Parent-Child Negotiations

I will if he will. :-)

Doan

On Fri, 11 Jun 2004, Nathan A. Barclay wrote:


Would the two of you please stop wasting bandwidth on this name-calling
contest?

"Doan" wrote in message
...

On Fri, 11 Jun 2004, R. Steve Walz wrote:

I wondered how you could look down the toilet while taking a dump
unless your mouth was your asshole.
Steve

Nope! That's your mouth! ;-)

Doan

Your respect for religious freedom is completely underwhelming. From my
perspective, it is your belief that God does not exist that is the "lie."

In practical terms, you will never convince me that you are right if the
validity of your reasoning hinges on the belief that God does not exist, nor
will I convince you of anything if I use reasoning that hinges on the
existence of God for its validity. I do, however, find your attempts to
invoke your own atheistic beliefs in your efforts to psychoanalyze me HIGHLY
offensive.

"R. Steve Walz" wrote in message
...
Nathan A. Barclay wrote:

Keep in mind that any system of logic is based on axioms, things that
people believe are true but cannot objectively prove are true. When
people start with different axioms, they can reach different conclusions
even though both are following perfectly valid logic based on the axioms
that they believe are true. If people recognize that they are operating
from different axioms, they can identify which axioms cause them to
reach different conclusions, understand the root causes of their
disagreement, and disuss why each holds the axioms he does. If not,
they are likely to keep talking past each other indefinitely. Each will
be
convinced that he is right and, in fact, each will be able to "prove"
that
he is right, but they will never really understand each other.
------------------------
That would be true of one simple stllogistic logic, but not of ALL
logical tools employed at once as humans can do. And that greater
logic is NOT axiomatic, but intuitive. Logicians have numerous
examples of this meta-tool logic.

Would you care to give a few?

Inductive reasoning is a form of reasoning that is independent of axioms.
However, it is also seriously vulnerable to error. For example, the
Pythagoreans once believed that all numbers could be expressed as ratios of
integers because every number they could come up with could be expressed as
a ratio of integers (hence the term "rational numbers"). But in time,
people started running into numbers that couldn't be expressed that way
("irrational numbers") and the belief based on inductive reasoning was
proved wrong. Even so, inductive reasoning can be a useful source of axioms
at times, especially when all that is important is that something be
generally true.

What concerns me about your claims of relying on "meta-tool logic" is that
it may, in practice, merely be a smokescreen by which to claim a mantle of
logic for whatever you happen to want to believe. If a method of so-called
logic has no rigor to it, there is no way of testing a person's claim that
what he says is logical to determine whether it is in fact logical. So if
you want me to accept this so-called "meta-tool logic" as logic, you'll have
to explain how it functions and how claims that something is logical under
it can be tested. (By the way, I could find no trace of the term "meta-tool
logic" or "metatool logic" in a Google web search.)

A large part of your problem of trying to tell me how I felt as a child
has
to do with the fact that your axioms are so different from those that I
held
as a child.
--------------
No problem, for someone perceptive they are eminently discussable.
That is called psychology.

It is called malpractice, if you were a psychologist and I were your
patient.

snip

That's not to say that I never resented times when I was punished,
and certainly not to say that I never resented being told what to do or
what not to do. But the level of resentment was mostly at the level of
"I'm not getting my way" rather than at the level of "There is something
fundamentally wrong with this" - except for the times when my analysis
of a punishment found no legitimate basis for viewing it as fair.
------------------
That is abuse. That causes future progressive revenge formation and
distrust. That is why the older child evades parental wishes with
little concern, and it may cause danger to him. The line of
communication has come down because his end has decided that his
parents are not worth trusting.

If parents adopt a "because I said so" parenting style and refuse to listen
to their children, the lines of communication go down. In my family, the
lines of communication stayed generally strong because my parents explained
the reasons for the rules they made and were willing to listen - and, at
times, to change their minds. Even when I didn't agree with my parents, I
trusted that they were doing what they believed was best for me in the long
term. Why? Because my parents acted in a way that earned that trust.

That doesn't mean there weren't conflicts. Nor does it mean that my general
trust in them invariably outweighed my desire to do something I enjoyed.
But it was a major reason why I maintained a generally strong relationship
with my parents both through my childhood and ever since, and why I take
their opinions seriously today.

Trust must still be evalauated by
one indulging in it, it still cannot be blind trust. Parental assertion
that they "know better" than he does when there is no logical reason
to believe that registers as a deception in the child's mind, and
poisons the adult-child relationship.

No logical reason? How about the fact that the parents have lived so much
longer and have so much more experience?

Certainly, parents can throw away their status as people who "know better"
in a number of different ways. They can behave hypocritically, thereby
undermining their moral authority. They can refuse to provide explanations,
so their children have no way of establishing that yes, what the parents
suggest or decide generally does make sense. They can use their power in
ways that appear selfish. And so on.

But if parents develop a track record of making decisions that have good
reasons behind them (even if the children are not always happy with the
decisions), and of not using their power selfishly (and most children can
recognize that expecting them to do a fair share of the household chores is
not selfish in any unreasonable sense of the term, even if they might be
reluctant to admit it), then they can retain their status as people who at
least generally know better. And the trust in such situations is most
definitely not blind.

After such betrayal these people
can now never live together as equal adults, just like you would have
trouble trusting a housemate who has stolen from you.

Except that looking back, what looked like stealing often turns out not to
have been. It's more like a roommate who takes money that would have been
spent on beer an holds onto it to make sure it will be available to pay the
rent, or like taking someone's keys so he won't drive while intoxicated.
The initial action, in and of itself, appears negative and might be resented
at the time. But looking back, a smart person will recognize that it was
for the best after all.

That is why a lot of us who were spanked and otherwise punished do have
strong relationships with our parents. Even though we sometimes disagreed
with our parents' decisions at the time, and still do disagree with some of
them, we feel like they did a generally good job of looking after our
interests.

another big snip

It is NOT a matter of "legitimate" as in meaning authority-originated,
for there IS NO SUCH authority! If your kid gets ****ed off at you
even for a WRONG reason you can STILL wind up just as frozen to death
on an ice floe, or the emotional equivalent. If you're so ****ing smart
it is ALSO your duty to your species to NOT **** OFF YOUR KIDS! You
CANNOT SUCCESSFULLY STOP THEM, so you need to stop pretending you are
owed ANY "authority" if that offends them!!

In other words, act sensibly, think pragmatically!

You are forgetting a critical element of the "ice floe" test: time. When a
child decides whether or not to let a parent freeze to death, he will be
doing so with the maturity of an adult, and will be able to judge in
hindsight how good the parent's decisions were. For example, suppose, as a
young boy, a child is spanked for wandering off from camp (to follow your
primitive tribal analogy) and the spanking causes him to stop doing so, or
at least to wander off a lot less often. A few years later, another child
wanders off from camp and is killed. The boy, now a young man, reevaluates
how dangerous wandering off was and realizes that the spanking might have
saved his life. So even though the child originally resented the
punishment, it later becomes a reason to view the parent as wise and someone
who looked after his best interests.

What you refuse to acknowledge is that many parents who spank ultimately
pass the "ice floe" test. Whatever resentment the spankings generated
originally, the children ultimately decide that their parents loved them,
were trying to look after their best interests, and generally did a pretty
good job. Further, they often recognize times when what their parents
forced them to do or not to do were, in hindsight, better choices than they
would have made for themselves.

I would also point out that parents can fail the "ice floe" test through
inaction. If a parent allows a child to do something that results in the
child's being killed or crippled, the child will not be able to help the
parent when the parent is old.

Would the two of you please stop wasting bandwidth on this name-calling
contest?

"Doan" wrote in message
...

On Fri, 11 Jun 2004, R. Steve Walz wrote:

I wondered how you could look down the toilet while taking a dump
unless your mouth was your asshole.
Steve

Nope! That's your mouth! ;-)

Doan

"Chris" wrote in message
...
Nathan, you brushed off the list of responses from workshop
participants to Thomas Gordon's question about how they reacted to
punitive control as children, saying it was "anecdotal." But you never
answered my question to you: which of the behaviors on the list did *you*
engage in as a spanked child? Don't say you didn't engage in any of them
because I know you did; all of us raised the way you advocate did.

I did answer your message where you asked that. If you didn't get the
response, you may want to do a Google Groups search for recent messages from
me on this newsgroup to find it and see what other of my posts you might
have missed. I view the question as asked as getting a bit too personal,
especially in a forum that is permanently archived, but I did provide some
information.

Nathan A. Barclay wrote:

Your respect for religious freedom is completely underwhelming.
-------------------------
When nearly all of these "religion" things almost invariably try to
subvert freedom and Majority Democratic government, not to mention
individual rights, there simply needs to be NO "freedom" to do THAT!


From my
perspective, it is your belief that God does not exist that is the "lie."
------------------------
That isn't my belief.

I might well believe in a Divinity of sorts, but just NOT YOURS!
And that galls you.


In practical terms, you will never convince me that you are right if the
validity of your reasoning hinges on the belief that God does not exist, nor
will I convince you of anything if I use reasoning that hinges on the
existence of God for its validity.
---------------------------------
I don't have any reason to do that, but I have EVERY reason to make
sure that the "Gawd" you believe in isn't telling you to commit
criminal conspriracies against the rest of us, and against our secular
rights and freedoms FROM religion.


I do, however, find your attempts to invoke your own atheistic
beliefs
-----------------------------------
As I told you, I'm NOT an atheist, I just don't believe in YOUR stupid
"Gawd"!


in your efforts to psychoanalyze me HIGHLY offensive.
---------------------------------------
Tough ****.
You religious crazies always think that psychologists are wrong,
which is why you often have to be court-ordered to obtain treatment
for your mental disorders.


"R. Steve Walz" wrote in message
...
Nathan A. Barclay wrote:

Keep in mind that any system of logic is based on axioms, things that
people believe are true but cannot objectively prove are true. When
people start with different axioms, they can reach different conclusions
even though both are following perfectly valid logic based on the axioms
that they believe are true. If people recognize that they are operating
from different axioms, they can identify which axioms cause them to
reach different conclusions, understand the root causes of their
disagreement, and disuss why each holds the axioms he does. If not,
they are likely to keep talking past each other indefinitely. Each will
be
convinced that he is right and, in fact, each will be able to "prove"
that
he is right, but they will never really understand each other.
------------------------
That would be true of one simple syllogistic logic, but not of ALL
logical tools employed at once as humans can do. And that greater
logic is NOT axiomatic, but intuitive. Logicians have numerous
examples of this meta-tool logic.

Would you care to give a few?
----------------------------------------
The process of picking axioms is one that brings ready agreement, but
does NOT require syllogism itself. That is the primary principle.
Corollaries are left to the student as homework.


Inductive reasoning is a form of reasoning that is independent of axioms.
However, it is also seriously vulnerable to error.
-------------------
It CAN be, but as I said above, it isn't when we use it together
in good faith.


For example, the
Pythagoreans once believed that all numbers could be expressed as ratios of
integers because every number they could come up with could be expressed as
a ratio of integers (hence the term "rational numbers"). But in time,
people started running into numbers that couldn't be expressed that way
("irrational numbers") and the belief based on inductive reasoning was
proved wrong. Even so, inductive reasoning can be a useful source of axioms
at times, especially when all that is important is that something be
generally true.
----------------------------
He thought that was "pretty", but any group of people experimenting
in math would have told him that he couldn't count on everything being
rational without exchausting an infinite search or finding a better
reason than he had. Peer review puts the kibosh on such opining as
an excuse for process.


What concerns me about your claims of relying on "meta-tool logic" is that
it may, in practice, merely be a smokescreen by which to claim a mantle of
logic for whatever you happen to want to believe.
------------------------
We can always discuss it, and that puts it to task.
But the superstitious don't WANT to discuss THEIR presumptions
and the possibility of them being wrong!


If a method of so-called
logic has no rigor to it, there is no way of testing a person's claim that
what he says is logical to determine whether it is in fact logical.
--------------------
Rigor is fine INSIDE the province of any one tool, or if we developed
a persuasive unified theory. But absenting that, there is no such
requirement, except that we continue the process and all decide pro
tempore if we must do so at all at any point.


So if
you want me to accept this so-called "meta-tool logic" as logic, you'll have
to explain how it functions and how claims that something is logical under
it can be tested. (By the way, I could find no trace of the term "meta-tool
logic" or "metatool logic" in a Google web search.)
------------------------------------
My term, there are others. Peer review mostly functions to question
assumptions that cannot be easily defended reasonably, and to suggest
better limits to the process, or what meets more people's criteria
of reasonableness.


A large part of your problem of trying to tell me how I felt as a child
has
to do with the fact that your axioms are so different from those that I
held
as a child.
--------------
No problem, for someone perceptive they are eminently discussable.
That is called psychology.

It is called malpractice, if you were a psychologist and I were your
patient.
-------------------------------------
No. You're merely posturing disingenuously.


That's not to say that I never resented times when I was punished,
and certainly not to say that I never resented being told what to do or
what not to do. But the level of resentment was mostly at the level of
"I'm not getting my way" rather than at the level of "There is something
fundamentally wrong with this" - except for the times when my analysis
of a punishment found no legitimate basis for viewing it as fair.
------------------
That is abuse. That causes future progressive revenge formation and
distrust. That is why the older child evades parental wishes with
little concern, and it may cause danger to him. The line of
communication has come down because his end has decided that his
parents are not worth trusting.

If parents adopt a "because I said so" parenting style and refuse to listen
to their children, the lines of communication go down. In my family, the
lines of communication stayed generally strong because my parents explained
the reasons for the rules they made and were willing to listen - and, at
times, to change their minds.
--------------------
Such one-sided authority and high-handedness is illegitimate, and
inherently abusive. However compelled a dictator might feel he is
to explain his abuse, it is still abuse.


Even when I didn't agree with my parents, I
trusted that they were doing what they believed was best for me in the long
term. Why? Because my parents acted in a way that earned that trust.
-----------------------------------
Brainwashed. Stockholm Syndrome.


That doesn't mean there weren't conflicts. Nor does it mean that my general
trust in them invariably outweighed my desire to do something I enjoyed.
But it was a major reason why I maintained a generally strong relationship
with my parents both through my childhood and ever since, and why I take
their opinions seriously today.
-----------------------------------
And Cognitive Dissonance.


Trust must still be evalauated by
one indulging in it, it still cannot be blind trust. Parental assertion
that they "know better" than he does when there is no logical reason
to believe that registers as a deception in the child's mind, and
poisons the adult-child relationship.

No logical reason? How about the fact that the parents have lived so much
longer and have so much more experience?
------------------------------
Experience is conveyed as requested advice, or at most, offered without
being asked, but NOT coercion.


Certainly, parents can throw away their status as people who "know better"
in a number of different ways. They can behave hypocritically, thereby
undermining their moral authority. They can refuse to provide explanations,
so their children have no way of establishing that yes, what the parents
suggest or decide generally does make sense. They can use their power in
ways that appear selfish. And so on.
-------------------------------
Or they can attempt foolishly and destructively to try to live a life
that is NOT THEIRS TO LIVE!


But if parents develop a track record of making decisions that have good
reasons behind them (even if the children are not always happy with the
decisions),
----------------
If not, then they are NOT "good" decisions, by definition!


and of not using their power selfishly (and most children can
recognize that expecting them to do a fair share of the household chores is
not selfish in any unreasonable sense of the term, even if they might be
reluctant to admit it), then they can retain their status as people who at
least generally know better. And the trust in such situations is most
definitely not blind.
------------------------------------
Garbage, you're blathering around to try to sound reasonable, but
everything you're saying could be used to defend ANY petty venal
tyranny!! it is NOT compelling!


After such betrayal these people
can now never live together as equal adults, just like you would have
trouble trusting a housemate who has stolen from you.

Except that looking back, what looked like stealing often turns out not to
have been. It's more like a roommate who takes money that would have been
spent on beer an holds onto it to make sure it will be available to pay the
rent, or like taking someone's keys so he won't drive while intoxicated.
-------------------
People living their own lives are not "intoxicated", and one's own
opinion for their own life is no "drug". People who take their friend's
keys will lose that person as a friend if they don't appreciate it
in the morning. That person will toss them out of their life if it
is not so, and their usefulness to the other person's life will be
forever damaged beyond repair.


The initial action, in and of itself, appears negative and might be resented
at the time. But looking back, a smart person will recognize that it was
for the best after all.
----------------------------
No, we''re not having a bit of it. This high0handedness has mostly
caused children to move as far as they can get from their parents
and to never speak to them or let them anywhere NEAR their own
grandchildren! This has become such an issue that the Supreme Court
of the US has said that grandparents have NO right to see their
grandchildren as minors.


That is why a lot of us who were spanked and otherwise punished do have
strong relationships with our parents.
--------------------
No, that is the psychological phenomenon called the Stockholm Syndrome.
People abused by their captors come to defend them and their causes
to avoid admitting to themselves the humilation of their own abuse at
their hands, the more vicious and humilating and prolonged the abuse,
the harder it is to deprogram them and dispel their neurosis.


Even though we sometimes disagreed
with our parents' decisions at the time, and still do disagree with some of
them, we feel like they did a generally good job of looking after our
interests.
-----------------------------
And those for which this isn't true aren't alive, but that doesn't
speak at all to the crimes done to the damaged people who are now
wandering around hurt and confused and the criminals harming others
that these parents produced.


It is NOT a matter of "legitimate" as in meaning authority-originated,
for there IS NO SUCH authority! If your kid gets ****ed off at you
even for a WRONG reason you can STILL wind up just as frozen to death
on an ice floe, or the emotional equivalent. If you're so ****ing smart
it is ALSO your duty to your species to NOT **** OFF YOUR KIDS! You
CANNOT SUCCESSFULLY STOP THEM, so you need to stop pretending you are
owed ANY "authority" if that offends them!!

In other words, act sensibly, think pragmatically!

You are forgetting a critical element of the "ice floe" test: time. When a
child decides whether or not to let a parent freeze to death, he will be
doing so with the maturity of an adult, and will be able to judge in
hindsight how good the parent's decisions were. For example, suppose, as a
young boy, a child is spanked for wandering off from camp (to follow your
primitive tribal analogy) and the spanking causes him to stop doing so, or
at least to wander off a lot less often. A few years later, another child
wanders off from camp and is killed. The boy, now a young man, reevaluates
how dangerous wandering off was and realizes that the spanking might have
saved his life. So even though the child originally resented the
punishment, it later becomes a reason to view the parent as wise and someone
who looked after his best interests.
--------------------------------------
No, the abuse is still abuse, a crime, and the effect is still
revenge formation. You just don't really seem to GET IT, that
abuse TRUMPS even good sense in producing a desire to kill, to
hurt and to wreak revenge on people that get in the way of this
adult child as whose emotional development has been halted by
abuse.

This is what causes kids to shoot people seemingly at random, and
that abuse is NOT acceptible!! When you hit someone you turn them
from their attention to their life and set them on a path toward
you to wreak vengeance upon you for your abuse and their hurt and
humilation. This entirely defeats your own avowed purpose. The
child vows to devote his life to hurting you back, or anyone vaguely
LIKE YOU! He gives up on his life and turns toward hate as his
raisson d'etre, his reason for being.


What you refuse to acknowledge is that many parents who spank ultimately
pass the "ice floe" test.
----------------------
That many parents may not produce immediate monsters and may limit
their abuses to a number of occasions accidentally less than enough
to do so is merely a lucky accident, but the degree of abuse being
less doesn't magically make the damage negligible, the adult child
is still damaged in their creativity, their self-esteem, and their
internal "humilation index" is still substantial, and they still
hold a deeply buried secret grudge against anyone who wrong them
that can accumulate and explode into violence or antisocial
behavior or crimes. In fact greed is one major product of this
process. The adult-child sees economic abuse and cruelty toward
others as his "payback". Righwing militia-men and Republicans are
made in this neurotic manner.


Whatever resentment the spankings generated
originally, the children ultimately decide that their parents loved them,
were trying to look after their best interests, and generally did a pretty
good job. Further, they often recognize times when what their parents
forced them to do or not to do were, in hindsight, better choices than they
would have made for themselves.
-------------------------
No, they SAY this as part of the Stockholm Syndrome to deny their
internal humiliation and hurt, but inside they are seething with
hatred and desire for revenge against somebody, anybody! This is
called stuffing one's emotions, it is like tamping an explosive
charge.


I would also point out that parents can fail the "ice floe" test through
inaction. If a parent allows a child to do something that results in the
child's being killed or crippled, the child will not be able to help the
parent when the parent is old.
---------------------------------------
True, but coercion is NOT an acceptible alternative. People who stuff
their emotions hit their children, passing their hurt and damage to
another generation, while a sane person expresses relief and joy,
permitting himself to cry when he finds his small child lost in the
woods and expresses his love in that manner, and the child learns
about love from his parents terror, and not hate from his parents
viciousness and cruelty and imability to express real emotion! All
stuffed emotions are funneled into being manifested as anger and hate,
the hate for anything that reminds them of their own abuse as a child
which forces them to recall that terrible humilation.
Steve

Nathan A. Barclay wrote:

"R. Steve Walz" wrote in message
...
Nathan A. Barclay wrote:

My hypothesis does not require the existence of children who are
"completely indifferent." It requires only the existence of children
whose desire to engage in certain actions that their parents consider
unacceptable outweighs whatever damage to harmony those particular
actions will cause.
----------------------
I see that "harmony" is your euphemism for abject obedience to your
ignorant immature and insecure sickness.

That's an interesting accusation, given your sterling efforts toward harmony
in this newsgroup. You seem to be the one who views having everyone else
give in as the only allowable path to harmony around here.
---------------------------
I don't believe that some insipid harmony is important when it abuses
so many people as its cost.


Your definition of "harmony" seems to center around allowing children to run
wild and do anything short of things that are outright criminal, with
absolutely no regard either for how their actions affect others (including
the parents) or to how their actions might cause harm to themselves later in
life, if that is what they so desire.
----------------------------
I think that children who commit crimes against others should be
sentenced to jail for sufficient time to dissuade them from crime
against others, but adults who impede a child's freedom otherwise
should be publically beaten.


(And before you talk about how
wonderfully children who are raised with freedom will invariably treat
others,
--------------------------
They will treat others as those others deserve to be treated.


look at how you're treating me. That alone proves that it doesn't
always work.)
------------------------------
Don't posture and pretend like a little manipulative ****.
Disagreeing with you isn't any "crime"!!

I've committed no crime against you, I have told you the Truth, just
one you simply don't like, and I have told you what I think of you,
nothing more.


(By
"unacceptable," I am referring to matters serious enough that the
parents believe they ought to be non-negotiable or negotiable only
within certain boundaries, not just to actions parents would prefer
not to accept.)
--------------------
If you cannot convince your children of that by reason and logic,
then you're merely wrong in your beliefs.

Let me get this straight. If parents and children disagree, it is
automatically the parents, the people who have lived more than twice as long
and generally have a significantly higher level of maturity, that are wrong?
I don't see that as making any sense at all.
----------------------------------
If you and the person you're pushing around and bullying disagree,
then yes, it is your fault because YOU'RE pushing them around.

Feel free to get back to me whenever it is that children pushing
their larger parents around becomes more than an imaginary problem,
or more than just a way of speaking.


One of
the things that can happen in any relationship where needs and desires
are not entirely compatible is for there to be quiet power struggles in
which who wins and who loses depends on which side is willing to
give in in the interest of harmony first.
--------------------
No, actually that's you simply being wrong about human relationships
again. People who care about each other want each one of them to all
get what they each separately and differently want,

In general, that is true. But when you love someone, and that person wants
something that you know will be bad for them, you will generally hope that
they do NOT get what they want. For example, if your children would decide
that they wanted to take a dangerous illegal drug, would you want for them
to get the drug or want for them not to get it? If you would want them to
get it, I have the same contempt for you that you have toward parents who
spank.
--------------------------
If your "children" are sufficiently able to research, inquire, and
obtain a drug against your desires, then no coercion of any kind
is likely to do more than endanger you if you try to get in their
way physically. It isn't likely to be a situation in which they
are unaware of your opinion. The most constuctive thing you can
do is to maintain civility with them so that you have their ear
and then you can tell them of your worries, and any information
about the drug that you might give them. Still, if you DID have
a friendship relationship with them, one devoid of any coercion,
ONLY THEN would you even be LIKELY to know of their drug use
ANYWAY! Any coercive relatiionship you have with them will serve
to prevent you even being ALLOWED by them to know of their drug
use. As a parent *I* would rather be uncoercive and KNOW what my
kids were interested in, and be able to speak with them without
being ignored and dismissed, than to coerce them and lose that
knowledge entirely!!

Again, respect and pragmatism is the watchword.
Coercion never works, it only blinds you and separates you
from them as their enemy.


Unfortunately, your model of human relationships seems to allow only for the
type of love that gives people what they want without regard to whether or
not it is good for them, not for the type of love that causes parents to
want to make sure their children will NOT get what they want if it is bad
for them.
-----------------------------
Our kids were raised without coercion, and they never did anything
without talking to us about it. If we had been coercive, they would
have gone into secrecy and we'd have been shut out. And since they
had no worry that we'd act to stop them, they ALSO TOOK OUR ADVICE,
JUST AS IF THEY WERE ADULT FRIENDS OF OURS!! They had no impression
that we were simply dishonoring them and attempting to control them,
so they trusted us!!


(In an ideal relationship, both sides will love
each other enough and care enough about each other's desires that
a middle ground can be found without such a power struggle,
-----------------------
There is no such "middle ground". People who respect and love each
other make room all over the map for each other. They do NOT think
that everyone has to do the same things and feel the same.

Suppose the parents in a family want to go one place on vacation and the
children want to go another. The kind of "middle ground" I speak of would
come about if the parents decide to put their children's happiness first and
have the family go where the children want, or if the children decide to put
their parents' happiness first and agree for the family to go where the
parents want, or if both the parents and the children place a high value on
each other's happiness and the family agrees to go somewhere everyone would
enjoy (if not necessarily their first choice). Clearly, the concept of
"middle ground" can apply in that type of situation.
--------------------------------------
The matter is decided like adults who want to vacation together decide.
If you can't do it that way, then it cannot be done anyway!


The degree to which it applies in other situations is at least partly a
matter of religious/philosophical perspective. From a philosophical
perspective in which exercise of parental authority is considered legitimate
only in regard to criminal behavior, and in which parents are viewed as
"owing" their children free room and board without expecting anything at all
in return, the only times when "middle ground" might apply are when children
want something their parents are not regarded as "owing" them. From a
perspective that regards parents as having legitimate authority over a wider
range of issues, the concept of "middle ground" would come into play more
often - for example, parents' allowing a child to do something that is more
dangerous than they really want to allow because the child wants to do it so
badly.
-------------------------
Equals don't owe each other anything but their care and concern,
because among respected equals there is no mere debt obligation.
Nor do they owe a vacation choice to each other. But if you can't
figure it out by equality and respect, then you should probably
go on different vacations!


but I don't view it as
realistic to expect all relationships to consistently measure up to
that ideal.) If the parents generally give in first, the result is in
the direction of the stereotypical spoiled brat who knows that if
he or she doesn't cooperate, harmony will still probably come
when the parents give up.
----------------
A child wanting what they want for themselves is NOT a "spoiled" or
any kind of "brat"

Who ever said that merely wanting something makes a child a a brat?
---------------
You did. Above. You implied that demanding one's own freedom made
a child a "spiled brat" merely because that demand disturbed your
high-handed notion of harmony!


There
are two basic categories of behavior that I associate with the "spoiled
brat" stereotype. One is the use of tantrums or similar types of
psychological coercion to get what they want. (I see nothing inherently
wrong with, "Please, please, please can I have that?" although it can become
psychologically coercive if a child persists after being told no in the hope
that a parent will agree just so the child will stop asking.)
------------------
Children only throw tantrums when they believe that you're not on
THEIR side. If they believe you would get something for them if you
could, because you showed interest in what they wanted, then they
would never get that frustrated. You just have to prove to them
that you are as much on their side as on your own.

Many times in stores when I could see that one of our kids was
absolutely fascinated and enthralled with something, I took great
pains to let them know that I saw them and to talk about it. When
they looked ready to freak I was down on the floor talking to them
on my lap right on the floor in the aisle.

I asked what it was that they thought was so neat, and they could
tell me, even when they were tiny they could make it known. Then I
would try to find a way that they could get that interest satisfied,
even if it didn't mean buying that thing off the rack.

My daughter was looking at a little cheap plastic tea set once, and
I said why not go to the thrift store and buy you some REAL dishes
and keep them in your room and we have some old cloth napkins in the
cupboard, would they and a table cloth be good enough, and she almost
melted, she was so happy! We found some little demitasses and saucers
that were a dime a piece, cheaper than the plastic trash and eminently
better.

My son loved flying toys, and we went through a number of balsa planes
that broke, of course, so the next time my son got the bug for flying
toys, I turned him on to building experimental gliders with cardboard
and balsa and glue, great BIG ones, and taught him how to build sheet
plastic hangglider models for his GI Joe-like figure he found at the
thrift to fly on, his favorite things after that were large sized cans
of glue and tape and plastic sheet and rubber bands and balsa and other
light wood that could be had for cheap. He would make things for hours.

They learned that what we did in OUR family was ALWAYS MUCH BETTER
than some trashy goo-gah they could buy in the store!!

And when they looked like they were getting frustrated that we didn't
have the money that other kids seemed to have for clothes, heading into
the middle school grades, I surprised them with a sewing machine and
taught them how to use it so they could modify and customize any item
of clothing they could find from the thrift store. They were so amazed
at what they could make for mere pennies out of used clothing, I
actually thought my daughter would become a seamstress or costumer
till she got into computers.


The other is
the attitude that they can behave more or less however they want to with
little regard to the possible danger to themselves or to how their behavior
affects others and not expect to suffer any significant adverse consequences
as a result.
-------------------------------------
No child who is loved and respected wants that. Our kids loved us
and loved themselves, they would never endanger any of us, we were
having too much fun together.

But a child who is coercied, forced, hit, hurt, dishonored, he
wants revenge! He WILL hurt you, and LIKE IT!


On the other hand, consider situations in which a child is reluctant to
give up doing what he or she wants to do in the interest of whatever
amount of harmony is at stake regarding that particular issue, and in
which the parents decide that they cannot afford to give up in the
interest of harmony because they view the issue as too important.
-----------------
Your entire take is one-sided, you completely ignore the degree to
which a parent trying to control to merely meet with his insane
or superstitious sense of order is inhumane and at fault.

You ignore the possibility that something more than just an "insane or
superstitious sense of order" might be at stake.
--------------------------------
Nothing can actually be gained by coercion and punishment.

When a child is tiny and runs in the street you can rescue them,
but if you hit them or shame them or act hateful to them you have
exceded any good you can do and crossed over into damage, as if
you had reached to grab a falling glass and slapped it off the
table altogether and broken it. If you cry you can possibly teach
them that they scared you, and that is possibly useful, but even
more useful is simply waiting till they can understand before
talking about your fears.

Till then it is fine to remove them away from harm, as long as
you APOLOGIZE FOR IT, just as you would if you pulled an adult
out from in front of the path of a bus, you would then APOLGIZE
for laying hands on them.

Rescuing is ALWAYS permitted to ANYONE of ANY AGE, but when you
know they will oppose you with their own rationale for what they
want to do, then give it up!! You can only offend them after that,
and destroy any future benefit you might otherwise have in their
life.


You indulge
in paranoid fantasy that children don't WANT you to be happy

On the contrary, I made it very clear to Chris that that was NOT my
assumption. Suppose a child would like to make his parents happy, but to do
so would require not doing something that the child believes (not
necessarily correctly) will make him happy. Further suppose the parents
have a good reason not to want the child to do what the child thinks will
make him happy - whether because they expect the long-term negative impact
to outweigh the short-term happiness benefit, or because of a danger
involved, or because of harm it would cause someone else (albeit not to a
point of criminal behavior). That is the type of situation I'm trying to
address.
------------------------------------------
This all sounds like blabber. Why not give an example and I'll tell
you how a sensible parent SHOULD behave?


If the child chooses to largely ignore the parents' efforts at persuasion,
it is not implausible that even though the child wants his parents to be
happy, the child will choose to put his own happiness first and do what he
thinks will make him happy in spite of the fact that he knows his parents
won't like it. Or are you going to try to tell me that in non-punitive
relationships, children will invariably put their parents' happiness ahead
of their own in such situations?
---------------------
No, but the parent in such a relationship will back the **** off
and let the child make their mistakes or experiment, after telling
them what their worries are.


purely non-punitive approach leaves the parents with no choice but to
give up, accept defeat, and let the child win no matter how concerned
they are about the possible consequences of the behavior.
-----------------------------
This is as it should be, because actually, in real human life, you
cannot control any other living person but YOURSELF, and pretending
that you can or should, and that others should obey you, is LUNACY!!!

Perfect, total, complete control over another human being is impossible.
-------------------
No. You absolutely REQUIRE another's assent and cooperation or else
you are achieving nothing. NO "control" of another is possible, as
you cannot control their body.


But in situations where a person knows that misbehavior will be caught and
punished (for example, if a parent counts to three to get a child to do
something or stop doing something), the level of control can be quite high.
Obviously, as the risk of a child's getting caught and punished declines, so
does the amount of control that can be exerted through punitive techniques.
----------------------------
That sort of attitude of high-handed mind-control toward a child
is nothing but a desperate mental illness, a perversion, a sickness!

You make me want to vomit.

That violates even the Geneva Convention for the Treatment of
Prisoners. If you treat a child that way you are systematically
creating nothing but a bullying monster with demons inside.


Also, how sure can you be that you aren't falling into the "The parents
must not be trying hard enough" trap? Keep in mind that there is a
self-selection process involved in whether or not parents stick to
entirely non-punitive methods.
------------------------------
Bull****. Parents have far more they can do for a child by way of
negotiation goods than kids can do for adults.

And if parents actually use their highest-value negotiating goods as
leverage - things like food, clothing, and shelter - they undermine their
children's basic security.
------------------
No, that would be intimidation.


But your attitude, if I understand it correctly,
seems to be that children are entitled to those things for free with
absolutely no return obligations whatsoever to their parents, and that
parents must go beyond those things if they want to offer their children
something in negotiations.
------------------------
Precisely, a parent can do a great number of extra things for and
with a child to help them in their numerous quests. These are the
things that FRIENDS do for one another, even if one owes the other
some money.


To those of us who believe in free will,
------------------------
It doesn't matter how many of you are delusional, it won't be true!
The future is a result of the past, and as long as cause and effect
runs the Universe, it's neither POSSIBLE, NOR even DESIRABLLE to
have "Free Will".

If you truly believe that, why all the animosity toward parents who punish?
----------------------------
Because coercion by force works with rocks, but NOT with humans, as
they have complex feedback loops that prevent a push or pull or smack
from resulting in a precise billiard ball trajectory. If you push a
rock it tends to go pretty much in that direction, even cows do as
well, but if you hit a human, he puts his life down and turns and
comes at the thing that pushed him to KILL IT. In other words,
coercion doesn't result in what you wanted. In fact it is a principle
of psychology that coercion always results in the very OPPOSITE of
what the inflictor wanted!! Humans are MUCH more complex than cows.


After all, they are nothing more than machines doing what they were
programmed to do, with absolutely no choice in the matter.
------------------------
And if you hit them, they will have NO other choice but to hate you
and try to harm you and everyone vaguely LIKE you, all the days of
their life unless something accidentally happens to modify that from
within. In others words, YOU WILL HAVE DONE GREAT HARM!!


Would you hold a
bridge that collapsed and killed people accountable for its actions just
because it succombed to the forces that caused it to collapse? If not, then
why blame parents who merely succomb to the forces that made their actions
inevitable?
------------------------
I don't think that the criminals that people like you make should
even BE punished, but only restrained and given a pleasing life by
the state under restraint, and a skill that is productive, and
supervised sexual and other entertainment and hobby activities.
The psychopaths made by abuse are merely victims. Nothing more.


I'm snipping the rest of this (as I have chunks before now) because it's
pretty much just rants and personal attacks. By the way, I might point out
that I don't have any children of my own yet, although I hope to someday.
-----------------
Which explains a lot of your ignorance.


I would also note that statistically, you have no basis for a claim that my
children can be expected to hate me (at least beyond occasionally being
angry at me for short periods) if I do choose the kind of parenting style
I'm talking about here when and if I have children.
------------------
No, if you beat them they will probably love you and blabber that
love repeatedly to every prison psychologist who cares for them after
their convictions. They HAVE to think you "loved" them, and that
your abuse was actually "love", or else they will know they weren't
loved at all, and for someone so frightened and abused and beaten
down, that would be waaaay too dispiriting to even contemplate!!

That *IS* the nature of the psychological phenomenon of cognitive
dissonance, examplified by the Stockholm Syndrome.


Most children are
punished more than you consider proper, yet as best I can tell, most
children love their parents.
--------------------------
Hahahahahahahah! They're not REALLY your parents(friends).
See Google: Stockholm Syndrome.


Which implies that your views about how
children react to being punished are way off target.
Nathan
-------------------------------
Before you EVER think of raising children, you REALLY need a few
good courses in psychology, or you are going to do a GREAT DEAL
of damage to innocent children.
Steve

Doan wrote:

On Fri, 11 Jun 2004, R. Steve Walz wrote:

Doan wrote:

On 10 Jun 2004, Kane wrote:

Chris has been running away from me since the Straus et al (1997) debacle.
----------------
No, we simply stand back when you ****, and you **** everywhere
we take you, like a baby with projectile diarrhea.

The only "****" on this newsgroup I see is
-------------
You. Go the **** away, or grow a brain and use it.
Steve

Doan wrote:

On Fri, 11 Jun 2004, R. Steve Walz wrote:

Doan wrote:

On Fri, 11 Jun 2004, R. Steve Walz wrote:

Doan wrote:

On Fri, 11 Jun 2004, R. Steve Walz wrote:

Doan wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jun 2004, Nathan A. Barclay wrote:


"Doan" wrote in message
...

On Wed, 9 Jun 2004, Nathan A. Barclay wrote:


"Doan" wrote in message
...

Simple answer - Steve is a "never-spanked" kid! :-)

Why in the world would you think that?

Because he said so! :-0

I'm still puzzled as to the reasons for your saying, "Simple answer - Steve
is a 'never-spanked' kid! :-)" How do you view it as an answer at all? Or
was that meant purely as some sort of "inside joke" that I didn't have the
background to get?

You got it!

Doan
--------------
It's SO "inside" that nobody gets it but him.
Steve

Could it be because your brain is fill with "****"? So much that it
oozed out of your mouth! :-)
Doan
----------------------
You're looking in the mirror again, you ****-mouthed peckerhead.
Steve

Nope, I was looking down the toilet, taking a dump, and I see
MYSELF with my mouth wide open. Then, I started thinking,
is that my **** coming out of my mouth? ;-)
Doan
----------------
I wondered how you could look down the toilet while taking a dump
unless your mouth was your asshole.
Steve

Nope! That's my mouth! ;-)
Doan
--------------------------
Uh-huh.
Steve

On Sat, 12 Jun 2004, R. Steve Walz wrote:

Doan wrote:

On Fri, 11 Jun 2004, R. Steve Walz wrote:

Doan wrote:

On 10 Jun 2004, Kane wrote:

Chris has been running away from me since the Straus et al (1997) debacle.
----------------
No, we simply stand back when you ****, and you **** everywhere
we take you, like a baby with projectile diarrhea.

The only "****" on this newsgroup I see is
-------------
You. Go the **** away, or grow a brain and use it.
Steve

LOL! Speaking like a "never-spanked" kid with a "****" coming out of his
mouth. Tell me, do all "never-spanked" grow up to be like you?

Doan

On Sat, 12 Jun 2004, R. Steve Walz wrote:

Doan wrote:

On Fri, 11 Jun 2004, R. Steve Walz wrote:

Doan wrote:

On Fri, 11 Jun 2004, R. Steve Walz wrote:

Doan wrote:

On Fri, 11 Jun 2004, R. Steve Walz wrote:

Doan wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jun 2004, Nathan A. Barclay wrote:


"Doan" wrote in message
...

On Wed, 9 Jun 2004, Nathan A. Barclay wrote:


"Doan" wrote in message
...

Simple answer - Steve is a "never-spanked" kid! :-)

Why in the world would you think that?

Because he said so! :-0

I'm still puzzled as to the reasons for your saying, "Simple answer - Steve
is a 'never-spanked' kid! :-)" How do you view it as an answer at all? Or
was that meant purely as some sort of "inside joke" that I didn't have the
background to get?

You got it!

Doan
--------------
It's SO "inside" that nobody gets it but him.
Steve

Could it be because your brain is fill with "****"? So much that it
oozed out of your mouth! :-)
Doan
----------------------
I AM looking in the mirror again, you **** in my mouth.
Steve

Nope, I was looking down the toilet, taking a dump, and I see
your face with my mouth wide open. Then, I started thinking,
is that my **** coming into your mouth? ;-)
Doan
----------------
I wondered how you could look down the toilet while taking a dump
unless my mouth was your asshole.
Steve

Nope! That's my mouth! ;-)
Steve
--------------------------
Uh-huh.
Steve

That is why you are a "never-spanked" boy! :-)

Doan