I have 6 kids, and I've found it's pretty simple to get kids to pay attention (or anything else). Be consistent, and willing to discipline if necessary. Here's the order I follow:
1. Polite request
2. Polite command
3. Stern command
4. Warning
5. Push-ups
6. Spanking
They know I love them and because of that love obedience is required. Situations rarely escalate past step 2, and step 6 is memorable.
ETA: for anything past the polite stages, I try to always follow-up with gentle counseling after they've had a couple minutes to think about it. "Do you know why you got into trouble? How could you have handled the situation better?". Complete amnesty is the rule during counseling, i.e., no matter what they confess, they will NOT receive punishment. I want them to learn by reflection.
Kids are capable of much more than we give them credit for. Often people "can't" pay attention because they don't want to. Obvious exceptions apply (mental handicap, fatigue, etc).
Or because you shouldn't have to pay attention, if you don't want to.
For adults (or maybe just the nature of internet conversations), it can seem like a power dynamic. I demand you reflect me back to me, speak my language, concepts, awareness - not your own, etc.
That's what it can feel like, being required to pay attention at all times, like one person is the programmer, and the other is the computer.
It's nice to have a mind that sucks up everything but it's also nice to have a mind that is self directed.
As we age, we get stuck in ways of thinking, knowing, understanding just because we accumulate personal identity. These things are much more fluid if one allows them to be, that's what paying attention can mean. The idea of obedience, eek. Mental handicap, mental fatigue - without concrete proof, I think it's wise to not apply labels to individuals one must interact with.
People sometimes have difficulty paying attention because they need to come to their own understanding independently, and if you are always trying to shove information in - making sure they can output that information in the correct format, one isn't letting them get there as an individual.
Capable, sure they are. Sometimes they can be much more aware than they appear to be too, and the only difference that capacity doesn't manifest itself is because in a system where the only options are - reflect information in these correct formats, otherwise adult observation implies 'no attention paid', I mean... Can you be capable and feel as though you got there as an individual if those are the rules of the system?
Simplified, give people time, have patience. The reasons why they aren't 'getting it' is because you are trying to give the whole thing to them. Sometimes people want to get there independently, and once that gets boring, they probably can develop a greater desire to get there with others.
I've never been past step 3 with my kids. A stern request will often invoke tears, but is usually effective. If not, I'll modify the environment, either by removing the thing that's the focus of the problem or by removing the child to another location. When my oldest was very young she used to unfurl the toilet paper in all the bathrooms, so we kept it on a shelf she couldn't reach. When she started potty training we put it back and the unfurling started happening again. Someone would always stop her pretty quickly, but it was frustrating having to be constantly vigilant. I understand how satisfying it must be to watch the paper fly off the roll at speed and pile up on the floor and after all, you only live once, so one day I made a deal with her: I'd let her unfurl an entire brand new roll all the way down to the cardboard and then we'd never do it again. After that the rolls lived happily ever after on their dispensers.
I'm also hyper conscious about the media they consume. The girl began consistently saying please and thank you after watching The Busy World of Richard Scarry and we never prompted her or even explicitly taught her those words.
Just for the sake of all parents reading this and comparing it with their own experience, we need to remember that kids are all very different. And also that other parents usually don't tell the full story and try to show themselves and their kids in the best light (all us humans do that). One might be a great parent, or might just got lucky to have very cooperative kid. And the vice versa, if your kid is hard to handle you might be a bad parent, but it's also quite likely that your kid just has more stubborn personality. So don't be too hard on yourself as a parent - if you care enough to worry about being a bad parent, you're probably doing just fine.
I definitely didn't tell the whole story, but the anecdotes I picked are representative of my parenting technique, which is why I picked them. I think the most important trait when parenting is empathy--reconstructing the scenario in your mind from the child's perspective. I think a lot of people do this with other adults, but forget to do it with children, and especially small children. Perhaps because they assume the child's mind works radically differently from an adult's?
I've also noticed that my kids are "easy" compared to many other children I've observed, but I've also wondered how much of this is luck of the draw and how much is a reflection of their environment.
I also had almost a decade of experience interacting with small children in my job before I ever had any of my own and I still find parenting and maintaining patience to be the hardest thing I've ever done. No parent should ever be hard on themselves for the decisions they've made. The struggle is real and no parenting decision is "wrong." Without a diversity of parenting styles we would not have a diversity of people, which I consider integral to the survival of our species.
Downvoters: can you be more specific? Usually it's obvious on a reread when I've failed to contribute to the conversation and I'll take the downvotes gladly, but this one has me stumped. Do you just not agree with my opinions, or have I come off as too sanctimonious?
No, the votes don't matter. Ironically, in fact, I think I got pity upvotes for the plea, which are not really helpful. What does matter is that I'm expressing myself effectively and the votes usually operate as feedback to that effect.
I'm still curious about the motivations of those downvoters.
Also, I apologize for the meta discussion in this already off-topic thread.
Ok, but in the Mayan method, the kids figure out for themselves what needs to be done, so you rarely have to do even step 1. The fact that you don't seem to have gotten that makes me think you didn't actually read the article.
> Although some studies have found no relation between physical punishment and negative outcomes, and others have found the relation to be moderated by other factors, no study has found physical punishment to have a long-term positive effect, and most studies have found negative effects.
The research is pretty poor. The main problem is that all physical punishment is landed into a single pot, but there is clearly a world of difference slapping a fifteen year old in the face and slapping the bottom of a four year old.
If the general practice can be effective depending on fine distinctions, and if such fine distinctions exist, then they matter. General advice like given above is then just bad advice.
Not really. Thousands (tends/hundreds of thousands?) of years of human society isn't going to just evaporate from a couple studies, even if they're incontrovertible.
I am not arguing that corporal punishment is effective because society has progressed. I'm saying that people are inflexible and even irrefutable science is unlikely to cause an immediate societal shift.
Indeed. I was spanked as a child (I was very stubborn and looking back it's clear that nothing else really worked with me). As a result, I suffer from a condition known as respect for others. It's a terrible affliction to have in this day and age.
Strange, I was also spanked as a child and somehow I still ended up with several flaws. I feel like the experience retarded the age at which I was able to achieve self actualization by many years and seriously impacted my ability to have a healthy adult relationship with my father who has himself changed and grown tremendously as an individual since the years he spanked me as a child.
How did spanking lead to respect for others? Are you afraid other people might physically hurt you if you don't "respect" them? Or does adverse interactions bring up the childhood memories of being spanked? In genuinely curious how this works? (I grew up in a country where spanking and all other physical abuse of children is illegal)
As a child there were many times were I'd rather my dad give me a good spanking than to talk with my mom. It's brutal when parents ask you in a soft voice to explain why you did a bad/stupid thing, and most of the time you are just a dumb kid, there was no real reason or thinking behind it :D
While I don't practice it, and think it backfires, calling spanking abuse in order to shame its practitioners is an exaggeration that helps neither the abused, nor the parents you wish to stop the practice.
Actually the evidence is extremely poor, largely because 'spanking' seems to cover anything from a slap on the bottom to beating around the face with your fists.
If you have evidence to the contrary, please provide it.
1. Polite request
2. Polite command
3. Stern command
4. Warning
5. Push-ups
6. Spanking
They know I love them and because of that love obedience is required. Situations rarely escalate past step 2, and step 6 is memorable.
ETA: for anything past the polite stages, I try to always follow-up with gentle counseling after they've had a couple minutes to think about it. "Do you know why you got into trouble? How could you have handled the situation better?". Complete amnesty is the rule during counseling, i.e., no matter what they confess, they will NOT receive punishment. I want them to learn by reflection.