Instead of Praise

One aspect of Positive Discipline that I really enjoy is the idea of using descriptive praise.  Instead of saying, "Good job" for every little thing my daughter does, I try to recognize her effort, avoid too much of my own evaluations, and to be specific in my comments.  So, for instance, yesterday morning when she worked really hard at stacking up her dominos, persisting even after she kept knocking them over until she finally got them all up, I didn't tell her "Good work" or "Good for you" or "I'm proud of you."  I told her, "You stacked them all up. That takes coordination."  If I had thought of it at the time, I might have also said, "You kept trying until you got them all up.  That's called persistence."  (I wish I had thought of that at the time!)

I was very impressed with her effort, though.  She does not appear to be a naturally persistent child, so I always try to point out when persistence pays off for her.  Because I genuinely admired her work, I went one step further and asked her if she would like me to take a photo of her accomplishment.  She beamed and said YES. 



I've used the "take a photo" strategy before.  I don't do it often, but save it for times when I'm just dying to jump up and down screaming "Great job!  I'm so proud of you!"  This is a way to show her in action that I'm impressed, instead of just using words.  I took a picture of her first poop on the potty for the same reason.  Sometimes we come across that picture and I remind her how exciting it was.  Maybe when we look at this photo later, I can remind her how she kept trying until she got it right.

These Children Aren't My Future

In this little story, Michelle at Scribbit has revealed the true character of many of those magazine-hawking teens who come to your door with their righteous pleas to support them. 

"I'm sorry but I'm not interested."

They tried more pleas and "Come on, we're on our way to a trip to Paris--I bet you've been to Paris already"

"Actually no, I haven't."

"Well we've got more points than anyone else and we're about to win that trip. You don't want to keep us from Paris do you?"

Heaven forbid...

That's a taste, but be sure to read the whole thing - the final exchange will knock your socks off.

I hate those kids.  They prey on your virtues, just like the bums with signs reading, "Will Work for Food."  The bums don't intend to work; they just want you to think they are willing to.  And all the talk from those kids about leadership skills or entrepreneurship training is just that: talk.  They're always selling magazines, and the spiel is designed to make you buy something, not because you want it, but because you respect their work ethic.  Talk about sanction of the victim!

I was fooled once, the first time I was approached with this scam, just like I was fooled once by the plea at the gas station for, "just a dollar for gas to get me home."  In both cases, I only realized my error when I was approached with the same script a second time. 

Michelle rightly identifies the fact that these kids could earn more money in less time with a legitimate job.  Why don't they do it?  Are they mentally lazy?  Are they unable to get a job?  I don't think so.  I think these kids are seeking the unearned.  It's a way for them to affirm a basic premise they hold - that they don't have to follow the rules--meaning reality.  It's the criminal mentality (see Inside the Criminal Mind, by Stanton Samenow for an excellent analysis).  It's interesting that even though on the surface it looks like they are doing real work, door-to-door sales, they know that it is not work.  To them, work is for suckers.  It's not about the money.  It's about getting away with it.

I almost titled this post, "One Step Above Begging," but then I realized - this is not superior to begging in any way.  Begging is at least honest.  This is one step above being a con-artist.

I Wonder What She Dreams About

The seven stages of toddler sleep (also known as Why I Don't Let My Daughter Sleep In My Bed):

• Rapid Limb Movement (RLM)


• The drooling stage


• The twitching stage (not to be confused with RLM)


• The heavy breathing stage


• The sweating stage


• The grunting stage


• The continuous flip flopping stage

The final two stages lead inevitably to the awakening of the toddler, which, if you've experienced all seven stages, is always about an hour too soon.

Objectivist Round Up

Here is your weekly link to the Objectivist Round Up, which is hosted this week by Reality Talk.

I've also added a new sidebar to my blog, called "OBloggers Most Recent."  It shows links to the most recent posts from the members our not-so-little group of Objectivist bloggers.  None of us could ever keep up with all of the Objectivist blogging going on, but I find it fun to occasionally click on the most intriguing title on the Most Recent list to read something I might not have found otherwise.

A Little Thing

Me:  Samantha, what is your work going to be today?

Sam:  GOING TO BE HAPPY AND SAD.

Me:  You're going to be happy and sad?

Sam:  YES, AND SURPRISED.

Announcing the Virtual Objectivist Club

I just received word of a great new opportunity for students interested in the ideas of Ayn Rand:  the Virtual Objectivist Club.  From the announcement:

I helped start the Objectivist Club Network (OCN), an organization dedicated to helping all Objectivist Campus Clubs. OCN is not affiliated with the Ayn Rand Institute, although we support them and regularly communicate with them to ensure our respective organizations are not duplicating efforts.

Recently we've expanded our efforts to solve a new problem: there are students interested in joining an Objectivist club where no club exists. Some of these students start their own club, but others don't have time to start a club or do not find enough participants on campus to form a club.

We've created the Virtual Objectivist Club (VOC) for these students -- a phone-based discussion group dedicated to the study of Objectivism. Meetings will be weekly, beginning this September, each moderated by an experienced Objectivist. The group is open to any current students who would like to learn more about Objectivism.

My request: Please help spread the word to any students you know who may be interested in learning more about Objectivism. The deadline for applying to the VOC is August 31st. Students can learn more and apply at: http://www.oclubs.org/voc

Please let me know if you have any questions and we greatly appreciate you sharing this with others!

Keith & the OCN Team

If the Objectivist Club Network sounds familiar, you might have read about it at NoodleFood, in Diana's recent discussion of delegation.  The founders of OCN are entrepreneurs who really know how to run a successful organization and OCN is already off to a great start, so I think this project of theirs is going to become a long-term fixture in the Objectivist world.

Children Vows

Adam and I thought very carefully before we decided to have a child.  I've already written about how we originally didn't think we wanted a child at all, and how we ended up changing our minds.  But even then, we wanted to be very concrete and specific about our reasons and our goals in taking this biggest of all leaps into the unknown.

I can't remember how we came up with the idea, but we decided to write what we call our Children Vows.  We even wrote a little introduction into the vows, so I don't need to do anything more to set the context.  Here is what we wrote, unedited:

Children Vows

We have decided to have a child.  To us, this means that we need to decide how this major endeavor will fit into our existing lives and values.  To that end, we have decided to commit to our “children vows.”  These vows are a set of principles that we promise to adhere to, along with some more specific suggestions. 

Adam and Amy pledge to each other:

1. Each of us agrees that our value hierarchy is career, marriage, then child.
   
   
   
   1. This means that we should set aside time to spend together.  We promise to make it a priority to spend time together, whether it be by a date night, a babysitter, or just romantic time that is set aside.
   
   
   2. Each of us promises not to sacrifice his/her career for the child.  It may be necessary to cut back on work to raise the child, but our overall career goals should always be kept in mind.  Raising the child “perfectly” is not more important than a satisfying career.
   
   
   3. Almost immediately following the value of the child comes travel.  We promise to always be on the lookout for travel opportunities, and we pledge that we will take our honeymoon to Italy within 10 years.
   
   
   
   


2. Each of us agrees that our child will never become an excuse for the lack of pursuit of other values.  If we want to pursue a value (such as a trip) we will always make the effort to find out if we can do it in our circumstances, as opposed to automatically thinking that it is out of reach.
   
   
   
   1. This means that we need to work at incorporating our child into our plans.  Always think by default that we can do it, but how do we do it with the child?
   
   
   
   


3. We are having this child for selfish reasons.  We want to enjoy the experience of parenthood.  This means that we will never go into self-sacrifice-mode.  The child has free-will.  We will not do things that make us miserable that we think will help the child.  Remember, with rational people, there is no conflict of interests, so what is good for us is generally good for the child.
   
   
   
   1. Do not spoil the child
   
   
   2. Do not insulate the child.
   
   
   3. Do not live the child’s live for him/her.
   
   
   
   


4. We will not let particular bad experiences define the general nature of our family.  We will always remember the metaphysical value that our child represents.


5. We will maintain a healthy life style, and our child will not be an excuse for becoming slugs.

 

I must say, reading over the vows for the first time in years, I'm struck by a couple of things.  First, we were so utterly clueless!  I find it funny how we focused so much on travel.  We've had no problem with travel.  The whole thing seems a bit random and not principled.  But given that everyone is clueless going into parenthood, I think we did hit some good points.  Staying focused on our marriage was a good one, as was noting that we were having the child for selfish reasons. 

We've probably fallen down on the job in the exercise department.  As I wrote recently, neither of us are big on exercise, but we do want to maintain our health.  The thing is, I think all the moving around we did over the last 2 years hurt us in that department even more than having a child.  The fact that we are starting to think about exercise again is a good sign that we haven't let go of that value.

I had to ask Adam what point 4 meant because I had no memory of that part.  He said it was our commitment to the benevolent universe premise.  I suppose we were thinking that if our child had problems or made some bad choices, that we wouldn't allow that to alter our world-view.  That sounds good, but it's not holding much power for me right now, maybe because we haven't been tested in that regard.

When we wrote this, I never imagined that I would want to change my career from, well, whatever it would have been (I was in the middle of a career change) to being a professional parent.  It's been really hard to make that transition, given that I pledged to myself and my husband that I would not let the child become my entire life.  Sometimes it feels like I've done exactly that, in choosing to stay home with my daughter.  When I was young I was taught, mostly implicitly, that parenting was not real work.  And even now, at least with only one child, I don't feel that it is enough for me.  But the interesting part is that since I've quit the regular workforce I've developed a much clearer idea of what I do love to do.  Writing this blog and homeschooling seem to be filling in the gaps as a creative outlet for now, and I have plans for future endeavors.  I think I've been able to focus on "career" more than ever since I had a child.

Overall, integrating a child into our lives has been fairly easy in all the ways we considered in the Children Vows, but very difficult in other ways.  I haven't been tempted to live my life through her, sacrifice, or give up on anything.  I have been challenged much more with issues like my fractured time and dealing with chaos.  Adam and I do have to focus on maintaining our own relationship, but since we already had the mindset that relationships require work, it wasn't a fundamental change, just something we have to work harder on.

The one thing we intended to do but never did was to frame these vows.  Having it written is a good step, but we need to get these words out of the electronic ether and onto a piece of paper.  I vow to do that within a week!