"Parents Should Never Punish Their Kids"

[Anonymous]

Considering the huge number of spoiled brats, it would appear that most American parents already practice "no punishment."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Considering the huge number of spoiled brats, it would appear that most American parents already practice "no punishment."

Well, that was helpful information .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Considering the huge number of spoiled brats, it would appear that most American parents already practice "no punishment."

Well, that was helpful information .

And somehow I doubt it's because of Kazdin. It's a great click-bait title, but actually practicing Kazdin and related methods is HARD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Considering the huge number of spoiled brats, it would appear that most American parents already practice "no punishment."

I agree, and I have seen this in action countless times. So many parents are nauseatingly spineless when it comes to correcting errors of manners or behavior, and as a result their awful children run riot.

[Anonymous]

Spoiled brats had no parenting, not no punishment. Huge difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do a lot of this with my son. I'm not perfect. But I completely agree that kids (anyone) habituate to punishment and it becomes increasingly less effective.

And largely, it's been successful. I don't know if I would have had the patience to use this approach if I had had more than one kid. And he's 9. Let's see how this investment pays off in the crazy teen years. I don't know that yet.

It's interesting too. I owned a dog before I had a kid. When I got the dog, all the rescue people said to use positive reinforcement. Don't punish. They don't understand being punished. We grew up punishing our dogs, so I had to unlearn everything I had seen. I did have to change a lot. And I had a much better behaved dog as an adult.

And yes, I just compared raising a dog to raising a child. I see a lot of similarities.

Raising a dog is totally different (and a lot easier IMO). A dog wants to please their owner, first of all, and a child's job is not to please their parent. The relationship formed between an owner and a dog is the end-all and be-all of the experience, whereas raising a child is all about them becoming independent of the parents. Totally different experience unfortunately.

I have more than one kid, and I can say that kids are different. Some are just naturally able to listen to reason and adjust their behavior, and others just aren't. I think parents of "good" kids can chalk it up to their particular parenting style, but honestly it's probably the kid's personality more than anything else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Aren't there other threads on here complaining that millenials are constantly looking for positive praise at work for every little task they do? This is the kind of disciplining method that sets them up to be adults who can't move on to the next task without making sure 3 other people are giving them a "good job!"

I think positive discipline is great, but I think there's a time and place for boundaries. Telling a kid "good job for not hitting your sister this morning!" "You didn't run into the street without looking for cars just now!" Sets the kids up for low low low standards of behavior. I barely have to be nice and I get praise--not a bad deal here.

I don't think you understand his method. I use the method with my kids and I rarely punish them. The most I do is separate them when they are fighting too much.

The method does not involve non-stop praising for nothing. You pick a target behavior - say hitting. You teach them what to do when they are frustrated so that they don't hit. Our son was a hitter. We taught our son to tell an adult or walk when he got really frustrated. When he employed the technique, we gave him tons of praise and a reward. We would give him poker chips that he could trade for screen time. We did this intensively for about 3 weeks. At 3 weeks, the behavior was internalized. The hitting stopped and we dialed down the praise and scaled back on the rewards. This was 3 years ago. My son is now 7 and deals with frustration really well. We have taught him to negotiate with his brothers and use other more sophisticated problem-solving techniques. We no longer praise him or reward him for not hitting because hitting is not an issue at all. He hasn't behaved like that since he was 4. The idea behind the Kazdin method is to get the behavior to become internalized.

The more you use the Kazdin method, the more your child will internalize good behavior and the less you have to use the method. With my 7-yead-old, we pretty much never use the Kazdin method because he is very calm and rational. He is calm and rational partly because we used the Kazdin method to teach him to be calm and rational.

I think it is great. You get well-behaved kids without yelling, punishing, time-outs, etc., and eventually you use very little positive reinforcement too.

I think it's great for you but I suspect your 3-weeks-to-better-behavior scenario is geared toward fairly normal kids. We've been working for years with our son who has a host of issues (ADHD, anxiety being the biggest) and at age 12 still do not have a completely well-behaved kid. His impulsiveness is too strong.

Sometimes the threat of punishment (taking away his screen) is the only thing that stops his harassment of his sibling or his unwillingness to cooperate with us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Aren't there other threads on here complaining that millenials are constantly looking for positive praise at work for every little task they do? This is the kind of disciplining method that sets them up to be adults who can't move on to the next task without making sure 3 other people are giving them a "good job!"

I think positive discipline is great, but I think there's a time and place for boundaries. Telling a kid "good job for not hitting your sister this morning!" "You didn't run into the street without looking for cars just now!" Sets the kids up for low low low standards of behavior. I barely have to be nice and I get praise--not a bad deal here.

I don't think you understand his method. I use the method with my kids and I rarely punish them. The most I do is separate them when they are fighting too much.

The method does not involve non-stop praising for nothing. You pick a target behavior - say hitting. You teach them what to do when they are frustrated so that they don't hit. Our son was a hitter. We taught our son to tell an adult or walk when he got really frustrated. When he employed the technique, we gave him tons of praise and a reward. We would give him poker chips that he could trade for screen time. We did this intensively for about 3 weeks. At 3 weeks, the behavior was internalized. The hitting stopped and we dialed down the praise and scaled back on the rewards. This was 3 years ago. My son is now 7 and deals with frustration really well. We have taught him to negotiate with his brothers and use other more sophisticated problem-solving techniques. We no longer praise him or reward him for not hitting because hitting is not an issue at all. He hasn't behaved like that since he was 4. The idea behind the Kazdin method is to get the behavior to become internalized.

The more you use the Kazdin method, the more your child will internalize good behavior and the less you have to use the method. With my 7-yead-old, we pretty much never use the Kazdin method because he is very calm and rational. He is calm and rational partly because we used the Kazdin method to teach him to be calm and rational.

I think it is great. You get well-behaved kids without yelling, punishing, time-outs, etc., and eventually you use very little positive reinforcement too.

I think it's great for you but I suspect your 3-weeks-to-better-behavior scenario is geared toward fairly normal kids. We've been working for years with our son who has a host of issues (ADHD, anxiety being the biggest) and at age 12 still do not have a completely well-behaved kid. His impulsiveness is too strong.

Sometimes the threat of punishment (taking away his screen) is the only thing that stops his harassment of his sibling or his unwillingness to cooperate with us.

I am the Kazdin method poster. At age 4, my son was diagnosed with ADHD because of his crazy behavior (Hitting was just one bad behavior. There were a number of others). However, I'm sure it was a misdiagnosis. He suffers from anxiety now (he always did) and we use a different program for that. Other than the anxiety, his behavior is perfectly normal now. I agree that this method would not work on people with certain types of special needs.

For the anxiety, we are using a program called "Friends for Life."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Heh.

I don't like this guy because we don't punish, but we don't do praise, either.

See also: Alfie Kohn.

+1

I don't do rewards, praise, *or* punishment.

+100! I don't praise, punish, reward, or express any positive or negative emotion at all to my child! I keep things totally neutral.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:First it was no spanking, then it was no time outs. Now no punishment of any kind?

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2016/04/07/alan_kazdin_says_parents_should_never_punish_their_kids_really.html

I think you have to read the Kazdin method. Dr. Kazdin has helped so many families with challenging behaviors. He has studied children and what "really" works for decades. He teaches replacement behaviors that children can apply to many difficult parts of their day. His expertise is in reducing defiance and teaching better coping methods. Kids don't act out because they're not being punished enough- they act out because they can't cope with the task at hand. Transitions, dealing with tasks that are difficult or tedious, flexibility, emotional regulation, etc. are problems for many children. Punishing escalates the situation but it doesn't teach a kid the executive functioning to tackle a particularly difficult or undesirable task. Those are skills that must be learned in a way that is consistent and motivating. Punishment doesn't motivate and there's evidence that it's not a particularly great deterrent to many children a especially when they are outside of your immediate control.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What a moron.

Mostly I bet it is about semantics. This article reminded me of Alfie Kahn. I agree with a lot of what Dr. Kahn says, but a good chunk of the people who follow him completely misinterpret and end up with absolutely horrible children who cause a lot of trouble for everyone around them.

You can say "time outs won't solve serious problems" and I will agree. But if you follow it with "therefore all time outs are stupid" then the stupid one is you.

My kid got time-outs and it helped teach him how to handle frustration, how to behave reasonably to everyone around him, how not to explode, and how to leave the room when he couldn't hold it together. Good lessons, no?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do a lot of this with my son. I'm not perfect. But I completely agree that kids (anyone) habituate to punishment and it becomes increasingly less effective.

And largely, it's been successful. I don't know if I would have had the patience to use this approach if I had had more than one kid. And he's 9. Let's see how this investment pays off in the crazy teen years. I don't know that yet.

It's interesting too. I owned a dog before I had a kid. When I got the dog, all the rescue people said to use positive reinforcement. Don't punish. They don't understand being punished. We grew up punishing our dogs, so I had to unlearn everything I had seen. I did have to change a lot. And I had a much better behaved dog as an adult.

And yes, I just compared raising a dog to raising a child. I see a lot of similarities.

Raising a dog is totally different (and a lot easier IMO). A dog wants to please their owner, first of all, and a child's job is not to please their parent. The relationship formed between an owner and a dog is the end-all and be-all of the experience, whereas raising a child is all about them becoming independent of the parents. Totally different experience unfortunately.

I have more than one kid, and I can say that kids are different. Some are just naturally able to listen to reason and adjust their behavior, and others just aren't. I think parents of "good" kids can chalk it up to their particular parenting style, but honestly it's probably the kid's personality more than anything else.

It's not a kid's job to please a parent, but they naturally want to. Part of positive reinforcement is letting kids know that with increased independence comes increased responsibility, so the goal is autonomy and the "payment" is doing the right thing. They are positively rewarded for good behavior by getting more independence and autonomy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What a moron.

Mostly I bet it is about semantics. This article reminded me of Alfie Kahn. I agree with a lot of what Dr. Kahn says, but a good chunk of the people who follow him completely misinterpret and end up with absolutely horrible children who cause a lot of trouble for everyone around them.

You can say "time outs won't solve serious problems" and I will agree. But if you follow it with "therefore all time outs are stupid" then the stupid one is you.

My kid got time-outs and it helped teach him how to handle frustration, how to behave reasonably to everyone around him, how not to explode, and how to leave the room when he couldn't hold it together. Good lessons, no?

+1
Completely agree with the bolded

[Anonymous]

I only know one person who does not punish, or threaten her kids. I mean,she makes it a point. Play dates with her leave me so tired that I don't do them more often than once every several months.
Her kids are all over her, she ends up reading to them and playing with them and my kid, which is not bad at all, but I am there to talk to her while kids play, and not to attend a sort of a mommy and me class.

[Anonymous]

I haven't had to punish my kids in years. They clearly know what the expected behavior is and know how to behave and be kind. I was pretty strict with consequences in preschool and early grade school. We shall see if the trend continues.