Parenting philosophy, whats yours?

[KamiKenpachi]

This is a basic share and talk thread...... NOT A DEBATE!
So I guess I will start, and if you can't tell this is about parenting. XD

Raise them in such a way that they will have more options open to them than most, and raise them not by example but with knowelage. Instead of always being there ( and I plan to be anyways ) I will make sure they have the knowelage to make the right decision instead of learning from a mistake that could cost them or from me trying to show them what is right when I may not even be right. They must think for themselves.
Prevention is my parenting philosophy.
Now there are flaws in this as in any, but if there was a perfect way everyone would be doing it by now.

Mine is open to talk about.
1. Asking " but what if... " is ok.
2. Saying "Thats stupid" is stupid and not what this topic is ment for.

Any questions?
Oh and be sure to say if you want comments or not. If not you prolly just posted to share only and thats ok.

[Eris]

I'm no parent, but in general, I'm with behavioral psychology (specifically operant conditioning). In brief, it says that if you want to enforce or dissuade a behavior, you need to immediately reward or punish it, where rewarding desired behavior is much more effective than punishing undesirable behavior (as that usually has the consequence of making the subject do continue doing it when you are no longer around.)

Intermittently rewarding desired behavior is also more effective than always rewarding it. Both slot machines and games like World of Warcraft offer this sort of intermittent reward, which is part of why they're so addictive.

[Forgotten Show]

And it's remarkable how the concept of extinction burst plays into reward systems (one of the most fascinating aspects of psychology to me, given how similar it is to observable physiological reactions). However, I suspect it might be more difficult to employ what I've learned on children of my own than on patients or test subjects. Call it a hunch.


Bad Memory

[Cobra Commander]

I'm not a parent, so I don't have much to say about my philosophy. Compared to other people my age and younger, my parents and the other parents in the family are strict and rigid. I didn't see it that way when I was a kid, though. It's the "the world is going to hell" thing, I guess.

Anyway, I guess I want to be involved with my kids life and education. I want to encourage them to try new things and not to fear failure. My dad wasn't an absentee father, but he was the primary breadwinner for the family and thus I didn't spend much time with him when I was little because he was always at work. I mean since before I went to school till after I went to bed. But we had everything we needed, and my mom was always home to do stuff with me. I remember wishing my dad didn't have to work so much, though. I hope I can be around when my kid goes to karate classes, or learns to ice skate, or whatever it is. My dad wasn't able to come to my things, other than stuff like graduation. He retired when I was in high school so we had more time to spend together. He always says he missed out on a lot.

Other than that, I think I'll consult him when I have a child. He taught me about right and wrong, and respect, and when to fight and when not to. How to cook, how to measure, how to change the oil in a car. And an abundance of other things I don't give him credit for.

Anyway, their methods were to reward good behavior and punish bad behavior. I didn't get spanked much, though the most severe spanking I ever got was for lying. Kids need to be disciplined, and taught to behave in a respectable manner. Sometimes this involves a whoopin'. Sometimes it needs an old man and his boy to go get milkshakes and just talk it out. I think my dad tried to lead by example. I think I can manage that. He never punished me for doing something he did in front of me, thought he did try to teach better behavior. That might be where I got this truck driver's mouth from...

[Asriel]

I honestly can't say anything about this.
I mean I hate children.
And i've always told myself I will never have any when i'm older.
But if I did have one, I would raise it like my mother has raised me.
In a well nurtured manor, not being abusive in anyway, always trying to talk to me about whats wrong and right, what not to do, what may be appropriate if ever in a certain situation.
Pretty much just making sure as they grow up, they learn the correct things to do. Be as kind a syou can be and when they do step out of line, just try talking with them and getting them to understand x: so far how my mom has done me. And i'm pretty good mature for my age.

[-Batman-]

-Step one. Kill childs nature parents at the circus.
-Step two. Steal orphan from circus.
-Step three. Train orphan to be awesome at martial arts and forensics... and dress him up in red with a green cape and domino mask. Also change his name to Dick.
-Step four. ???
-Step five. Be best dad ever.

My philosophy right there.

[Eris]

And it's remarkable how the concept of extinction burst plays into reward systems (one of the most fascinating aspects of psychology to me, given how similar it is to observable physiological reactions). However, I suspect it might be more difficult to employ what I've learned on children of my own than on patients or test subjects. Call it a hunch.


Bad Memory

If anything, it behavioral psychology ought to work better on children than on adults, as adults have more complex cognition to get in the way. As an interesting side-note, it works on other mammals as well.

[Velvet_Nightmare]

Speak softly and carry a big stick.

Wait...

[Wio]

Why limit yourself with a parenting philosophy? When push comes to shove, you do what you can do, you pull out any stops.

and raise them not by example but with knowelage

If your kid prefers learning by example instead of by knowelege? Actually, in reality they're going to learn from your example whether you like it or not.

where rewarding desired behavior is much more effective than punishing undesirable behavior (as that usually has the consequence of making the subject do continue doing it when you are no longer around.)

Actually both have their inefficiencies. To give a reward generally means you have to give something up(what if you have nothing to give up?). If you continue to reward, they may eventually become satisfied or bored of the reward and the method won't work anymore. Punishment in general is cheap, easy, and much more difficult to adapt to.

Realistically speaking, a reward is nothing more than an absence of a punishment, and a punishment is nothing more than the absence of a reward. In other words, if getting candy is the reward, then not getting candy is the punishment. If getting spanked is the punishment, then not getting spanked is the reward.
Let's say you want to get your kid to do Behavior A.
You can say:
Hey kid, you can play games if you do Behavior A. (reward)
or
Hey kid, you can't play any games if you don't do Behavior A. (punishment)

[Forgotten Show]

Actually both have their inefficiencies. To give a reward generally means you have to give something up(what if you have nothing to give up?). If you continue to reward, they may eventually become satisfied or bored of the reward and the method won't work anymore. Punishment in general is cheap, easy, and much more difficult to adapt to.

Realistically speaking, a reward is nothing more than an absence of a punishment, and a punishment is nothing more than the absence of a reward. In other words, if getting candy is the reward, then not getting candy is the punishment. If getting spanked is the punishment, then not getting spanked is the reward.
Let's say you want to get your kid to do Behavior A.
You can say:
Hey kid, you can play games if you do Behavior A. (reward)
or
Hey kid, you can't play any games if you don't do Behavior A. (punishment)

Bad Memory

[Aku no Hikari]

A reward is nothing more than an absence of a punishment, and a punishment is nothing more than the absence of a reward.

That doesn't make sense. It means that if I didn't do anything, I'm both giving a reward (because I didn't punish) and punishing (because I didn't give a reward).

I prefer if you phrase it this way: "The lack of reward is a punishment, and the lack of punishment is a reward."

Now it's very true that the lack of punishment is a reward. But it's NOT true that the lack of reward is punishment. It's basically this:

Intermittently rewarding desired behavior is also more effective than always rewarding it. Both slot machines and games like World of Warcraft offer this sort of intermittent reward, which is part of why they're so addictive.

(@Wio) You can not reward every single time. The reward will lose its value, and thus it won't be a reward anymore. Children can do the desired behavior multiple times in order to earn the reward once. This increases the value of what they are doing to earn it. The goal of reward is having them build the habit of doing desired behavior, not making them do it once, get a reward and never do it again unless there's a next reward.

Though I must say that you made a very good point here:

They're going to learn from your example whether you like it or not.

@OP: Teaching them by knowledge is not enough. If you teach them what's right and do the opposite, they're gonna learn to be lazy and to do wrong when they know what's right.

For example, if you teach them that smoking is bad, and you smoke in front of them, that won't deliver the message of "Do not smoke" to them. Instead, it means "I'm your father, your role model, smoking even though I know it's bad."

EDIT: Also, this is wrong:

To give a reward generally means you have to give something up(what if you have nothing to give up?). If you continue to reward, they may eventually become satisfied or bored of the reward and the method won't work anymore.

The reward is not $1000, or even necessarily a candy. A little complement or tap can have a stronger effect than a whole bunch of candies. Using different types of rewards every time makes them never lose their effect.

Punishment in general is cheap, easy, and much more difficult to adapt to.

Punishment alone is not a working way for raising children. Not only that they'll do whatever you're preventing them from when you're away, but also constant punishment develops a depressive, sick personality.

[Stripes]

Huh, I don't know. I am not a parent...I am just 13 but yea, I would like to say this that those parents who approach their children rightly have innocent and mannered children. Yea, and by rightly I mean those parents who are inclusive of a ladylike behavior themselves are more likely to be consisted of well-mannered children. That is my view, dunno if it is true or not...lol..

[Eris]

Actually both have their inefficiencies. To give a reward generally means you have to give something up(what if you have nothing to give up?). If you continue to reward, they may eventually become satisfied or bored of the reward and the method won't work anymore. Punishment in general is cheap, easy, and much more difficult to adapt to.

Realistically speaking, a reward is nothing more than an absence of a punishment, and a punishment is nothing more than the absence of a reward. In other words, if getting candy is the reward, then not getting candy is the punishment. If getting spanked is the punishment, then not getting spanked is the reward.
Let's say you want to get your kid to do Behavior A.
You can say:
Hey kid, you can play games if you do Behavior A. (reward)
or
Hey kid, you can't play any games if you don't do Behavior A. (punishment)

We're talking psychology here. Reward and punishment are well defined terms in this context (i.e. they're not used in a loose, colloquial sense), so they are not the same. They are in fact not even defined in terms of what the subject wants, but what the conditioner want. If it's something you do to deter a behavior, it's a punishment; and if it's something you do to increase a behavior, it's a reward (or reinforcement). They are further divided into positive and negative. I'll give some examples:

Positive reward: You want your kid to do something, so you give him a bike when he's done it. (you give him something he wants)
Negative reward: You want your kid to do something, so you stop slapping him around when he does it. (you remove from him something he doesn't want)
Positive punishment: You don't want your kid to do something, so you slap him around when he does it. (you give him something he doesn't want)
Negative punishment: You don't want your kid to do something, so you take away his video games when he does it. (you remove from him something he wants)

Punishment is cheap, but it is generally accepted in behavioral psychology that it's a very poor deterrent (if it wasn't, we wouldn't have crime.) If you punish undesirable behavior, you make the subject want you not to detect that they have done it, but in general, they will continue with the behavior behind your back.

It's also hard to actually get the consequence you want. Often, people punish as a sort of micromanagement to get their kids to do what they think they should do. You want them to cut down on the video games so they'll have more time for homework, instead of wanting them to do their homework. In that case, reinforcing the behavior "doing your homework" is a lot more precise and effective than punishing "playing video games".

Also, with rewards, rewarding like clockwork is not the best means of enforcing behavior, but rather rewarding intermittently is one of the most powerful ways of enforcing behavior. With regards to parenting, if after your kid has done it's homework for a month you go say "Hey kid! You've done your homework! Have a movie ticket!" and then after two months, you give him something else a kid might like, and then after 13 days you give him something else, etc.

[3pleT]

Positive reward: You want your kid to do something, so you give him a bike when he's done it. (you give him something he wants)
Negative reward: You want your kid to do something, so you stop slapping him around when he does it. (you remove from him something he doesn't want)
Positive punishment: You don't want your kid to do something, so you slap him around when he does it. (you give him something he doesn't want)
Negative punishment: You don't want your kid to do something, so you take away his video games when he does it. (you remove from him something he wants)

Punishment is cheap, but it is generally accepted in behavioral psychology that it's a very poor deterrent (if it wasn't, we wouldn't have crime.) If you punish undesirable behavior, you make the subject want you not to detect that they have done it, but in general, they will continue with the behavior behind your back.

...unless you're Lucy Butler and make your punishments harsh enough to have them constantly assume that you're watching... also be a goddamn mind-reading demon.

[qG.Shogun]

They should respect older people, but I won't tell them how they should live their life. I would tell my children "Live You're Life The Way You Like It". Than you will reach truth happyniss.

[Eris]

...unless you're Lucy Butler and make your punishments harsh enough to have them constantly assume that you're watching... also be a goddamn mind-reading demon.

+

Fix'd to include the song we all love since watching that episode. Though in all fairness, I once went to a Christmas party that had different interpretations of Feliz Navidad playing as the only music. You know how that song is something of an ear worm? Well try listening to it for something like six hours straight.

[3pleT]

Fix'd to include the song we all love since watching that episode. Though in all fairness, I once went to a Christmas party that had different interpretations of Feliz Navidad playing as the only music. You know how that song is something of an ear worm? Well try listening to it for something like six hours straight.

I tried living in a country where that song is what's usually played when they put you on hold. Now I want to get back in time and murder Popp.

[Miss Moonlight]

Well, I don't really have time to get into the whole psychology-behavioral thing, but i'd pretty much just do the opposite of what most parents do today, which is raise their kids to be materialistic, and therefore ungrateful, entitled, spoiled brats.

The whole "I want my kids to have better than I did" is only good when you're not over-spoiling them just to over-compensate for the fact you were never loved or didn't get a pony as a child.

Oh, and don't let the TV or X-box Live raise your children. This is just a one-way track to disappointment when they realize they can't really shoot or delete their boss for not giving them a promotion.

[BiggSam]

My favorite parenting philosophy comes from the movie Matilda when Mrs. Trunchbull gives her take on raising children: "Use the rod, Beat the child". Aah how it brings back memories.
But really strong discipline and a focus on honesty are necessary to raising a good offspring. By strong discipline I don't mean beat your kids, I mean make sure they KNOW what the rules are, and breaking the rules brings swift and decisive punishment. Still nurturing care and attention are part of the rearing process; parents aren't meant to be divine instruments of punishment; they are meant to be role models and teachers as well. The focus should always remain on raising a good child.

Oh, and don't let the TV or X-box Live raise your children. This is just a one-way track to disappointment when they realize they can't really shoot or delete their boss for not giving them a promotion.

There are plenty of jobs where you get to shoot someone.

 

Granted, it won't be your boss, but you can still shoot someone.