
Taking Children Seriously - monort
http://fallibleideas.com/taking-children-seriously
======
spiderfarmer
I fully agree that you have to take children seriously, respectfully and make
sure they are able to live life to the fullest.

But the "rules are bad" trope is, unfortunately, a trend in The Netherlands.
Parents that live by this rule are sacrificing themselves. It's bad parenting.

I see a lot of parents (mothers mostly) in public places desperately trying to
explain their dissatisfaction to their misbehaving children. The children
meanwhile are completely disregarding them and will continue doing whatever
they were doing untill the parents give up. The parents will end up awkwardly
trying to ignore their children, visibly ashamed but still unable to use their
authority for fear of breaking their chosen path to happy parenting. They
won't even raise their voice.

As a parent, I see this all the time. In school, on the street, in stores,
it's everywhere.

Reasoning with kids that are completely unwilling to listen to your "adult
talk" is completely hopeless. Rules aren't fun but they aren't bad either. You
don't have to explain your rules everytime, just make sure you enforce them
consistently.

~~~
anon-20171203A
Let me provide you a personal experience that might help put this "rules are
bad" trope in context.

One day I was with my daughter (~24 months old) at the Zoo and she wanted an
Ice Cream and I said "nope". She looked around with wide eyes and noticed all
the people near by. Then, she did something I had never seen before -- she
dropped down on the ground, twisted and swirled, and started to scream; for
quite some time. I calmly sat down nearby and asked her: "when you're done,
could you let me know?". Over the next minute or so, several parents gathered
around to gawk at the spectacle. When my daughter got close enough to some
urine on the ground, I got up, walked over and said: "careful, icky pee here".
Without stopping the rolling or the screaming, she immediately recognized and
steered clear of the urine. I then sat down again and said, "when you're done,
could you let me know?". After another minute or two longer, with hoarse voice
and a few bruises, she stood straight up and said: "Fine; I'm done. Monkey
next?".

What was problematic was the reaction of other parents. During the episode,
they became increasingly anxious looking at each other and trying to catch my
attention. One of the mothers asked me "Where is your wife?", to which I
responded: "at work, but don't worry, I'm the primary care giver". A father
said (after being nudged by his wife): "well, you're just going to sit there?"
to which I calmly responded: "It's a temper tantrum". One final mother didn't
say a word, but made sure to give my daughter comforting eyes and looked
harshly at me, making sure I knew she was dialing someone (police?) on her
cell phone.

Once my daughter got up, we inspected her pants for horse urine and talked
about how that was an extreme waste of time. Later on I asked her what the
Tantrum was about. She explained it quite clearly to me: "well, daddy, one
other boy just had one and he got the ice cream, so I wanted to see if that
would work". I explained to her that this was pretty bad behavior and that if
I ever see it again, we will go home immediately. I've had a few tantrums
since, but none of them have been public. My daughter and I then had a very
fantastic afternoon talking about Monkeys and more effective ways to
communicate her desires.

This was a very unexpected experience for me. I seriously didn't expect that
in 1-2 minutes, I'd have a dozen adults gathering around in a circle. I didn't
expect 2 of them would be brave enough to hurl insults. I didn't expect one of
them to be implicitly threatening police (CPS?). I can see how many parents
would have caved under such peer pressure. Perhaps it's not the parent's fear
of the children that leads to these problems, but instead, fear of what other
parents might say or do?

So. I'm not sure how to connect this to this thread. First I'm not sure a
"rule" would have helped. Punishing her wasn't going to help (I evaluated
going immediately home, but I think the event was traumatic enough for her
already). I'm not sure. Would you do it differently? If you saw me on the
bench, would you think that I had given up?

~~~
quickthrower2
> "well, daddy, one other boy just had one and he got the ice cream, so I
> wanted to see if that would work"

Pretty advanced for a 2 year old.

With 2 year olds in general, and any discipline advice: YMMV for everyone
because they are very unpredictable at that age.

Any "I did this with my 2 yr old" and "I got this result" causality should be
taken with a pinch of salt.

~~~
MaurizioPz
I can assure you that young children are way smarter that most give them
credit. They can pattern match pretty quickly.

~~~
quickthrower2
> "I wanted to see if that would work"

This seems advanced to me. Of course this could be a stock phrase copied from
an adult. My 2 year old does this a lot and it makes her sound grown up. As an
adult I use confirmation bias to say "yup she's smart".

~~~
tarboreus
2-year-olds are definitely capable of this kind of thinking. The ability to
explain it and introspect is more rare.

------
JeanMarcS
My brother, who have no kids, have a kind of doing things that makes the kids
like him (he was a handball coach at the time). When I asked him what it was
many years ago, he told me : « I treat them as adults, talk to them on an
equal base »

So when my children was born, I decided to do the same for them. Talking like
an adult (with sometimes words they had no chance to understand), explain the
why and how of stuff we ask them to do.

Never raised the hand on them. Sometimes it’s a little hard to deal, but most
of the time everything goes well.

We’ll see when they will be teenagers, but for now, we all live in harmony,
and we are often complimented by other parents for their behavior.

Maybe we got lucky (we will never know) or may be this approach was good.

But for us, it’s the way to do.

~~~
emerged
It's always worked for me. Kids are used to being dominated and condescended.
If you talk to them as respected individuals, you usually get respect back. It
also gives more weight to the times you have to be more assertive.

The other helpful thing is to let them be right. Make mistakes on purpose and
let them correct you. They're so hungry to be right that it gives a real
confident boost.

It should go without saying that this strategy should be used only when it's
reasonable, not in cases of safety or when keeping kids from wrecking havoc
etc.

~~~
SomeStupidPoint
> [Subordinates] are used to being dominated and condescended. If you talk to
> them as respected individuals, you usually get respect back. It also gives
> more weight to the times you have to be more assertive.

This is actually pretty good advice for any time you're trying to manage
people -- and kids are just little people.

~~~
corysama
The Coding Horror blog has a great piece on how the book _How to Talk So Kids
Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk_ helped him out with a lot more than
just his kids.

[https://blog.codinghorror.com/how-to-talk-to-human-
beings/](https://blog.codinghorror.com/how-to-talk-to-human-beings/)

~~~
SomeStupidPoint
Excellent blog post!

And if anyone is looking for the book (like I was), this seems to be a more
recent edition (with better availability):

[https://www.amazon.com/How-Talk-Kids-Will-
Listen/dp/14516638...](https://www.amazon.com/How-Talk-Kids-Will-
Listen/dp/1451663889/)

------
zxcmx
I like this idea but let's take it to the limit. Very young children (<2 say)
aren't reasoning or reasonable creatures in the usual way we might expect of
adults.

They are very scientific (aka will try all the things and are surprisingly
astute and pragmatic about learning what works) but they do not have a broader
perspective on the world.

"Rules" like "time to go to sleep" and "I'll stop you running onto the road"
are not negotiable in any meaningful sense. Other rules for older children can
often be viewed as extensions of this.

Mistakes are not free. Some rules are OK.

~~~
Latty
Clearly it is a process - the point the article is making isn't that rules
shouldn't exist, rather that any rule should just be a conclusion being
explained to the child.

i.e: The answer to "why" should never be "because I said so".

I get that many kids will just ask why infinitely, and lots of parents say
that because they are fed up and know the child isn't taking on board the
answer, but I'd recommend instead insisting on a specific question - when they
ask "why", ask "what don't you understand?" or drill down. This has the
advantage of potentially catching a real miscommunication where the child
doesn't understand something but truly is trying to work it out, and tends to
remove an easy annoyance of the "why" forever.

If the child isn't old enough to understand that cooker == hot and hot + hand
== pain, clearly you have to stop them touching the cooker, but that's not
mutually exclusive with helping them understand why, if possible.

I remember my parents teaching me not to put my fingers in the door frame when
it was open by putting a carrot through and letting me close the door, slicing
the carrot in half. I wasn't afraid of punishment or following a rule - I
understood why I shouldn't do it, so I didn't.

~~~
somethingsimple
Pretty much this. A personal anecdote: a few months ago we realized our
daughter was waking up very tired in the morning, so we figured she wasn't
getting enough sleep. When we told her that bedtime was moving earlier, her
initial reaction was to get very upset and ask why. Instead of saying "because
we've said so" (like I know a lot of parents do), we calmly explained how it's
important for humans to get adequate amounts of sleep, and that at her age she
should be getting X hours of sleep at night (and we showed her the math
matching the new bed time with the time she has to wake up for school). The
explanation made perfect sense to her, and she's so into the new routine that
we don't even have to tell her it's time to go to bed most nights.

~~~
pavel_lishin
May I ask how old your daughter was at the time?

~~~
somethingsimple
9.

------
Clanan
If you are a parent and are interested in this article, I highly recommend you
go find another parenting method that actually provides any semblance of
research, investigation, etc. This is nothing more than an anecdotal blog post
about parenting, filled with agreeable-sounding ideas. Many of which seem to
only pertain to handling children's learning, rather than overall parenting,
but the author suggests them generally.

My two cents: children are not little adults and should not be treated as
such. Adults have >20 years of life experience, children do not. Children do
not know how to control emotions and are not reasonable (duh). There is
substantial research into how children develop, including their brains and
thought processes. For example, young children are not capable of abstract
thought like adults are. This recent fad of treating children as equals is, to
me, bizarre and damaging. Don't learn from a random blog post - go read the
science (or a parenting book by someone who has). Anecdotally, children I
encounter who are raised by this sort of method are rude, brittle know-it-alls
who cannot accept being told 'no'.

My favorite parenting rule of thumb: teach your children now with rules and
tough love because if you don't, the world will teach them later - and the
world doesn't love your children.

~~~
abvdasker
Another thing that seems pretty suspect is that this article makes no mention
of ideas of empathy, emotion, or love. I don't have kids, but it seems a
little cold to raise a child without an emphasis on understanding their
emotions and the emotions of others. Teaching rationality is all well and good
but it's no substitute for helping kids learn softer skills -- since the human
interactions they facilitate in later life are probably more important than
being able to solve a hard math problem.

Also the section that "Children Aren't Fragile" is a gross oversimplification.
Kids are extremely fragile when it comes to things like neglect, abuse and
instability in their environment.

~~~
AstralStorm
I would not go as far as "extremely" there, kids are resilient too but
anything with big enough impact will have far reaching results.

------
ropable
There are some useful, attractive parenting principles here, but it's worth
remembering that raising a child is like a large, complex, multi-year software
dev project with a vague spec and constant scope creep. There are some methods
that can help, but every one is a unique snowflake. I love the concept of
critical rationalism, but it isn't going to work always, or work for all kids.
Sometimes, someone in charge just needs to make a decision for things to work.

Set the example, be consistent, give them your attention, help them to own
their decisions, and teach them to follow Wheaton's Law. After that, you've
just got to hope that things work out.

Source: father of two (quite different) children, with approximately 10,000
parenting failures under my belt.

~~~
b4lancesh33t
I love your humility. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

------
brokensyntax
With my daughter, I avoided telling her something was wrong, or bad. If she
was doing something that negatively impacted the people around her, I'd hold
her attention. (This practice started around nine months, so quite literally
held her attention. Both hands, and maintained eye contact.)

In a calm voice I would ask her questions about what she is doing, and those
around her. She's usually come to an understanding of her own, pre-veral she'd
go give hugs and change her behaviour. Post-verbal she would apologize, and
change her behaviour.

I was always very proud of her ability to learn and look at out side
perspectives. Even if she had to be prompted into viewing them.

I recently thought about this, (earlier today actually). How it differs from
sending to their room or corner to "think about what they did."

They don't know at that age what they did. Heck up into young teen years. What
do YOU do when sent to your room? If you're like me, you stomped, you sulked,
you threw things, you thought about how much everyone hates you. That you're
just a burden, that no one would even notice if you were gone... Then your
think, no they'll notice, that they have less food to make, less expenses etc,
all the ways your mere existence is a burden. Maybe, again, if you're like me,
you drift into thought about your grandparents, they love you, they'll miss
you. You're never a burden to them. You contemplate running away, maybe to
their house. But at no point, do you think about apologizing, what did you do?
They're just mean control freaks!

So if you didn't come to think about your actions, you an intelligent, thought
oriented, hacker type, what hope does your adolescent child have?

Share your wisdom and insight. They'll learn better if you let them think and
help them to it, than if you tell them to and leave it at that. They might
even help you think about new perspectives, who knows.

~~~
splittingTimes
> In a calm voice I would ask her questions about what she is doing, and those
> around her.

Would you mind to elaborate and give concrete examples?

In day care we have a 2y old child (younger brother to a 3.5y old) that bites
(hard), scratches and hits other kids when it does not get its way. This goes
on for over a year now. The parents dont seem to know how to cope and just
shrug it off as "he is just wild, thats what kids do in this age".

The other day i could witness myself how he was hitting an older kid with a
sound wood full force on the head (because the other kid did not want to give
away his toy). The other kid started crying and he had this evil grin, knowing
full well he hurt the other kid.

What to do with such a child?

~~~
throwaway9z9y
I’d see a psychologist because your child kinda sounds like a sociopath:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/when-
yo...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/when-your-child-
is-a-psychopath/524502/)

~~~
jacobush
It’s not his child

~~~
throwaway9z9y
I’d see a psychologist because THAT child kinda sounds like a sociopath.

~~~
throwaway9z9y
I know this is HN and the mob is capricious and vengeful, but the downvotes
make no sense. Hurting other children and laughing about it is actually a
frightening symptom of sociopathy. But I know The Atlantic isn’t about
startups so everyone’s probably just ignoring the article.

~~~
b4lancesh33t
Your advice is unhelpful, in two ways. One, you're suggesting a psychological
diagnosis without nearly enough information. Two, the action you suggest
taking (see a psychologist) is not an avenue available to the person you're
talking to. How would them seeing a psychologist help when another person's
child is the perpetrator?

That's my guess about why you are being downvoted. If I had enough karma, I'd
do the same.

------
fishnchips
Yes and no. From my limited exposure to kids (father of two - 3.5 and 1.5),
while in vast majority of cases explaining makes a difference, there are areas
where there's perfect understanding but that doesn't lead to desired behavior.
Like the older taking everything away from his little brother. He knows
perfectly well he can't do it. He was also shown how it feels (I took
everything from him for several minutes). He still does it. There's a certain
emotional (on one side) and moral (on the other side) aspect that goes beyond
mere explaining and understanding.

~~~
AlanSE
I've been reading the 1-2-3 Magic book (expecting my first soon), and the
philosophies have extremely stark differences. The 123 approach outright
attacks (what it calls) the fallacy of "little adults" \- saying that
explaining is just frustrating to children who don't have a chance at
understanding. The 123 approach probably comes across as more traditional.

The best theory I have is to build rock-solid boundaries, but to do so at a
meaningful distance. Humans and animals are good at working with a "duality"
of personalities. Children should have plenty of space to explore, be
creative, and develop relationships, but going beyond a certain well-
established limit brings out the bad cop. A lot of 123 methods looks like, to
me, ways to make the kid recognize and respect the bad cop... but still have
confidence that bad cop won't show up if they will stay inside of defined
bounds.

Constant behavior correction is terrible, and leads to psychological problems.
Too much of what I see takes this problem and turns it around to "no
correction". That's probably not AS bad for the child, but is inviting
disaster on the part of the parents.

~~~
fishnchips
Me and my wife (a highly qualified childcare professional) used to have
theories, too. Now that we have kids, we no longer have theories. We just play
by ear.

BTW I never heard of 123 but it just sounds like a pretty natural, common
sense approach.

~~~
analog31
I suspect that we are strongly influenced by how we were raised ourselves, and
possibly even by genetics. The deluge of parenting advice may give a false
impression of how much control we actually have.

~~~
b4lancesh33t
This is the closest thing to true, imo. I'm not trying to say we know nothing
about parenting. Beating your children probably leads to worse outcomes than
not, for example. However the rest is vulnerable to a host of selection bias
issues, which rarely seem to be addressed. I'm not saying to ignore advice
either, but take it with a grain of salt. If it doesn't work for you, maybe
you are doing it wrong. Or maybe your kid is just not the type for which it
will work.

~~~
AstralStorm
There is beating and then there is Pavlovian discipline. While really not the
best thing to do, sometimes it really is the last resort... (Say when the kid
really is attempting something deadly.)

Have to be real careful when forming associations this way, like some other
poster tried with his kid potty training and messed it up. The whole situation
gets associated not just what you want. And it is real hard to reverse.

------
ChrisSD
I'm skeptical. Their emphasis on "rational philosophy" and Popper* would be
more convincing if they put the research front and centre. Everybody has
advice on how to bring up someone else's kids. Most of it isn't nearly as
helpful as they imagine.

* Aside: seriously people, there have been rational philosophers since Popper

------
analog31
Here's a puzzle that I've struggled with: I love critical rationalism, but I'm
a terrible debater and negotiator. Put in the context of raising kids, if they
ask "why" and end up winning the debate despite being wrong, do they get their
way?

Should my own actions be dictated by anybody who happens to be a better
debater than me? I hope the hell not.

What if the options at hand aren't as crystal clear as the textbook cases that
tend to be cited in discussions and books, and the illusion of rationality is
just that? What if debate skill is not strictly rational, or even
informational, but includes an emotional component plus time pressure?

I suspect that what we consider to be "irrational" approaches, such as
asserting our own authority, are in fact survival skills that reflect the
limitations of rational debate.

~~~
throwawayjava
_> but includes an emotional component plus time pressure?_

You don't even need those things. Intelligence and practice will suffice, even
for "purely rational arguments".

Defending Truth makes debates easier to win, but isn't a necessary or
sufficient condition.

~~~
analog31
Maybe motivation is a factor too. Debate and negotiation are not games that I
anticipate enjoying, whereas spending intelligence and practice on becoming a
better musician motivates me. ;-)

Also, I suspect that Truth isn't always easy to discern, especially in a world
where we're immersed in tradeoffs and complex systems.

~~~
erasemus
_> Debate and negotiation are not games that I anticipate enjoying_

Yes and I think that's because they entail criticism, which is used to
_attack_ ideas and people we don't like. Whereas creating something worthwhile
is about discovering or perceiving something already inside the mind that we
_do_ like (and therefore cannot seriously attempt to criticize). Building a
family is an attempt to create something worthwhile.

~~~
analog31
I'm reminded of a saying: "It takes a carpenter to build a shed, but a jackass
can knock it down."

------
avip
I dedicate this comment to future parents. You'll come across many a BS, and
it'll hit you in a very sensitive period of life - when many of your
established defence mechanisms would enter a general CCD state. And some of it
is actually true! _But how can we tell the difference_? Surely there's a
simple bluestick test for that? Yes, there is!

1\. Does it offer something concrete? Does it give examples? Does it include
_recipes_ how to handle situations? _Can you tell if your own parents followed
that "way" or not_? Parenting BS/fluff tend to appear in the form of a
"philosophy". If you say something very specific, people may actually try it,
and find out it does not work for them.

2\. Ask your parents. They are 20++ yoe ahead of you on this one.

~~~
twic
> 2\. Ask your parents. They are 20++ yoe ahead of you on this one.

And they might still not be very good at it. There's a catch-22 here, in that
if your parents were good at parenting, you've probably grown up into a well-
adjusted adult whose natural instincts are to be a good parent yourself.
Whereas if your parents were bad at parenting, you've probably grown up to be
a normal messed-up member of society whose instincts can't be relied on.
Parenting advice is most useful for those people, and they can't rely on their
parent's evaluation of it.

------
trackofalljades
"Obedience and rules are bad."

Yeah, okay, um...I really really really don't want to have to be around these
families in a public space then. There's nothing more obnoxious than trying to
raise my own munchkins to be well behaved while hipster spawn are being
disrespectful, selfish, and loud as hell with their parents cheering them on
(at the library, movie theater, grocery store, playground, etc).

~~~
watwut
Being loud on playground is officially ok.

~~~
guywaffle
I’d be worried about a kid being quiet on the playground. Those are the ones
up to something mischievous lol

------
sossles
The article makes many good points but (as many others have noted) it really
misses the mark on rules and obedience. Rules and obedience are an essential
abstraction to allow larger organisations of people to function and
interoperate. The rules aren't always the best for each individual at every
time, but overall they help things run smoothly. There is always some kind of
consequence for not following them.

To understand (and eventually change) a system you always starts with a high
level acceptance of the 'rules' and drill down from there. Why shouldn't
children also be taught to operate on that basis?

Say they want to question the 'rule' about having 3 meals a day. That's fine,
drill down into why and maybe change it. Maybe bed-time is unfair, perhaps the
8yo doesn't want to go to bed at the same time as the 5yo. It should be ok to
challenge these things to an extent, but at the end of the day someone needs
to make things run smoothly for everyone, and that's the parents' job. Rules
(with an expectation of obedience) are how they do that.

~~~
veidr
I agree with you. My grandma used to say, "children are as complicated as
people, only more so."

But rules and obedience _are_ an essential abstraction. With my own young
kids, I try to let them challenge the rules and chart their own course as much
as I can, but if you go with no rules at all I think you are almost as likely
to end up with a bad result as if you parented through _only_ rules and
obedience.

When confronted (as all parents inevitably are from time to time) with blanket
ideas for "how to raise children" I find it helpful to swap out "children" for
"employees" and then "farm animals" and see how the advice sounds from those
two additional perspectives.

Children are kind of a middle ground between those (as well as being many
other things).

There's very little science to parenting, unfortunately. It's mostly intuition
and magic.

~~~
tonteldoos
> There's very little science to parenting, unfortunately. It's mostly
> intuition and magic.

This made my day, and I'll be repeating it to others - thanks :)

------
foxfired
Everything is wonderful when the kids are not in chaos mode. When you are with
children and they are behaving it is easy to take them seriously. But find
yourself in a situation that you don't even know how everything started and
kids are just going nuts, then all the rules change.

At the end of the day you want to get them to go to non-chaos mode before you
can apply any technique. What worked for me is creating a pattern very early
on:

"I'm gonna count to 3 and we will do X" I've said that a thousand times since
very early childhood. Now, before I even finish the sentence, the kids get in
position and wait for "three!" After that we have a normal adult conversation,
sometimes I even use words (like someone mentioned in the comments) that they
have no hope of understanding. But they know that whatever they say they will
be taken seriously.

So far it has worked for me with both my niece and nephew and I hope that they
never find out that I have no backup plan if they don't stop on three.

In other words, you need create a pattern that leads to quiet mode before you
can take the kids seriously.

------
wasterone
_> Punishing doesn’t help with learning._

The point of punishing isn't to help with learning, it's to restore the
emotional connection between parent and child by stopping the parent from
hating the child. As Jordan Peterson put it: 'Don't let your kids do anything
that makes you dislike them'. (He said this because he knows that people who
dislike others work against them whether they realise it or not.)

The arguments against punishments tend to focus on severity, particularly if
physical violence is involved. But the stronger the existing connection
between parent and child, the milder the punishment need be. If it is strong
even a frown might suffice.

~~~
notduncansmith
> The point of punishing isn't to help with learning, it's to restore the
> emotional connection between parent and child by stopping the parent from
> hating the child.

Maybe I'm misreading you, but any resentment a parent builds towards their
child is a symptom of their own lack of emotional development; punishment is
absolutely not an outlet for making parents feel more in control so they can
avoid resenting their children.

There is deliberate behavior modification, which creates an obvious
consequence as a hack around the inability to comprehend more subtle ones, but
doesn't involve any emotional exchange. Then there is emotional abuse that
makes the abuser feel in control (guilting, shaming, yelling, etc).

Anything you don't like that comes out of a person, went into that person,
either genetically or environmentally. The only way to help them stop doing
that is to help them build a better platform to work from.

~~~
wasterone
Have you read my reply to pysc? I don't think you can 'get out of the game' of
punishment. The fact is that you _will_ punish people you are in close
relationship to whether you like it or not. Even a frown or silence can be
punishment and these sorts of things are not always under voluntary control.

I agree that the development of the parent is the key to reducing this. But
note that development and learning themselves require _peace_ and keeping the
peace is a function of authority, both in families and in wider society. (This
is not to be confused with authority in knowledge, which is irrational.)

~~~
notduncansmith
Yes, I saw that before commenting. I never advocated for the abolition of
punishment.

What I take issue with at several levels is the use of punishment as a means
of avoiding the development of parental resentment against kids, which is what
it sounded like you were describing in the quote I pulled. My mistake if
that's not what you were describing.

------
JepZ
I think an important part of 'rules' is that the child learns that a rule is
reasonable and fair. So for every rule the parent should be able to explain
the 'why'.

That said, rules are very important, not only to give the child an orientation
at which it can measure its own actions but also because they can introduce
some kind of objectivity into parenting (from the perspective of the child).

So rules should always be communicated to the child before they are enforced.
Punishing a child for breaking a rule it never heard of before is not fair.

Btw. sometimes it can be a good idea to let the child define rules to let it
find out how well it can follow its own rules ;-)

------
geoffbrown2014
I'm a fan of Popper, but I'm skeptical this person has spent a lot time
parenting, especially with difficult children. There are emotionally fragile
adults and it would be 'anti-rational' to assume that at least some of them
didn't start out that way. I wish him good luck though.

------
SmooL
I can attest to this; as a child nothing irked me more than when I perceived
adults to not taking me seriously. I always told myself that as I grew older
I'd take children seriously and treat them as an adult

------
newfoundglory
The nonsensical overestimation of children shown in this thread leads directly
to travesties like this judge arguing that toddlers are capable of
representing themselves in immigration court.
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/can-a...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/can-a-3-year-old-represent-herself-in-immigration-court-this-judge-
thinks-
so/2016/03/03/5be59a32-db25-11e5-925f-1d10062cc82d_story.html?utm_term=.5aca5438c0da)

~~~
b4lancesh33t
I would tend to agree. Somewhere else in the thread someone recounted a
conversation with a 24 month old far more advanced than any two year old I've
met could manage. I think it would be pretty lucid even for my 3yo. That's not
to say the conversation couldn't have happened, but the advice seems somewhat
miscalibrated if that is taken to be typical.

My question: for all this talk of rationalism, where is the research to show
this approach yields better outcomes than any other?

~~~
AstralStorm
Unfortunately psychological interventional research on humans who cannot
consent is quite forbidden.

(But we do that all the time actually.)

What do you do with failed experiments? How do you estimate outcomes and
whether techniques were applied correctly?

~~~
newfoundglory
That's not actually true, parents can consent on behalf of minors. Why would
this present any more trouble in dealing with failed experiments than other
psychological experiments?

------
baldfat
Why do we rationalize with Children and punish teenagers? We must build trust
with our children. Research has shown that this is the key, especially for
children of abuse.

To me (Father of Five, two biological and three foster) this is 100% flipped
upside down and isn't well researched nor universal.

My foster kids had horrible environment growing up and every kind of abuse.
Their mother murdered 8 blocks from our house by a baseball bat to her head
while the children were in my home. Children raised from abuse would actually
be harmed by this.

Children need to learn 100% but not through non-developmentally appropriate
techniques. Kids learn through play doing in a safe and purposeful manner.
This is neither purposeful nor safe. They need to know that they must use
gentle hands and bodies, be respectful to each other and pick up after
themselves.

If it doesn't work for abused or special needs children it isn't universal.
This is what good research looks like for parenting.
[https://child.tcu.edu/about-
us/research/#sthash.6ctKjxoi.dpb...](https://child.tcu.edu/about-
us/research/#sthash.6ctKjxoi.dpbs)

1) We have children ask and not tell what they want

2) Parenting is hard and demanding and we invest in it

3) Kids will look at you when you are speaking with them (FOr building up
relationship)

4) Redirect bad behavior by having the child redo in the correct behavior. Not
yelling or demanding. Scripting

5) Socialize interaction with competent adult and ability to play properly
with other children.

[https://youtu.be/XGqwz8L6JBo?t=8m6s](https://youtu.be/XGqwz8L6JBo?t=8m6s)

[https://youtu.be/XGqwz8L6JBo?t=8m6s](https://youtu.be/XGqwz8L6JBo?t=8m6s)

~~~
DanBC
You speak about universality, but then say this:

> 3) Kids will look at you when you are speaking with them (FOr building up
> relationship)

Autistic people sometimes have trouble making eye contact when you're
speaking.

Some black people are taught that direct eye contact in some situations is a
display of defiance, and is to be avoided.

~~~
baldfat
Having worked with autistic children for several years it is actually apart of
their treatment plan for them to learn to look at people in their eyes.
[https://www.autismspeaks.org/blog/2015/07/17/why-it-so-
hard-...](https://www.autismspeaks.org/blog/2015/07/17/why-it-so-hard-someone-
autism-make-eye-contact)

~~~
DanBC
And recent research tells us that approach might be cruel and pointless.

[http://dart.ed.ac.uk/app-eye-contact/](http://dart.ed.ac.uk/app-eye-contact/)

[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-03378-5](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-03378-5)

The fact you quote Autism Speaks is telling - it's hated by many autistic
people precisely because it pushes this "cure for autism" bullshit.

~~~
baldfat
The research is clear it helps children. The controversy is, is it worth it.
99% of the time it is worth it.

> The fact you quote Autism Speaks is telling

Yes vaccines DON'T cause Autism. You say it does then your also into other
pseudo-science and controversies. The science is clear vaccines don't cause
autism.

------
blakesterz
> Parenting generally goes pretty smoothly when you and your child agree.

CHILD. Singular. If you have more than a couple children you know how
different it is. Someplace there's a comedian that has a bit about how having
one or two kids is like comparing the Coast Guard to the Navy Seals. It's VERY
different having a CHILD than having several CHILDREN.

~~~
ashark
We have three. If for any reason we have to care for only one for a stretch of
time, it's like having _no_ kids. Man, it's so much easier. Three kids is, no
joke, like 10x as hard as one.

Each one also makes housing way harder (=more expensive, fewer options),
especially after the first one. And transportation. And, and, and.

------
Manglano
I hear a lot about kids being kids, and adults being "childish." By the time I
was ten, I could read Michael Crichton and Frank Herbert, and although I
wasn't a mathematical wiz, I did have an innate understanding of the
scientific method.

I'm of the mind that children have a precocial learning intelligence similar
in rank and power to the adult mind--that is, the moment a child is born, they
begin to absorb and construct knowledge about the world, with the only
difference to the adult mind being that adults have more context for their
"world theory"\--and that it's the duty of the public to acknowledge and
foster this.

When I consider that some people talk to children with "baby talk," I wonder
how many people have been hurt by `keeping parrots with chickens`
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parrot#Intelligence_and_learni...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parrot#Intelligence_and_learning))
so to speak. It's a controversial theory that might garner criticism, but that
may be a failing--children can hear voices in the womb before they're born,
talking to them in infancy as if they can't understand their mother's language
is, at first, disrespectful, and later, possibly inhibits their development.

------
jellicle
Garbage like this is what happens when people reason from first principles
without any reference to what they are actually trying to do. It's a parenting
philosophy composed by someone who has never met a child (and has no interest
in meeting one).

Coming up next: "How to build houses", by someone who has never built one and
has no interest in building one.

------
flashman
> Most approaches to parenting start with some beliefs about how to treat
> children first

Like believing they respond to reason? Hell, even _adults_ aren't rational
beings. We're totally ruled by our emotions and beliefs, and it is incredibly
hard to persuade someone using reason.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Why are you assuming reasonableness increases with age? Isn't it possible
children start out reasonable and get unreason baked into them through their
experiences?

------
pcblues
I have not found enough evidence to change from being a strong wall of no to
my children. They know I’ll keep talking with them through their big emotions
and that I love them but I don’t negotiate with terrorists. 5 and 8, they are
thriving.

------
RebeccaBV
I do have children. And I did raise them following Taking Children Seriously
to the best of my ability. If I had it to do over I'd only learn TCS better
and follow it better, not in the other direction. It was liberating to me to
find that it was possible to raise children without using rules or
punishment/reward. My children are grown now and are wonderful people. So if
anyone here is thinking TCS can't work out well with real children, I'm here
to tell you it can. This is a small sample size but it's more than zero.

~~~
JustinCEO
hey RebeccaBV, glad to hear about your positive experience with TCS!

there is an active online community which discusses TCS and other related
ideas at the Fallible Ideas discussion group. you can learn more about
important philosophical ideas like TCS and get help applying them to your
life! [http://fallibleideas.com/discussion-
info](http://fallibleideas.com/discussion-info)

------
partycoder
Some people complain about kids making nonsense. But kids get exposed to a LOT
of nonsense.

Think about it: You are trying to make sense out of the world and people keep
making gibberish sounds, hiding for no reason, showing you anthropomorphized
animals and objects, telling you stories that have absolutely no point, having
you play with stupid pianos that make random sounds...

Then, after they have built a model of the world containing all these
nonsense, a lot of time then has to be spent having them unlearning that
nonsense through discipline.

However, what if they don't get exposed to the nonsense in the first place? Or
get exposed to it in a more structured way? I mean entertainment doesn't have
to be nonsensical. You can learn about animals, architecture, vehicles, even
simple math... instead of dumb trains with faces and teletubbies making
gibberish sounds.

Btw, I am not trying to say the production of that material has no merit. I
can have a lot of merit, and can be incredibly creative, it's just it could be
better focused.

~~~
comstock
Kids are not entertained by cartoons because they are forced upon them. Kids
are often attracted to, and entertained by cartoons and other stories.

Why exactly I don’t know, but they also make up their own imaginary characters
sometimes.

In any case, they don’t simply have this stuff forced upon them (in general).

------
sandov
As a kid, I had so many questions about physics and when I asked my mother
about it she gave some dumbed down reply and when I inquired further she said
that I would learn that later, it was really frustrating.

If I ever have kids, the one thing that I want to do right is answering their
questions appropriately, I would have loved my mom to say something like
"because electrons attract protons, no one really knows why, there are people
who dedicate their lives to trying to know why that attraction exists, they
are called physicists. That attraction is one of four fundamental forces that
we know of, the other three are gravity, strong nuclear force and weak nuclear
force". Even if I understood less than half of what she said, I would have
known that there are people who also wanted to know what I wanted know, and
would feel fascinated by that.

------
jhiska
Seems exhausting for a parent, but beneficial for certain careers. Dunno if it
would significantly improve their thinking a decade later.

------
perryprog
Child here! 14 years old, in middle school.

If anyone has questions, I'd be happy to answer.

------
ludddite
Anon makes a judgement about TCS. He does not use reason to interact with his
child.

TCS is about using reason. He does not take his child seriously.

------
orasis
Beginners follow the rules. Intermediates bend the rules. Masters create the
rules.

------
ianamartin
Kids acting like kids is basically why we invented religion. You can't
actually always take a kid seriously. But you can always threaten them with
god.

It works, apparently.

------
kingkawn
a lotta you are really convinced that being nasty is akin to being reasonable
and practically minded.

------
adrusi
This page credits David Deutsch with first writing about this philosophy of
parenting. It's more-or-less the style of parenting I was subjected to. I
didn't know until now that he had written about parenting, but he's the author
of one of my favorite works of nonfiction, The Beginning of Infinity. I plan
to take this approach to parenting with my own children. That is to say, I'm
_very_ supportive of it.

HOWEVER: there's a major philosophical failing of TCS, which is that you can't
objectively justify claims about what you should and shouldn't do (aka
normative claims). If you tell your child "don't hit other kids," they can
disagree, which will force you to justify your original statement with a more
general normative principle. Eventually you'll be forced to appeal to the
foundational principles of morality, something like "it's bad to be in certain
mental states like pain, good to be in other states, like joy" and "what
matters is which of those mental states the average person on earth is, not
which state you, personally, are in." These are one possible version of the
sacred principles of morality, and they are probably _not justifiable_. There
are attempts to justify them, such as Sam Harris's The Moral Landscape, but
Harris relies (implicitly) on hard to grasp claims like the nonexistence of
self, which you're not going to be able to explain to a seven year old unless
they're exceptionally introspectively mature.

Sacred principles can just as well be called unquestionable principles. They
don't have a justification, but our way of life relies on their acceptance.
Society will not tolerate threats to their sanctity, so if you let your child
question them, society will punish your child. If you say "don't hit other
kids" and your child says (after a chain of justifications) "it doesn't matter
if other kids feel pain, what matters is that I feel good when I hurt them,"
you're not going to be able to rationally argue against that. The most honest
response is the ad baculum "if you say things like that when you're an adult,
someone might just murder you, so you ought never to do things that you can
only justify in that kind of way unless you want to be murdered." But that's
not really teaching your child morality; they might someday find themselves in
a situation where they don't need to worry about violent reprisal for
questioning sacred values, say if they become a powerful dictator. Are you
committed enough to morality to want them to be moral even if they don't have
to be? _Should_ you be? If yes, then you can't take your children seriously
when they question sacred principles. How, then, do you respond when they say
"all that matters is that I feel good when I hurt other kids?" You could say
"You're wrong. Why? Because I said so." Or you could just punish them. But if
they're used to always being taken seriously, they're going to notice that
something's fishy.

Fortunately, there's a good chance your child won't ever question sacred
principles. I was taken quite seriously as a child, but I justified the sacred
principles to myself in ways that only began to crumble when I was 17, so my
parents never encountered the dilemma I just described. By the time my old
justifications ceased to work I was already adept at being a moral person, and
I was ready to understand the lessons of Crime and Punishment, which warns
against violating the sacred principles of your society despite acknowledging
them to be unfounded, and I was ready to understand the more sophisticated
justifications of the sacred principles.

But other children could be more likely to question sacred principles. I
wasn't naturally inclined to cruelty. I didn't want to hurt other kids. When I
did hurt others, I didn't need to learn _why_ not to, I just needed to learn
_how_ not to. Not all kids are like that (not a moral judgment) some will need
to by told why they shouldn't be cruel, and you can't do that while taking
them entirely seriously.

------
paulcole
My dad says the biggest mistake most people make when raising kids is treating
them like people.

~~~
ricardobeat
What should they be treated like?

~~~
hashmal
Like kids, d'oh!

