wrote:

I strongly disagree. A strong voice is needed for important times,
and it must be clearly audible but need not be overly loud. Tone
is more important and effective than volume.
Interesting story. (I took psychology as a minor in college, and
still remember a tiny fragment of it.) I was standing about 60
feet from my garden tractor, about 15 years ago, talking to my
wife after having tilled the garden (with the tractor). I glanced
over and saw my roughly 3 year old daughter about a foot away, and
reaching for the muffler just seconds after I'd shut the engine
off after a hard run. I knew she'd be permanently and severely
burned, at the skin graft level if she touched it. I knew I couldn't
get to her in time to prevent her from touching it, and that, from
psychology, I needed to cause her to have an "orienting response".
I yelled "NO" louder than I've ever shouted in my life. Loud enough
that my vocal cords hurt for two days. My daughter almost fell over,
but she totally forgot what she was doing, so I had plenty of time
to get to her and get her away from the tractor.

Well, that's the only time I recall something from psychology was
actually useful in real life.

Another curious thing happened with the same daughter when she was
just a couple of months old. My dad was in town, and took us out
to a restaurant. The waaitress warned us that the plates were
hot. We were all eating, a few minutes later when my daughter started
screaming. She had touched the rim of a plate, and was just holding on
and screaming. It took me a moment to realize she might be getting a
burn, and pulled her hand off the plate. It quickly turned red and
blistered. I didn't think the plate was really hot, just warm, but
kids are really sensitive to heat. But, I was surprised that she didn't
have any protective reflex to get her hand off the plate.

Jon

On Sat, 04 Feb 2006 22:35:58 -0600, Jon Elson
wrote:

wrote:

I strongly disagree. A strong voice is needed for important times,
and it must be clearly audible but need not be overly loud. Tone
is more important and effective than volume.
Interesting story. (I took psychology as a minor in college, and
still remember a tiny fragment of it.) I was standing about 60
feet from my garden tractor, about 15 years ago, talking to my
wife after having tilled the garden (with the tractor). I glanced
over and saw my roughly 3 year old daughter about a foot away, and
reaching for the muffler just seconds after I'd shut the engine
off after a hard run. I knew she'd be permanently and severely
burned, at the skin graft level if she touched it. I knew I couldn't
get to her in time to prevent her from touching it, and that, from
psychology, I needed to cause her to have an "orienting response".
I yelled "NO" louder than I've ever shouted in my life. Loud enough
that my vocal cords hurt for two days. My daughter almost fell over,
but she totally forgot what she was doing, so I had plenty of time
to get to her and get her away from the tractor.

Well, that's the only time I recall something from psychology was
actually useful in real life.


College psych does help to understand field psych. You hadn't
practiced conditioning your child to respond to a quiet bark.

While attending an outdoor summer concert (MN orchestra, good music),
a huge bumblebee flew into my wee daughter's mouth that was open in
awe at the music. (It really was good!) She was maybe 3. I
softly barked "Karen, freeze, don't move". She did, because she
totally trusted me and knew that quiet commands in "that voice" were
to be obeyed. Her mother, now my ex-wife, probably didn't like me
much (though I didn't know that at the time) but she has never not
respected me. She deferred to me to handle the sit.

I waited till Mr. Buzzing Bee got close to Karen's lips and then
puffed him away with a blow of air, grabbed Karen in a bearhug and
moved several feet in a hearbeat. It almost seemed like she knew I'd
do that and expected it. She was a bit scared, well duh so was I,
but we handled the sit. This tyke was only 3 but she kept her
cool. Trust worked. It worked because the trust had been
established a priori.

I did not run my family like bootcamp, far from it! I encouraged
anarchy, exploration mit attendant owies --except when safety was
involved. I know they broke some laws and raised some hell while
growing up. I hoped they would, and they surely did. Growth
requires some experiments.

They knew I'd never bail them out of jail so they managed to artfully
escape and evade. They all turned out OK, are now all contributors
to society. One is a uni professor mit PhD, another is a silicon
peddler, another is making music in NYC.

My permissiveness cost me a marriage -- and eventually resulted in a
much better one with a true soulmate. She likes that I keep our
cutlery razor sharp because she really appreciates fine blades. She's
also quite comfy with firearms and has crafted sniper ammo though we
have no guns to speak of these days. We each have some history the
other doesn't know and may not need or want to know.

Loud fights never happen here. Quiet disagreements happen now and
then, but not often. Both of us are disciplined adults, seniors now,
perhaps she more than me. Our threshold of pique is very high, we are
tolerant folk some might consider as wuss. Road rage inspired by
cellphone assholes is way far beyond our thresholds of pique,
probably a good thing. That said, it would be a seriously bad
idea to **** her off and I guess that's sorta true of me as well. So
we don't go there, ever. Been that way for 25 years now so I think
we're good for the duration. I hope so. We're soulmates.