SPANKING revisited...

[tadamsmar]

Sorry, I should not have been playing around with the term "inconsistency". Flexibility is a better term.

Kazdin Method is a good book for dealing with conduct issues of the sort you are reporting. It's main advantage is that it's better than most books at training the parent without an instructor. But I don't think it's the best overall parenting book for the long run, or once the conduct problems are more under control. Incredible Years is a better overall book. Important methods like active listening and problem-solving via compromise are not even mentioned in Kazdin Method. These are the foundation of Incredible Years and Kazdin-style methods have more limited use. Active listening and compromise are methods you will find useful for the rest of your life in interaction with your kids, they never outgrow these.

I understood that you did not mean spanking.

 

[parentastic]

Wow, Parentastic.

I disagree with your comment on psychiatrists. "<I>they don't have a clue</I>" and "<I>some of the most serious and most prevalent disorders remain largely misunderstood, simply because almost no effort is put into understanding it..."</I>
In my expereance, and rewiew of the literature, a lot of research is put into understanding disorders of the human psyche. Such as major depressive disorders, ADD/ADHD, bipolarism. The health care community has a greater understanding of how the mind and brain work than we did 10 years ago. Do a medline or pub med search on the research that goes into understanding how our brains function.
Now... On the other hand. If a mental health care provider cannot fully explain to the patient how and explain why certain behaviors or certain personality disorders has affected them, then that is a communication issue and not a lack of understanding.
Sorry for hijacking the thread.

Are you sure you are directing this at the right poster? I have never wrote the above quotes. I don't recall making sweeping generalisations about the entier branch of pshyriatry; i am a scholar myself... Can you provide a link to this post?

 

[singledad]

Wow, Parentastic.

I disagree with your comment on psychiatrists. "<I>they don't have a clue</I>" and "<I>some of the most serious and most prevalent disorders remain largely misunderstood, simply because almost no effort is put into understanding it..."</I>
In my expereance, and rewiew of the literature, a lot of research is put into understanding disorders of the human psyche. Such as major depressive disorders, ADD/ADHD, bipolarism. The health care community has a greater understanding of how the mind and brain work than we did 10 years ago. Do a medline or pub med search on the research that goes into understanding how our brains function.
Now... On the other hand. If a mental health care provider cannot fully explain to the patient how and explain why certain behaviors or certain personality disorders has affected them, then that is a communication issue and not a lack of understanding.
Sorry for hijacking the thread.

That wasn't parentastic, it was me.

I would struggle to defend the statements you have chosen to quote, so please excuse me if I quote my <U>entire statement</U> and respond to that <U>in context</U>, instead of your excerpt...

I, myself, have a love-hate relationship with them. <U>There are a few good professionals, with good intentions, and the insight necessary to work in that profession.</U> They can be very helpful.

ie. many psychiatrists do, in fact, have a clue. My statement wasn't nearly such a sweeping generalization as it would appear when you only quote a small snippet.

In my experience, however, far too many psychiatrists <U>have only book knowledge</U> and no real understanding, and use fancy theories and terminology to hide the fact they really don't have a clue.

ie. They've studied all the fancy science, but they have no idea what it feels like for the patient, so they really cannot sympathize as much as they would like one to believe. So they tell you long stories full of scientific definitions, which mean basically nothing.

Add to that how so many seem to all jump on the bandwagon of whatever the latest "fashionable" theory or disorder is, while some of the most serious and most prevalent disorders remain largely misunderstood, simply because almost no effort is put into understanding it.

Yes, a lot of research is done, and a lot of papers published. Interesting though, that you name depression and bipolar disorders, since that is where much of the research is going these days. What bugs me is that something like Borderline Personality Disorder, which is estimated to be as least as prevalent as Bipolar Mood Disorder, if not more, gets only a fraction of the attention that Bipolar Mood Disorder gets. I guess it's too hard to study, and who wants to work with those nasty, selfish, manipulative bastards anyway? It's not like they can be cured... Or is it? Who knows? The number of people who make an effort to find out is so small, that their voices just get lost in the noise...

And that is only one example of a very, very prevalent issue that just gets shoved to the side, because everyone is too busy researching more popular issues.

No, <U>the entire profession is not sick</U>, but unfortunately there are too many who continuously undermine the credibility of the rest. As with any field of study, I suppose. Geology or astronomy simply doesn't invoke the same kind of emotional response from people, which is probably why they haven't been accused of this.

Again, not so sweeping or generalized, is it?

 

[Shaun Austin]

As a brittish parent who was adopted because of abuse, bringing my children up I have always been adament that no violence will be used. Even from a young age we have always believed in teaching our kids by using non contact punishment for example confiscation. As the have got older (mostly our teenagers) we started to use a 'talk and explain' aproach treating them as adult like as possible and trying to understand why they did it. by treating the parent/child relationship like this they often talk and are more open cause they see us as someone they can talk to Callum expecially has a great bond with me and so does Sam. While they both make their mistakes thats how we make them see bad behaviour as a mistake they then know that they have to deal with the natrual consiquences of what they have done and learn from their mistakes. It has always worked in our house, even if they do break the odd rule.

 

[ikon99]

That wasn't parentastic, it was me.

I would struggle to defend the statements you have chosen to quote, so please excuse me if I quote my <U>entire statement</U> and respond to that <U>in context</U>, instead of your excerpt...

You have eloquently defended your statements, even in the face of me pointing out only a fraction of what you have said.

Yes, a lot of research is done, and a lot of papers published. Interesting though, that you name depression and bipolar disorders, since that is where much of the research is going these days. What bugs me is that something like Borderline Personality Disorder, which is estimated to be as least as prevalent as Bipolar Mood Disorder, if not more, gets only a fraction of the attention that Bipolar Mood Disorder gets. I guess it's too hard to study, and who wants to work with those nasty, selfish, manipulative bastards anyway? It's not like they can be cured... Or is it? Who knows? The number of people who make an effort to find out is so small, that their voices just get lost in the noise...

The bolded statement is very acccurate. My training focused on Bipolar and other mood disorders and less on the neurosis that is Borderline Personality Disorder. My research indicates that Borderline PD afffects about 1-2% of the general population (in America) (Clarken JF, et al) and the prevelance of Bipolar disorder affects 1 - 1.6 %. (Calabrese JR, et al).
And, I think you are correct about not wanting to study "those selfish..." well, you get my drift. There is significant co morbid conditions that can affect Borderline PD like dysthymia, substance abuse and/or psychosis. This makes it difficult to not only study this disorder but also makes it difficult to diagnose. Often times these patients end up dead or in jail as a result of their reckless behavior.

And that is only one example of a very, very prevalent issue that just gets shoved to the side, because everyone is too busy researching more popular issues.

For this, I am truly sorry. I hope, in the future, this will get addressed by psych community.

Again, not so sweeping or generalized, is it?

No it is not.

 

[ikon99]

Oh, and single dad. Thank you for your insight.

 

[singledad]

Oh, and single dad. Thank you for your insight.

Glad we were able to come to an understanding.

And sorry if my tone was a bit argumentative. That was unnecessary .

 

[Caffus]

Thank you, I oreder that first method book you told me about and I'll probably get the other one next month..I need to get my 5 year old ready for school now.

 

[parentastic]

I dont mean spanking...I have'nt spanked them at all for at least two weeks now and I dont want to do that. I mean in time outs or taking things away, but I'm going to look up the Kazdin Method...being inconsistent doesnt work, it confuses, they dont know what to expect.

Kazdin again. And here goes another parent influenced by Tad's insitance on using and recommending this *dangerous* book, which will push parents toward the outdated science of behaviorism while ignoring the deeper underlying need and eroding the attachment.

I am appaled. And although I know it's not my fault, I also feel guilty because my crazy schedule doesn't allow me these past weeks to counter Tad's damaging influence.

 

[bssage]

Caffus

Its obvious your are currently in a struggle. I recommend you post some specific situations that you are encountering. In separate threads on the appropriate sub-forum.

We seem to have several new experts on the board now. Here is my philosophy about that. I always listen, then I decide for myself. Sometimes stuff that works for one person may not work: or be a good fit for another. Some of the best advice I have seen here came from "in the trenches" parents. Not from books. And on the other hand there have been significant advances to formalized parenting. IMHO take it all in. Discard what you cant use. Keep what you can.

While Experts may have a better foundation of knowledge. If they had the key to the parenting mint. They would be to busy managing their billions of dollars to post on the forum.

Your issues seem to be pretty specific. And they need to be in their own thread rather than in the confusing mix of the spanking debate. It will also be easier for those making an effort to help. To follow your progress if the knew where to look rather than this thread.

 

[Caffus]

OKie..I will post another thread when I can...but I'm wondering how can the book Kazdin be dangerouse?

 

[tadamsmar]

Kazdin again. And here goes another parent influenced by Tad's insitance on using and recommending this *dangerous* book, which will push parents toward the outdated science of behaviorism while ignoring the deeper underlying need and eroding the attachment.

I am appaled. And although I know it's not my fault, I also feel guilty because my crazy schedule doesn't allow me these past weeks to counter Tad's damaging influence.

Kazdin was 2008 President of the American Psychological Association and is the director of the Yale University Parenting Center. What are your credentials so we can compare them to Kazdin's?

As I have pointed out in the past, I found a couple of researchers (Shonkoff, Gerhardt) that you <I>claimed</I> supported your position in fact supported Kazdin's methods and had nothing to say (as far as I could tell) about your approach one way or the other.

As far as I can tell, all the methods that your recommend are good, but some of the methods that appall you and that you think are dangerous are in fact considered by mainstream parenting experts to be safe and recommended or necessary to achieve a safe, healthy outcome in some scenarios.

 

[cybele]

OKie..I will post another thread when I can...but I'm wondering how can the book Kazdin be dangerouse?

Tad and Ptsc are apparently both involved in child psychology to some degree but what they believe in are two different ends of the spectrum, both quite extreme ends as far as differences go, so they will bicker on every thread and call things 'dangerous' and 'harmful' and name-call and what have you.

What I tend to do, and what I assume many other users tend to do, it read both and interpret what we think is really the case.

I personally believe that any 'method' is pretty useless in isolation, because there is no guarantee that a specific child will respond to that exact method, and even if they do, there is no guarantee that subsequent children will either, because all kids are different, so I think their advice is exactly the same as anyone else's on here, you pick and choose what you think might work for your kids.

By all means read the Kadzin book if you want to, don't let either one deter you from that, I find the implication that we're all bumbling fools who cannot read a book and decide whether we agree or disagree with that book or not pretty offensive and egocentric.

 

[parentastic]

Kazdin was 2008 President of the American Psychological Association and is the director of the Yale University Parenting Center. What are your credentials so we can compare them to Kazdin's?

What's interesting is that you keep referring to Kazdin as the one and only possible solution to all problems related to children, even after we went through detailed examples and went over many flaws of behaviorism, and even after you recognized these flaws.
And yet, as you are quick to appeal to your expert's credentials, you carefully hide your own lack of credentials and call me to compare my own credentials to your "expert" rather than to yourself.
For that matters, I could tell you to look at Carl Rogers' credentials and compare them to Kazdin, but what would that do?!? It would be a ridiculous contest, "My dad is stronger than yours!". Please. The point is not who you recommend. The point is <I>why</I> you recommend them and whether you are qualified to recommend them, <I>based on their context and situation</I>, not blindly.

Now - Kazdin is a great psychologist with a wonderful career, and no one here is stating otherwise. But Kazdin is a 67 years old man who was at the peak of his time in the field of behavioral modification, and is still today the specialist of THAT branch of psychology. And that branch of psychology, today, is used to help severe mental health conditions.
It's no longer seen as useful for child rearing by a large portion of the professional field, because of the many flaws of addressing a behavior without addressing it's underlying causes and their linked needs. This is what is being taught nowadays in the university, what can I tell you?

Kazdin was the APA president in 2008? That's your argument?
Well, in 2008, the APA association was also involved with using behavioral psychologists to help interrogate torture prisoner for the Bush administration, which resulted in a huge amount of psychologist to rebel and bypass the APA administration and force Kazdin to send a letter to Bush to dissociate from these practices. Nice year for Kazdin's presidency! I bet you don't find this in his resume. It's no surprise that the same president who is the chief researcher of the branch of behavioral modification science also sees no evil in using this science for torture.
And given both of you are in the same generation, I am not surprised you seem to see his method as the only way to handle children - by forcing a change of behavior, while fully ignoring the actual needs of the child or even trying to understand what's going on.

Singledad asked you some very serious questions earlier about how you would handle a hypothetical situation; it turned out that situation was not hypothetical after all, and your "solution" was a huge FAIL, where you didn't even bother to found out the kid's background and context. Had your "solution" been used on that child, given her context, it would have actually been damaging. Did you learn something from this? It seems not.

The key here is not whether Kazdin has credentials or not.
The key is that YOU are the one who has NO credentials what so ever, and yet who keeps answering every post you can find with "use the Kazdin method!".
Me? I may not be the president of the APA, but I am a professional in the field, being a family psychotherapist, I design and facilitate attachment parenting workshops, I have true concrete success with each parent that I help, and I am completing a Masters degree in the field, which is why I am not always present to counter your ill-advices on these forums. And unlike you, I am not stuck on any single book or single method: I advice parents by asking and diagnosing problems in their full context; I refer to various books (out of several dozens), out of which P.E.T. is only one of them; and I have made it clear that every parents takes and leave what they can from them.
<I>So what are YOUR professional credentials, besides having raised children in the 1960's?</I>

As I have pointed out in the past, I found a couple of researchers (Shonkoff, Gerhardt) that you <I>claimed</I> supported your position in fact supported Kazdin's methods and had nothing to say (as far as I could tell) about your approach one way or the other.

As for your claims regarding other researcher, which again comes down to putting thoughts and claims in their mouth that they have not said, it's (again) another pathetic attempt at straw-man argument. Neither Shonkoff nor Gerhardt have specifically endorsed or reject what I advice, nor endrosed Kazdin either; the point of this video I posted was that stress causes the brain to shut down its learning and distress causes stress. Timeouts and love-withdrawal techniques in which children are ignored cause distress. Alternate methods involving low stress, or no stress, therefore allow a better and proper brain development during infancy. And frankly I don't have time to repeat these notions ad-nauseaum to someone who simply brush them off and then purposely misrepresent them to push an outdated science for unknown reasons.

How many times have you actually brought false pretense about what I was advising (but really was not), such as the stupid video with the fake tantrum, or the idea that I would support child restraints - all of which are false representations in order to discredit what you obviously don't even understand? How many times have you insulted people, got negative rep? How come you have been warned by mods twice and got this close from being banned?

And then YOU ask ME for my credentials?!?

As far as I can tell, all the methods that your recommend are good...

And yet just in another thread two weeks ago you wre also stating the contrary. It's like a pendulum. You seem to adjust your beliefs and your claims to the day, depending on how you want to attack someone's credibility or defend your own. :no: I am sick of it.

 

[bssage]

OKie..I will post another thread when I can...but I'm wondering how can the book Kazdin be dangerouse?

If you cant post. And something is wrong if you cant by now. But if you cant. Just post on your intro and one of us mod's will move it: re-title it: and link you to its location. I know why and what these two knuckleheads are doing. But it will probably only confuse you.

I am probably going to close this thread anyway. No,, On second thought I am going to close it right now. If someone has something new to add in regard to spanking. Start another thread.

Thread closed: Lets move on please.