Stubborn 4 year old boy.

In article ,
"Donna Metler" wrote:

After warnings and one attempt at an in-class time out, I
sent him to sit with his parent, the parent didn't pay attention and he came
back to the room.

*Didn't pay attention*, eh? And that's pretty much the key. The parent
didn't notice when their kid wandered away from their care. Says it all.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

http://chookiesbackyard.blogspot.com/

On Feb 26, 9:35*am, Jeff wrote:
Sue wrote:
"Stephanie" wrote in message
Well I come from the spanking generation. It seems to me, that those of us
who were hit most often and most severely (whcih does not include me thank
goodness) were more likely to become *real* trouble later.

I was abused as a child. My mother would spank me with whatever she had
available, a stick, ruler, phone. She definitely lived by the spare the rod
thing. However, I didn't turn violent when I got older and I didn't get into
a lot of trouble. I think the difference for me was that even though I was
abused, deep down I felt loved.

But kids on whom corporal punishment is used are more likely
abuse their kids.

That does not prove causation. Parents do not spank kids at random.
Kids who misbehave are more likely to receive corporal punishment, and
kids who misbehave are more likely to become adults who misbehave, for
example by abusing their children. Judith Rich Harris discussed this
in her book "The Nurture Assumption".

Beliavsky wrote:
On Feb 26, 9:35 am, Jeff wrote:
Sue wrote:
"Stephanie" wrote in message
Well I come from the spanking generation. It seems to me, that
those of us who were hit most often and most severely (whcih does
not include me thank goodness) were more likely to become *real*
trouble later.

I was abused as a child. My mother would spank me with whatever she
had available, a stick, ruler, phone. She definitely lived by the
spare the rod thing. However, I didn't turn violent when I got
older and I didn't get into a lot of trouble. I think the
difference for me was that even though I was abused, deep down I
felt loved.

But kids on whom corporal punishment is used are more likely
abuse their kids.

That does not prove causation. Parents do not spank kids at random.
Kids who misbehave are more likely to receive corporal punishment, and
kids who misbehave are more likely to become adults who misbehave, for
example by abusing their children. Judith Rich Harris discussed this
in her book "The Nurture Assumption".


I would be curious about your opinion on the cause of misbehavior in
children. Would you say that some children misbehave and some do not? I
would also be curious to know what your opinion of the most important goal
of discipline is. Thanks.

Beliavsky wrote:
On Feb 18, 7:43 pm, Dom wrote:
I have a 6yo and 4yo, both boys. The younger is extremely stubborn,
and his mother and I are finding it near impossible to get him to do
anything he doesn't want to do. We have tried rewards/bribery,
punishments like removing favourite toys, exclusion, encouragement,
and nothing seems to work. He seems to find satisfaction in resisting
our directions regardless of the consequences or benefits.

Any ideas? We have had professionals tell us they have never seen a
child as stubborn. How can we make him more compliant, but not break
his spirit?

You have not mentioned spanking as a punishment, so it seems you have
ruled that out. I don't think non-abusive spanking of a child for
severe misbehavior will have bad long-term consequences. Some research
supporting this belief is at http://faculty.biola.edu/paulp/ .

http://faculty.biola.edu/paulp/mappvalsum.pdf
Comparing Child Outcomes of Physical Punishment and Alternative
Disciplinary
Tactics: A Meta-Analysis
Robert E. Larzelere and Brett R. Kuhn

snippage of summary from above link

I'd be very interested to read that (as well as a lot of other work in
this area). I'll have to see if I can order it sometime.

The first thing I'd like to know is what the outcome measures were, and
the abstract doesn't say what they were. This is of crucial importance
in evaluating studies of disciplinary measures, because there is a
strong tendency to evaluate disciplinary measures purely in terms of how
effective they are in getting the child to do what you say, and to
forget to consider the possibility of longer-term harmful effects. Two
particular concerns (which apply to coercive methods of discipline
generally, not just to spanking, BTW) a

1.The child may learn that it's a good idea to do what someone else
tells you without questioning their instructions or thinking about it
yourself. Which is all well and good if you're the person wanting them
to do something – after all, unquestioning obedience in children makes
our life a heck of a lot more convenient – but may not be such a good
thing ten years down the line when a friend tells them they should
really try smoking this/drinking this/taking this pill/having sex. And
it can get worse than that. Ever hear of the Milgram experiments?

2.The child may learn that misbehaving is not a good idea because you
get punished. Which is all well and good when you're there to punish
them each time, but isn't really helping them develop their own moral
compass. There's a concern – and this is, I gather, backed up by some
research studies, although I have not read these studies for myself –
that the message the child may actually be picking up is “Don't get
caught.” Thus, it may be that an authoritarian approach to discipline
is more likely to produce a child who is less likely to misbehave in
situations where he knows himself to be observed, but *more* likely to
misbehave in situations where he thinks he can get away with it, because
he hasn't learned that there are reasons for following rules other than
avoiding punishment.

So, first and foremost, I would be interested to see whether Larzelere
has dealt with those points.

Specific concerns with smacking are the question as to whether or not it
makes children more aggressive (do they model the parent's behaviour and
conclude that smacking people smaller or weaker than you is an
acceptable way to get them to do what you want?) and the question of
whether it is likely to escalate into more severe and abusive forms of
physical punishment. I would certainly want to know more about what
Larzelere has to say about those points as well, but, from what the
comments say about the differentiation between conditional spanking and
other forms of spanking, it sounds to me as though he probably does take
those into account.

(While following the links from the URL given, I did come across one
on-line letter critiquing Larzelere's paper, at
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/320/7248/1538/a#resp4, which I
found interesting.)

A couple of other points that need to be made with regard to this
specific thread: Firstly, you're using Larzelere's paper as an
endorsement of spanking, but I'm not sure that it can necessarily be
cited as such. It seems to have been aimed at answering the question
“Is spanking likely enough to be generally harmful that we should take
the step of banning it legally?” This is rather a different question
from the question “What is the possible balance of benefit and harm that
might ensue from spanking a child in the particular circumstance
described here?” Even if Larzelere's paper provides a satisfactory
answer to the first question, that won't mean we can make assumptions
about the answer to the second. (For an admittedly rather imperfect
analogy here, imagine that someone raised the possibility of making it
illegal to formula-feed rather than breastfeed. I would be *completely*
against such a law, as I think the harm that would be done by meddling
in a personal parental decision to that extent would be far greater than
any problems caused by formula-feeding. So, if you asked me to write a
paper on what I thought of such a law, that paper would emphatically
speak out against it. But that doesn't mean that I would glibly
recommend formula-feeding to an individual parent who reported problems
with breastfeeding, or that I would be happy if someone cited that paper
as a reference when making such a recommendation.)

Secondly, we're told that where conditional spanking was correctly
practiced, it was helpful. That doesn't mean that we can assume that
advising a complete stranger to try this technique with just a couple of
lines of instruction and little in the way of warning of possible
misuse/overuse is automatically going to be a good thing, because it's
entirely possible that the risks of someone misapplying the technique in
this situation would outweigh any possible benefits. (I notice that the
letter at the link I gave above states that what was actually studied
was the use of the technique by parents who had been specifically
trained in its use and were under observation. That's the sort of thing
that doesn't necessarily translate into a real-world situation of making
an Internet post to a struggling parent that pretty much boils down to
“This is how you do conditional spanking – right, now go off and try it”.)


All the best,

Sarah
--
http://www.goodenoughmummy.typepad.com

"That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be" - P. C. Hodgell