"Parenting Without Punishing"

Doan wrote:

On Fri, 18 Jun 2004, toto wrote:

On Thu, 17 Jun 2004 21:42:25 -0500, "Tori M."
wrote:

To raise a child to not have cause and effect
other then the "natural consequenses" (IE sticking
a fork in the outlet will get the child shocked) is just
as bad IMO then to over punish a child.

Children learn easily that *other people* can be punitive
without having their parents punish them.

Yes, that is why it is better for their parents to prepare
them for the REAL WORLD, not Oz land. Do you want your
children to grow up and be like Steve? :-)

Doan
-----------------
Given my CV you'd be an idiot to decline!!
Steve

Doan wrote:

On Fri, 18 Jun 2004, toto wrote:

On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 03:42:12 -0700, Doan wrote:

On Fri, 18 Jun 2004, toto wrote:

On Thu, 17 Jun 2004 21:42:25 -0500, "Tori M."
wrote:

To raise a child to not have cause and effect
other then the "natural consequenses" (IE sticking
a fork in the outlet will get the child shocked) is just
as bad IMO then to over punish a child.

Children learn easily that *other people* can be punitive
without having their parents punish them.

Yes, that is why it is better for their parents to prepare
them for the REAL WORLD, not Oz land. Do you want your
children to grow up and be like Steve? :-)

Parents do NOT have to punish kids to prepare them for
the *real world.* They do have to instill a sense of ethics
and a sense of self-discipline.

For some, yes; for all? Kids are individuals. There is no
one size fits all solution.
-----------------------
Cowardly equivocation, your last "out" to try to excuse your abuse.


My children both have that and I am now helping to raise
my grandchildren in the same way.

Good! Are they better than the Serena/Venus Williams sisters?
Are they better than Ted Turner? Mother Theresa?
----------------------------------
I don't see any of those as excellent people, they are just famous.
That takes nuthin'!


I have said before that permissive parenting is not the same
thing as positive parenting. Giving in to the whims of anyone
doesn't help them to learn to respect the feelings of the other
person involved. But there is no need to punish children to
accomplish this.

Now where did I say anything about permissive. I am talking about
doing what best for your kids. Parents are the best ones to decide
what discipline strategy works best for their kids.
Doan
-----------------------------
Nope, their kids are.

Parents are universally deluded by their OWN abusive upbringing,
and are worse people than they hope their children will be,
thus they are the least able to judge that!
Steve

Doan wrote:

On Fri, 18 Jun 2004, toto wrote:

For some, yes; for all? Kids are individuals. There is no
one size fits all solution.

Kids are individuals. Punishment is a one size solution. Positive
parenting adapts to individuals.

Punishment is NOT a one size nor the ONLY solution! Punishment that
fit the crime adapts to the individual and the misbehavior. Positive
parenting PLUS punishment as a backup give you the BEST of both worlds.
-----------------------------
Except you can't do both!:

Your abuse poisons positive parenting completely.

That true, positive parenting is most adaptable.


My children both have that and I am now helping to raise
my grandchildren in the same way.

Good! Are they better than the Serena/Venus Williams sisters?
Are they better than Ted Turner? Mother Theresa?

Better how? I would never compare my kids to other people
as they are themselves not those others.

So you don't mind if your kids turn into a STEVE? Do you of any kid
that overcome so much like the Williams - with your non-punitive
disciplinary style?
------------------------------
You really hate children, and you hate adults who disagree with you.
You're a controlling asshole. You're unfit to judge who is a better
person, you're too far down the ladder to judge above your low rung.


I have said before that permissive parenting is not the same
thing as positive parenting. Giving in to the whims of anyone
doesn't help them to learn to respect the feelings of the other
person involved. But there is no need to punish children to
accomplish this.

Now where did I say anything about permissive. I am talking about
doing what best for your kids. Parents are the best ones to decide
what discipline strategy works best for their kids.

You are talking about permissive vs punitive. That's all you folks
ever do. You cannot get it through your heads that there is another
way that is neither.

Come on, Dorothy! After all these years and you still come up with
such a strawman.
-----------------
None such.


There is more than one way!
--------------
Not if that "other" way is WRONG and does DAMAGE! And it does.


It's up to the parents
to find the way that is BEST for their kids.
--------------
AND up to the State to stop them if they go wrong and become abusive
INSTEAD.


Notice that I've NEVER
said you are doing it the wrong way with your kids. You, on the hand,
are saying that your way is the ONLY WAY!
Doan
--------------
Yes, there IS such a thing as a right way, and a wrong way.
You've been dodging and weaving to try to avoid the Truth,
and to preserve the "option" of your sick little perversion,
but you're WRONG and EVIL!

In the near Future you'll be told to stop or we'll harm you!!
Steve

Donna Metler wrote:

Grades are sent out to parents, but nothing graded is to be posted and in
general, grades are ignored. A poor grade costs the child nothing-unless the
parent chooses to make it so. I don't give grades in my elective classes-I
do narrative reports.
----------------------------
Also ignored if what you claim is true.
Obviously it's not, YOU don't even believe your own crap!


Grades are nothing unless they are made to be. The goal is to get the child
to improve and learn.
---------------------------
Which should be private so the child isn't publically and
systematically humiliated.


Frankly, whenever anyone says a method works with 1000+ children, I'm
skeptical. Because, even a parent of 2-3 children will tell you that the
same things don't work for all of them. I have had students who honestly
seem to have come out of the womb intrinsically motivated to behave. I have
had students who have come out completely the opposite.
------------------------------------
Lots of people tell lots of lies about them and their kids.
But lots of professionals have a lot better result with those
same kids than these stupid ****ing amateurs who are imitating
their own abuse in their treatment of their kids, and lying
about it a lot.


I have heard parents tell me to "just whack him one"-and parents who claim
that requiring a child to pick up a mess he/she made is too punitive and
degrading.
------------------------------
Yes, but do you know which one is right, and which one is wrong, or
are you just imitating YOUR own abuse when you were a kid!????


I have seen parents who, when their child is in trouble at school
take their child to McDonald's for lunch to "talk about it"-and are
surprised when their child gets into trouble every few weeks.
------------------------------
That's not the cause. And the conversation may be one of the few
they will ever have!
Steve

Nathan A. Barclay wrote:

"R. Steve Walz" wrote in message
...

never be allowed to punish no matter how much trouble their children's
behavior is causing them.
----------------------------
The parents "trouble" is irrelevant, unless trhe child causes it by
actions regarded as criminal if they were an adult, and with no
dishonest attempts by you to side-step this issue, if you please!!!

The view that children should have the same rights as adults makes sense as
a matter of basic principle ONLY IF children are also given the same
responsibilities as adults.
--------------
Nonsense, elders and cripples have adult rights, and many fewer
responsibilities. So do kids because of their inability yet.

That said, NOT abusing someone makes them far more likely to wish
to ASSUME responsibility and help you with whatever you want as a
FRIEND! And it MUCH better serves the ends of childraising, as
these are the optimal in human characteristics!


If children are NOT given the same
responsibilities as adults, then society obviously does not view children as
being ready to be treated like adults.
-------------------
YOU mean YOU don't, and that's merely your political social posture,
it's not even honest, because you KNOW that people deserve rights
WITHOUT responsibilites, or there wouldn't be laws against their
abuse!


Under those conditions, a rational
argument can be made that the same differences between children and adults
that justify differences in their responsibilities also justify differences
in their rights.
---------------------
Since your argument has been demolished, your attempted dishonest
conclusion proves also to be nothing but disingenuous dog****.


If positive methods are not working, or are requiring an unreasonable
amount of time and effort from the parents before the child finally
decides to cooperate, punishment is not clearly unreasonable.
-----------------
If the child is within their Rights, is IS INHERENTLY UNREASONABLE!!

If. At present, society views children as having both fewer rights and
fewer responsibilities than adults.
------------------------------------
Wrongly, as the model of all oppressed peoples and classes indicates.


(And whatever one wants
to argue about long-term effects, there are very clearly situations
where spanking can produce useful results in regard to children's
short-term behavior - especially in situations where there is no
possibility that the children won't get caught.)
-------------------------------------
Nonsense. Abuse only causes hatred and deception, not obedience.

Please stop repeating that lie over and over as if telling it often enough
somehow made it true.
--------------------
My assertion is NOT that repetition helps anyone but vicious and
intellectually dishonest **** like you to understand what you
deny disingenuously. Abuse of ME causes hatred and deception, and
I can see it does the same to you! My premise is OBVIOUSLY TRUE!


You can make a case that "abuse" as you call it
sometimes does cause those things.
---------------------
It is ALWAYS likely to, meaning it should NOT BE USED, because ther
is NO way to prevent that outcome if it is, and we're talking about
our CHILDREN here!


You can NOT make a case that those are
the ONLY things it causes, nor can you support a claim that it never causes
children to obey.
---------------------
EVEN *IF* it worked,
and the reasons it doesn't are obvious:
Obediance is NOT an acceptable outcome
if ANOTHER likely outcome is damage to our children!

Obediance is simply NOT an overriding interest for parents,
only for the immature insecure adult like you who was abused
as a child!


Your position is patently false,
-------------------
That's not a reasoned argument, that's posturing
and jumping over the requieement of logic to try desperately
to assert a false conclusion!


and only your insistence
on rejecting any real-world facts that intrude on your theoretical model
gets in the way of your seeing that.
-------------------------
My knowlede of what I'd do is no theory, I would seek to hurt
anyone who tried to damage me, I'd harm them and burn their
****ing house down! And so would any abused child!! YOU know
it as does everyone else! Arson is the MOST common violent
reaction by abused children!


*IF* they had done something criminal, their conscience would tell
them they've done wrong. Then a punishment of detention might be
appropriate.

You are missing a critical difference. In the adult world, there are many
things that we don't NEED laws agaisnt because they can be dealt with
through the voluntary nature of adult relationships.
------------------
We need that for children.


An adult who is
annoyed by a roommate's behavior can kick the roommate out or leave,
depending on who is the owner or primary tenant.
----------------------
Or sue him and take his stuff or have the police fine him heavily.

But none of this is relevant, it involves someone misbehaving who
doesn't have to and wouldn't have had to without being abused in
some way by the other person!


A worker who is annoyed by
a co-worker can quit, or can threaten to quit if the boss doesn't either get
the annoying co-worker to stop or fire him. A bar patron can ask the
bartender to evict another patron who is being obnoxious. And so on. The
combination of adult privileges and adult responsibilities deals with the
problems without the need to decide the exact point at which an annoying
behavior becomes a criminal offense.
----------------------------------
Which is the reason why you'd better ****ing be nice to your kids,
because if you don't they can **** you up!!

"For if anyone has a cause at law against you, and you are going
with him before the ruler, make an attempt, on the way, to come
to an agreement with him, for if you do not, he may take you
before the judge and the judge will give you up to the police,
and they will put you in prison." -- Luke 12:58

The edicts of reality are simple, get along with people or you
will get hurt! So get along with your children, treat them as
you would wish them to treat you if your identities were reversed
right now!! If you want to lie and say you would want to be
abused, well, you know that's just a lie, so stop your ****ing
LYING!

I think Jesus would put it precisely that way! He's ALSO tell
you, that people will be nice to you, IF YOU ARE NICE TO THEM!!


But with children, many of the relationships are not nearly so voluntary.
Parents can't evict or leave their children, and allowing them to would open
children up to a threat far more dangerous than that of a spanking.
--------------------------------
Not needed either. You're WILDLY UNDER-estimating the influence a
parent can have as a moral and ethical persuasion upon their kids,
they are wiser, hopefully, and they can set an example of love to
them and remind them of the long haul, of sentiment and history
together, they can manipulate them for a good cause, their own!


Siblings' ability to get away from each other if one behaves obnoxiously
toward another is very limited, especially if they have to share a room.
Children at school have only a very limited ability to get away from a child
who is deliberately trying to annoy them. And so forth.
----------------------------------
Parents need to be peacemakers, to teach them how to relate, and
remind them they will be siblings for an entire lifetime as adults,
so they should take greater care in their relationships, learn
politeness and concern for one another, and parents can remind
a child who resists this, that they also depend on them for more
than merely necessities, and what a parent who loves them can do
for them over the long haul in life, and them for their parent,
to remind them what can happen if they burn bridges precipitously,
how they can wind up saddened for a lifetime if they don't be
careful of one another. And all the while they say these things,
they don't have to threaten or coerce or try force, or dishonor
or be hateful. The shame they can instill is not "shaming", but
arises naturally for misdeeds in the child raised by such a parent!


So trying to take laws designed for one context and say that any behavior
that is not illegal under those laws should be allowed in another, very
different context poses some pretty significant problems.
------------------------------
Irrational, you're merely trying dishonestly to defeat logic.


But if that isn't true and they were only availing themselves of their
Rights, they will experience merely raw hatred and vengeance formation,
and progressive resistance to punishment so that they
WILL finally attack you.

Huh? Let me get this straight. If children are punished for something that
does not violate adult law, they will "experience merely raw hatred and
vengeance formation," but if what they are doing violates adult law, they
won't?
---------------
Everyone knows when they have done actual unfair wrongness.
It is INBORN!


News flash: children's sense of right and wrong is sophisticated enough to
recognize that a behavior can be wrong without being illegal in an adult
context.
---------------
Irrelevant, for then to that extent the Law itself is what is Wrong.


What is important is not whether what they are punished for
violates adult law, but rather whether the children accept that the action
they were punished for was wrong.
----------------
I used adult law as a model of what is more easy to grasp as fair.
It might well not be, but that doesn't matter to my logical point.

Children CANNOT *BE* "made" to accept that what they do is wrong,
IF IT IS NOT SO! Nor can a child fail to accept it if it is!!
And this relates to their INBORN human conscience, not any parental
or legal desire or admonition.


If someone (adult or child) is punished
for violating a law, but believes that the law was wrong, it can lead to a
great deal of resentment.
----------------
And all such 'rules' or "laws" that are wrong do this, esepcially
including any bias against the full INBORN rights of children and
everyone of any age!


And being punished for something that a person
didn't even know was considered wrong is likely to lead to resentment.
-------------------
If it is not a part of INBORN conscience, then it is unfair to enforce
upon human beings, for that IS our INBORN Nature!


But
if a child accepts that what he did was wrong, the fact that the "law" came
from a parent rather than from the government doesn't make all that much
difference in the child's perception of how he is being treated.
---------------------
Treatment is wrong if it is wrong. Hurting, frightening a child
who is remorseful for a genuine crime is STILL a sin against the
Divine. Not doing so to a young budding vicious criminal can also
be a crime! Kicking the **** out of child abusers with steel-toed
boots can be a solemn DUTY BEFORE THE INFINITE!!! The point is to
be FAIR, and that means not to punish what is not wrong! And a
child's wish for his own freedom to do as he must is NOT WRONG!


Further, the idea that spanking is somehow inherently more cruel than
other forms of punishment is easily refuted by the existence of
situations
where children PREFER a spanking over an alternative form of
punishment that would not be considered excessively cruel.
----------------
Absolute nonsense, abused kids do that merely to avoid worse parental
beatings. It is still abuse and entails vengeance formation and
antisocial fixation.

LOL. If your theoretical model and reality collide, you invariably think
that it must be reality that's wrong.
---------------
I don't merely THINK it, I KNOW it!!
It is as clear as a bright blue day!
The world is not wrong, humans are wrong.
Quit pretending that your petty abusive
neurotic crap somehow constitutes "reality"!!!
The Truth is the ONLY Reality!


News flash: the world didn't change
from round to flat just because people tried to deny that it was round.
------------------------
You think it's flat and call it round.


Another news flash: I'm speaking from personal experience,
so I know just how full of bovine excrement you really are.
------------------
Your only "personal experience" was emotionally
distorting abuse!

And the bull**** you know so well is in your head because
your asshole parents PUT that Dark **** in your head.


On the other hand, your incredulity may actually be explainable. Later, you
say, "every parental abuse I ever witnessed the hatred and abusive ideation
was fully involved, and the beating vicious." I can see why you would not
believe that a child would choose that over any even remotely reasonable
non-physical alternative. But in my view (and I developed this view as a
child) what makes one punishment less undesirable than another is an issue
of overall severity, not one of what form the punishment takes.
----------------------------
Your experience was poison, and you're a victim, as I believed
all along. Only a VERY harmed child defends parental abuse so
desperately!


I'm curious: suppose you broke a law and were given a choice of either a
month in jail or three licks with a paddle that wouldn't be hard enough to
leave any bruising. Which would you choose?
-----------------------------
I don't break just laws, only unjust laws.
Human Resistance to humilation means Jailtime, definitely,
to cost my illicit captors as much as possible.

And any person who assaulted me that way I would have to
hunt him down and kill him quite personally and chop his
body very finely and distribute it all over the county
as feed for small animals.


But in general, there is no logically
sound moral reason why spanking should be rejected in favor of other
forms of punishment in situations where punishment can be defended
as legitimate.
--------------------------
Absolute abusive lie by an obvious chronic abuser who should be
prosecuted or killed.

You make that claim, but I don't see you accepting the challenge implicit in
what I wrote.
--------------------------------
You merely lied, you didn't come through logic, you wussed out.
You tried to STATE something was true rather than SHOW it was.
Pompous and dishonest.


I've said all this to lay the following foundation:

(1) Under the views of
the majority of society, there is no logically sound reason for viewing
it as automatically immoral for parents to punish, and (2) there is no
logically sound reason for rejecting spanking as inherently more cruel
than other forms of punishment.
----------------
Except that all the evidence points to it causing a vast increase
in crime and antisocial behavior where it was attempted. It was once
tried in prisons in England in the 16th century, but it made prisons
so dangerous they couldn't hire enough guards!! When they restricted
prison to incarceration as punishment, the prisons became staffable
again and inmates who had been in solitary for years because of them
trying to kill anyone near them became social and even friendly again.

This is not a sufficiently detailed explanation to establish relevance to
anything that I would consider a reasonable use of corporal punishment by
parents. For all I know from what you wrote, the guards were often sadistic
scum looking for any excuse to beat their prisoners harshly.
----------------------------
It's a matter of pragmatic psychology. A side issue.


Therefore, if one wants to build a case that
parents must not spank using a philosophical basis acceptable to
most Americans, that case has to be built on scientific evidence
showing that spanking causes sufficient long-term harm to
outweigh its short-term benefits.
-----------------
The burden is on the criminal, not their victims.

Nice try, but under current law, parents who spank are not criminals.
----------------------------------
If the law is wrong they are, and deserve punishment just as much.


Otherwise, if parents cannot obtain acceptable behavior within
a reasonable amount of time using positive methods, they are
justified in using the threat of spanking (and, if necessary, actual
spanking) for the short-term benefits it produces WHETHER
OR NOT spanking produces long-term benefits compared with
if they spent a lot more time and effort trying to resolve the issue
using purely non-punitive techniques.
------------------------------------
Nope, that causes worse outcomes and no reasonable results,

You're ignoring reality again, or else playing a word game in which you can
say "no reasonable results" because you arbitrarily define the results as
unreasonable without regard to whether spanking has the desired effect on
the child's behavior.
-------------------------------------
It doesn't, you know that, and you know why. There's no word
game but the Truth you don't like because it shows you your
parents made you a beaten little victim and you wussied right
out and capitulated like the little immature coward you still
are.

Watch, you'll get all ****ed off now with hatred and venom.

Actually you were a victim, and the stuff I said was what your
parents said, not what *I* really believe. You couldn't help
your abuse, it wasn't your fault, you couldn't stand up to
them then, but you can now and its ****ing time you started,
DON'T YOU THINK???


So what does the evidence say? Straus and Mouradian's 1998 study shows
a truly enormous distinction between the effects parents can expect if
they
spank only when they have themselves firmly under control and those they
can expect if they spank as a result of losing their tempers.
----------------------------------
You're lying, misquoting and mischaracterizing.

Nice trick. If someone cites evidence that damages your position, level
accusations against him but offer no specifics that would allow him to prove
that your accusations are wrong.
-----------------
Hahahah, having read all of it, I know carefully shaded distortions
when I see them. Nobody reputable interprets it this way, you have
to nit-pick at words in a vacuum to even attempt it, it's your lie.

Doan's been pulling the same shaded-truth **** for years, avoiding the
Real Truth.


And nobody *I* know have ever SEEN this imaginary reported "controlled
spanking" bull**** among parents, every parental abuse I ever witnessed
the hatred and abusive ideation was fully involved, and the beating
vicious.

Then you're working from a position of ignorance, either from not having
seen the full spectrum of how spanking is used or from having misinterpreted
what you were seeing.
--------------------------------
Nonsense, this is a lie that out-of-control parents alwwys try.


And as for the supposed controlled "paddling" in schools, I
observed it caused the teachers to be assaulted, threatened, their
families endangered, so much so that the only ones who tried it either
retired early from teaching or were fired. It was a major cause of
kids winding up in prison, and two teachers I knew were severely
harmed.

"A major cause of kids winding up in prison"? On what do you base that
claim?
----------------
A century and a half of books on penology.


There probably is a pretty significant correlation in places where
corporal punishment is used in school, because the same factors that cause
kids to grow up to be criminals seem likely to get them in trouble at
school, and hence possibly get them paddled, along the way. But it's hard
to imagine any significant number of cases (at least compared with the
overall prison population) where paddlings at school played a significant
role.
--------------------------
Now you're REALLY reaching! Anything to avoid the Truth, eh?
You think school was the first abuse???



If you have any evidence that would contradict my belief about the current
state of research, please present it. Otherwise, you have no basis for
calling my presentation a "distortion." And your charges of "lying" and
that I had an intent to distort are wrong in any case, because I am working
from my best effort to analyze the information that I am aware of.
Nathan
-------------
Do your own homework, I don't have time to chase you around and
fix you so you accept the Truth, let alone read it.
Steve

"toto" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 09:02:28 -0500, "Nathan A. Barclay"
wrote:

I disagree.
Grades are often an *incorrect* measurement of the learning
that is going on.

Would you mind elaborating on this? Offhand, the three issues I can
think of are (1) differences in test-taking skills, (2) tests don't tell
whether the child has particular answers "down cold" or is just
guessing, and (3) especially, how much the child knows above
and beyond what was on the test. Did you have other things in mind?

Several other things come to mind as well. For example, grading an
essay is subjective. Several teachers can grade the same essay with
grades that differ by quite a lot. In subjects where teachers have
particular viewpoints, often if a child disagrees with the teacher's
views and writes with good support about their own view, the grade
will reflect that the child disagreed rather than how good the actual
writing and support were. A good rubric helps when grading English
essays, but it isn't going to ameliorate the subjectivity entirely.

I'll definitely agree that grades have a lot less value when the teacher's
evaluation is itself largely subjective in nature. There are objective
criteria that can be used to identify problems in a child's logic and so
forth, but even so, a teacher would find it hard not to subject a child's
reasoning to closer scrutiny if the teacher strongly disagrees with the
child's views than if the teacher strongly agrees. Thus, even if the
teacher grades based only on the presence of clearly identified flaws, the
grades could still be skewed by the teacher's identifying a higher
percentage of flaws in papers the teacher disagrees with.

In academic subjects, without some kind of testing (even if it's just
the child checking his answers against the back of the book), there
is a very real possibility that the child will think he knows the
material
better than he really does.

I am not against *tests,* but I am against using them the way they
are currently used to compare one student to another and to evaluate
the student's learning. I am all for using tests to give students
feedback about what they need to learn by allowing them to correct
errors.

What's so horribly wrong about evaluating children's learning?

OTOH, it's not necessarily about right and wrong answers
if we are attempting to teach critical thinking and supporting your
opinions on things.

Agreed. But there is still right and wrong application of logic, and a need
for children to learn how to recognize not only the underlying reasons why
they hold particular views but also the resons why others think differently.
(Obviously, children can understand such things better as they get older.)
So there are still things that teachers can usefully point out in order to
help their students do better, assuming the teachers understand the
principles involved well enough to teach them to their students.

And by the way, it is by no means rare for sports coaches to catch flaws
in players' techniques that the players are not aware of.

Yes, but the way this is corrected is not to *grade* the player and
fail him and keep him from playing the sport again.

That depends. If the goal is to teach the player, you are right. But when
there are more people who want to play on a team than there are openings,
coaches do in effect grade players in terms of who is better or worse and
stop those who fail to make the cut from playing. Similar things also
happen in other contexts in the adult world. For example, in interviewing
people for jobs, employers sort out who they think are best applicants.

I certainly do not believe in arbitrarily using grades to deliberately limit
children's opportunities. But to pretend that how good or bad children are
at something relative to their peers is irrelevant is to ignore the way
things work in the real world.

A good coach
points out the flaw, shows the player what can be done to correct it
and allows the player to practice the new technique so they can
become better players.

I strongly agree that this should be the schools' focus.

Granted, if parents or teachers express approval or disapproval of a
child's grades, that provides an extrinsic reward or punishment. But
the grade itself is merely a summary of how well the child did overall.
It is how it is used that can make it an extrinsic reward or punishment.

The problem is that such summaries are flawed.

"Flawed" is not the same as useless. If you have a better idea for giving
children a picture of how they are doing compared to others, and for giving
parents n idea of how their children are doing, I would be interested to
hear it.

True. A grade provides no more than a summary, and the summary
itself is not really necessary when the specific errors are pointed out.
On the other hand, a child just might want to calculate the percentage
of wrong answers even if a teacher didn't. And if a teacher adjusts
the grades upward to reflect the difficulty of a test, that sends the
message, "This test may have been a bit on the hard side, so
missing a certain percentage isn't necessarily as big an issue as it
would be on an easier test." Thus, the information is not useless.

You seem to believe that everything has right and wrong answers when
you are learning. This is what is untrue. There are right and wrong
answers to standard math problems, but not to much else in the world
of learning.

Much of the subject of history has clear right and wrong answers, although
there are also a great many gray areas. Most of science has answers good
enough that for practical purposes, it makes sense to treat them as right.
Many aspects of Social Studies involve specific facts. Geography is
composed of facts, albeit ones that change over time. English grammar
sometimes has more than one right answer, but many answers are indisputably
wrong. Spelling only rarely has multiple right answers.

So I think your words, "There are right and wrong answers to standard math
problems, but not to much else in the world of learning." are very greatly
overstated. And for that matter, even when there are competing viewpoints,
children can be tested in terms of their knowledge of those viewpoints.
("According to John Dewey's theory of...")

Grades don't give an indication of exactly what the child needs to do,
but they do give an indication of how much the child might want or
need to do. An "F" indicates that the child needs to work a lot harder
to keep up with other children.

Why should he *keep up with other children.* Learning is an
individual thing. He should go at his own pace. If that means
he is ahead and can go on to another class early, that's fine.
If it means he needs to continue practicing for mastery and stay
on a topic longer, that should be fine too.

If the child is already making as much effort as it is reasonable for others
to expect of him, and if the child does not want to push himself harder
voluntarily, I agree. (And I should have written, "needs to work a lot
harder if he is going to keep up with other children," since that goal
cannot automatically be assumed to be either practical or desirable.)

On the other hand, allowing children to proceed "at their own pace" can also
become a license for laziness. Adults are expected to put a certain amount
of time and effort into their jobs, and there is nothing unreasonable about
expecting children to do the same. If the problem is that the child isn't
making much of an effort, what needs to be done is to find a way to motivate
the child more, or to push the child harder, or, if practical, perhaps to
rearrange the order in which the child learns things in the hope that the
child will be more interested in the subject in question at a later point.
(Obviously, current public schools aren't generally configured to do that,
but more flexible designs would be possible.)

Keep in mind that when children grow up, they will be competing with
each other for jobs. For example, if a child wants to get into medical
school and become a doctor, he needs to learn enough to compete
with others who have a similar desire. That kind of thing can make
knowledge of how a child measures up against other children very
important - to the child, not just to the teacher and parents.

No, it's not. If a child wants to do something, then they can do
their best for themselves. They don't have to care what others
are doing as long as they are doing their own best work.

You're assuming that the child is self-motivated enough to do his or her
best work in the absence of an external standard to judge performance
against. How many children are actually like that?

I certainly believe that children should be taught to regard their
schoolwork as successful as long as they are truly doing their best. "Do
what you can. All you can do is your best," is a sort of slogan I've
adopted for dealing with impossible situations. (I first started using
those words when I was substitute teaching a few years ago and teachers
sometimes deliberately assigned impossible assignments to keep the kids
busy.)

But knowledge of how a child is doing compared with others, or compared with
how well the child needs to do to achieve some particular goal (such as
getting into college or pursuing some particular career) can be a useful
motivating factor. And I think it's a bit crazy to throw away external
motivating factors that could provide motivation just because we're caught
up in the theoretical ideal that children should be motivated by the desire
to do their best without regard to external motivating factors.

"Doan" wrote in message
...

Now where did I say anything about permissive. I am talking about
doing what best for your kids. Parents are the best ones to decide
what discipline strategy works best for their kids.

There are an awful lot of ignorant and misguided parents out there who, in
spite of having the inside track in terms of knowing their own children as
individuals better than others do, are in a truly lousy position in terms of
knowing what works best for them. If all a parent has ever tried is yelling
and spanking, how does the parent know other things wouldn't work better?
And there are also parents who refuse to see their children as they truly
are, pretending that everything is going well when it really isn't.

I strongly oppose the idea of taking parents out of the loop, of assuming
that people who have never even heard of a particular child by name much
less met the child will know what works best for that child. But I do see a
need to educate parents so they can make their choices from a position of
knowledge instead of from a position of ignorance. Without that knowledge,
an awful lot of parents are clearly NOT the best ones to decide for their
children, although recognizing that fact and finding a workable way to
address it are two different things.

Nathan

"toto" wrote in message
...

Kids are individuals. Punishment is a one size solution.

Not true, or at least not inherently true. Good parents won't just start
off with a preconceived list of what offenses will result in what
punishments. They will look at how their children respond to different
types of situations, and they will use whatever techniques seem most
appropriate in light of what they see. Decisions about what kinds of
behavior need to result in punishment, what kinds of punishment should be
used in various situations, and how severe the punishments need to be can
all be adjusted to fit the individual child.

Nathan

"toto" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 14:38:21 -0700, Doan wrote:

Aside from that, of course, a 5 or 6 year old would be going to school
in the morning not daycare.

Even if it's summer vacation? :-)

Doan wrote:

On Fri, 18 Jun 2004, toto wrote:

On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 11:42:06 -0700, Doan wrote:

Quite honeslty this in not something I've encountered on more than a very
very infrequent basis. It is understood that taking responsiblity for one's
actions is expected, and I've found that children will what you expect of
them. If you expect that a child will act in a cooperative manner, they do
so. If you expect that a child will constantly rebel and refuse to do what
is required, they do this as well. On those rare occasions where a child
would not want to clean up, all that is necessary is disussing with the
child that you understand that they don't want to do this now, but that it
needs to be done and you would appreciate their taking care of it -- neve
rhad a problem beyond that.

Good for you! You seem to have figured out what work with your kids. The
problem I have with this is when you try to generalize it to everyone. As
you acknowledged, it didn't work 100% of the times even with your own
kids! Imagine a single-mom having to catch a bus to work in the morning
and uncooperating child that don't want to go to daycare that day. What
are the consequences in this case? Theory is nice, but reality is what
really bites!

What age is the child? So much depends on their age in cases like
this and on the reason the child does not want to go to this daycare.

The child can be 3,4,5,6. The reason is he/she just doesn't feel like it!

Doan
------------
There are no contentless "reasons" for desires.
Steve