User Comments - guolan

Posted on: 孔子拜访老子 1：道可道非常道

This sounds intruiging; pity I won't be able to listen to it until later! (Christmas is keeping me busy!)

Glad to have Chinese Pod back up after maintenance!

Posted on: Merry Christmas!

Thanks, toianw, I went and downloaded them as well, it's fun to hear such common tunes in a different language!

Posted on: 虎妈狼爸

I will definitely concede that those parents who implement any plan of discipline, with or without spanking, if they do it with consistency and love, will do far better than parents who discipline inconsistently or selfishly.

(On a side note, I believe that when the latter set of parents choose to "spank" their children, that is abuse.)

I suppose I should check back into this thread after I have my children, and see how my views at that time have changed and matured!

Posted on: 虎妈狼爸

babadardwan,

I saw that the children who had the most self-confidence in my classroom, who enjoyed life and laughed the most, and who played with friends the most harmoniously, who were most able to be attentive to even a less-than-exciting lesson, who had the discipline necessary to succeed in class without feeling that they had to use tremendous effort to do so, were those whose parents

a. spent gobs of time with them, talking, discussing, teaching, having fun, and

b. had used spanking as one form of discipline.

(Obviously that's not a scientific study, that's only what I saw.) Children whose parents didn't have enough time for them, whose parents were preoccupied (ie. with divorce or such), whose parents didn't really care about their child's actions at school, were those who especially needed a teacher's care. They needed more time, more help, more guidance, and extra care to succeed, and it was never as easy for them as it was for others.

The discipline techniques I used in my classroom were extremely effective, (I was often complimented on being the kind of teacher who never raised her voice, was extremely gentle, and had a perfectly behaved class of children who loved to come to school) but nonetheless, some of those children will enjoy life and succeed at whatever they want to do with more ease than the others. I want my child to be one of the ones who has enough self-discipline to be able to succeed at whatever they choose to do in life, enjoying themselves and the people around them as they do so.

Of course, that's the goal of all of us posting here; we each just have very different ideas of how that is to be achieved!

Posted on: 虎妈狼爸

bodawei,

Thank you for an interesting and informative discussion. Even though I think there is a place for spanking, I do love your ideas on educating the child. As a kindergarten teacher in the USA (before I came to China), it was very important to help children understand how to resolve conflict, how to view things from another's perspective, and how to think before they act. And, as you say, it was important to help them learn to do this on their own, as a life habit, rather than simply when and because "teacher" wanted them to.

I have a feeling that if we saw each other in action, we'd agree with 90% of what the other was doing while working with children.

Obviously, I'd never use corporal punishment with anyone else's child, so I actually haven't yet spanked a child, as I don't have my own yet. I just know from my many observations of other's parenting styles (and as a teacher I've seen many and even been able to follow a few over the years) that I will use it as one type of discipline.

It has been interesting to hear your thoughts, and I'm sure our debate will provide interesting reading for all those folks who stumbled onto Chinese pod while looking for parenting advice. :)

I didn't realize I felt so passionately about this issue until I was actually listening to the lesson. But, I suppose, in anything that involves our children, in would be rather sad if we did lack passion.

Posted on: 虎妈狼爸

Hey Bodawei, as you say, there are going to be diverse views here, and most of us, this being a subject that involves our children, will feel very passionately one way or the other!

At any rate, I just want to quickly comment that the physical and emotional abuse of children is sickening and disgusting, and, I feel, is totally unrelated to a spanking that is administered properly (ie. not due to a parent's frustration, not administered while a parents is frustrated, is given for behaviors the child knew would result in a spanking, is not administered in front of others, is given to help the child learn self-control, is given by a parent in love, is only given to young children maybe under the age of 7 or so, etc, etc). We should be helping today's parents learn how to discipline children properly, and I feel that this would include teaching parents how to administer a spanking in love, rather than giving up and yelling at the child, saying things in frustration.

We have taught parents to simply reason with their children. The problem being, while you can only reason with people when they are feeling reasonable, our society requires people to act reasonably whether they feel that way or not. For example, when I come to a red light, there will not be a police officer saying, "I know you're feeling hurried and tired and rushed right now, and I realize you need to get to such and such a place quickly, but, please consider for a moment how your action here will affect other people, and what might happen if you run this red light, then make your choice." Nope. We have to stop, whether we feel like it or not, no matter how upset we may be about running late.

Our children must learn that kind of self-control, and actually even a much greater level of self-control, if they are to enjoy life and blossom in life. Reasoning with them when they act out because something hasn't gone their way will not lead to this kind of self-control.

Having said that, any spanking is accompanied by tons of dialogue...the parent seeking to understand the child, the parent asking questions, the parent explaining themselves. There must be real communication. But, it's not a session where the parents tries to CONVINCE the child to do what's right.

Anyway, I just wanted to clarify a bit what we "pro corporal punishment" folk believe. I know we won't change each others' minds, I just wanted to have both opinions fairly displayed!

And I just have to, tongue in cheek, request that we be called the child discipline "pro choice" lobby rather than the "pro corporal punishment" lobby!

Posted on: 虎妈狼爸

Upon listening go the dialogue a second time, I want to clarify my comments a bit. I agree that teachers should not use corporal punishment. I agree that a saying such as "a spanking every three days" does not have the child's best interest at heart. And, I want to add that I think corporal punishment ends when a child reaches about the age of 6 or 7.

Also, the word "打" is vague. In English, it could be translated "spanking" or "beating". These two words bring very different behaviors to mind. While there are still many Americans who would say that spanking a child can be in the child's best interest, no one would agree that beating a child is acceptable under any circumstances.

Posted on: 虎妈狼爸

bodawei, this article sort of relates to our discussion in another place; you commented how women in the West are often back at work a week or two after giving birth, and the child is surrounded by nannies and such. I remember Grambers commenting also...he mentioned that child-rearing and career can't happen simultaneously without one or the other suffering somehow.

I agree with both of your insights (not suggesting that you also agree with Grambers' comment). I think that our emphasis in Western culture at the moment is on "self-fulfillment", especially for women, and that, although we give lip service to it, we often don't have our children's day-to-day needs at the top of our list. Children are simply a part of a fulfilling life, to be dragged along behind us as we seek happiness.

We get frustrated with them quickly because we haven't scheduled enough time into our day to focus on them. We expect they can be dealt with quickly and easily, and that discipline consists only of reasoning with them, as if they were mini-adults, instead of requiring a significant amount of unscheduled interaction.

Posted on: Market Prices for Seafood

Grambers, I think the last sentence of the dialogue may have been spoken a bit sarcasticly. I think the speaker's feeling was, "Yeah, right, it's the market price. Actually, they just charge whatever they want to, because we can't do anything about it."

Maybe someone can verify this interpretation?

Posted on: 虎妈狼爸

我有两个想法：第一，课文里的狼爸以为，三个儿子都上北京大学，这就证明了他的成功。我反对这个假设：我不认为你可以看儿子得到多少正式的教育，就知道他们在生活里算不算成功的。

第二，我认为最重要的是你对孩子表示爱不。如果你因为生气就开始随便打孩子，骂孩子，这不是表示爱的。但是，如果你按照你早说的一个规则去惩罚他，包括打他，如果你是公平地，合理地去做，如果你因为爱他才去做，我认为这比你一直骂他，一直不高兴地说服他，好多得多。

在美国、中国我两个地方我都看过父母对孩子说很坏的话，因为父母失望了，不知道怎么控制孩子。我听一个母亲说，你不听我的，我就不要你的。我认为这才会给孩子留下阴阳。我认为如果父母按照道理，按照他们清楚地说的规则，如果去不生气地打孩子，真的比说那样的话好多得多。

我是孩子的老师，也有很多机会看父母怎么教育孩子，也有机会看每种教育的方法是有什么结果的。最有自信的，最成功的，最能和朋友们高兴地玩儿，就是那些小时被父母打过的孩子。但是，我说“打”的时候，我的意思绝对不是“因为我生气，我就去打你”的意思。我的意思是，“因为我爱他，想帮你生活里当一个好人、一个很高兴的人，就去打你。”

好像，我不是只有“两个想法”的，好像，我对这个题目有无数的想法！