Happy New Year! I’ve spent the day so far lazing around, eating leftover pizza and listening to music. And that’s about all I’m going to do, I think.
I’ll be back at work blogging tomorrow.
In the meantime, does anyone have any especially fond memories of Tom Martin and/or Steele from the past year?
Oh, and here’s a video from an Old School New Wave band called Polyphonic Size. It was 1983. They were from Belgium.
“We do not bite mommy!” worked on my cousin’s kid, but my cousin is not inclined to yell, I think her tone made it clear that This Is Not Acceptable. It was also right then — she got bit and yelled — for punishment to work at all it has to be immediate. Of course, correcting a long term behavior is harder than nipping unacceptable behavior in the bud.
@Starla
I continued to hit my mother even after she started hitting me back. And she’d tried everything else she could think of. I just had to grow out of it or get big enough to argue with her. (My mom is a depressed conservative who thinks no one should have it better than she does and if they’re worse off, then good for her. We fought a lot, about everything. I think hitting was just a way of challenging her for the bad shit she did before I could do so verbally. I was under ten, over five.)
Yes, people frequently pick up after themselves when finished stealing and licking the can top out of the trash so I do not trip over it and slice open my foot. 🙂
I responded to being hurt with defiance.
Mother: “Viola, don’t do that or I will smack you.”
Viola: *does that*
Mother: *smacks Viola*
Viola: *does it again*
Mother: *smacks harder*
Viola: *cries, does it again*
@katz
Where I went to school most of us had learned not to bite people by second grade. Although there was one girl who would bite herself just hard enough to leave marks and get other kids in trouble and another girl who bit herself when she was upset. I never found out how her parents broke her of that, she would draw blood when she did that and it went on for a while. She’s a happy 12 year old now.
@ some gal
I’m very sorry things were like that. I don’t have a very good relationship with my mother either despite my efforts to change it. It hurts my feelings, but I can’t make it better if she won’t let me.
I think it’s a common (obviously not universal) experience. You want to do something; in your mind, it’s just for you to do it. So when you get punished, it feels unjust, and inspires you to defy the unjust authority.
For me, the big issue was being forced into doing things. I hated feeling like there was only one choice. So I would always take the other option–the punishment–just to prove that you couldn’t force me to do something.
Both cases point to the same conclusion: If you want people to do something, the best strategy is to make them want to do it of their own volition.
What do I do?
A little of this, a little of that
What you meant is, “What were you doing that applied psych was part of the job”?
Military Interrogation, and Military Interrogator/Counter Intelligence Agent training.
…She thinks we’re talking about literal biting.
@katz
Well in regards to the sudden stop in biting at that age it might have had more to do with the introduction of the concept of germs and how gross it is to put your mouth on someone else that it did with the threat of punishment. I can agree with that.
What inspires new found empathy for a the perpetrator, Starla? Huh?
Starla seems very young.
@Starla
Eh. My mom sucks. I pretty much got over it in college when I moved away and started finding out that other people thought she sucked too. Our relationship is very good for one between a sucky person and a non-sucky (I hope) person. I am sorry your relationship is not what you want it to be.
Now I’m terrified about what she means by “biting back after being bitten.” Is she advocating biting as a form of punishment?
Katz: Starla says that the way you stop children from (literally) biting people is to (literally) bite them back.
@hellkell
Actually thinking about the situation instead of letting emotions cloud my judgement and thinking about other factors that I may not be aware of.
@katz
I do NOT advocate biting as a punishment. I used it as an example in pecuniums question and everyone kept talking about it, and you directly quoted me talking about how I’ve never heard of a child continuing to bite after they have been bitten. So yes I thought you were talking about biting. But I can agree with your thoughts on positive reinforcement over negative.
Starla: Biting is a red herring. Any non-desired behavior would work here.
What’s interesting is that the model you advocate is exactly the one the militantly theocratic say is needed for morality. Fear of God is essential, or people will just run around robbing, and stealing, and raping and killing.
Which is utter bollocks. A sense of empathy, as a general rule, is what one needs. Most people have one. The most likely reason for biting to stop when it does is that the child begins to see other people as independent actors, and the sense of empathy is awakened.
This is a more detailed study of the issue of empathetic development in children.
And that’s the kicker. Empathy is much better than fear in reducing atavistic behaviors; which is the goal, yes?
Yes pecunium, empathy is better.
Hellkell: She went to school with someone who is now 12. At the most generous, that makes her about eighteen, and I think more likely about fourteen. She is very young.
Obviously we are going to have to spell it out. Sigh.
“Biting back after being bitten” is an idiom. You know “biting the hand that feeds you?” You know how it doesn’t always mean literal biting, but can just mean doing something bad or ungrateful to someone who did something good to you? This is similar. It means doing something bad even after you’ve experienced a bad result for doing that same thing.
Biting a biter to show them how it feels used to be the recommended method of training.
Most very young children bite because they are feeling at a very high intensity so they clamp down with everything. Including teeth.
As they develop other methods of expressing high intensity feeling they stop.
Not all, just most. Biting them back teaches them it is an effective punishment and so some children start biting with intent. There is a reason we coined the term back biter.
@viola
Nope, 20. I didn’t go to school with her, my mom and her mom were roomies for a bit.
“Now I’m terrified about what she means by “biting back after being bitten.” Is she advocating biting as a form of punishment?”
I’ve heard it suggested and thought it goddamned abusive. But yes, I was referring to literal biting (mind you, my cousin’s kid was like 2~3 at tha time)
Starla: So we are full circle, what is punishment supposed to accomplish, and how?
@pecunium
It accomplishes nothing and it’s better to try to inspire empathy first?
Starla: We want to know what you think, not here you try to give us the answers we want. Pecunium isn’t a teacher to be given uncertain answers in the hope he tells you you’re right.
What do you actually think? What did you think before you got into an argument here?
Can anyone else remember an almost painful need for things to be fair, as a child?
I suspect that punishment is there, at least in part, to reassure us that bad deeds result in bad consequences, that somehow life really is fair, that criminals should not profit.
And that is why, given the facts we have about this particular case, it is probably pointless (and, in fact, grossly unfair) for this child.