather, it should depend on how bad the behavior is. If the behavior is something that is very bad, in the sense that it seriously harms people or animals or causes major economic damage, then punishment might be appropriate. For instance, if you have a kid who has taken to lighting cats and dogs (or smaller children) on fire, then severe immediate punishment might be appropriate, to get that behavior to stop now. That gives you a window until the association between the bad behavior and the punishment wears off to try to reward enough good behavior that the kid won't have time to go back to the bad behavior later.

</comment><comment><USER43> As a parent of 3 boys, something the article doesn't mention is that "time out" is very often not used as a punishment, but just as a strategy to help the parent gather their senses.

When you have several kids screaming and breaking things, it's extremely unlikely you'll have the mental capacity to react in a positive healthy manner. Separating the children and doing a 5-minute time out gives just enough time for me to breathe and gather my senses. Then I'm much more likely to follow up with positive parental strategies.

Usually something like, "Oh you stayed in your room quietly for the whole 5 minutes! Great job, I love you so much. Give me a hug. I'm sorry daddy was so stressed and we had to do a time out. Why don't we read a book to help us all feel better?"

That kind of 5-minute break + positive dialog almost always results in a 180 degree change in mood in the house.

</comment><comment><USER44> This sort of thing needs a part 2: "What to do when you child sees through your tricks".

I'm not joking about that one. It will happen. Even pets figure out some training techniques, causing them to stop being effective.

<comment><USER45> Ideally, at that point the child is smart enough that you can reason with them, and at that point your "tricks" (aka civilized behavior) has made enough of a molding effect on their personality and relationship with you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> _It 's thought to be very adaptive from an evolutionary standpoint. If you have a partner, significant other, or a child, if they do 10 nice things, that 11th one that you didn't like, you're going to really be all over._

One wonders how, if it doesn't work, it was so adaptive.

<comment><USER47> One perspective on this comes from game theory and the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma. In some cases the optimal strategy is "tit-for-tat". If your opponent defects and sells you out, then the best strategy for the next round is to retaliate and defect in response. [0]

Obviously this is simplified, but it shows how a mechanism for identifying opposition could be advantageous. In the social environment of early humans, maybe this made sense evolutionarily, but is now inconvenient in the different situations in which most people live now.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma#The_iterate...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma#The_iterated_prisoner.27s_dilemma)

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> For more information, here is the website for the center run by tge psychologist being interviewed: [http://yaleparentingcenter.yale.edu/](http://yaleparentingcenter.yale.edu/)

</comment><comment><USER49> It's not about punishing, it should be about discipline - discipline comes from teaching - we should be teaching our children in every situation and not punishing.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_discipline](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_discipline) "The word discipline is defined as imparting knowledge and skill, in other words, to teach"

I have a nearly 5yo and a nearly 2yo and i have to admit it has been tough, but we have managed without time outs and punishments and spankings

I grew up afraid of "the slipper" and "the wooden spoon" and don't have a good relationship with my parents and do not want that to my children

we practise time in, instead of time out when you leave the child by themselves and they don't have the maturity to realise what they have done wrong, we remove them from the situation and sit with them and explain what the issue was after they have calmed down - as talking to them mid-tantrum will not have any effect as they won't be able to process anything we say

</comment><comment><USER50> The core of the article is hard to disagree with: positive reinforcement is much more important effective than punishment.

But what if the kid just doesn't want to do what you want to reinforce? Just repeating your preferred choices aren't going to work. Kids are not stupid: they can tell that you're just trying to ignore what they want and push your choices. They'll frequently resist either actively or passively.

My approach to my son is: I praise him when he does something that looks right to me. When I disagree, I argue and reason with him like an adult. I try to project him on the receiving end to show how he's being unreasonable.

A large part of it is just understanding the kid's temperament and style of thinking and finding out effective ways of dealing with it through experimentation. A lot of empathy. When they see you're trying to understand their frustration they become more thoughtful.

This article has many good ideas but generalizing them sounds like an immature approach.

</comment><comment><USER51> Anyone who writes this kind of stuff needs to disclose that:

1) They are a parent. 2) They have used their suggested technique on their own children.

</comment><comment><USER52> Step 0: Always treat your kid like an actual human being (apply Kant).

Step 1: Identify if your kid leans introvert or extrovert (lemon squeeze at a very young age seems to work but it shouldn't be hard to figure it out with other methods).

Step 2: Structure the reward structure accordingly. Guess what, some kids want to go to the zoo and some kids would rather play with Legos by themselves.

Hot fixes like providing choices to give an incentive to go outside seem a bit broken to me. I'd much rather provide a good reason to go outside (or figure out that the child actually wants to stay inside and...stay inside).

tl;dr: If in doubt spend more time with the child. I feel very strongly that as a parent the thing you should optimize for is "will this allow me to spend more time with the child?" If you are already in a rush in the morning to make your important meeting there's a fundamental flaw in your approach.

</comment><comment><USER53> How to get your kids to do the right thing, convince them that it's the right thing to do. Child too young / stupid to understand moral or ethical questions? Try not to fuck them up too much while you hope they grow out of it.

That's what all these things boil down to. I get that a huge part of good parenting is not letting the, "Why don't you understand?!" frustration get to you. All this advice comes from a place of not wanting parents to beat their kids. The experts should perhaps realize that their own conescending, obviously taken too far advice only serves to make parents not trust them. Of course seeing that would require that they understand the human psychology they insist underlies their advice.

</comment><comment><USER54> I don't understand: how do you reinforce behaviour that is the default?

Do you tell your kids every minute "I appreciate you didn't break the window/throw the glass on the floor/pour milk on the carpet/put play-doh in the washing machine"?

I get that it works for clearly delimited things like "put on your clothes properly" or "don't make a mess during dinner" but that doesn't cover 90% of the time that I need to tell my daughter "don't do that" :( .

<comment><USER55> Some behaviors - as with throwing toys and pouring out milk - are normal and will pass. In the meantime, you can do things such as notice when milk is still in the cup and point out, with a silly voice, that you are pouring the milk into the cup because milk likes to be inside of things. Just occasionally, not constantly. Then just remind her when it gets on the floor, and tell her the negative consequences (as is age appropriate). You can have her play with play-doh in a safer space and with more oversight - showing her how to be neat about it while you two play.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> So much of this sounds like "control".

      > "it's BF Skinner's Operant Conditioning"
      > "Choice increases the likelihood of compliance"
      > "There are a whole bunch of things that happen…and you can get the child to comply"

Most parents would want the best for their child, but there's a massive gulf between wanting the best for someone, and using psychological tricks to force them into complying with expectations.

<comment><USER57> "Control" is how you ensure good decisions are being made. You don't get the best for your child without controlling what they get.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Why do so many of these child psychologists not have children of their own?

Edit: This is hyperbole. I am talking about this particular child psychologist not having children. I understand it doesn't mean he might not have a great understanding of how a child's mind works but it means he has never had the stress of raising a child and knowing how hard it is to keep your cool with them. Especially when they are as energetic as my own children.

<comment><USER59> This is an incredibly powerful comment, I was just looking to see myself if this psychologist have children of his own and came to the same conclusion that he doesn't. The absolute arrogance to not have children of your own but preach to others how they should raise theirs...

-edit -> and be in your late seventies, having long forgotten what it is to raise kids or see your peers raise their own kids.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> My fiance recently graduated in psychology, and we have two kids. This article basically mirrors our current sentiment of how we want to raise our kids.

I have one thing to add: Don't beat yourself up if you fail to do it right. After things escalated, talk to the kid honestly, tell her what you felt, and ask her what she felt. And try to do it better the next time over.

<comment><USER61> What if the kid has no interest in talking to you?

<comment><USER60> Then let her. Would you want to be forced to talk to someone? My benchmark is "What would I feel if my father did this".

<comment><USER58> Maybe you should think, "What would I feel if my father did this while I was screaming at him, throwing objects at him, and hitting him?"

<comment><USER60> Little kids don't grasp a situation that good. If you don't expect them to have an adult brain, it's a lot easier to deal with them. Your emotions are generated by what you think is true - if you think that the little brat is hitting you just for the lulz, then you will get very angry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> This is a yes, but.

You _must_ re-enforce the behaviour you want, however you can't tolerate bad behaviour.

You are not there to be friends with your kid. If the child has hit you, sit it in time out.

Why is this good? A) the child learns that it wastes time, and b) it puts space between you and your child. reduces the chance of antagonising each over.

On the flipside you must take an interest in your child.

<comment><USER63> It sounds like you are giving advice on a technique without actually having experience with that technique. Maybe you should try the 'no time-out' method for a while.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Many interesting comments here. I think to a large part I came to the conclusions in this article myself by trial and error. I agree as someone said here that you have to really become a student of your child. Don't just try the same old rubbish that doesn't work. Try other approaches and make mental notes of what works.

I don't naturally get angry, so I simulated anger just to see if it worked. My experience is that anger and scolding sort of kind of works but is very inefficient and often has diminishing returns. You reach a point where simply getting more angry doesn't work. Quite the opposite it just makes things worse.

I was positively surprised by how much more efficient positive reinforcement was. Just a little bit could often create a lot bigger change than lots of screaming and shouting could produce.

The problem is that it is often far more complicated to do. It requires more thinking, because it is not always obvious what the opposite of the bad behavior is and when you should praise.

E.g. my second child would go ballistic on the changing table. It became almost completely impossible to put him there because he had so many negative associations from being held in place while being changed. I realized I had to make it into a positive experience. My solution was to bring him there when he didn't need clothing or diaper changes and only put him there to do fun things. Gradually I got him to think positively about lying on the changing table, and then I could actually start praising him for complying with getting changed. But just realizing I had to take him there to do something entirely different from what the purpose of the changing table is wasn't obvious to me at first.

So my advice is, try to figure out how you child thinks. A lot of this comes down to having empathy with your child and seeing the world from their perspective. Once you know that you can more effectively employ various best practices.

<comment><USER64> > So my advice is, try to figure out how you child thinks. A lot of this comes > down to having empathy with your child and seeing the world from their > perspective. Once you know that you can more effectively employ various best > practices.

Wow, this is very well put.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> We are about 3-4 days (due the 7th) away from having our first child and this article is a terrifying reminder of what is to come.

I have a rather good temperament and equanimity (ironic given the above) but my wife despite being brilliant sadly does not (in all other things she is superior to me).

Luckily we have a very good behavioral therapist and or already familiar with the psychology of punishment/reward. That being said my wife's biggest fear is having a child with the same temperament as she does.

<comment><USER66> Respect the responsibility but don't fear the outcome. These things don't happen overnight. No matter your kid's temperament or how you do as parents, it all develops one day at a time over a very long time and you have essentially infinite opportunities to learn and adjust.

Congrats and enjoy :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> This book really helped me address problem behavior:

[https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Stories-Challenging- Behaviour...](https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Stories-Challenging-Behaviour- Perrow/dp/1903458781)

When you can sing a couple and the kid puts away their shoes, it makes it feel like magic.

</comment><comment><USER68> [https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/5g9pai/lpt_mot...](https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/5g9pai/lpt_motivate_people_by_giving_them_choices_even/)

</comment><comment><USER69> How can this be applied to internet forums?

In the early/ier days of HN, one response to an unsubstantiated comment was "Can you elaborate?", which shows interest, respect, and gives guidance - instead of a blind downvote (numerically negative feedback).

</comment><comment><USER70> Have kids. Validate their feelings. Set boundaries. Enforce boundaries. Talk with your kids. Teach them. Don't try to change them. Embrace them.

Spanking and timeouts are not required for this.

</comment><comment><USER71> This was explained very well decades back in "Punished By Rewards" \- one of the most useful book I've read.

<comment><USER45> Alfie Kohn's book is about bribes being a bad strategy, not quite about punishment being a bad strategy.

The two are related, though. The article here is explaining how meaningful, relationship-building positive-reinforcement is an effective strategy.

Alfie Kohn's work is easy to misinterpret -- the title of his book mentions "gold stars" as a bad idea, but misses the meaning of a gold star. A gold star isn't a bribe in the sense of an "incentive program", it's a tangible expression of appreciation* -- which is what the article here argeus in favor of.

*as long as the star is its own reward, not some sort of currency used to buy rewards.

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> What this teaches your kid is that there are no consequences to selfishness and antisocial behavior.

</comment><comment><USER73> Having only read part of the article and having gone through toddler years with 2 kids having ADHD and ODD my only insights are:

Get good at child psychology the art of manipulation. You're a team against the kids - keep up a united front, regardless of your marital situation. If you don't learn to manipulate those kids into doing what you want, they will very quickly learn to manipulate you into doing what they want. If you don't consistently maintain a united front, they will play one of you off against the other, every. single. time. and one of you will become the enemy they hate and the other their best friend. This isn't fair to the parent that ends up the enemy and is detrimental to their relationship.

Some kids are easy going laid back and compliant. Most of them have their own free will and will largely do what they want, regardless of what you want them to. Get used to not having complete control at all times, because if you try and maintain control at all times, one thing I can guarantee is that your kids will feel powerless and ultimately begin to despise you.

Give them compassion and understanding and try to give them enough rope to run without hanging themselves. YouTube has plenty enough videos to scare the crap out of them from doing stupid shit that will hurt or kill them. It's also got a great many videos that will inspire and educate them. It's a great tool. Use it as liberally as you need.

I can count on one hand the number of times my kids have been spanked. They're now 8 and almost 7. Those spankings yielded almost zero result and reflects more on my inability to maintain control of myself under the stress they put me under than their behaviour. All it did was exacerbate already intolerable behaviour. Did they deserve it? Yes. Did it yield the result I wanted? No. Should I have held my temper? Probably. The fact that it didn't yield the result I wanted says it was a futile exercise. It didn't teach them anything, they didn't respect me for it, they feared me for it. Do I want my kids to fear me? Absolutely not. Plus, they were some age less than 8 and 6. They're expected to act out. They're kids. I'm an adult, I should be able to control myself better - and I largely do.

No amount of framing decisions to stimulate cooperation work. No amount of forcing them to comply works. Neither one of them seem to have any sense of guilt unless they think they've really hurt you and you show them real honest vulnerability... and you can't show that card too often or they'll just think you're unable to stand up for yourself and then they'll never learn to respect you.

Okay, so there's not so much advice there. But I'll tell you, every kid is different. Some tools work on some and have counter effects on others. You need an arsenal of techniques and you need to pick and choose them for each situation, like a Marine, you don't take the same tools into every operation, you pick the best tool in your arsenal to complete your mission.

Sometimes spanking will work on some kids, other times it will just make the situation ten times worse. Sometimes timeout will work, other times it'll just drag out the torture for both of you. Sometimes shutting down the argument and dictating how things are going to happen is the only way. Other times, you just have to pick your battles and say to yourself - does the outcome of this situation even really matter? Why do I feel the need to argue and enforce my will here? If you're worried about how they dress reflects on you, let them watch shows like "What not to wear" so they learn a sense of style. But honestly, they're kids, does it really matter? Their friends will tell them if they look like an idiot. Peer pressure can be a wonderful thing.

Sometimes the easiest path is just relinquishing control of everything inconsequential and only controlling the things that really matter: Don't let them hurt or kill themselves or anyone else and don't let them damage or destroy anything that doesn't belong to them.

<comment><USER14> >> having ADHD and ODD

I strongly suspect that we're looking at the same combination in our son. Sadly I'm reluctant to take my concerns to a medical professional because ODD has a strong correlation with abuse. While I've no doubt that some of my and my wife's parenting has contributed to this, abuse isn't happening -- it's literally been his personality since he could first talk. Still, it's enough to make me uncomfortable going into a situation where that's the assumption[1]

Was yours a medical diagnosis - and if so, did you run into any troubles around that aspect?

> If you're worried about how they dress reflects on you,

This raises an interesting problem though. I find I'm reinforcing societal norms that aren't consistent with my own - because I'm aware that he has to function among peers and adults every day in a social environment. Their reactions to negative behavior aren't enough to prevent him from doing it.

Encouragingly, the couple of situations I've explained that for [in simplified form] have resulted in major improvement (such as using 'inappropriate' language - I personally think it's fine if you know the meanings and usage of the words and when it's ok to use them, regardless of age. After explaining that other adults and parents didn't view it that way, and that it means they won't want him playing with their children and will think poorly of us as a family, that particular problem stopped.)

> Sometimes the easiest path is just relinquishing control of everything > inconsequential and only controlling the things that really matter: Don't > let them hurt or kill themselves or anyone else and don't let them damage or > destroy anything that doesn't belong to them.

This, as a lesson slowly being learned.

<comment><USER73> With regards to the medical diagnosis - this is the back story, sorry it's a little long winded:

So our eldest was born with 2 holes in her heart. She is the one suffering ODD. She was a difficult baby from the very outset, she wouldn't feed and was in hospital for the first 3 months of her life with her mother living in with her and me providing relief outside of work so she could get some much needed rest so it was a round the clock affair for 3 months until she was released just in time for Christmas. Of course this took a toll on everyone involved. She went round after round of tests, had a feeding tube and had to be fed through this every 2 hours, after which she would guarantee to throw up and need changing and cry the entire time and need to be carried around the halls of the hospital to attempt to stem the constant crying. While my daughter won't be able to remember any of this, it would be remiss to assume there was no psychological trauma left.

Fast forward 4 years and she had to go in for open heart surgery. She was old enough to understand what was happening and while we were as gentle as we could be, we couldn't shield her from the truth and we kept up a positive strength with her to help bolster a confidence in her that we lacked ourselves. To say this was traumatic is an understatement and I think all of us share in that trauma - some of which remains to this day. The killer was when she asked how we could have abandoned her at the hospital to be cut open like that... if you ever want to feel like you were cut in two and had your beating heart ripped out of your chest - that was that moment. We were by her side throughout, but there is trauma that she most definitely needs help with. In fact, in many ways, I think there is trauma all round that we'd benefit from help with.

We resisted for ages going for medical diagnosis because we didn't want to be "those parents" \- you know, the ones that medicate their kids because they just can't cope with kids being kids. We asked ourselves many times if this behaviour was just normal kids and that our perspective was just skewed. In the end we went in to the hospital after our eldest had a throw down tantrum where she was looking like she was going to cause serious physical damage that lasted for too long to ignore and we sat down with the psychiatrist and said to them - we're not looking for medication, we're not looking for her to get a psychiatrist, we want real honest to God unbiased, objective advice on her behaviour and if this is normal and our perspective is whacked or if she needs medical assistance.

We all did questionnaires, her school teachers did questionnaires - we were very forthright with the teachers and told them what was going on and what we were experiencing at home and asked them for their input and gave them our support.

One thing I learned from this is that most teachers won't raise their concerns with parents because more often than not, parents will come back with the attitude "that's your job, they're our problem at home, when they're at school they're your problem" or if the teacher raises the prospect of the fact that your child may have something that needs to be dealt with professionally, parents get defensive. Our going to the teachers I think was liberating for everyone involved - the teachers thanked us for our support and have been incredibly incredibly supportive with us in return.

Anyway, after a week under observation at the in-patient psychological wing of the hospital and having in-class support at school, it was determined that our first does indeed have at least ADHD and suspected ODD.

Is there stigma? Yes. Does it affect how she's treated at school, to an extent yes, but on the whole the staff have been amazing and collaborative with us. Building a relationship with them helps a huge amount. Frequently the problem kids that you hear about being ostracized and mistreated are because the teachers have little choice but to remove the problem from their class to spare the rest of their class and that they have absolutely no support from the parents. Knowing that they have our full support and that we have theirs has been very reassuring. I know they're both treated like gold at school and their teachers have nothing but positive things to say about them both which considering the difficulties we've gone through, I'd say I'm very thankful and incredibly grateful.

> Their reactions to negative behavior aren't enough to prevent him from doing > it.

With regards to your point about societal norms - if the negative behaviour hasn't been enough to prevent him doing it, it doesn't matter to him enough right now to make him change his belief. Eventually he will either become self conscious enough to change this, or he'll find a sense of style he enjoys that will change this, or he won't care and if he doesn't care - does this really matter? Only he can really answer that.

<comment><USER14> Thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed reply.

> f you ever want to feel like you were cut in two and had your beating heart > ripped out of your chest - that was that moment.

Just reading it and thinking of the situation hurts - I can't quite imagine living with/through it.

> We asked ourselves many times if this behaviour was just normal kids and > that our perspective was just skewed.

This, so many times. The frustrating thing is when _describing_ many of the behaviors, there is nothing on the surface to differentiate it from a kid being a kid. It's only the continued nature of them over time that raises concerns with us. We were deterred by our family physician early on when we first raised these concerns.

We're currently in the process of going through the school's evaluation and paperwork. I do agree - they were hesitant to ask us to take this route because of that usual response from parents, and they seemed honestly surprised when we agreed to do the evaluation. I'm still on the fence around pulling in medical help, because medicating a six year old isn't on my list of things to do...

> Does it affect how she's treated at school, to an extent yes, but on the > whole the staff have been amazing and collaborative with us

That's good to know, though certainly it'll vary by school district. The school has been very supportive in our discussions so far, and in how they handle him in class.

Thanks again for taking this time, it's very helpful.

<comment><USER73> Yeah, I'm still on the fence about medication but I will tell you this for sure. The medication has made the difference between it being more manageable. I won't say it cures all the behaviours, but it takes the edge off. When used with other tools, like learning to discuss and manage her feelings with a therapist, it's made her temper and behaviour on the whole much more bearable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> I live in a very poor Asian country where most every parent has never given a single thought to behavior theory or been exposed to the whole parenting industry. It's mostly just feed your kid, let them run around unsupervised with other kids outside, and have the oldest child handle certain responsibilities like getting everybody to school on time. Having worked with kids back in the US and here, the contrast in behavioral problems and social anxiety is so markedly different that it's definitely shaped the way I'll parent my own children. The kids here are much less needy and so much more confident and independent, whereas I can barely spend two minutes around a western kid without getting royally annoyed. My own parents were very hands- off and I plan to be even more so.

<comment><USER75> I have to agree here. I lived in a tiny village in Laos for 4 months a few years back, and I have to say, the six year-olds were more mature, independent, and emotionally sophisticated than some 16 year-olds I knew back home.

Favorite slightly-related story: while teaching a class of 8 year-olds one day, a student in the back opened up his desk, and pulled out a machete. My heart stopped for a beat. He then proceeded to sharpen his pencil with the machete, then place it back in his desk.

Man, I miss Laos.

Anyways, the North American trend to never leave your kids unattended really seems to have stifled their independence and ability to strive on their own, and it's so evident when you travel to some developing countries.

<comment><USER76> That's great and all, but is it possible that extended "childhood" is essential for being better adjusted in the western world? I wonder how many machete wielding 8 year olds grow up to be competitive in university.

<comment><USER77> > I wonder how many machete wielding 8 year olds grow up to be competitive in > university.

I'm guessing more than you would think, because this isn't _that_ dissimilar to rural kids in the US.

<comment><USER78> To the parent poster's credit, I think there there might be something to it, the kid is busy learning, and perhaps if he/she is spending all day learning social/environmental survival skills instead of learning academics, they are going to be less equipped to handle a 15 year carer of school. than the "western" kid.

<comment><USER74> All these kids go to school too (though here it's still only 4 hours a day, which I am envious of) and from tutoring a number of them in English I can attest to the fact that the kids in my neighborhood are very 'book smart' too. It might surprise people not from here, but nowadays everybody in Phnom Penh has tablets and smart phones and they spend a lot of time on those learning. Intellectually they're more than capable enough to succeed in higher academics, but financial difficulties may limit some of them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> (Edit: I'm detaching this from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13101402](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13101402) and marking it off-topic. That example wasn't a clear enough one to make the point about, because the commenter wasn't being snarky or doing anything particularly wrong. Maybe next time it comes up more clearly I'll try again.)

I know it's nitpicky, but please don't use quotation marks when you're not actually quoting someone, and especially not when putting words in someone's mouth for rhetorical effect. (That generally isn't a great thing to do either, but was harmless in this case because you did it to praise, not denounce.)

We ask this, partly because the internet is stateless and text fragments are prone to misinterpretation, but also because it's one of those things that subtly degrade substantive discussion.

<comment><USER80> But... quote marks are grammatically correct. They're the only way to mention words and phrases you're not actually using them.

Yes, the things we write are subject to misinterpretation, particularly when stripped of the their context. But asking people to avoid correct use of punctuation isn't going to make that less likely. Quite the opposite, in fact.

<comment><USER79> It looks like what I posted might not have been clear. I mean: please don't use quotation marks to make it look like you're quoting someone when you're not really quoting them. In particular, please don't do that thing where people sarcastically put words in someone's mouth and then add quotation marks around those words to amplify the rhetorical effect.

Uses of quotation marks for quoting someone, or for doing something that doesn't look like quoting someone (e.g. "self-referentially") are fine.

<comment><USER81> Interesting, i can see where the risk of confusion is. But wondering how it could have been written for similar effect...

" For the teens, the psychologist's advice is literally: well, maybe don't be such a bitch in the first place, Mom. "

Feels a bit confusing. Is there a better way?

<comment><USER79> Actually you're making me think that I picked a bad example to plant a flag on. The general point, about not using quotation marks as a rhetorical device or snark weapon, is a good one: it really does subtly degrade online discourse. But the example doesn't show that as clearly as it might, and the commenter was being a good sport and didn't do anything wrong. Sorry!

<comment><USER82> This type of explanation and review is a great example of why I appreciate the manner and spirit of moderation on HN.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> My youngest is not motivated by rewards or punishment. He just doesn't care. If I reward him with something good, he will accept it, but the loss of the reward will not motivate him to do things. Similarly he won't like being punished but the punishment won't stop him from doing things that he wants to. His teachers told us the same thing, which creates problems because when he decides he wants to misbehave, there's nothing that will motivate him to behave until he chooses to behave.

I don't spank him, but I'll give him timeouts but I've come to terms with the fact that he is motivated by different things than other kids. The techniques in the article won't work for my child at all. Hopefully he will mature and we can reason with him in other ways.

</comment><comment><USER84> Wow. Add The Atlantic to the growing list of sites I'll never visit anymore, thanks to what must be the world's most obnoxious ad-begging landing/redirect page I've seen in my entire life. Totally objectionable.

</comment><comment><USER85> Positive reinforcement is hardly "radical".

<comment><USER60> I agree that it shouldn't, but it is. I need only talk to my mother, she has some very strange ideas of how to raise kids, explaining a lot of my knee-jerk reactions when communicating with my own kids.

<comment><USER86> My mother told me recently that my six-year-old nephew's personality was already set in stone, and his occasional bursts of energy were proof he needed "tough love" and "a wake-up call," including changing schools. She also seems to have forgotten that my father hit us with his belt. Very strange indeed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> e-we What? Would this be news to anyone 2016?

</comment><comment><USER87> My Mom "fined" me, taking away or reducing my allowance.

If all the punishments I could have endured, this really worked.

</comment><comment><USER88> It's kind of ironic that this is the most apt way to train pets, as well.

</comment><comment><USER89> That this could be considered "controversial" 2016 is just mind blowing to me.

<comment><USER90> You think parenting is a solved problem?

</comment></comment><comment><USER91> I recall there was a bit of a reaction against the strictness of Victorian parenting in the 1800s that advocated essentially this. That children are precious little things who should be allowed freedom and not be punished. Those kids were known to have serious impulse control issues as adults and often had difficulty working in structured or formal environments like offices or courthouses. So it strikes me that if you're never going to give time outs for uncontrolled and inappropriate or destructive behavior, then you need to replace it with something significantly more powerful than what is being offered in the article. I think the psychologist is taking the position that positive reinforcement is better than negative and taking it to an extreme that I have a seriously hard time believing will be beneficial to the long- term mental health of the child.

</comment><comment><USER92> The most successful, caring, well educated and thoughtful people I know came from the worst upbringings. They grew up in households with abusive parents, homelessness as a child and general chaos.

At the same time the biggest burnouts, felons, drug-addicts and the like that I know personally (and in the statistics) came from ... the worst upbringings. They grew up in households with abusive parents, homelessness as a child and general chaos.

On the flip side, most of the people I know who were raised in peace, calm, consistent love, and wealth are generally pretty middling and while they live a fine life aren't really making huge impacts as I see from group 1 above. Maybe it's that the story isn't as compelling so we don't read about those as much. Chalk it up to sampling error.

From a social scientist perspective, group 3 is the ideal upbringing because it's consistent and the lower bound outcome is generally still desirable.

However there is just something about the ridiculous struggle that seems to either make diamonds or spent coal. From the perspective of population distribution for groups 1 and 2 it's overwhelmingly spent coal that comes out, but that 1% that becomes diamonds are really spectacular.</comment>


You weren't bad at maths – you just weren't looking at it the right way - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/you-werent-bad-at-maths-you-just-weren-t-looking-at-it-the-right-way-7b11fb0a0982 <comment><USER2> Interesting, I've often felt like my brain speaks a different language to other people, and that if I could only improve the translation between their language and mine life would be a lot easier. Similar concept here - I have this feeling that maths is taught in a way that suits those that create the learning materials, rather than in a way that suits the learner. In teaching I wonder how much feedback goes into selecting the most efficient learning material?</comment>


Huawei Uses NSA Malwaretechnique and Has Software Management Issues - <AUTHOR> https://aware7.de/en/blog/komplexe-huaweisoftware-mit-sicherheitsproblemen/ <comment><USER2> > The software used a malware technique used by the NSA to restart crashed > services.

Your click bait headline is bad and you should feel bad.</comment>


Email Recipient Sequencing can represent an unspoken corporate status - <AUTHOR> https://www.writersunknown.com/article/recipient_sequencing/ <comment><USER2> Finally, someone willing to table the discussion... Very thought provoking, and quite funny...

I manage a large team and I am very aware of this when I am pushing instructions off to my team mates. Order of relevance I have found to be the most practical.</comment>


The birth of the web - <AUTHOR> http://home.cern/topics/birth-web <comment><USER2> Browsing an old web page there, I found that many links contain a dot.

example.com./index.htm

(the dot after com)

check the links there: [http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/DataSources/WWW/Servers.html](http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/DataSources/WWW/Servers.html)

<comment><USER3> That's actually the complete form of a FQDN (full qualified domain name): [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fully_qualified_domain_name#Sy...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fully_qualified_domain_name#Syntax)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A colleague who was present at a seminar given by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN to present the WWW told me that one person in the audience asked what could it be used for !

From my perspective it is the Mosaic application from NCSA that is really responsible of the success of the web. Unfortunately the people behind it don't get the deserved recognition.

<comment><USER5> Berner was looking at RPC as his dayjob to give control commands to machines. What Berner did, was to use the Interface Builder's precursor on the NeXT he got as a toy to put a gopher-like link into the text properties field, where the font boldness, size ...and colour and underline were. This was a graphical workstation, and not spread world-wide at the time (NeXT was an expensive toy). Hardly an innovation. And not everybody was allowed to toy around -- certainly not "western equivalent" eastern europeans.

Nobody has really heard of Groff, Pellow, Nielsen and the rest, who made it work multiplatform, over the command-line, etc. ie. a universally world-wide. Nobody was astonished by them back then, because what they were doing was nothing special: several such systems existed already both commercial and academic. They were the cheap students, whose work allowed it to be opened up and given away without charge.

WWW grew like it did because of two reasons: it was free of charge, because it was actually made by cheap and disposable students, and the then changing climate of the deregulation of the internet, of which some companies ie. Vermeer, Netscape could take early advantage of.

CERN likes cheap students' work, and sell if off as stellar examples of innovation by CERN. Read Facts and Mysteries in Elementary Particle Physics by Veltman to learn more about CERN, if you feel to downvote.

Basically he took the spirit of the times and attributed it to himself, with the helping hands of the cern pr department. Now such success stories can be used for recruitment purposes.

Long PR story short: RPC was prevalent, that is how you control(led) your stuff remotely and they put the gopher link address ptr in the reserved field of the text font properties (where things like bold and italics properties are stored). Would the "web" have just ran on NeXT, it would be long extinct, let alone take off. Clicking on text is how you used Oberon or even Genera Document Examiner (perhaps even over the network).

On linking and hypertext: all post-war era stuff is spin. The real stuff comes from Belgium:

For ADD-ers: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwRN5m64I7Y](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwRN5m64I7Y)

The story: [http://www.archive.org/details/paulotlet](http://www.archive.org/details/paulotlet)

h[http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/forgotten_forefather_paul...](http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/forgotten_forefather_paul_otlet)

"How should we make it attractive for them [young people] to spend 5,6,7 years in our field, be satisfied, learn about excitement, but finally be qualified to find other possibilities?" \-- H. Schopper

Potential missing staff in some areas is a separate issue, and educational programmes are not designed to make up for it. On-the-job learning and training are not separated but dynamically linked together, benefiting to both parties. In my three years of operation, I have unfortunately witnessed cases where CERN duties and educational training became contradictory and even conflicting.

[http://ombuds.web.cern.ch/blog/2013/06/lets-not-confuse- stud...](http://ombuds.web.cern.ch/blog/2013/06/lets-not-confuse-students-and- fellows-missing-staff)

Resolution of the Staff Council

\- the Management does not propose to align the level of basic CERN salaries with those chosen as the basis for comparison;

\- in the new career system a large fraction of the staff will have their advancement prospects, and consequently the level of their pension, reduced with respect to the current MARS system;

\- the overall reduction of the advancement budget will have a negative impact on the contributions to the CERN Health Insurance System (CHIS);

[http://cds.cern.ch/journal/CERNBulletin/2015/46/Staff%20Asso...](http://cds.cern.ch/journal/CERNBulletin/2015/46/Staff%20Association/2063669?ln=en)

The situation is equally difficult for postdocs trying to make the jump to a junior faculty position or a permanent job at a national lab. The Snowmass Young Physicists survey received responses from 956 early-career researchers, including 343 postdocs. But INSPIRE currently lists just 152 "junior" positions, including 61 in North America. And the supply of jobs isn't likely to increase, says John Finley, an astrophysicist at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, who is leading a search to replace two senior particle physicists.

Indeed, even while giving complete satisfaction, they have no forward vision about the possibility of pursuing a career at CERN.

This lack of an element of social responsibility in the contract policy is unacceptable. Rather than serve as a cushion of laziness for supervisors, who often have only a limited and utilitarian view when defining the opening of an IC post, the contract policy must ensure the inclusion of an element of social justice, which is cruelly absent today.

[http://staff- association.web.cern.ch/content/unsatisfactory-...](http://staff- association.web.cern.ch/content/unsatisfactory-contract-policy)

Pensions which will be applicable to new recruits as of 1 January 2012; the Management and CERN Council adopted without any concertation and decided in June 2011 to adopt very unfavourable mesures for new recruits.

[http://www.gac- epa.org/History/Bulletins/42-2012-04/Bulletin...](http://www.gac- epa.org/History/Bulletins/42-2012-04/Bulletin42-en.html)

precarity at CERN, aka cheap disposable temp labour w/o healthcare: [http://www.tdg.ch/geneve/actu-genevoise/suisse-prete- aider-e...](http://www.tdg.ch/geneve/actu-genevoise/suisse-prete-aider- employes-detaches-cern/story/15383927)

Given that cheap and disposable trainees — PhD students and postdocs — fuel the entire scientific research enterprise, it is not surprising that few inside the system seem interested in change. A system complicit in this sort of exploitation is at best indifferent and at worst cruel.

<comment><USER6> This "Tech Talk", [http://youtu.be/72nfrhXroo8](http://youtu.be/72nfrhXroo8), covers some of what you're talking about, especially with regard to Otlet's contributions. People should also checkout Ted Nelson's "Computer of Cynics" series on YouTube.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I remember trying the Line Browser via terminals in UF's education library several times in 1994. I was completely unimpressed by the web. I was an early non-adopter. The rest is history.</comment>


Ask HN: Recommended online coding test providers for filtering grads? - <AUTHOR>

I'm not a big believer in online testing for normal developer recruitment, however, doing recruitment of graduates means filtering through a large, noisy (as in lacking signal), pool of candidates.
Looking for recommendations from the HN community for online testing providers (for testing coding level) that could at least allow me to reduce the initial pool of candidates to a manageable level.
Any insight would be appreciated! <comment><USER2> I have been issuing tests to candidates for a long time now and I have used a plethora of methods to do it. What has worked the best for me was a home rolled solution of having a server they must ssh into and then having a few bash scripts that.

        Set up the user account and a default home directory.
        Runs a job out of cron to check for the user and log them out after a time period.
        Clean up after the test has been reviewed.

I have iterated on that base idea and ended up with a pretty nice intranet portal and self service test administration system, but then I threw it out the window and started using HackerRank. Its just easier and it does all the stuff I want it to do. There are some limitations, but if you just looking to do an initial screen they work.

</comment><comment><USER3> The question I have is how can you be sure you're testing for something meaningful? By which I mean that testing new college grads on knowledge of Ruby is going to favor people with experience in Ruby and not necessarily those with a sound grasp of data structures and in the long run. Now if all you care about is the ability of someone to code up Ruby at a beginner level, then it's a good test, and in three years you may have someone who still codes Ruby at a beginner level. But if you want someone who can contribute at a higher level over the long term, then maybe taking an advanced data structures elective over a Rails elective is more important than the equivalent of a few weeks of on the job training.

Going further, a test to filter out candidates is a social act not a technical one. Some people, and perhaps a higher percentage of strong candidates who have more options, may forgo the test, or if it is easier than another company's think less of your company. Unless you're Google class as a resume builder, your pool of candidates will probably drop simply as a result of increased friction in the application process.

Sure you may get the desired effect of reducing the number of resumes on your desk, but you could do that by simply flipping a coin for each one and ignoring any that come up tails. And as crazy as that sounds at least then you would know that you were not filtering in a way that was having counter- productive results.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER4> Earlier this year I was in the Philippines recruiting for a development office there. Although we weren't targeting grad programmers, the market dynamics we faced were likely similar. There are a whole bunch of substandard programmers that work there, and so using an online test as an initial filter proved very useful; there was no other way we could deal with the volume.

A local company we partnered with to help us recruit suggested [https://codility.com/](https://codility.com/) which we ended up using.

We choose a pair of medium level challenges for the candidates. What we discovered as we went was that their score on the task was not the most important information we got from their test. How they wrote their code was. Looking at how they break up their solutions, and even things such as choices of - or consistency with - syntax was very informative and a good predictor of quality.

My advice would be to not set the bar too high for this kind of test, use it as a filter that eliminates the candidates you definitely don't want to interview, then proceed with the normal interview process.

</comment><comment><USER5> I would like more companies to let the candidate submit any project that they've completed in the past 6 months, or give them a small open-ended project and let them choose how they want to build it. It gives the candidate a chance to showcase what they are capable of, and it allows you to judge their programming style.

</comment><comment><USER6> So you looking for an online service to do your job of filtering who you hire ? Don't be surprised if you don't get what you think you want.

If you're a dev company in any sense, it should be pretty straight forward to setup some kind of mock project that potentials can checkout and do something with. Investigate the results.

If you want to know what they are to work with and what skills they have, then work them...and test some skills you know are needed for the job.</comment>