> Think about Japan, where kids are often taught to wait quietly for meals or gifts
Author got the country and items correct but not associated correctly. In Japan, kids pass the marshmallow test with flying colors but fail the same test if it's a gift. In America kids generally pass the gift test (hypothesis is that they're used to waiting for presents on Christmas).
Another thing is there's the difference between getting a guaranteed reward that you want (two marshmallows) vs waiting for the unknown. What good is waiting if a kid could potentially have 15 minutes of fun time with a toy, but they instead wait for two gifts and all they get is a pair of socks?
But I was also a kid who'd beg nonstop to open my presents early. I knew if I opened something early, that was more time with a cool game or something. If I waited, well, that was less time with the cool game. Plus most of the presents weren't interesting. There was just one thing I wanted in particular and the other stuff could be forgotten.
Marshmallow test is one of those things real psychologists (whether practical or science) just do not care all that much about, but pop culture is sure obsessed with it.
Not quite. Psychology is a big field and the range of educational practices is very broad.
There are some excellent psychologists out there, but there are also a lot of trained psychologists who embrace all of the pop-culture and even pseudoscience trends in full.
They do care about it. It’s an immensely important milestone in the development of the field, and is pretty much axiomatic as a developmental marker and has been widely and consistently replicated.
Where modern day psychology diverges is (as discussed in the article) on the conclusions and analysis.
"Another thing I’ve noticed is how much modeling matters. My daughter watches everything I do. If I tell her to wait and then lose my patience two seconds later because the internet is slow, what’s the lesson there?"
As a father of 3 kids, I can confirm 100% this is true. Once you understand that, your life changes completely. You realize there is somebody in this world, who will model their life after yours.
What kind of example you give them is up to you.
Suddenly, "be the change you want to see in the world" gets a whole new meaning !
You know the world by what you experience. Infants and toddlers have a very small world (mostly their home); whatever that world is like becomes their expected reality.
Maybe that's true of little kids but idk if that going to 100% dictate the adult they turn into. There's alot of things my parents did that I never took on.
My mom has this very interesting theory: A parent needs to be by a child's side for the first 6-7 years of their life and devote all their time to it. Which is what she did with me. My dad stepped up for the challenge and provided for both of us. My mom had one goal: to make sure that I'd stay curious. She taught me how to read at the age of 4, signed me up for piano lessons(I haven't played piano at all nearly 3 decades later but I can still read notes), she made sure I'd be interested in different cultures, which subsequently pushed me to learn a few languages(which is the biggest contributor to the fact that I am doing very well for myself by a huge margin, forget software engineering, speaking English was the one thing that truly opened up the gates for me). Which on a slightly lower level did exactly what the article says. For contrast, I was old enough to witness and evaluate the extreme opposite - my mom's brother and his wife, who had children when a dog would have sufficed their needs. Their children were pushed aside, no one ever spent any time with them, whenever they started crying, someone jumped over to the toy store, get a bag of toys and shove them in their face so they would shut up. To such an extent that their rooms were filled with unopened toys and I'm not talking about 1 or 2 in a box, I'm talking dozens if not hundreds of toys still in their boxes. Last time I saw these children, they were >10 years old and they had no clue how to use a fork and a knife.
> Last time I saw these children, they were >10 years old and they had no clue how to use a fork and a knife.
Shoutout to the adults like myself that grew up like this. On the one hand, you develop outside the box thinking, because you had to learn everything via trial-by-eroror - no one taught you how to think inside the box. On the other hand, it's tough to trust or ask anyone for help.
I think your mom did a great job, and that’s the whole point of the post. We need to focus on bonding with our kids and building trust with them. I’m actually a father of three, and being a father to my youngest while being much older is an entirely different experience. I pay attention to all the small details with my kids (which is actually why I wrote that post! ).
> Your father is a parent and didnt parent 6 years by your side.
I don't think you can imply this from parent. My wife is the parent who spends most of the time by my children's side. Meanwhile I am working to support and provide for the whole family. Still I am lucky and able to spend quite a lot of time with my children.
> Why didn't your mother step up to support that?
She was probably already busy being a mother. It's a full-time job.
> If a mother can replace a father in this role, why can't a teacher?
Nowhere it is implied that the mother is replacing the father. Both have a different role to fulfil.
> Why doesn't a child need some freedom and independence to discover their own internal motivations and creativity?
Again, all sorts of assumptions. There can be guided freedom, protected independence... etc. Even if you decide to throw your kid into the swimming pool to 'encourage' them to learn how to swim, you won't leave them there on their own, will you?
Cause they sat down, discussed it like rational adults and came to some logical conclusions: my dad was more entrepreneurial and a bigger workhorse whereas my mom has a much wider scope of interests and knowledge, which is to say, more knowledge to share, even if they ultimately graduated the same university. And now that I'm an adult (and have been for a long while now), I do appreciate the sacrifices they made and can safely say that they genuinely did the absolutely best job they could have done with very limited resources and a lot of compromises on their end. Something which I did not see when I was a child or a teenager, even though it was in front of my face.
To the second question - for most teachers, looking after a child is their job. 18:00, work's over, adios. To most teachers, children are just that: work. Which is not the same as rising your own child. I don't have children to say that with certainty and the closest thing I have to a child is a dog. I love all(most) dogs but I'll walk the extra mile for my own dog. Also, welcome to eastern Europe, where the biggest struggle in the 90's was having food on the table, so tough luck having a teacher.
I'm also a prime example that being near a child does not mean that the child will follow your path: my parents: artists. Me - software engineer, who can't draw a straight line even if my life was on the line. My parents - terrified of fast speeds or extreme sports. Me - well I have double digit scars all over my body from skateboards to bicycles to head butting a flower pot.
Maybe she wasn't fortunate to have the level of education required to support a family and the father did. Don't be so judgemental - people have complex lives and come from all sorts of background.
Yes! I personally find marshmallows underwhelming. If you gave me one or two I might eat them. But if the choice is between “eat one now and you’re free to go do whatever you want” or “stay locked alone in this room for a quarter of an hour and you get two”, the latter is a worse proposition.
I’m perfectly content with being with my own thoughts for hours, but being forced to do nothing for a crummy reward when a better alternative is right there is not compelling.
Are you a child between the ages of 3 and 5? Because that's the typical age of a participant in the marshmallow test. This is like scoffing a kid not finding something on Dora the Explorer.
There's a lot of things the marshmallow test might signal, but most kids probably aren't spending a lot of time performing cost benefit analysis when faced with the problem. I wouldn't doubt that kids with trust issues would tend to do worse. Certainly the ones with behavioral/executive function/developmental issues do worse than others.
They don't do worse in the household they live in. They do better because if they waited for the 2nd marshmallow at home then they would end up with nothing.
Better with one bird in the hand right now than waiting for two empty promises.
So many of these psychological tests are based on values in upper-middle-class families. They are not always valid when the parents are drug users or alcoholic.
Kids of alcoholic parents know that most promises are empty promises. You are a fool if you take a "we will go to Disneyland on saturday" promise seriously.
Kids are pretty used to calculations related to stuff to eat.
I think anyone who grew up with siblings has an extremely developed sense of how much they're willing to risk vs how much reward. Like would I eat my brother's pudding knowing we'll be fighting to death when he's also back from school ? Yes, of course. That's risk/reward that made sense back in the days.
You have a lot of people that take that last fact and then assume the converse.
But in a poor household, taking the marshmallow now is likely the optimal choice since there might not be any later — even if your parents tell you to wait. That’s not necessarily a sign of anything but having adapted to a particular environment: times you listened led to a negative outcome, so you stopped.
One of the criticisms of the test is that children who fail it are more likely to have parents who regularly fail to deliver on their promises. From that perspective it doesn’t make sense to wait.
Don't fault social psychologists for what pop culture does with what they wrote. Even author of the marshmallow test experiment is arguing against this simplistic interpretation of it.
Marshmallows in hand have diminishing returns as well. The difference between having 0 marshmallows and 1 marshmallow is much larger than the difference between having 1 and 2, or 2 and 3.
People wash oranges?! Why? You peel the skin off and discard it. Is the worry that if the skin is dirty then you eat the insides with dirty hands after peeling it?!
She is 1.9 years old and anything that looks like food will be bitten. But to tell the truth you even need to wash bananas: pesticide residues (you can transfer chemicals to your hands and then to the editable part), can collect dirt/bacteria/rodent excrement.
Unless your or your kids immune system is compromised, that's probably a bit too much care (we did go to similar lengths with a preemie, but not with our second kid).
> It always seems to be taken as read that they’re irresistible.
Nah. It wouldn't work if it was irresistible. You need a candy crapy enough to be resited by some people sometimes, but good enough to be desired by some people sometimes.
Experimenters tried the same setup with a turkish delights once. Things went sideways so fast that they needed to get a talking lion to calm the situation down. Kids were betraying their own siblings even without further prompting or promises of more turkish delights.
Normally I don't eat marshmallows and I don't crave for them.
But once a pack is open and I get one, whole pack just goes. I find texture quite satisfying and since I eat them once in couple years it feels like something new and different from normal stuff I eat so it ends up "just one more" until there is no more.
Amusingly, in my experience, it should be the "pasta experiment". I'm not 100% sure why they're that way, but pasta is super appealing to kids. I guess it's because they're funny (especially spaghetti).
> do people actually like eating marshmallows, if so why?
Everybody around me likes them. I have no idea why. It could be cultural. I moved to the US when I was about 19. Tried my first marshmallow when I was maybe 25. Ick. Its mostly a ball of sugar. I don't like Vanilla ice cream either. For similar reasons.
i'm not particularly fond of sweets in my adult life but in my child years it was something i loved. i don't know why anyone would think a child wouldn't like a sweet ball of treat
> Giving sugar to a kid is like giving meth to an adult.
Giving sugar to a kid is like giving sugar to an adult.
Have you seen the meth usage rates? Awesome.
Now compare them to obesity rates. I'm not saying sugar is the sole factor, but the fact that I've seen off the shelf sauerkraut (literally "sour cabbage") having sugar[1] as a listed ingredient in the US, tells you all you need to know about sugar's addictiveness.
[1] Yeah, corn syrup or whatever the cheapest sugar substitute is.
Marshmallows, twizzlers, any of those corner store “cakes” like twinkies, the McRib, pop tarts etc. are absolutely disgusting hyped things I don’t understand. It’s like they manage to take sugar that most people like and make it inedible.
I don’t have kids. However, this same concept can be applied, and verified, with dogs.
I have made it a rule to never deceive my dog, and she trusts me because it. If I pick up her water bowl to refill and clean it while she is in the middle of drinking, I make it a point to always give it back with fresh water. I have several water bowls around the house , and the one in my room only gets refilled when I see she is actively drinking from it.
She sees this removal of something she wants (and needs) as a good thing, because I have never deceived her. I always give it back.
If I say we are going for a walk or I grab the leash, we go for a walk. I try to not do things that she would interpret as something not intended. For example, grabbing the leash and not taking her out.
With dogs you become really mindful of your actions. They learn so many of your subtle non-verbal cues, that you start to notice how much your body speaks.
I often think about this, and it has been a valuable learning experience. If I ever decide to have kids, I will make sure that what I communicate (either verbally or non-verbally) is congruent with my actions. I believe that this, is the surest way to build trust.
"With dogs you become really mindful of your actions."
Dogs hold you accountable in the most beautiful way. The best boss.
Everything is a trust relationship. I recall finding myself offended when I had difficulty pitching ideas at my workplace. A lot of times it felt like "hey, why don't you trust me or my idea". I only had maybe one or two of those moments, but I have also witnessed other people going through a trust battle just like the one I described at work.
This can happen in a family, in a romantic relationship, work, or in society. When the arena becomes entirely about trust, people act out. That's why kids rebel, that's why marriages fall apart, and that's why people leave companies.
My dog trainer explained this to me like this: trust is like a bank, you build up and store a lot of trust, and sometimes you spend some trust, but if there's a lot banked up it will be fine.
The first day I got my dog, he had parasites in his ears and stomach. We had to force down gross medicines into his ears and his mouth, and he hated it and us for it.
Three years later we have built up so much trust that I clean his ears every bath and he stands still and waits for me to do it. He still hates it, but he trusts me and knows that I'm not trying to hurt him.
A dog isn't a kid obviously, the dog you leave him outside of the home once you're done and it requires maybe 30 minutes of attention a day. a kid, it's constant attention.
> I will make sure that what I communicate (either verbally or non-verbally) is congruent with my actions. I believe that this, is the surest way to build trust.
Everyone think that way during the beginning, until having an hour of free time during a week becomes a dream, you don't sleep at night anymore, things get exhausting to do.
Then you get the belt out and teach the kids how to behave. i have been taught that way, most kids until 20 years ago were taught that way.
Physical pain is part of life, the very first event of a kid's life is his mother tearing herself painfully to get him out of her belly.
Sure, physical pain is absolutely part of life and unavoidable. Yet, it is not an effective tool for either parenting or raising dogs. This has been consistently shown, both for raising children as well as dogs, in research over past few decades. All you do is condition fear and creating emotional trauma that will leave them less able to cope and process emotional pain later in life without resorting to “getting out the belt” for their kids.
Patenting is brutally hard, exhausting, and often unrewarding work. But if you’re burnt out and find yourself reaching for the belt because your hour of free time is being disrupted by some undesirable behavior then just step out of the house for a few minutes. Young kids (and puppies) crave attention and removing the attention is more effective than giving attention by conditioning a fear response.
> A dog isn't a kid obviously, the dog you leave him outside of the home once you're done and it requires maybe 30 minutes of attention a day. a kid, it's constant attention.
You can have a relationship with a dog like this, but you don't need to. You can have a relationship where lots of attention and love is shared. It's very meaningful and powerful.
I have found that it’s way more effective to reward good behavior than to punish bad behavior.
Rewarding good behavior takes more effort than punishment though. It requires more patience because you don’t immediately see the results of your actions. Over time, they add up.
And I totally understand this. I have gotten angry at my dog , and I have shouted at her. However, after some reflection, the situation is always caused by some fault of my own. After all, I am the highly intelligent being, and I should know better. But it’s easier to shout than to critically examine your own behavior.
But hey, we can totally disagree on this. I think that hitting beings (either animals or humans) is not correct. Clearly, you think otherwise. You’re entitled to your opinion. Even if I think it is not morally correct.
I would encourage you to think about whether that’s a belief you acquired by your own means or just something you believe because you were hit yourself.
Have you consistently tried to discipline with positive reinforcement? Have you found it to be ineffective? Have you consulted with professionals? Maybe you have. Maybe not.
Sometimes we do things just because that’s how we grew up and not really because we believe in them. That’s how we end up in these never ending violence cycles. But it only takes one brave, and introspective, person to stop :)
I'm not sure why the focus on "young" parents. Consistent parenting is very important at any age. Kids need their parents to be reliable and dependable with clear expectations and boundaries or things can get bad very quickly.
Inconsistent and unpredictable parenting is a common factor in children with oppositional defiant disorder and treatment often includes working with the parents as much as working with the child.
This got me too, but on reading, it's clear the author means parents of young children.
Since the focus of the article is on child development, it's reasonable that it limits its scope to parents of young children, and not e.g. parents of 50-year olds, even if building trust might be nice there too.
> The word "young" doesn't even appear in the article, so not sure what you're talking about.
The title of the post we're both commenting on, which reads: "Why young parents should focus on building trust with their kids". I was assuming that the title was oddly editorialized, but it's also not that uncommon for articles to change their titles too so it's possible that posting guidelines were followed and it was the article itself that specified "young parents" at some point. Considering the age of the article though, I kind of doubt it.
Readit News
Author got the country and items correct but not associated correctly. In Japan, kids pass the marshmallow test with flying colors but fail the same test if it's a gift. In America kids generally pass the gift test (hypothesis is that they're used to waiting for presents on Christmas).
source - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-culture-affec...
another source - https://www.colorado.edu/today/2022/07/21/new-take-marshmall...
But I was also a kid who'd beg nonstop to open my presents early. I knew if I opened something early, that was more time with a cool game or something. If I waited, well, that was less time with the cool game. Plus most of the presents weren't interesting. There was just one thing I wanted in particular and the other stuff could be forgotten.
That's a lot of citations for something they 'just do not care' about.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/jun/01/famed-impu...
There are some excellent psychologists out there, but there are also a lot of trained psychologists who embrace all of the pop-culture and even pseudoscience trends in full.
Where modern day psychology diverges is (as discussed in the article) on the conclusions and analysis.
As a father of 3 kids, I can confirm 100% this is true. Once you understand that, your life changes completely. You realize there is somebody in this world, who will model their life after yours. What kind of example you give them is up to you.
Suddenly, "be the change you want to see in the world" gets a whole new meaning !
Shoutout to the adults like myself that grew up like this. On the one hand, you develop outside the box thinking, because you had to learn everything via trial-by-eroror - no one taught you how to think inside the box. On the other hand, it's tough to trust or ask anyone for help.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_theory
I recommend that you read things that Pete Walker has written, if you haven’t already.
Why didn't your mother step up to support that?
If a mother can replace a father in this role, why can't a teacher?
Why doesn't a child need some freedom and independence to discover their own internal motivations and creativity?
I don't think you can imply this from parent. My wife is the parent who spends most of the time by my children's side. Meanwhile I am working to support and provide for the whole family. Still I am lucky and able to spend quite a lot of time with my children.
> Why didn't your mother step up to support that?
She was probably already busy being a mother. It's a full-time job.
> If a mother can replace a father in this role, why can't a teacher?
Nowhere it is implied that the mother is replacing the father. Both have a different role to fulfil.
> Why doesn't a child need some freedom and independence to discover their own internal motivations and creativity?
Again, all sorts of assumptions. There can be guided freedom, protected independence... etc. Even if you decide to throw your kid into the swimming pool to 'encourage' them to learn how to swim, you won't leave them there on their own, will you?
To the second question - for most teachers, looking after a child is their job. 18:00, work's over, adios. To most teachers, children are just that: work. Which is not the same as rising your own child. I don't have children to say that with certainty and the closest thing I have to a child is a dog. I love all(most) dogs but I'll walk the extra mile for my own dog. Also, welcome to eastern Europe, where the biggest struggle in the 90's was having food on the table, so tough luck having a teacher.
I'm also a prime example that being near a child does not mean that the child will follow your path: my parents: artists. Me - software engineer, who can't draw a straight line even if my life was on the line. My parents - terrified of fast speeds or extreme sports. Me - well I have double digit scars all over my body from skateboards to bicycles to head butting a flower pot.
Maybe she wasn't fortunate to have the level of education required to support a family and the father did. Don't be so judgemental - people have complex lives and come from all sorts of background.
But what if they just understand time-value-of-marshmallow. Sometimes marshmallow now is better than marshmallow later.
I’m perfectly content with being with my own thoughts for hours, but being forced to do nothing for a crummy reward when a better alternative is right there is not compelling.
They don't do worse in the household they live in. They do better because if they waited for the 2nd marshmallow at home then they would end up with nothing.
Better with one bird in the hand right now than waiting for two empty promises.
So many of these psychological tests are based on values in upper-middle-class families. They are not always valid when the parents are drug users or alcoholic.
Kids of alcoholic parents know that most promises are empty promises. You are a fool if you take a "we will go to Disneyland on saturday" promise seriously.
I think anyone who grew up with siblings has an extremely developed sense of how much they're willing to risk vs how much reward. Like would I eat my brother's pudding knowing we'll be fighting to death when he's also back from school ? Yes, of course. That's risk/reward that made sense back in the days.
But in a poor household, taking the marshmallow now is likely the optimal choice since there might not be any later — even if your parents tell you to wait. That’s not necessarily a sign of anything but having adapted to a particular environment: times you listened led to a negative outcome, so you stopped.
[0]: https://anderson-review.ucla.edu/new-study-disavows-marshmal...
[0] "Delay of gratification and adult outcomes: The Marshmallow Test does not reliably predict adult functioning" https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cdev.14...
Bravo! Love that phrase. Some freakonomics shit happening there...
People wash oranges?! Why? You peel the skin off and discard it. Is the worry that if the skin is dirty then you eat the insides with dirty hands after peeling it?!
Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43033732
I am confused do people actually like eating marshmallows, if so why?
It always seems to be taken as read that they’re irresistible. Why on Earth
Nah. It wouldn't work if it was irresistible. You need a candy crapy enough to be resited by some people sometimes, but good enough to be desired by some people sometimes.
Experimenters tried the same setup with a turkish delights once. Things went sideways so fast that they needed to get a talking lion to calm the situation down. Kids were betraying their own siblings even without further prompting or promises of more turkish delights.
"Don't hog it all!"
"Go to hell zitface!"
But once a pack is open and I get one, whole pack just goes. I find texture quite satisfying and since I eat them once in couple years it feels like something new and different from normal stuff I eat so it ends up "just one more" until there is no more.
Everybody around me likes them. I have no idea why. It could be cultural. I moved to the US when I was about 19. Tried my first marshmallow when I was maybe 25. Ick. Its mostly a ball of sugar. I don't like Vanilla ice cream either. For similar reasons.
Giving sugar to a kid is like giving sugar to an adult.
Have you seen the meth usage rates? Awesome.
Now compare them to obesity rates. I'm not saying sugar is the sole factor, but the fact that I've seen off the shelf sauerkraut (literally "sour cabbage") having sugar[1] as a listed ingredient in the US, tells you all you need to know about sugar's addictiveness.
[1] Yeah, corn syrup or whatever the cheapest sugar substitute is.
But hostess snacks you don't like? Didn't that was possible. Lol
Or a poptart right out of the toaster?
I have made it a rule to never deceive my dog, and she trusts me because it. If I pick up her water bowl to refill and clean it while she is in the middle of drinking, I make it a point to always give it back with fresh water. I have several water bowls around the house , and the one in my room only gets refilled when I see she is actively drinking from it.
She sees this removal of something she wants (and needs) as a good thing, because I have never deceived her. I always give it back.
If I say we are going for a walk or I grab the leash, we go for a walk. I try to not do things that she would interpret as something not intended. For example, grabbing the leash and not taking her out.
With dogs you become really mindful of your actions. They learn so many of your subtle non-verbal cues, that you start to notice how much your body speaks.
I often think about this, and it has been a valuable learning experience. If I ever decide to have kids, I will make sure that what I communicate (either verbally or non-verbally) is congruent with my actions. I believe that this, is the surest way to build trust.
Dogs hold you accountable in the most beautiful way. The best boss.
Everything is a trust relationship. I recall finding myself offended when I had difficulty pitching ideas at my workplace. A lot of times it felt like "hey, why don't you trust me or my idea". I only had maybe one or two of those moments, but I have also witnessed other people going through a trust battle just like the one I described at work.
This can happen in a family, in a romantic relationship, work, or in society. When the arena becomes entirely about trust, people act out. That's why kids rebel, that's why marriages fall apart, and that's why people leave companies.
It simply is pill with peanut butter
The first day I got my dog, he had parasites in his ears and stomach. We had to force down gross medicines into his ears and his mouth, and he hated it and us for it.
Three years later we have built up so much trust that I clean his ears every bath and he stands still and waits for me to do it. He still hates it, but he trusts me and knows that I'm not trying to hurt him.
> I will make sure that what I communicate (either verbally or non-verbally) is congruent with my actions. I believe that this, is the surest way to build trust.
Everyone think that way during the beginning, until having an hour of free time during a week becomes a dream, you don't sleep at night anymore, things get exhausting to do.
Then you get the belt out and teach the kids how to behave. i have been taught that way, most kids until 20 years ago were taught that way.
Physical pain is part of life, the very first event of a kid's life is his mother tearing herself painfully to get him out of her belly.
Patenting is brutally hard, exhausting, and often unrewarding work. But if you’re burnt out and find yourself reaching for the belt because your hour of free time is being disrupted by some undesirable behavior then just step out of the house for a few minutes. Young kids (and puppies) crave attention and removing the attention is more effective than giving attention by conditioning a fear response.
This in fact teaches kids to not behave. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3447048/
You can have a relationship with a dog like this, but you don't need to. You can have a relationship where lots of attention and love is shared. It's very meaningful and powerful.
Rewarding good behavior takes more effort than punishment though. It requires more patience because you don’t immediately see the results of your actions. Over time, they add up.
And I totally understand this. I have gotten angry at my dog , and I have shouted at her. However, after some reflection, the situation is always caused by some fault of my own. After all, I am the highly intelligent being, and I should know better. But it’s easier to shout than to critically examine your own behavior.
But hey, we can totally disagree on this. I think that hitting beings (either animals or humans) is not correct. Clearly, you think otherwise. You’re entitled to your opinion. Even if I think it is not morally correct.
I would encourage you to think about whether that’s a belief you acquired by your own means or just something you believe because you were hit yourself.
Have you consistently tried to discipline with positive reinforcement? Have you found it to be ineffective? Have you consulted with professionals? Maybe you have. Maybe not.
Sometimes we do things just because that’s how we grew up and not really because we believe in them. That’s how we end up in these never ending violence cycles. But it only takes one brave, and introspective, person to stop :)
Inconsistent and unpredictable parenting is a common factor in children with oppositional defiant disorder and treatment often includes working with the parents as much as working with the child.
Since the focus of the article is on child development, it's reasonable that it limits its scope to parents of young children, and not e.g. parents of 50-year olds, even if building trust might be nice there too.
The title of the post we're both commenting on, which reads: "Why young parents should focus on building trust with their kids". I was assuming that the title was oddly editorialized, but it's also not that uncommon for articles to change their titles too so it's possible that posting guidelines were followed and it was the article itself that specified "young parents" at some point. Considering the age of the article though, I kind of doubt it.