You know what, Dorothy? In all my years I only found two sets of
parents that fell into this category and I had many kids who "slept" at
my house and claimed fear and abuse at theirs. In most cases it was the
parents who were in fear and being abused. When my teen son decided to
"move out" to a friend's home where they didn't have arbitary "rules",
guess what? The parents of that home called me in about two weeks and
begged me to take him back!! Apparently they didn't appreciate dirty
clothes on the floor, dirty dishes in the sink and the general trashing
of their home, either. Imagine that. In fact, that was the case in
EVERY place he went to flee our "rules" that just weren't "fair". It
came as quite a shock to him that this is the way the world works!

toto wrote:

On Thu, 26 Feb 2004 20:02:35 -0500, "Steve Furbish"
wrote:



"toto" wrote in message
. ..


On Wed, 25 Feb 2004 14:30:50 -0500, "Steve Furbish"
wrote:



I see? Like playing with fire - the natural consequence
being burns and death...


Children learn to be cautious with fire when they are allowed
to light the candles on their birthday cake under supervision
or to help with a campfire or to do a myriad of things that
show them how to use fire responsibly. There is no need to
*forbid* or to punish them. Instead teach them how to use
these things correctly. My kids learned this early because
they were scouts. Both of them could and did light and build
campfires with help at 7 or 8 years old.


Not all children who are properly and patiently exposed to the right ways to
handle fire have the maturity or self-restraint to treat it with the proper
respect. That's why even birthdaycake-candle-lighting scouts occassionally
are found to be responsible for fires that were not intended to get out of
hand. If you permit a seven or eight year old to have matches or a lighter
under unsupervised conditions then you are not a responsible parent, IMO.



Or playing near water - drowning.


Teach your children to swim. And supervise them. There is
no need to punish them for playing near the water either.


My kids went to those infant swim classes and could swim competantly by the
time they were toddlers. That doesn't mean they were allowed to play in or
near water unsupervised at that age.



I have not suggested that they be *allowed* to play unsupervised near
water or have matches and lighters unsupervised. OTOH, you cannot
prevent them from getting their hands on these if they wish to, so you
are better off teaching them how to use them under supervision then
forbidding all access to them.



Or how about talking to strangers - abduction, etc.,


This one is a bit more difficult because defining strangers is
difficult. Children are more likely to be harmed by people they
know than by strangers. Most molestation takes place within
the family.


I'm not talking about molestation. I'm talking about non-parental abduction.
You do realize that a small percentage of those Aber Alerts are the result
of abductions by strangers, right? You probably heard about that little 11
year old that was abducted and killed in Florida recently, right? I'm not
blaming her or her parents, but you have to wonder (if you were her parent)
what might have been done differently to protect her.



We need to walk a fine line between scaring children so that
they never take risks and keeping them safe. It's not easy, but
it never was. The risks of stranger abduction are not really
so great. The kids at risk are often those who are lonely and
neglected. Parents must spend time with their children and
must keep the lines of communication open.


What do you think is an acceptable risk? Do you suppose that your opinion
might seem less clear if your child were among the "not really so great"
risk victims?



My child was as much at risk as other children, I suppose. But that
risk is lessened if you actually teach your child about sex and the
subject is not taboo. My dd as a teen associated with other teens
who made many bad choices. She, however, did not make those
choices because she knew how to think for herself and had a good
sense of self-esteem. She saw one friend through a pregnancy,
childbirth and open adoption and she saw many who needed help
with drugs and alcohol. Those kids slept on my floor sometimes.
If their parents cared, they didn't show it. Not one of those kids
had a parent who used positive methods. Some had neglectful
parents, some had punitive parents and some had inconsistent
parents, but not one had a positive parent. Given the kids I drove
home after my dd's after-theater parties (she was a tech theater
person even in high school), many of these kids were afraid of their
parent's punishments. I had one kid who was very glad to have a
ride from me because he was afraid to call his own folks and wake
them up for a ride.




In a perfect world bad things wouldn't happen to kids.



Agreed.



As parents you have to adopt a personal set of ideals and hold to
them with the hope that you're doing the right thing. In the vast majority
of instances I agree with your love and reasoning approach, but I am
not so naive as to believe that there aren't some messages which are
just too important to pass on when the opportunity to make that solid
impression arises.



Punishment and spanking, don't do anything to prevent the harms you
are trying to prevent.



I never spanked my kids for convenience, expediancy or gratification.
That's just a motive attributed by those who preach that all spanking
is wrong. My boys were/are well mannered and well behaved for the
most part.



The problem is that you believe that spanking will keep them from
doing the action over time. It won't. If you watch kids who are
spanked (and I do because they are in my preschool classes), you
will see that their behavior is not changed in the long run. You may
stop the action *now,* but it doesn't stop the action later and it
also may simply change the action to another unacceptable one
if there is an underlying need that the action was meeting.

I am *not* of the opinion that an *occasional* spanking will
permanently scar a child, btw. But it's ineffective at achieving
self-discipline and unnecessary as well. Most parents who
spank don't realize what they are teaching. The unconscious
messages are not what you want your child to learn and they
do learn it. Though they learn more of it if it's your only or most
common method of discipline. And all punishment is ineffective
for teaching self-control, so better methods need to be used.

I believe that emotional and verbal abuse can do *more*
damage than spanking in many ways. The only way to change
this though is to change parental attitudes. And that takes
education. I do wish that all kids were required to take parenting
classes before they have a family. There are so many things
that they are not prepared for especially nowadays when families
are small and kids don't have a lot of contact with younger children.



You must advocate luck over common sense, eh?


No, not luck. I advocate actually teaching children how to
use things that are dangerous safely and helping them to
experiment so that the taboo fascination is taken out of the
subjects.


That's good in theory as long as you acknowlege the reality that
sometimes that taboo fascination can be rekindled by social peers.



In general, I don't think that this taboo gets rekindled that way.

If your child has not been *forbidden* to do these things and knows
that s/he can talk to parents about them openly and even experiment
with some of these things, the fascination isn't there.

In societies where children are allowed to have alcohol at home
in moderation, alcoholism and binge drinking occur much less
widely.



Steve




--
Dorothy

There is no sound, no cry in all the world
that can be heard unless someone listens ..

The Outer Limits