This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
As a parent, parents who "gentle parent" almost universally have awful kids to be around. Our kids are generally very well behaved (twins age 5) to the point that it's not uncommon to get complimented at the store about it. We follow the "reprove betimes with sharpness, followed by an increase in love" approach. We like being around our kids.
Whenever my kids have play dates with gentle parented kids, the amount of yelling, mean things, stealing toys, hitting, breaking things (ours or their own) is genuinely shocking. But you know, even our kids sometimes act out, what's annoying is that there is no discipline in the moment. The moms just take the kids and be like "ohhh dear oh no, are you having some big feelings?" And then kid goes right back to it after sitting with his mom for a few seconds. Sadly, these moms also often complain that they can't control their kids! We saw one really awful moment with one of these where a 4 year old smacked his mom at Church (hard enough that people gasped). She got embarassed (understandably) but then kinda just went, "aww, yeah, he just does that haha", again, understandable when tons of people are around but, i know for a fact that it happens at home too.
like, i guess we just have no qualms or even see it as a point of pride to calmly and sternly take our kids out of a situation to correct the behavior. And i think it shows! And we vastly prefer to hang out with kids of parents who are more like us!
Sound like the direction my wife was taking with out daughter, before I put my foot down and said we must discipline her. We don't have to let her act the way she's acting. She'll probably freak out and throw a giant tantrum. It probably won't work, effectively, at least at first. But calmly doling out consequences for actions will work. I wasn't even proposing anything bonkers. Just sending our daughter to her room when she talked back and refused more gentle corrections to cease.
My wife pushed back claiming that sounded "abusive". She claimed nearly all corrective measures were "abusive". She'd swallowed some bonkers gentle parenting bullshit. The problem was, our kid would walk all over her until she blew up at the kid about what a shitty brat she was acting like. This seemed far worse, to me, than just calmly sending our daughter to her room.
I won that argument, one of the few I have won, and after sending our daughter to her room for a week when she back talks, it stopped. For whatever reason my wife, after that resounding success, said she didn't think it worked. I was utterly baffled, and asked why she thought that, our daughter has almost completely stopped back talking. She said she didn't know, she just felt like it didn't work.
Can't win em all I guess.
More options
Context Copy link
Working in a childcare setting (don't worry, I'm not dealing directly with the kids), the whole point of the "oh no, are you having a moment?" stuff is follow-through. You help the kid identify their feelings (angry, frustrated, etc.) and then you go on to coping strategies ('we don't bite/throw stuff/hit when we feel sad/angry, what we do is....') and what behaviour is acceptable and what is not. No yelling or smacking but you don't just let it go.
Kids go through a biting phase, all kids. That's why we have a written-down biting policy in place to be followed. But if the kid continues to bite (as per one case recently) that's when you get the therapist or educational psychologist or whomever involved.
So mom may be embarrassed and that might be good if it motivates her to start follow-through, but if she's going to go with "he just does that" then it's bad parenting. She's probably let him have his way up to now, and he will have a melt-down if she tries to discipline him, and she doesn't know how to cope with that (and feels bad if he starts crying because she made him feel sad like a big meanie) but sometimes you do have to be a big meanie for the betterment of your kid.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link