Comments on: Child-rearing advice: from the mouths of babes https://thenewneo.com/2015/12/31/child-rearing-advice-from-the-mouths-of-babes/ A blog about political change, among other things Mon, 04 Jan 2016 20:53:05 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.1 By: Rufus T. Firefly https://thenewneo.com/2015/12/31/child-rearing-advice-from-the-mouths-of-babes/#comment-950930 Mon, 04 Jan 2016 20:53:05 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/?p=55761#comment-950930 Mrs. Firefly has worked with handicapped infants for many years and her medical training in College included a lot of psychology, including child and infant psychology. When we started having kids I basically just did what she told me to do (never bad advice for a husband, but in our case I knew she was w-a-a-a-a-y) more knowledgeable on the subject than I. Most of what she told me seemed rather obvious once I gave it a moment’s thought, but none of it had occurred to me until she explained.

Our basic rules correlate with neo and son of neo’s conversation. Give attention for good behavior and ignore bad behavior. Assuming the young child isn’t injured, or doing harm to herself or others; ignore whining, crying, tantrums, hitting, biting, etc. And when she does something good give her praise commensurate with the act, or, even better, give her some of your time. The theory is; kids basically crave attention. If they learn they get more of it when misbehaving, don’t be surprised when they misbehave more.

When our oldest was very young (weeks?), Mrs. Firefly told me, “When you’re carrying him around with you tell him what you’re doing, what’s going on, and don’t use babytalk. Talk to him as you would an adult. So that’s what I did, “O.K., Little Firefly, I am going to repair this shelf. First I have to get a hammer and some nails. This is a hammer. These are nails…” It may be coincidence, but all our kids do exceptionally well with verbal and written communication and the first, in particular (who had the most alone time with us) did exceptionally well, including a strong faculty for foreign language learning.

neo-neocon, it sounds like your son was also not exposed to a lot of babytalk.

]]> By: vanderleun https://thenewneo.com/2015/12/31/child-rearing-advice-from-the-mouths-of-babes/#comment-950401 Fri, 01 Jan 2016 18:27:49 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/?p=55761#comment-950401 ““You know that the more you give kids, the more they want.””

Peak wisdom. Probably all down hill for that kid since then. Probably got all wrapped up in “being smart.”

]]> By: neo-neocon https://thenewneo.com/2015/12/31/child-rearing-advice-from-the-mouths-of-babes/#comment-950316 Fri, 01 Jan 2016 03:17:40 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/?p=55761#comment-950316 Molly NH:

No, just when he was a four-year-old.

]]> By: Molly NH https://thenewneo.com/2015/12/31/child-rearing-advice-from-the-mouths-of-babes/#comment-950310 Fri, 01 Jan 2016 02:13:06 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/?p=55761#comment-950310 Hmmm Interesting, did he become a psychologist ?

]]> By: Artfldgrs https://thenewneo.com/2015/12/31/child-rearing-advice-from-the-mouths-of-babes/#comment-950292 Fri, 01 Jan 2016 00:18:41 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/?p=55761#comment-950292 A boy gives a cookie to a mouse. The mouse asks for a glass of milk. He then requests a straw (to drink the milk), a mirror (to avoid a milk mustache), nail scissors (to trim his hair in the mirror), and a broom (to sweep up his hair trimmings). Next he wants to take a nap, have a story read to him, draw a picture, and hang the drawing on the refrigerator. Looking at the refrigerator makes him thirsty, so the mouse asks for a glass of milk. The circle is complete when he wants a cookie to go with it.

Book by Laura Numeroff

]]> By: K-E https://thenewneo.com/2015/12/31/child-rearing-advice-from-the-mouths-of-babes/#comment-950262 Thu, 31 Dec 2015 21:29:50 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/?p=55761#comment-950262 LOL. Too smart. Very bright kid. Hope he didn’t cause you too much trouble. 😉

My trick: if my kids were whining, I told them that I cannot hear a whiny voice. If they wanted to tell me something, it had to be in a regular voice.

Didn’t work immediately, but it did help. I’m sure most of us parents know: it’s all about consistency!

]]> By: SCOTTtheBADGER https://thenewneo.com/2015/12/31/child-rearing-advice-from-the-mouths-of-babes/#comment-950257 Thu, 31 Dec 2015 21:12:44 +0000 http://neoneocon.com/?p=55761#comment-950257 Wise beyond his years, wiser than that books author!

]]>