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Rewarding Good Behavior
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Rewarding Good Behavior |
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nakdthoughts Member Laureate
since 2000-10-29
Posts 19200Between the Lines 
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What do you think about a city Mass transit system deciding to reward teens with a discount card to local stores if they sign a pledge promising good behavior for these 3 R's ( Ride/Respect/Relax). Recently in Baltimore, teens from local schools have beat up/stabbed several people for whatever reason they can drum up. Why do we have to reward behavior that should be "normal"?! They are saying to try and use positive reinforcement instead of jail and punishment. Well, I can tell you right now the only ones who will do that will be those who behave well anyway. In school almost every teacher gives rewards just for the kids completing their work without too much commotion. I say, have your children educated to be Dentists since most rewards are candy today and in the future there will be a need for dental work. Just sign me "Dismayed" M "Love is not blind - It sees more and not less, but because it sees more, it is willing to see less." |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
I agree completely, Maureen. Instead of controlling a situation we plead with wrong-doers not to do wrong...a sad situation. Things like this have been coming on for a long time where someone somewhere decided that everyone must be rewarded for something, good for their psyche or something. I went to one of my customers house once and saw a lot of trophies in their son's room. Thinking this kid must really be something, I looked at them and saw things like...8th grade track meet - participated...100 yard dash - finished...class reading assignment - completed. There was a time trophies and awards meant something. Now they are passed out like candy for the benefit of the child's "well-being and mental state of mind." My hero Bobby Jones of golfing fame once called a foul on himself for an act no one else saw. It cost him the tournament. When the reporters after the tournament applauded his honesty after the tournament, he replied, "Applauding me for that is like applauding me for not robbing a bank. Honesty is something that should be expected, not rewarded." That kind of morality got lost somewhere along the way. What kind of lesson will these kids get from being placated and rewarded for NOT breaking the law? I'm sure you know......... |
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Marilyn Member Elite
since 1999-09-26
Posts 2621Ontario, Canada |
How many of these kids will take the incentive to behave and still misbehave? They want what they want, when they want it and forget anyone else. This generation of kids have been spoiled. Some parents think that if they say no and mean it, their kids will hate them. I say...so what! I am not your friend, I am your parent. It is my job to punish you for misbehavior. I shake my head even at some my friends and how they are ruled my their kids. Marilyn |
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
I don't think this tactic will work. I think it's well-intended, but it won't work. I'm nodding, because I raised my own kids with rewardal of good behavior. That's really hard to do all by yourself too. You have to make "respect" the reward, because I sure didn't have money to be pinning on my son at his graduation. I was there though. (I actually clapped so hard in the handicapped section, my bangle bracelet flew from my arm--and a woman caught it, like it was mardi gras!) *smile* I'm just glad no one was hurt...but? I'm a little hurt. I wish my family would round up for graduations the way they do for "otherlings", like. I dunno, posting bond? Rehab? Couldn't someone have summoned up a big HOO HAAA for my son? He learned fast though. He was fired from his job the next day. He's a g'damned certifiable outlaw now. (But then, now I wanna know too, why is someone with a psyche degree working the counter at Starbucks?)  That's what got him fired. Oh. He said the "eff" word too. nod. That would be my influence. |
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Mysteria 
since 2001-03-07
Posts 18328British Columbia, Canada |
I have to tell you that this is about one of the craziest things I think I have ever heard unless they were giving discount passes away to the A students. It's great for the stores at the mall I guess, but that has to be the worst possible message they are sending to kids. So each time they act out, they get an incentive to act good? In this family sometimes you don't even get rewarded for good behaviour, but you do often get something for no reason.  Dismayed is right. |
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serenity blaze Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738 |
You guys just don't get it. It's not up to the city to "parent" the kids. BUT--if you decide to have children of your own--I suggest you "reward good behavior." Mysteria? I know you already do this. I need a shrink.  I'm the kid who brought my straight A report cards to the neighbors house, so I could get some ice cream and a bit o cool whip. I'm not suggesting that this (positive reward) will work on a community level--it won't. But I am the kind of butthole who wants to find what will work. I want those kids. I want the mean ones. I happen to think that the greatest treasure is buried deepest. I'm serious.  I want those kids. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Reward good behavior is absolutely right, Serenity. One has to define good behavior, though. Is not setting fire to the cat good behavior? I suppose so but should you come home each day and say, "Thank you, Johnny, for turning Fuzzball into shiskabob."? Parents should be positive with their children. Believe me, I grew up in a house that lacked that little activity and it has cost me. BUT...when you reward, make sure it is for something rewardable. Good grades? Definitely. Good deeds? Sure. Not giving people the finger as they walk by? that's marginal. When we start rewarding kids for not committing criminal acts, the inmates are running the asylum. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Folks, I’m not sure what we’re talking about here. Maureen’s description of a Baltimore program to reward kids for making a promise to follow “The Three R’s” doesn’t make sense as a strategy to decrease violence on busses. Perhaps I’ve misunderstood her. Having had to design a few behavior modification programs over the years to change people whose behavior was constantly violent in a locked hospital setting to people whose behavior was merely ill-tempered and acceptable outside the hospital, I can say that the rewards were not specific enough, were not targeted well enough to specifically identified behaviors, and were not offered immediately enough after the positive behaviors were observed to have any chance of working. As for any dangerous behaviors, these behaviors are very difficult to deal with in a strictly behavioral scheme, where ideally unwanted behaviors are to be utterly ignored. Punishment, you see, within this particular behavioral system is a kind of reinforcement, and tends to increase the frequency with which the behavior will occur. This is one of the problems with prison as punishment; it reinforces inappropriate behaviors. But I diverge from the subject. What does make sense about giving kids free shopping reward cards in return for unverifiable promises is that it gives the stores an excuse to get the kids into the stores and get them drooling over all the potential goods on offer. It given them incentive to get access to money and return to spend it, even though they may not be able to afford it. In the trade, I believe this is known as a loss-leader and in trying economic times such as these it can make excellent economic sense for retailers. An empty promise is a good a reason to pass out loss-leader cards as any, and probably better than most. After all, maybe the unlikely will happen as a result. We can all hope. To understand how this whole business of reward works, and I think it’s very important that we do, we need to understand that rewards don’t always have to be what we tend to think of as pleasant things. People tend to work better for pleasant things, like food, sex or money, but being the way we are, we don’t always believe we can get them. Often we will work just as readily for other kinds of attention and recognition, an occasional beating, a dressing down, a sharp glance of disappointment, almost anything that amounts to dependable recognition from somebody we think is important. Ending up in the same mess that we always have, is reassuring and rewarding at the same time that it may be deeply unpleasant. When we think we are punishing our children for their own good, or putting people behind bars to show them what it feels like, we are sending a much more complex message than we like to think. Being placated and rewarded for not breaking the law doesn’t seem to be a great answer, does it? I know it doesn’t to me. And yet the alternative that I see, that of making a decision of what the kind of behaviors are that we want our people to have and carrying those ideals consciously forward and shaping our children into that sort of person seems basically inhuman. I don’t think there actually is a good answer we can offer at this point. I wouldn’t want everybody to be like me, certainly, nor would I want them to be like anybody else I can imagine. We are left with some very basic questions here. And are you certain that you want to raise a society of children that will not break laws at all. I don’t think that I do. Who knows what laws are just and unjust in the fury of the moment, or even over time. Slavery was once the law of the land. Usury, which some believe should be illegal still, is routinely practiced by many of our financial institutions. Certainly the good thief is honored in the myths of our culture. Robin Hood is frequently addressed by authorities when crooks may be portrayed in any sort of sympathetic light at all: "He (or she) is no Robin Hood!" Anyway: Just a few thoughts to complicate the discussion. Sincerely, BobK. |
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nakdthoughts Member Laureate
since 2000-10-29
Posts 19200Between the Lines |
I don't have time right now to respond to all. Bob that is what the proposed program states. City school students ride the public busses with passes to get to their schools. There is no control over them other than if they were to put police on each bus. A few months ago several students beat up a young women which sent her to the hospital because they wanted her seat. They later (including their parents) after they were arrested, wanted to blame her, making up stories that she spit on them or that she "disrespected" them. They chose not to prosecute this as a hate crime although it happens so much in that area that it probably was. If you are keeping in touch with the news lately, a teacher was beat up by her students recently, again in the Baltimore area...and I think it was posted on you tube or one of those sites. She made national news afterwards. Another situation, a principal or assistant principal was attacked on a weekend while in her school doing some paper work by a teenager who broke into the school and attempted to rape her. There is too much sex, porn, violence etc. in the media and children have too easy access to it all...Music, cable tv, movies, video games all glorify it. Positive reinforcement is great when deserved...and that doesn't mean a child has to be an A student or even well behaved all the time. I have a student who scores very low on her placement tests for learning. Today with a little prodding, and explanations by me, she turned in the best benchmark scores of all the children I work with. She is a very slow learner but wants to please and as long as you give her a little smile and pat on the back and some guidance she works as hard as anyone I know. Karen, as a parent you can give as much positive reinforcement as you want and that should be your job to have your child feel good about himself. That IS part of parenting. But so is teaching them that there are consequences for "bad" choices as they call them now. That is the part that is missing... Today everyone has an excuse for why they do what they do, not caring if they hurt anyone else. Basic laws are broken all the time and Bob, I am not talking about those that are unfair...but those that are necessary in a civilized society. Well that said, I am calling it a night as I have out of town guests~~~ M |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
You can't downplay the violence in the world today, Maureen. It wouldn't be true. I'm not sure that you can justify it, either. That wouldn't be true But I'm not sure that it's worse today that at other times and places in history. I think we tend to idealize "the old days." And overlook the underlying realities they were built on. The old days take on sort of a golden haze that never actually existed. What do you think, though? |
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nakdthoughts Member Laureate
since 2000-10-29
Posts 19200Between the Lines |
I sometimes wonder about that Bob. But I taught over 30 years ago and began to teach again and substitute only in the last 4 years. The change in expectations is unbelievable. And I don't mean the harsh punishments that use to be given out. The only change in expectations is in the learning area of trying to get the students to use "higher level learning" and layering it so that they don't have to learn anything like addition and multiplication tables until they are in high school...as long as they get a little each year, eventually by 12th grade they should have a grasp on it..so those in charge think. And at least in the schools I am familiar with, we are always teaching to the test rather than to what needs to be learned and can be made fun. Giving them information and asking for it to be spit back the same is ridiculous. They aren't thinking for themselves anymore. (This is elementary schools) Even 30 years ago they did not paddle or touch children unless it was to pull them off each other. The lack of respect is so evident today it is scary. The fact that 2-4 children in a class can constantly disrupt the others from learning with no way to stop them other than sending them home is also a problem today. But you know or maybe you don't know, that school's funding is based on attendance each day. So the schools hate to send anyone home or suspend them. And it looks better on paper when they don't report many of these incidents. This is in county as well as city schools. So it continues from school to the outside in daily life. They think it is okay to get away with certain behaviors that would have been looked upon badly and really still are by those who really do care. The shirts kids wear to school with the sayings about "no snitching" and not doing homework or other such things that stores sell that are negative thoughts are not as funny and cool as the students think. When we were young most of our mothers were home for us. Sure, today parents sometimes both or single ones have to work and the students are dropped off at school by 6:30-7 and await free breakfast there. Some parents even come and sit with them while their children are eating that breakfast. I just can't understand that if you have time to do that why you wouldn't want to feed them something more nutritious at home. The cafeteria manager ( and I know I am off topic in this thread now) told me that even if they dont eat it and throw it away, the county schools or state are repaid double for everything sold for breakfasts or lunches or given free. So they are told to make sure they get each student to take the whole lunch despite much is trashed each day. At today's costs I just can't understand this either. And am beginning to feel a full time teaching job would not be in my best interest as I would "be hard put" to keep my mouth closed at what I have learned and see. Anyway this is what I see everyday and other than hiring more and more school therapists to deal with the issues of students who can't control their behaviors or don't want to...I think there are few solutions that will work without proper parenting going on. M |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Positive reinforcement is a good thing. But I agree with Karen in saying the State can never raise your kids for you, or encourage morality by tickling consumeristic desire. That trivializes the depth of the problems we're all thinking of. Stephen |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
But the transit system can't make up for a lack of good parenting, so how may you blame it for pursuing a desperate way to try to buy some peace and avert some problems if it may? You may not wish to "reward" a lion with a piece of meat either, but if it distracts his appetite away from you and others, it is worth it. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Maureen, Teaching to the tests. I have a brother in law and sister in law in Buffalo and a niece in Richmond who are teachers. I've had clients who were teachers, and I've never had one of them tell me that they thought teaching to the test is a good thing. I think it's one of the biggest mistakes the Democrats ever made, to go along with the Republicans on that No Child Left Behind Bill. It's designed to cripple public education and leave behind a high and higher percentage of the troubled kids you're talking about while the kids who have more money go off to the private schools. The kids who are left behind are stuck with rote education of the most stultifying sort. Because there isn't room for anything but yes or no type answers (mostly. You can't spend a lot time time giving nuanced facts and explanations because I think the tests don't ask for a good description of what actually happened, but what the answer is in the text book). It's hard to make that sort of stuff interesting. You get low interest, and the kids with attention problems start to pop their fuses because their brains have to have at least a certain level of excitement to function right, and if they don't get it from the outside, then they start to manufacture it. Things get crazier and crazier from there. I'm told that the rule in neurology is that brains will always function at the best level that they can. Sometimes this stuff is a matter of fault and blame, but I think you had a handle on it when you were telling the story about the little girl who responded well to being encouraged and supported, and that when you were consistent about it, she was able to improve things a great deal. It's often a matter of finding where and what to encourage and support to help the kid along, and it's not like they give you enough time to do that, is it? Everybody's crunched. With the necessity of two parents working in many of these families, there's a big shortage of parenting time, I'd imagine, unless you're teaching the kids of wealthy parents. When I was a kid, my mother didn't have to work and she could spend a little extra time with my sister and myself. My parents had the time to help me with my homework and feed me lunch and talk to me; so did the parents of most of my friends. It made a big difference in the way we were educated and the way kids were educated across town, where there were a lot of single parent families and families where both parents had to work and the kids couldn't get the kind of attention we got. A lot of the kids parented each other and the results were that we were able to do better in life. I don't think I'd blame the kids at the other high school, though, or the teachers there, or the fractured and overworked families that were doing the best they could. There simply wasn't enough money to give those kids the sense of being parented, loved and contained that they needed. That we got. When economic times got better, more of them were able to get out of poverty because their parents were able to spend more time with them—a parent, at least, or some valued family member. There was a bad gang problem when I was a kid too. There were drugs and knives and guns. The guns were more makeshift for the most part, but there were a fair number of deaths. It could be very frightening. I've got to head to the showers now. Sorry I didn't get a chance to respond to you in the depth that you should have. But it seems to me that if you've found a way to connect with this one girl, then you have the basic skills to connect with most of these brisket heads who're giving you a hard time. They may not be the same skills that worked with the girl, but you have them and it sounds like they're the skills that give you a lot of the pleasure you take from teaching. If you need to get out of the field, by all means, do so, but it sounds to me that it might be nice if you reminded yourself that you actually do have the skills to thrive and enjoy an environment like this one, wacky as it sounds, different as it may seem from your prior experience, it's still you and a bunch of kids in a room with unreasonable things coming down from administration. So, what's new really? Actually, I'd like to know. Your, BobK. |
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nakdthoughts Member Laureate
since 2000-10-29
Posts 19200Between the Lines |
Thank you for all the responses. I do agree that it is the parenting that needs to be more responsible and that schools alone and mass transit etc can't be the solutions. Bob, I know we can't go back in time. One thing I do think is new and not in the most recent years but in the last 10-15 I guess, is that fathers and grandparents are more involved. Grandparents because so many help to raise their children's children today and fathers because society has given them the opportunity with mothers working too, to be more involved in the raising and showing of affection to them outside of the home. I love to see when they are dropped off at school and the hugs and kisses and words of encouragement many of them give. The other new thing is that I work in an International School as part of its title. We have children from over 19 countries and I can't tell you how many languages they speak. Many are migrant worker families and others are immigrants wanting a better life. You are correct that I do enjoy those who actually have behavior problems and aren't the ones who learn so easily. I am a reading specialist at the moment. So I work in fairly small groups, the largest being 11 right now, unless I am helping with a lesson in a regular classroom. Although at this time of year, if necessary, I get pulled to teach when a substutute doesn't show up. They are always thanking me for my flexibility. I just get tired of having to reward the students like the other teachers, with candy or extra recess or other means of reinforcement other than words and the pats on the back. It use to be "feeling good" about a job well done was enough. That "no child left behind" bill IS leaving children behind in their learning and it is sad for all involved. And another thought: in pre-k and kindergarten and first grade the students are so excited about learning and enjoy school so much, they even skip down the halls. I just am so dismayed at the changes by the time they are in second grade today and are being crammed with information that is useless to them at their ages, instead of what really is important. Just recently I had this same discussion with the school psychologist. Anyway, I probably can't add much more to this topic, because the solutions would have to be a combination of things that probably will never happen or can't occur because of the many changes in our society. I moved to a small country community years ago to get away from some of those influences...where homes were older and cheaper, even if fixer-uppers. Where people were satisfied with simpler living (of course technology was less advanced)and one parent was/still is able to be home until their children are in school. The wants are so great today for younger generations, that basic necessities get lost throughout. It's more important to have that new huge home that most can't even afford to fill with furniture and iphones and big screen tv's and all those expensive excessive material things than to start small today and work your way up to "having more" like in the past or even saving for the future. These are sometimes choices that force both parents to work. Well that said, again I wish to thank all for their opinions...and I am not lost on Karen's response. I do wish that in her family the graduation was more important and that other family members would have participated in the "milestone" that was reached. I guess I was "lucky" in life that I had a caring family (relatives included), a non-working mother, except for parttime later in years to get us the extra things we needed and for the most part 4 siblings who stayed out of serious trouble. That we always felt safe in our homes and neighborhoods and although not wealthy we were brought up to babysit, or mow lawns, life guard etc to earn the money we needed for those wants that weren't so important but allowed us to "fit in". We weren't trying to keep up with the Jones' as the saying use to be. M |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
wow...you all are talking about justification for rewarding teens for not beating up and stabbing people. Regardless of this Officer Krumpke song and dance rhetoric, it is wrong. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Balladeer, I don't think we are. Anybody who's in favor of that is probably at some other thread than this one, near as I can tell. What you've got here are a bunch of folks who love kids and want the best for them and are trying to find out what we can think of to help. Not a single pro-stabbing person in the bunch of us. Not even the outrageous Mr. Me. You stab somebody, you get arrested and go through the legal system, same as anybody. Were you to read my initial contributions to the thread, you would see I think the practice is not only wrong but unworkable, and you would see why. Nor do I see anybody else who is standing up and offering justification for that practice. I was trying to look at things that contribute to the problem. Some of these included cherished programs from the right wing, and you may have mistaken my criticism of these for support of the stabbings or for rewarding homicidal behavior. I do not approve of homicidal behavior. Being a bit of a stuffed shirt and working for many years on locked psychiatric units, I've been fortunate in having as little of such behavior directed at me as has been, but that amount has been more than enough, thank you, for me to want to encourage it elsewhere. Not in favor here, no, thank you very much. The "No Child Left Behind" Bill was passed with the help of Democrats and was co-sponsored by Ted Kennedy. I happen to think that it has been a nightmare for our educational system, and I believe that the Democrats are as much to blame for that as the Republicans are. It has resulted, according to most of the teachers I've spoken to, to the practice of "teaching to the test." Which means that the sense of freedom and free discussion has been taken out of education and there is essentially only one set of right answers allowed across the country, regardless of whether they are true or not, regardless of whether or not decent evidence can be marshaled in support of them or not. "When was America discovered, Children?" "1492!" "That's right, Children." "But Mrs. Bellweather, it says in this book that Vikings discovered American in about the year, 1000. And that People crossed over the land-bridge from asia as long ago as 7000 BC!" "You're wrong, Cathy, and those are wrong answers. They are wrong on the test, and if you put them down on our pre-test I'll have to m,ark them wrong too. The new true answer is '1492.' and we aren't accepting any of the old true answers any more." Reminds you of 1984, doesn't it? The government being in a position to tell people what's true or not and what's real or not? And the teachers being kept so busy preparing kids for passing the test, they don't have the time to actually engage the kids in any of the pleasure of education. And the kids from the more monied families being siphoned off to voucher schools, where there's a bit more freedom of curriculum and the freedom to reject students that public schools are required to accept. It's a method for dismantling the public school system while blaming the public school system for its increasing problems due to the increasing burdens being placed upon it by the law. No pro-stabbing folks here, Balladeer, only pro-children folks. Not a bad crowd to run with, truth be told. Sincerely yours, BobK. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Bob, this is certainly not a bad crowd to run with. That's why I've been doing it for almost 10 years now People seem to look for reasons, though, that somehow explain or justify why these kids are the way they are. I assure you that, if I or my wife or child were to be stabbed in a bus, I couldn't care less about the stabber having a lousy home life or what affect No Child Left Behind had on him. I would want him in jail. How can someone stab someone else on more than one occasion? After the first they should be gone.....but they are not, are they? Our legal system doesn't seem to work that way. Perhaps they would prefer we just put a separate cash box on the bus where passengers put in a buck or two which goes to the gangs as payment for protecting them from themselves. Hey, the mafia made a lot of money doing that.... I can understand the search for the root of the problems in an attempt to lower these instances but your search has continued for thousands of years. I read an article that I truly wish I could find but I can't. It was a report on the unruliness of today's youth, their restlesness, their disrespect for their parents, their laziness and their disregard for law and order. It was written by one of the great thinkers of Rome (can't recall if it was Cicero or one of the others) during the period of the Holy Roman Empire. Reading it, you would not know it was a report on today's youth. History has always had this problem and there was no No child Left Behind going on then. It has gotten worse because someone somewhere decided that punishment was wrong. Teachers could not punish students. Parents could not punish their own children. Law enforcement agencies and courts are restricted on what they can do. Thank our lawyers and our sue-happy society. Juvenile delinquents today know the law better than policemen. They know exactly what they can do and get away with. There have always been good parents who turned out bad kids and bad parents who turned out good ones. This society is no different than countless others who have come before it. The difference in this one is that the juvenile perpetrators get away with their actions so much easier than any before. Bob, I certainly didn't mean to infer that you condoned this protectionism tactic referred to in this thread. I think I know you a little better than that. But I do think this dissection of today's current policies to determine why they are the way they are ignores the obvious. There are good and bad..always have been. The good should be rewarded and the bad should be shown that bad is unacceptable and punishable, when necessary. Instead, some idiots are trying to show them that bad is rewardable....we can only shake our heads. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Balladeer, I can't predict what I'd want should someone I love be stabbed. I hope I'd be preoccupied with compassion for my loved one and my other friends. I don't imagine anyone I've read on the thread is in favor of having anybody who has stabbed anybody else, let alone a friend of ours, walk away without some sort of contact with the legal system to determine if charges are warranted. Our legal system, however, is not a system of revenge, and for some things it is very harsh and for others, not. These vary with time. Your suggestion of putting in a cash box for passengers to put in an extra buck or two to help pay for robberies is no more serious than would be one from me suggesting that we issue firearms at random to passengers and encourage them to shoot anybody that looks unpleasant or foreign. They're both silly. They're both purely ways of venting spleen that we're having difficulty organizing in a more articulate fashion. After all, if it was a money maker for the mafia, it can't be all bad, right? Though the complaints about children were much the same among the Greeks and the Romans, there was one enormous difference during the Roman Empire. It was a matter of Roman law that a child was the literal property of the father until the father died. I mean totally the property. The father had the perfect right to kill the kid for any reason he cared to do so simply because that's what he felt like. I don't like your behavior today, I'm going to cut off your right arm would be pretty darn harsh, mind you, but still possible. Didn't do well on memorizing that section of the Illiad in Greek; there are four other sons, I'm confident one of them will do better. It didn't happen often, but it could. The complaints were no different then than now even though the punishments were severe enough to make President Bush drool and enough, you'd think, to erase bad behavior from the face of the earth. Balladeer, we've got many times more folks in jail (on a percentage basis) than most any other country on the face of the earth. We're the most punishing country there is. We're more punishing that Russia, we're more punishing that China, we're pretty much more punishing than all those police states we used to moan about during the cold war. In AA they say that the definition of insanity is to continue doing what you've done before and expecting a different result. In this case, they may be right. We may not be able to punish our way out of a situation we don't understand. I bow to Red Aurbach on that one, the great coach of the Boston Celtics during their Glory Days. Somebody was supposed to have asked him (Yes, you guessed it!), "Red, tell me, what is the secret of your success?" "You gotta know when to kiss 'em and when to kick 'em," he said. I ask you, Balladeer, is this such a terrible piece of advice? I mean, if the problem is allowed to get as far as lawyers and courts in the first place and isn't tackled professionally and early on in a well planned fashion, it just gets more difficult the older the kid gets. So when the kid is younger, you need to be able to understand what's going on that's making things go wrong, and sometimes you're going to be able to fix them. But you have to know when to kiss 'em and when to kick 'em. Kicking by itself is pitifully insufficient. Kissing by itself is ridiculously unrealistic. Rewarding poor behavior, I agree, is silly. especially the kind of examples that Maureen was giving at the beginning of the thread. But if you don't understand the nature of the behavior, how it's constructed and how it's supported and what it needs to continue and what will undermine it, any action you take may well lead to an unpredictable result. As in having a high prison population leading to a continuing high level of crime, rather than a declining one, as one would expect it to do if punishment were the appropriate treatment for crime. Indeed, we would expect our levels of violent crimes to fall to the levels of societies who do not imprison such a high percentage of their population as we do. Hasn't happened yet. There's something screwy with our reasoning, yet we persist in doing more of the same. Is there some reason that our kids are worse than Canadian Kids, Balladeer, or Chinese kids, or Irish kids or English Kids? Why we think punishing them is more important than they do, why our imprisonment takes in much larger a proportion of our population and why, in the end, their populations are so very much less violent than ours? Somehow, I don't think that more and more severe punishments are going to bring our problems down to their levels when so far they've only driven them up Why would that change? I think that we need to do some thinking instead of some gut level reacting. The "common sense" solution of breaking heads has only made things worse and created a larger criminal class. Is there something terribly wrong with knowing which button to push before we just start pushing buttons on the big machine. It's good to know if the machine types letters or blows up large chunks of real estate or warms the coffee first, isn't it? Well, isn't it? Sincerely yours, Bob |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Bob, I certainly agree with your kiss and kick theory. The first thing one has to do is reach out and try to change unruliness to responsible. For many that works. For others it doesn't. My comment was referring to the second. In case kiss and kick doesn't work, there is another theory...when you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow. We have more in prison than China? Do you really want to make that comparison, Bob? Yes, we have more in prison. They also know exactly how the system works. Time served will be less than 10% of time given. They can conduct "business" even when there. They can make new alliances and, upon release, they can still go back and pick up where they left off. Our prison are not much of a deterrent to these types of people. Is there some reason that our kids are worse than Canadian Kids, Balladeer, or Chinese kids, or Irish kids or English Kids? Who said that they are? Ever walk around Piccadilly Square at night? Rembrandt Square during any given day to watch the kids shooting up? never heard of Irish or Chinese youth gangs? Our kids pale in comparison. Have a great Memorial Day, good sir.  |
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