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Comment by jefftk | Hacker News Reader

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I'm not in favor of physical punishment, but I don't think "as small as" is a good way to think about it. You're teaching them a general pattern (varies by parent, but perhaps "when I require you to do something you have to do it").

If they learn that if they refuse strongly you will just drop it, you'll get a lot of that.

This is how it works for adults too: if you are involved with the legal system on a minor matter, and then start disregarding the courts requirements ("contempt of court") they will escalate this quite far, up to jail time.

This is also worth thinking through before you make a demand of your kid: is this really something that you are willing to enforce? Is it that important? Can you start with something weaker than a demand and talk about it first? ("Your room is really messy and I'm having trouble getting to the dresser to put your clothes away.")

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My point was that physical violence is a severe punishment and not cleaning up after yourself does not seem like it warrants such a severe punishment.

I don't think that forever escalating punishment is an effective strategy. If your child won't listen to you after punishment one step below physical violence, going further probably isn't going to help. Continually escalating the situation to enforce something feels like a very one dimensional approach.

It seems like you agree with me, given that in your article your said "even better, though, is avoiding commands and threats entirely".

Sidenote: I really hate "when I require you to do something you have to do it" as a reason. Always hated it as a kid, still hate it as an adult. I hope I only use it very sparingly when I have children.

Yes if you have a reasonable person in front of you. But your children can be very unreasonable and cruel just because they are playing. The "why" questions will just continue until you are exhausted and they will not have done it anyways. Also, "because I say so" is the truth and the reason. "I say so because I want you to do it, and I want you to do it because I say so. " Its a chicken/egg problem

I completely disagree with your approach. You don't win against an unreasonable person by escalating the punishment. They're unreasonable, by definition they're not going to respond like a reasonable person would and back down. It's just a poor strategy.

> Also, "because I say so" is the truth and the reason

I have understood that since I was a child. My point is that it's an extremely poor reason. You are relying entirely upon your authority as a parent/boss/whatever and not providing any real rationale.

Relevant (Specifically "formal authority is a blunt, fragile instrument"):

"As an engineer, if you really feel strongly about something, you just go off and do it yourself. As a manager, you have to lead through influence and persuasion and inspiring other people to do things. It can be quite frustrating. “But can’t I just tell people what to do?” you might be thinking. And the answer is no. Any time you have to tell someone what to do using your formal authority, you have failed in some way and your actual influence and power will decrease. Formal authority is a blunt, fragile instrument."

https://charity.wtf/2019/09/08/reasons-not-to-be-a-manager/

(I'm not sure we disagree very much on what to do, but mostly on how we think about it?)

> My point was that physical violence is a severe punishment and not cleaning up after yourself does not seem like it warrants such a severe punishment.

I understood that to be your point when I wrote my response, fwiw.

> If your child won't listen to you after punishment one step below physical violence, going further probably isn't going to help.

Maybe your objection to physical punishment isn't "it is too harsh a punishment for refusing to clean up" but instead "I don't think it will work"?

> I really hate "when I require you to do something you have to do it" as a reason. Always hated it as a kid, still hate it as an adult. I hope I only use it very sparingly when I have children.

Agreed! It is a a very large exercise of authority to require someone to do something regardless of whether they agree. So I rarely require the kids to clean up, even though at this point my oldest is nine. Instead, it's usually something like not being willing to help them start something new until they have cleaned up what they were already working on.

> Maybe your objection to physical punishment isn't "it is too harsh a punishment for refusing to clean up" but instead "I don't think it will work"?

Definitely both. I believe that it's ineffective, but even if it was effective I wouldn't be inclined to use it.

I feel like punishment in general is thought of as a very one dimensional thing, but in reality people have much more complex motivations.

You kind of get at that with "it's usually something like not being willing to help them start something new until they have cleaned up what they were already working on". It's not really punishment, but it's still a motivator for them to do the task.

I feel like you can teach kids the general pattern like you mentioned without "punishing" them per se.

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