crying babies/kids-whats your worst(loudest) story?

[Rapscallion]

In order to cheer everyone up after some worrying tales, a colleague today revealed that he'd stayed over at his sister's house the other week. His daughter is in the habit of rising early, and she'd found her aunt's ... adult movie collection. She's only about five, but she certainly knows how to use a DVD player.

"What are they doing, daddy?" she asked.

Daddy looked and blanched. "Um, it's what mummies and daddies do when they love each other," he said slowly, reaching for the stop button.

"Don't you love mummy any more?"

Rapscallion

[protege]

Damn you, Raps!

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Doh!

[thegiraffe]

Nothing like a little negative reinforcement....of course, I got plenty of positive reinforcement too when I was good. I turned out mostly all right, I suppose.

\Psychologist Mode

Negative reinforcement and positive reinforcement actually both strive to...well...reinforce behavior. This is a common misconception (many psychology majors don't even get it until they're almost done with the major). You're thinking of positive punishment. In learning, positive and negative don't mean good or bad, they mean addition or subtraction. Example: You have a headache, you take tylenol/aspirin/etc, and your headache goes away. The removal of the aversive stimulus (the pain) constiutes the negative reinforcement, which makes you more likely to take that medicine in the future to relieve the pain. Positive reinforcement is exactly what it sounds like - praise for good behavior, money for doing chores, etc.

Now - here's where it gets kinda complicated. Positive punishment is the addition of an aversive stimulus to decrease that particular behavior. Example: A child is being naughty. You spank the child (the application of an aversive stimulus) to make them not do it again. That's positive punishment. Negative punishment is the removal of a desired stimulus to decrease the behavior. Example: You're not listening to your mom when she tells you to do something. She takes away your television for a day. The removal of something desirable (taking away the television) is the negative punishment.

Easiest way to remember this: reinforcement = increase in behavior, punishment = decrease in behavior. The positive and negative are simply the ways one goes about achieving the desired response.

\psychologist mode.

[Carolinagirl]

We had a doozy today..... a girl about 3 or so... screaming loudly, not only was she screaming, but the mom was screaming right back to her. Well, the mom went down an isle, and about the time I turned back around to see where they were going, I noticed the girl still standing there at the front of the check outs. She then proceeds to take off the dress that she had on, and run around the store in her undies. I would so love to get people's tag #'s and turn them in to DSS.

[Bliss]

I was barely if ever spanked as a kid, but to show how my mother thinked I once formed a terrible tantrum in my room, I was about 11 or something, and I cried, screamed and everything for about 10 minutes (she was trying to work next door), so I sat there in my room wailing and screaming, and suddenly my room's door opens, my mom enters the room with a bucket in her hands, and drops it's contents on me (water) drenching me head to toes. Turns around and exits closing the door without saying a word.

I was so surprised that I stoped crying and I even felt better, forgetting what I was wailign about.....

[thegiraffe]

suddenly my room's door opens, my mom enters the room with a bucket in her hands, and drops it's contents on me (water) drenching me head to toes. Turns around and exits closing the door without saying a word.

Brilliant. If I have tile floors in my house when I have kids, that will definitely be on my list.

That, and blending food. One of the guys I work with was telling us a story about how his mom put his meals in a blender for an entire week and made him drink them as punishment. The crime? Setting firecrackers off on the school bus. Maybe the punishment doesn't fit the crime, but food's pretty important to a 13-year old boy.

[jb17kx]

Now that reminds me of what my grandmother (a born and bred Scot) did to my brother when he was around 5 or 6. We were having chicken soup for lunch, and he was quite unhappy with that fact, and threw quite a tantrum, saying that he wanted tomato soup.
Solution?
Grandma comes over with a bottle of ketchup, unceremoniously squirts some into the bowl, and says "Happy?"

He was.

[Jester]

We had a doozy today..... a girl about 3 or so... screaming loudly, not only was she screaming, but the mom was screaming right back to her. Well, the mom went down an isle, and about the time I turned back around to see where they were going, I noticed the girl still standing there at the front of the check outs. She then proceeds to take off the dress that she had on, and run around the store in her undies. I would so love to get people's tag #'s and turn them in to DSS.

While there are many instances where I feel someone should be turned into the authorities for the way they treat their children, this is not one of them. The motehr was showing the child that screaming is no big deal, and what the child then did with her clothes and the subsequent behavior is hardly unusual for a 3 year old. Sorry, but in this case, without knowing more of the facts, I must side with the parent here. Was probably hell to listen to, but hardly worth calling the authorities for abuse or neglect.


As for the blended food, I have to tell you, that was used on me, but not as punishment. When I was 16, I broke my jaw, and for the several weeks I had my jaw wired lived for the most part on Carnation Instant Breakfast and the milkshakes at the ice cream parlor I worked at. But my grandmother lived the next town over, and I spent many days staying at her house during this time period, and she and her nurse made me many many meals in a blender (usually just Carnation plus ice cream and/or a banana), and they were quite good. Not punishment. Just sharing.