Writes Lauren Collins, in "French Parents Don’t Know What They’re Doing, Either/An ongoing debate in France complicates the notion that there is an overarching secret to raising kids à la française" (The New Yorker)(Goldman = clinical child psychologist Caroline Goldman).
While detractors label her as a 'Mère Fouettarde réac'—a female version of Père Fouettard, the Yuletide character who goes around whipping naughty kids ahead of Christmas...
Père Fouettard?! Why haven't I read about him in a David Sedaris book?
Goldman’s campaign prompted a backlash from proponents of positive parenting.... The pro-positive-parenting pediatrician Catherine Gueguen likened the time-out method to spousal abuse, asking, in a separate article also in Le Monde, “How would you feel if your spouse locked you in your room?”...
“These militant parents who are supposed to enlighten us with their benevolence and their positivity jump at my throat like wild animals,” [Goldman] said.
Not giraffes, presumably.
She continued, “Undoubtedly, they entered this dogma to fight against their own aggressive impulses with regard to their child, but also with regard to the world at large, and they find in this fight an opportunity to project their hostility.”
Ha ha. These people who think and talk so much about their own benevolence — they are the hostile ones.
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The illustration at the link is really good... except for the fact that it completely misreads the article. It shows a giraffe — representing the parent — remaining calm and aloof as children misbehave terribly at the dining table. But when Goldman says "the parent ought to adopt the posture of a giraffe in moments of conflict, remaining unperturbed by the child agitating below 'like a little red ant,'" she's talking about the child arguing and whining and protesting, not disrupting the household physically and making dinner unpleasant for the adults.
She’s right.
- Rafe
And, as you can see, arguing and whining and protesting deserves punishment for the older child — punishing being getting sent to your room.
"In Goldman’s metaphor, the parent ought to adopt the posture of a giraffe in moments of conflict, remaining unperturbed by the child agitating below 'like a little red ant."
The perfect description of black female parenting. Ever wondered why black youth in urban cores are the way they are? Now you know.
I have read through most of the professional and clinical literature over the last 150 years and there is a recurrent theme, negative reinforcement. Ignoring a child's bad behavior, or only providing positive reinforcement is a recipe for disaster. There are unique exceptions, as in dealing with children with autism or learning disabilities, but the exceptions are around the type, frequency, and severity of the negative reinforcement, that's all. This may sound insulting, but behaviorally humans are still very much animals, and they respond when young especially well to positive or negative consequences that will shape them for their whole lives. Anything lacking during this key developmental stage becomes very difficult or almost impossible to rectify later in life, leading to an entire institutional panoply of 'rectification' tools - like the justice system - to manage what parents failed to do before the child turned 12, which is a critical age developmentally.
There's also significant differences in parental styles between sexes. There's an old line some may have heard, "your mom's job is to be your friend, your dad's job is to tell you when you screw up." It's good cop bad cop, and both are equally important. Women, especially educated ones, tend to only be about positive reinforcement, being uncomfortable with negativity and their solution is similar to this piece where they will just ignore the child. In households without a father, this strategy is a disaster. It really does take two complimentary forces to create the world view for young people as they grow up, and to set their impressions of where society's and other humans boundaries are. That duality, properly executed, allows their child to in a way, predict the outcome of events as they interact with people.
Almost all of the behavioral problems we see in children or adults is a result of them being unable to empathize and correctly predict what the outcome of their actions are. I have dealt with many juvenile offenders prior to my clinical work that simply did not understand why the people they stole from or assaulted would be mad at them. It is wild to hear some of their feedback regarding their home lives growing up. You wouldn't believe what children as young as 4 are being allowed by their mothers and non-existent fathers to get away with.
One might suspect that the French dining habit of allowing children a little wine for the sake of their digestion (per the teachings of St. Timothy) could ameliorate a lot of dining misbehavior with a happy glow of gustatory inebriated. But what do I know. When my 4 year old snagged a strawberry daiquiri and gulped down a few delicious ounces he became an angry drunk. Scotch Irish, not French, so maybe culturally apropos.
The "French parenting" thing was never anything more than yet another salvo in the US mommy wars.
People are animals. Children doubly so. There is a place for positive reinforcement, it may even be preferable where possible, but negative reinforcement works better and sometimes you don't have the luxury of time. Just as with your dog, you do your child no favors when you are not clear and consistent about rules.
“How would you feel if your spouse locked you in your room?”
Anybody else see the problem with this analogy? That Gueguen doesn't undermines anything else she might have to say.
For what it's worth, a big chunk of Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life is dedicated to the idea that indulging a child's bad behavior is a huge disservice to the child, who will become a friendless, unpopular monster if not taught to control his passions. It is not just adults who recoil from an out-of-control three-year-old. Other three-year-olds do too.
Père Fouettard?! Why haven't I read about him in a David Sedaris book?
He appears to be the French version of Zwarte Piet and usually depicted by someone in black face. Also, I guess Sedaris has a kink or two he likes to keep to himself.
I was just thinking that ostracism as a criminal punishment should be brought back. The J6ers for example, or Hunter Biden. The punishment for political crimes should be to be kicked out of the country.
Bratty kids who are indulged are not happy kids. Set the parameters & enforce them
Ann Althouse said...
"And, as you can see, arguing and whining and protesting deserves punishment for the older child — punishing being getting sent to your room.
Where all your stuff is. Where you can entertain yourself for hours. Punishment for us,(three of us, all boys), was not being allowed to play outside.
Ignoring a child's bad behavior, or only providing positive reinforcement is a recipe for disaster.
When it comes to children and discipline, I have three main thoughts:
1) Children are born as barbarians and need to be civilized.
2) All animals who raise their young rely on some form of negative reinforcement to do so.
3) If Hell exists, I hope Dr. Spock is there.
punishing being getting sent to your room.
Getting sent to your room is hardly punishment these days. Most kids have a television, a computer, a gaming console, and their cell phone in there. It's not isolation anymore.
Nothing was delivered
And it’s up to you to say
Just what you had in mind
When you made everybody pay
No, nothing was delivered
Yes ‘n’ someone must explain
That as long as it takes to do this
Then that’s how long that you’ll remain
A take from the Bard
It really does take two complimentary forces to create the world view for young people as they grow up, and to set their impressions of where society's and other humans boundaries are.
Wow! There's an uncomfortable truth. Today, with in insanely disproportionate attention to trans cos players, men and women are different...they HAVE to be different. (God said so). There are dozens of reasons. Discipline and character development, yes, but also as models of male female relationships.
Discipline is easy.
It starts at birth. If you wait, you first have to obliterate bad habits, and try to instill new proper conduct.
As we reared our children, we rarely left a gathering of our peers with kids, that we were not told at least once, that we were taking the 'Kid' out of them. We were told to let them go, let the run, ignore us parents and find their own way.
We ignored them all.
We started by treating the kids with respect. Demanded their actions match the respect we held for them. We did that when they were 16 months, and 16 years.
Years later we are blessed with grandkids. They come visit, and we did little to kid proof our home. Our expectations were communicated, and the kids tried to meet our expectations. The end table next to grandpa's chair is full of interesting stuff. But making eye contact and a quite shake of my head, none of the grandkids ever pawed through my stuff.
Children thrive on solid easy to understand boundaries, they are much happier than never knowing what is acceptable and what they 'might' get in trouble for.
Mikee “When my 4 year old snagged a strawberry daiquiri and gulped down a few delicious ounces he became an angry drunk.”
So, normal 4-year old behavior, in other words?
"Wait until your father gets home!" -- the threat issued by moms in nuclear families. The reality was much less threatening than the fear but it worked towards changing behaviors.
Though he cites a different age group, Jordan Peterson talks in his books and videos about the failure of parents to instill in their children the ability to get along (play) with others (at an earlier age); he says it dooms the child to poor relations with others for a long time in their lives. The childish arrogance of I - Me - Mine doesn't help you in society, relationships or careers.
"I'm not much but I'm all I ever think about"
MarcusB. THEOLDMAN
Skinner was an evil monster. Stop using his theories as a model for parenting. Anything that relies on reinforcement, positive or negative, is a manipulative abomination.
"This may sound insulting, but behaviorally humans are still very much animals, and they respond when young especially well to positive or negative consequences that will shape them for their whole lives. Anything lacking during this key developmental stage becomes very difficult or almost impossible to rectify later in life, leading to an entire institutional panoply of 'rectification' tools - like the justice system - to manage what parents failed to do before the child turned 12, which is a critical age developmentally."
I'm not religious. Not even close, but this reminds me of something from Proverbs:
"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."
Proverbs 22:6 (KJV)
Someone pointed out to me that with regard to the proverb, it works both ways. That is, if you train your child to be good, they will very likely be good as adults and very likely will not depart from that. But if you train your child to be bad, they will very likely be bad as adults and very likely unable to change.
Here in Minneapolis, about a week ago, we had a piece of shit plow into a car containing five young beautiful Somali souls at about 100 mph on lake Street (posted 30 mph) killing all five young women ages 17-20, all best friends who were preparing for a women.
The five women were either in college or in the case of the 17-year-old college-bound as she had just graduated high school. The families of these woman raised their children to go in a good direction. And they did.
But a piece of shit, disgraced, former MN House Rep John Thompson, raised his kid Derrick to be a piece of shit just like the old man, and so he grew up to be a drug-addled murderer. A gun, thousands in cash and drugs -- including powdered fentanyl -- were found in his car and he was under the influence of drugs and alcohol when he killed them.
There is a reason why 12-year-old in Minneapolis are stealing cars and robbing people at gunpoint. And it isn't racism.
Like I said, it cuts both ways.
"It really does take two complimentary forces to create the world view for young people as they grow up, and to set their impressions of where society's and other humans boundaries are."
Evolution made us male and female for a reason.
Science!
HA! Simpsons did it:
"We've tried nothing, and we're all out of ideas." - French Ned Flanders
The pro-positive-parenting pediatrician Catherine Gueguen likened the time-out method to spousal abuse
How many children does that monster Catherine Gueguen have, and exactly how psychotic are they?
Seriously, you can't even give your kids a "time out"? What a nutcase
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