Our house isn’t a democracy either, but it’s no kind of dictatorship. He’s absolutely right: the guy with the biggest gun is him, and more and more everything is a negotiation. That’s my experience anyway.
If your family is fairly normal, there are lots of interventions you could implement to change his behavior. 1) Positive reinforcement (“Here’s a dollar for brushing”) 2) Negative reinforcement (“You are free from other chores since you brushed”) 3) Positive punishment (SMACK) 4) Negative punishment (“No more video games for you.”)
There are reasonable considerations about the ratio of parental effort to child compliance. But if it was important enough, you could cause your child to brush if you wanted to.
That will just lead into meta-level negotiation. It’s not about whether or not the kid brushes their teeth at some point, but setting what costs the parents are willing to and expect to pay in order to gain compliance (and, of course, what costs the child is willing to and expects to pay in order to do what they please). Once you start bribing your kid into doing things, the obvious next step for an adversarial opponent is to not do anything unless bribed into it. Similarly, threatening and punishing them into compliance is going to result in a willingness-to-punish testing.
The last actually happened with me—I had some emotional hangups with schoolwork, and I procrastinated often. My parents were completely clueless though, and decided that the right course of action was to take away the things that I happened to procrastinate on until I “improved”. This did not go well for them—at some point I was down to just fiction books and homework, and I’d procrastinate by reading books, and they weren’t willing to take away books from me.
Really, I think that the control-your-kids is a pretty bad paradigm to operate in. I mean, to some extent, yeah, they’re better off if they brush their teeth. The meta-level skill of getting positive-value unpleasant tasks done is much more valuable, though—and if you make your kid do those things by negotiation, then you rob them of the chance to develop that skill on their own.
I’m sorry your parents were clueless. Just because there is some intervention that can get a child to change a behavior doesn’t mean that any intervention will work, or that the most obvious intervention will work. If one misunderstands the purpose of the behavior, then one is extremely likely to apply an intervention that won’t work.
I’m sorry you had difficulties growing up, but that isn’t an argument against behavioral interventions.
Really, I think that the control-your-kids is a pretty bad paradigm to operate in. I mean, to some extent, yeah, they’re better off if they brush their teeth. The meta-level skill of getting positive-value unpleasant tasks done is much more valuable, though—and if you make your kid do those things by negotiation, then you rob them of the chance to develop that skill on their own.
It is important for parents to decide in advance what behaviors are worth what level of effort. Forcing my son to brush his teeth now when he is three is different than forcing some other behavior change when he is a teenager.
I don’t think anyone would argue that behavioral interventions are always a bad idea, but I agree (I think I agree) with Thrust that behavioral interventions are generally a treatment of symptoms as opposed to a treatment of the disease. My kid needs to brush his teeth, sure, but the point is ultimately to get him to respond to long term considerations about his own good and the good of others. Behavior interventions generally get someone to respond to immediate considerations of their good, and in order to be effective they generally have to be calibrated so as to reduce or eliminate consideration on the part of the kid as to whether or not to comply. With a young child, that’s what you have to do to build up good habits. But as the kid gets older, my sense is that one has to switch over to conversations about what reasons the kid can see for doing the right thing, instead of creating more immediate reasons that require less reflection.
Anyway, what my boy observed, correctly, was that there was no forcing him to do anything. I could adjust the incentives around brushing his teeth, or I could force a situation where his teeth are brushed, but it’s entirely impossible for me to force him to do anything.
behavioral interventions are generally a treatment of symptoms as opposed to a treatment of the disease.
In the examples of your son and mine, what is the difference between symptom (socially inappropriate behavior) and the disease (occurrence of socially inappropriate behavior?
Regarding ThrustingVector, it is pretty clear that his parents misunderstood the function of the problematic behavior (not completing school work) and targeted a stimuli that was not closely related to the problem behavior. And so they didn’t have much success.
Anyway, what my boy observed, correctly, was that there was no forcing him to do anything. I could adjust the incentives around brushing his teeth, or I could force a situation where his teeth are brushed, but it’s entirely impossible for me to force him to do anything.
This is an important point, but it’s a more abstract point that the one I was making about families as dictatorships. Certainly it is important for any manager of any organization to recognize that there is no Imperius Curse.
my sense is that one has to switch over to conversations about what reasons the kid can see for doing the right thing, instead of creating more immediate reasons that require less reflection.
Yes, this is the ultimate goal, and it is an important factor in analyzing what behaviors to try to change. But in my defense, I think that this question is a be beyond the scope of my family-as-dictatorship metaphor.
In the examples of your son and mine, what is the difference between symptom (socially inappropriate behavior) and the disease (occurrence of socially inappropriate behavior?
I was thinking of the ‘disease’ as an irrational indifference to the long-term good, a disease of which no one is entirely cured.
But in my defense, I think that this question is a be beyond the scope of my family-as-dictatorship metaphor.
Fair point. Dictators can’t force anyone to do anything either, so that point hardly pulls agains the dictatorship metaphor. I think even if there were an Imperius Curse it would be impossible. Come to think of it, this seems like a point of metaphysics: nothing could be the case such that forced action would be possible. Wait, that seems crazy. Am I getting something wrong here?
If your family is fairly normal, there are lots of interventions you could implement to change his behavior.
1) Positive reinforcement (“Here’s a dollar for brushing”)
2) Negative reinforcement (“You are free from other chores since you brushed”)
3) Positive punishment (SMACK)
4) Negative punishment (“No more video games for you.”)
There are reasonable considerations about the ratio of parental effort to child compliance. But if it was important enough, you could cause your child to brush if you wanted to.
That will just lead into meta-level negotiation. It’s not about whether or not the kid brushes their teeth at some point, but setting what costs the parents are willing to and expect to pay in order to gain compliance (and, of course, what costs the child is willing to and expects to pay in order to do what they please). Once you start bribing your kid into doing things, the obvious next step for an adversarial opponent is to not do anything unless bribed into it. Similarly, threatening and punishing them into compliance is going to result in a willingness-to-punish testing.
The last actually happened with me—I had some emotional hangups with schoolwork, and I procrastinated often. My parents were completely clueless though, and decided that the right course of action was to take away the things that I happened to procrastinate on until I “improved”. This did not go well for them—at some point I was down to just fiction books and homework, and I’d procrastinate by reading books, and they weren’t willing to take away books from me.
Really, I think that the control-your-kids is a pretty bad paradigm to operate in. I mean, to some extent, yeah, they’re better off if they brush their teeth. The meta-level skill of getting positive-value unpleasant tasks done is much more valuable, though—and if you make your kid do those things by negotiation, then you rob them of the chance to develop that skill on their own.
Yes.
I’m sorry your parents were clueless. Just because there is some intervention that can get a child to change a behavior doesn’t mean that any intervention will work, or that the most obvious intervention will work. If one misunderstands the purpose of the behavior, then one is extremely likely to apply an intervention that won’t work.
I’m sorry you had difficulties growing up, but that isn’t an argument against behavioral interventions.
It is important for parents to decide in advance what behaviors are worth what level of effort. Forcing my son to brush his teeth now when he is three is different than forcing some other behavior change when he is a teenager.
I don’t think anyone would argue that behavioral interventions are always a bad idea, but I agree (I think I agree) with Thrust that behavioral interventions are generally a treatment of symptoms as opposed to a treatment of the disease. My kid needs to brush his teeth, sure, but the point is ultimately to get him to respond to long term considerations about his own good and the good of others. Behavior interventions generally get someone to respond to immediate considerations of their good, and in order to be effective they generally have to be calibrated so as to reduce or eliminate consideration on the part of the kid as to whether or not to comply. With a young child, that’s what you have to do to build up good habits. But as the kid gets older, my sense is that one has to switch over to conversations about what reasons the kid can see for doing the right thing, instead of creating more immediate reasons that require less reflection.
Anyway, what my boy observed, correctly, was that there was no forcing him to do anything. I could adjust the incentives around brushing his teeth, or I could force a situation where his teeth are brushed, but it’s entirely impossible for me to force him to do anything.
In the examples of your son and mine, what is the difference between symptom (socially inappropriate behavior) and the disease (occurrence of socially inappropriate behavior?
Regarding ThrustingVector, it is pretty clear that his parents misunderstood the function of the problematic behavior (not completing school work) and targeted a stimuli that was not closely related to the problem behavior. And so they didn’t have much success.
This is an important point, but it’s a more abstract point that the one I was making about families as dictatorships. Certainly it is important for any manager of any organization to recognize that there is no Imperius Curse.
Yes, this is the ultimate goal, and it is an important factor in analyzing what behaviors to try to change. But in my defense, I think that this question is a be beyond the scope of my family-as-dictatorship metaphor.
I was thinking of the ‘disease’ as an irrational indifference to the long-term good, a disease of which no one is entirely cured.
Fair point. Dictators can’t force anyone to do anything either, so that point hardly pulls agains the dictatorship metaphor. I think even if there were an Imperius Curse it would be impossible. Come to think of it, this seems like a point of metaphysics: nothing could be the case such that forced action would be possible. Wait, that seems crazy. Am I getting something wrong here?