are MOST kids raised as super-indulged noisy brats these days?

Did you ever actually feel bad or learn anything from being SENT TO YOU ROOM? I grew up hearing about it on TV and from friends but I thought it was a colossal joke. Did people actually get sent to their rooms?

Then when I become an adult I go and make barfstyle.mov

Yeah I'm a real authority

-- LeCoq

I got sent to my room. I occasionally also send my daughter to her room when she's being a brat - so yes, it still goes on. It's really a time out thing. It doesn't really work is my impression, but it does give you some time to recover your wits.

But, yeah, kids these days, eh?

That said, I do think the no-discipline thing is somewhat pegged to the amount of money the parents have and how urban they are -- in otehr words, I wouldn't say "MOST kids," even if it does seem to be a bit of a trend. We can probably rest assured that plenty of kids are getting screamed at this very minute -- and, sadly enough, plenty of them getting the crap beat out of them for not even really doing anything.

The parents are selfish yuppies who feel entitled to go to a movie/dinner/etc., a sick or cranky kid is not going to stand in their way.

As long as you don't blindfold them and throw them down the stairs -- if you do that you end up having children who grow up to start stupid threads.

There is a certain demographic, though, that's just weirdly indulgent about children, and seemingly can't bear the thought of doing anything unpleasant to their beautiful kids, physical or not. And that seems untenable: at the very least you have to find a way of letting children know when you're mad at them. You owe it to them as human beings, really, because they're going to need to learn how to have relationships who'll respond to their behavior in kind -- i.e., people who'll be dicks to them if they act like brats. If you don't get that in there, you wind up with this weird sort of young-adult whose idea of human relationships is really just about gaming people to get what they want -- they same way they grew up gaming their parents, who were always too indulgent and eager to be liked to demonstrate to them that other people's feelings can and will matter too.

I've worked with children for several years, often with families who are more likely than most to use physical punishment at the slightest provocation. The idea that you can love your children too much or be too protective of them doesn't have any scientific basis. There's no evidence to suggest that you can "spoil" children in the way that people still apparently believe. There's a good deal of evidence to suggest that the biggest part of your adult personality is inherited genetically from your parents, not learned.

Of course if you're angry you need to communicate that to your kids, but it's no different to dealing with adults - bawling them out might make you feel better, but it isn't a good way of dealing with a situation. I do way too much bawling, and I generally feel shitty after I'm done.

jokes

How could it? You can't follow a cossetted kid around till late adulthood to see if it ends up going to ecstacy+cuddle parties for grown ass people and crying over shit like internet musical taste disses!

Well here's an essay by Judith Rich Harris for a start. There's been an awful lot of work done on child development over the last 100-odd years. A lot of it is contentious/contended like any scientific research, but it's a bit more rigorous than anecdotal guesswork.

(And if you're joking, fine, I just get hissy about this shit cos of the work I've done.)

I do draw the line at murdering the kid. That seems excessive to me.

Wimp. I thought Aussies were tough.

you have no idea how unnecessarily proud young couples are of their kids in some areas when all they did was fuck and not ever learn how to discipline the kid

and this:

To all the parents who drag their kids to the mall/movies/restaurant when they are *clearly* not old enough to sit still. Or if they're sick. Or if you can't get a babysitter. STAY THE FUCK HOME with your kids. Make the goddamn sacrifice. It's not the kids' fault if they're cranky and crying at 9:30 at night. It's the clear-headed parents who refuse to stay home.

i've said it before and i'll keep fucking saying it: you need a licence to own a dog. but not to spawn a child. fucking hell, you soi-disant parents, you ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANOTHER LIFE. is it too much to expect you to actually GET INVOLVED AND TAKE AN INTEREST?

a few weeks back, at a wedding, i sat opposite a horrific couple, with their snotty little three-year-old brat, theo. at one point his godawful mother actually did say: "we don't want to stifle his creativity." this was while the kid was stuffing all the chocolate favours in his mouth.

and you know what? he'll grow up to fucking hate them too. (his parents, that is. not chocolate favours.)

I can't stand when parents let their small children (younger than 5 or 6 I suppose) walk in shopping malls. Children should be held firmly by the hand and kept close by, otherwise carried or put in a stroller. It is increasingly common for toddlers to be allowed to stumble around like tiny, disoriented alcoholics, metres from the parents and completely outside their field of vision. It is impossible to give these children a wide enough berth. They always find a way to stagger cluelessly in my direction, invariably hitting their heads on my knee. Just out looking for a lawsuit, I suppose, much like their parents.

And it may just be me being hopeful, but I get the impression that the only reason MTV doesn't mock these spoiled princesses more is because they'd stop wanting to be on the show. Though that can't be true. It'd be more tolerable if there were some ruthless smartass comment bubbles a la Blind Date.

p.s. before anyone gets an impression of me as some kind of kid beater!! I love kids!!!!! (and not in that way!!!) i'd totally reason the hell out of the kids and then they make me loads of cash when they realise that being able to curl a football into a goal is a good thing and will get them loads of girls at some point of their lives.

I've only read half the thread so far but I think this:

Yeah, come on parents! Don't you know that once you have a child you are supposed to stay indoors? Here I am trying to live my fabulous urban yuppie lifestyle and I certainly don't want to see any people under the age of 18 out in public. The very sight of your baby in my restaurant ruins my entire evening and distracts my friends and I from our loud, drunken guffawing.

Is pretty much OTM.

For all you nay sayers - go down to Stevenage town centre on a Saturday afternoon (actually no, don't) and see for yourselves how much hatred a lot of kids have for their children. Swearing, hitting, slapping, general "CAM 'ERE YA LI'L SHIT" vitriol, all because kids are just being kids.

The other day I heard a woman coming out of Tescos scolding her son (the actual words were "you're going to drop the fucking thing in a minute") because he was holding a shopping bag in a way she didn't like.

Fair dos - it's almost as bad seeing some ice-cream gorged little runt running around Tangoing everyone in the face while their owners just look on with delight, but I'd dare say it's not as bad as those kids who get punished day-in day-out simply for acting like children (i.e. playing, running around, getting bored, wanting attention, and yes crying - we all did it).

OWNERS!

also, was this just a typo or a deliberate thing about teenage parents? please say yes because the "kids are just being kids" bit suddenly then becomes really deep. like "omg but the parents are just kids being kids too oh no!!"

football curled in the net, a biscuit. shouting, dissent, no buscuit. taking off your top, no buscuit. raising a hand = go to your room, plus no buscuit for the week.

This is so wrong! 90% of the time the kid will know exactly what they did wrong, whether it's jumping in the flowerbed or hitting their little brother or whatever. The discipline helps them associate bad/malicious behaviour with punishment, smacking, sending to the bedroom or whatever form that discipline takes.

I accept there are parents who smack their kids for almost anything (and also ones who punish *genuine accidents* like spilling a drink or something in this way, which I agree is wrong and destructive) but I'm certain that they're a small minority.

omg mark your kids will grow up so fucked up.

The key to disciplining children, whether it be spanking or time-outs or whatever, is discussing with your child DIRECTLY after the punishment (or, in cases of older kids you can ground, during the punishment) WHY what they did was punishable. And, most importantly, present them with possible other ways out of the same scenario that they might not have been punished for.

xposts with kens posts aplenty

yes, exactly. but why does that punishment have to involve smacking? children can - and should - be reasoned with, eg: you've been bad, so you must go and sit on the naughty step (nb: we had a naughty step back in 1979)/you can't go out to play/whatever. smacking is surely the sign of an absence of reason, of an instinctive reaction; do you really want your kids growing up feeling that lashing out is an acceptable instinctive response?

That said, I'm pretty sure that a lot of the bullies from my school (the posher ones) didn't get smacked at all.

heheh, good point.

so it should be some kind of reasoned cruelty that benefits you at their expense. (but because they're your kids explain to them why you slipped poison in their coffee after they've signed all their money to you, obv)

Err... sorry to be pedantic but - no it isn't.

although you really ought to leave teaching the really crafty stuff until later on just so that they have less time to use it on you.

Well for a kid growing up it is. every day they get older they're more on their own

Duct tape would work just as well as a swat, really.

I think alot of people in the area they live in let their children run free without discipline because they feel guilty about leaving their kids in day care/school from 6am to 7pm every damn day. I think I would find it hard to dump my kid off, drive a long ass commute there and back, pick him up and then look him in the face and say no or punish him for something no matter how wrong. It's doing them more harm than good in the long run but I see the logic.

My mom always ruled by fear. She never hit me, but she knew how to throw a shoe just right that it would miss me. I used to think she had bad aim, but now I suspect she didn't. I don't know if I'd use that tactic with my kids but it sure kept my ass in line.

Yes, except I was 99% joking. I never taped up my kid — there were times when her tantrum led her to do something destructive, and I would hold on to her and prevent her from it. Again, it's a matter of making them realize they're not the boss and they're about to be punished for going past established limits (i.e., forgetting who the boss really is).

fwiw, the kind of behavior that Grimly describes really annoys me too--teaching a kid some manners does not equal "stifling his creativity". Then again, I don't feel comfortable around most kids-- I'm not a parent, nor would I have any idea how to go about disciplining children, but I've definitely seen the difference well-defined boundaries and fair discipline can make to a kid's behavior.

Disagree completely (or is that sarcasm?). If Nanny 911 has taught me anything - and it has - it's that letting a kid do whatever s/he wants is a recipe for disaster. Seems to me that a little discipline early on saves the parents a world of hurt.

(My daughter's turning 1 next week, and getting to the point that she knows what she's doing, so lately I have been obsessing over the first time we have to punish her.)