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Parents take too much credit for their kids' good qualities, and blame themselves too harshly for their kids' bad qualities. They're just people, and you have very little influence on them.
71 replies [ Reply | Watch | Options ]np Right. "Oh, little Johnny just beat up a classmate/stole a candy bar/kicked the dog, but that's OK because he's just a person and I have little influence on him".
[ Reply | Options ]If little Johnny does that, he's probably going to wind up being a psychopath. But very few little Johnny's kick dogs.
[ Reply | Options ]because little johnnys have mama johnettas who have influence upon the consequences of dog kicking
[ Reply | Options ]None of my kids ever would have kicked a dog in the first place. But if they were inclined to cruelty, that cannot be drummed out of them. They'll be cruel little assholes their whole lives.
[ Reply | Options ]ITD. and so does the rest of modern civilization... teaching children norms is how they become socialized. people who are not taught social norms are called sociopaths.
[ Reply | Options ]Civilisation and its discontents said it all. You can suppress impulses through punishment, but you cannot eliminate the impulses. My kids have never wanted to hurt little animals. But kids who DO want to hurt little animals, even if they are prevented from doing so, wind up being sadistic adults. That's who they are.
[ Reply | Options ]ok, since i actually read all of what freud had to say, let me remind you that he also agreed with durkheim that crime ACCOMPANIED by punishment was a sign of a functional civilization
[ Reply | Options ]Oh I agree with socialization, and of course practice it. The kids wear clothes, use forks, and bathe regularly. Society must incarcerate criminals. But society cannot change the criminal's impulse and willingness, to victimize another person, or his enjoyment of it.
[ Reply | Options ]lol, i do hope they wear clothes. and you should venture into durkheim because he notes that society actually dictates what IS a crime, not so much the regulation of the impulses. it's only crime/deviance because we say it is.. this is where the sociologists break from the psychs in a very sophisticated way imo. regardless of dcs impulses, it is the obligation of proper parenting to teach them the norms of their culture and why it is deviant. no to regulate the impulses (since other social theorists have also shown us the deviance IS normal, conformity is what must be imposed. we are alll natural deviants)
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total disregard for the punishment and regulation of deviant behaviors, however, is what creates anomie and complete dysfunction. you seem to be advocating for laissez faire parenting, which i don't think you actually practice yourself, since this would make you a salmon, not a human being.
[ Reply | Options ]no that's a very extreme interpretation of what I am saying. I said parents give themselves too much credit and blame for the results, but i am not suggesting there isn't a role for parents. I'm just saying because your kid is smarter or better looking or has worse handwriting or can't make friends easily has less to do with your role than many seem to believe. You have to show your kids the ropes, we have an insanely complicated society, and they have to learn a lot of ins and outs, but their innate abilities and disabilities play such a huge role in the outcomes, and people get so wrapped up in the PROCESS of parenting, they forget that.
[ Reply | Options ]oh the family is an institution of socialization. there is a preeminent role for parents in society! (now 20th century israeli government might disagree that children need to be raised by parents, but most civilizations leave the child rearing to the families). and yes, we do have insanely complicated societies AND personalities, and yet our choice to choose to teach conformity is what keeps these societies going. this process is not nearly as miraculous as you would like to think it is, and the family as an institution can take a lot of the credit (or blame) for the state of our culture. the state of the nation is the state of your household.
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I agree with the first part, buthave to say that we are huge influences on our children.
[ Reply | Options ]not beyond conception. Twins studies show how little environment impacts results.
[ Reply | Options ]Where do your spawn, er, darling children go to school? SO hoping they're not in my dc's class.
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we are huge influences on our kids, like our parents were on us. how many times have you opened your mouth only to have your parents words come out, or in some cases how many times have you done the polar opposite of what your parents did? our words and actions last a lifetime, at least.
[ Reply | Options ]but their basic personalities we can't change. if you have more than one kid, this will be painfully obvious, in most cases. yes, you can teach them to be polite. but a lot of other stuff is just set.
[ Reply | Options ]OP here, and I do agree. You can get them to SUPPRESS their essential qualities, i.e. by learning social behaviours like "politeness" but what's there is going to come out eventually.
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oh yes you can. you can absolutely teach a child empathy. in a normally developing child (not meaning lds, I mean no abuse) in a supportive safe household you certainly can.
[ Reply | Options ]i thnk you can teach a child to stop and consider others' feelings. but to actually share them? that seems harder.
[ Reply | Options ]This is correct; empathy is learned - a dc learns it from having an empathic parent
[ Reply | Options ]very hard to prove this. If the parent is empathetic, how do you know its not inherited?
[ Reply | Options ]because empathy is something you empart to children, its a way of viewing the world. it is not a biological drive.
[ Reply | Options ]how do dogs do it then? I know dogs whose powers of empathy are astonishing, but I believe it has been bred into them by millenia of domestication.
[ Reply | Options ]np: not sure how you are gauging the empathy of dogs... or if you are mistaking some other survival traits as empathy. the domestication of animals has meant that, like children, they too have learned some 'values' from their owners. but for animals the process is not nearly so deep as they simply learn an action/punishment/reward process through routinization. they're not involved in some existential process of compassion or empathy
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in fact, being selfish is a normal part of development (the world revolves around me), it is up to us as parents to help our children move beyond this and to consider and identify and share the feelings and needs of others. that will not happen on its own.
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you think you can't teach empathy? Have you ever seen a 2 year old hit or kick another child, or ignore a child who is crying? And then seen that child a few years later - not hitting, and concerned about a crying friend? Empathy - learned, perhaps partly innate, but certainly learned too.
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