What are people teaching their children!? (1 Viewer)

[Jeff Gatie]

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Oh trust me, he went to his mother first. However, his dad and uncles take more of an interest in raising him than avoiding a possible interuption to TV.

 

[Paul D G]

I can answer that in three ways:

1 - Because we sit him down and ask where he learned it from. Invariably he names a kid in his class. We also have a fairly accurate bullshit meter and we factor this in with the following two points:

2 - Personal witnessing. My wife drops the boy off at school in the morning and witnesses the behavior of his classmates. And, for that matter, how some other parents say goodbye. Some just walk the kid in and walk out without even a kiss on the forehead. My wife was the ONLY parent to show up for Thanskgiving Lunch at the school. When she came home she was able to list off where all the sudden bad behavior comes from (ie: billy's the "poopy talk" one, kylie's the "you shut up" one, "and that tommy is a nasty piece of work..." etc)

3 - Backing it up by talking to the teacher. We never assume. If something concerns us we talk to the teacher to see if the event actually happened, or to keep an eye out for repeats.

Additionally, in September the classes rotated. Most of my son's friends moved up to the older class but he was too young so he stayed. After this new group came in is when all the bad behavior started. Circumstantial, but when held up with point 2 above...

Here's another example from earlier tonight - My wife was getting him ready for bed and the usual protestings start. At one point he picked up the stool in his room and "threw" it. By this I mean he picked it up and tossed it forward. Only went about six inches. "Where did you learn THAT from?!" was what he was asked and his reply was "Tommy does it!"

"Tommy", incidently, is the same one who kicks, bites, and slaps. We have discussed this with the teacher and this boy is a known problem. They had already tried to steer "Tommy" and my son away from each other during play times.

Now, am I 'worried' that my son threw the stool? No. After the discussion he had with Mom afterwards it's unlikely he will do it again. We understand he was testing us and now he knows he's not going to get away with it.

-paul

 

[Max Leung]

I find the adult reactions to kids playing like they normally do (for thousands of years) far more interesting than the kids' behaviors instead. I can see a great cultural divide - the hockey-loving macho men versus the city-dwelling New Yorker-reading goodie-two-shoes-couln't-hurt-a-fly-I-am-in-touch-with-my-feelings folk! But this divide is illusory - it doesn't matter anymore!

You know what? The majority of kids get over it. And in an increasingly global society, where every culture is borrowing ideas from the other, you will find kids becoming more and more the same (look at kids in China wearing Addidas sweats and Nike running shoes, or the Caucasian schoolgirls with Hello Kitty lunchboxes).

Healthy kids brought up in environments that don't deviate too much from the norm almost always end up fine. I think roughhousing is normal. Telling a kid not to roughhouse is also normal. Locking up a kid in the basement is definitely NOT normal. Humans are pretty darned flexible...

 

[Max Leung]

BTW, have any of you had a chance to read this book?

The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do

It's a pretty good read...and some of the recent scientific evidence does support the observations made by parents quoted in the book.

Parents report that one of their children is a "perfect angel", but the other is a rough-housing little devil. They can be of the same sex, raised in the same way. There are some things a parent can control (for example, what neighborhood to live in, choice of school, table manners, etc.), but once the kids are off to school, peer pressure kicks in and there isn't much they can do, except to minimize the in-house bad behavior.

Kids also have two faces - one for the parents, another at school. This explains how a bully at school will seem perfect at home - personality shifts!

 

[Max Leung]

My friend told me of a study comparing Asian baby behavior versus Caucasian and North American Indian behavior. The babies were a few months old.

The experiment consisted of a baby in a room, monitored by a camera, placed on the floor. The researchers measured how far the baby moved from its sit-down spot.

Caucasian babies = feisty, roaming, curious. They went all over the place!

Asian babies = moved a little, didn't get too far from their spot.

North American Indian = hardly moved at all. Stayed still.

I am having difficulty finding a reference to this study on the net. Can anyone with great Googling skills dig it up?

The closes I can find is a small paragraph here:

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/cha...tml#baby%20shy


But I don't think it is the study my friend told me about - no mention of American Indian babies.

Food for thought...can a baby only a couple of months old learn to roam around (or not) by its parents? Supposedly the researchers found this highly unlikely. It isn't clear to me if the study included adopted newborns or not.

 

[LarryDavenport]

These are the same morons who let their dogs ride in the back of a pickup without being secured. I saw one dog shivering on the back of a flatbed truck (on the freeway no less).

 

[Joe Szott]

Paul - and which "one" do you think the other parent's have labelled your son as? I'll bet you a $100 right now it isn't "little angel".

Believe what you like, but all I hear from your posts in this thread is how good a parent you and the wifey are and how horrible every other parent in the class is. But somehow when you put your angel next to their terrors, they are indistinguishable to most objective observers. Tommy throws a stool, angel throws a stool. Tommy loads the gun and fires at monsters, angel loads the gun and fires at monsters. Does it matter two licks which kid thought up this game? Where's the difference if they both take to it like wildfire?

Paul, boys are boys and kids are kids. Their instincts are there to help them survive, not to make them perfect little citizens for the greater good of all. Feel free to fight millions of years of evolution with Dr. Spock, but all kids do these things and NO ONE (kid or parents) is to blame for some mild violent fantasies and general rough housing.

Certainly there is a point that is too far or too much, but from what you have written these kids are all in the realm of "normal". Why the heck do you have to blame another parent for any little thing their child does?

 

[MarkHastings]

Paul, I really don't mean it to sound like we're ganging up on you, but there is always a little bit of naivety in every parent when it comes to their child.

Of course no parent is going to think that their kid isn't an angel. They all think they are bringing them up properly.

And to boot, even if they ARE (as you seem to be) bringing up their kids right, it's also a bit naive to think that the kid STILL won't do this kind of behavior (which is normal).

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Whoops!! Skewed data right there. Nothing, but nothing that is studied in SF can ever be considered the 'norm' when compared with the rest of the world. I bet even San Franciscans will agree with this (although in their minds, SF is the 'norm', it is the rest of the world that is 'skewed').

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Yeah, my sister ran into the "It was Max" syndrome. When she asked her son "who taught you that awful behavior" (such as when he stood up on a chair at lunch and flipped the bird to the room at age 8), she always got the answer "It was Max". She railed for weeks against this terrible kid Max and brought him up to the teacher at the next parent/teacher conference. Turns out there was no 'Max' in the class.

 

[MarkHastings]

EXACTLY! That's the FIRST thing that comes out of most parents mouths, which is what I was saying. It's always "my child would never come up with this on his/her own! Someone HAD to have taught them this".

 

[Chu Gai]

At an appropriate age, you might want to consider taking your child to a firing range and teaching him proper gun etiquette.

 

[Micheal]

Some of you guys are being too tough on Paul. In his case there is a "Max". If you don't think that some kids can be a bad influence on others... then you are mistaken.

If you have children you'll know what I mean. Who would you rather have hanging out with your kid all day, the kid who has been arrested 3 times and is dropping out of school or the kid who is getting straight A's and is a model student?

Boys will be boys right?
Sorry, I would prefer my child to be hanging out with the kid who has his act together.

Paul may be trying to blame "everything" that his son does on someone else's kid but it does sound like this kid is a "holy terror!" Yes, his son will pick up quite a lot in the shool yard but at least Paul's paying attention.

 

[Micheal]

In this case Paul is correct. He didn't teach his son these actions and they don't let him watch that sort of thing on TV. He picked it up outside of the house.

Of course the important thing is to react to the situation appropriately. As long as he is teaching his son "right from wrong" then he should be alright.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Did I say there was no "Max" in Paul's case? Mark put up the supposition that some kids may claim to have learned it somewhere else in order to look innocent in their parent's eyes. I related an anecdote that supported that supposition. Although the language may sound similar, no one has done anything but offer more/different possible interpretations of the situation. No one has accused Paul of being a bad parent (quite the contrary). They are simply offering experience in the form of situations that have been seen before.

Exactly who's being hard on who here?

 

[Micheal]

Jeff, I wasn't trying to single you out, sorry about using just your quote.

Sorry for defending him.
Maybe you could comment on the rest of my post.

 

[Micheal]

And this was just funny/mean all at the same time.

 

[Chu Gai]

Nope, I just think it's good to demistify it.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Actually, I agree with Chu's post. The kids I know who have learned proper gun etiquette are some of the most well behaved young adults I know. Something about learning how to behave around something as serious as a loaded weapon tends to teach kids a level of responsibility far beyond most other lessons in life.

PS, as far as a reply to the rest of your post above, I too would rather my child hang out with the non-juvenile delinquent, that is obvious to anyone. Then again, my parents thought I was a juvenile delinquent, so they really had no choice (except to tell the other parents to keep their kids away from me).

 

[Micheal]

Guys... at the moment we're talking about a 3 year old. Maybe later when he can understand what a gun can really do.

Do you guys have kids?