Media debates on parenting

In the news today, Australian PM Kevin Rudd admits smacking his kids. The headline sounds different from the text though.

Weighing in to the debate, Mr Rudd said: "And the rule that's been applied in our family ever since they were tots is that if they're doing something dangerous they'll get a, you know, whack across the knuckles."

"The key thing is a gentle tap on the wrists which is usually, if you know anything about two and three-year-olds, the cause of the quivering bottom lip and the general collapse into tears."

That seems pretty different from a wooden spoon (the thing that sparked this current round in the corporal punishment debate). Indeed, check out this picture of Mrs Cunningham from Happy Days.

She is clearly slapping Richie (who is hardly a child but let's admit that is not the point). And she is hardly the poster child for bad parent. Don't believe me, watch the video at around 26 seconds in.

Now I don't want to say I'm condoning anything. But as I have written about elsewhere, punishment is a tough parental issue. What is clear is that it is very difficult to have a national discussion on this in the media. It looks like psychologists are attacking the PM too harshly. Who would care about a rap on the knuckles?

But then let me leave you with a thought on how difficult this is. Half way through writing this post, it occurred to me that it took all of 2 minutes for me to recall and then locate the picture above. This was something I watched 30 years ago and it only appears in one season of Happy Days intros. Yet, I remembered it. What does that tell you about a rap on the knuckles?

WSJ Review: Don't spare the rod!

The first US review of Parentonomics (non-Amazon that is) has come in and it is from a big media outlet, the Wall Street Journal. I won't dress it up, the reviewer, Dan Akst didn't like it. Put simply, he seems tired of pop economics books and certainly didn't want to read one where the author uses his own experiences as the base (or to use his term a "bore").

But there was actually more to it. He has a very different view of how to punish kids, to me, jaw droppingly, so.

Some of the author's child-rearing ideas will not strike such a universal chord. Mr. Gans doesn't believe in spanking, but he admits that he and his wife frequently punish their children by means of shunning -- making their kids stand in a corner, in keeping with the modern preference for emotional pain over corporal punishment. At one point Mr. Gans even uses hunger as a weapon, sending a helpless child to bed without her supper (prompting in him a meditation on whether the punishment is costlier to parents or child). Wouldn't a quick swat to the tush and a full belly be preferable all around?

Wow. And I was getting in trouble for suggesting using incentives with kids. I know parents angst over whether 'time outs' are effective but they are usually not reaching for the rod as an alternative. This was definitely a new kind of reviewer.

So I figured I might investigate some more. And when you look at Mr Akst's past writings, this is not a new theme. Take this offering from the WSJ back in 1999:

I say "mere," but it’s startling how casually this creepy technique is advocated. A whack to the bottom is held to violate the taboo against violence, but for some reason ostracism, physical isolation and emotional withholding are broadly approved, often in the widely adopted form of the "time out," which for the uninitiated resembles very closely what Dennis the Menace’s parents must have inflicted when the cartoonist drew him sulking in a rocking chair in the corner.

With its emphasis on silence and isolation, coupled with its faith in rehabilitation, the rise of the time out recapitulates the Quaker-inspired embrace of solitary confinement prison generations ago as a proper response to transgression. The idea was that the the wrongdoer could reflect on his sins without distraction. The time out is supposed to have the same effect, and justreplacement for corporal or other punishments in society at large. And just as America is a world leader in penitentiaries, American parents seem to lead the world in time outs (as well as in disrespectful children, it sometimes seems)., so too are we world leaders in incarceration.

Actually, I call it "incarceration" in the book (p.138) so I hardly glossed over these issues. But that was after, for the book at least, a fairly thoughtful and research-informed look at spanking that basically said, if you have to do it often, it is a bad and ineffective idea (and by the way, that is consistent with the economics of punishment).

But he goes on.

As the With its sporty name and air of thoughtful "hold everything," The time out is the emblematic punishment of our times, the time out is . It’s in keeping, to cite one example, with our preference in recent years for economic sanctions in lieu of war. Leaving aside our recent belligerence in Iraq and Yugoslavia, generally speaking we prefer to punish rogue countries nowadays by expelling them "from the community of nations." Diplomatic ties are broken, and trade is at least threatened. If you can’t be good, we won't let you play in our markets.

On a more prosaic level, the time out reflects a certain feminization of culture in which traditional fatherliness has become as dispensable as fathers themselves. Calling a time out--shunning your child until he does what you like--substitutes emotional manipulation for physical force, thereby replacing one dubious form of compulsion with another. Its lasting effect, such as it is, arises from the fear of psychological rather than physical pain, and contrary to appearances, its widespread adoption is based not on kindness but on weaknessselfishness. Except in the case of abusers and other sickos, whacking a kid’s bottom probably does hurt parent more than child, and inflicting pain on the psyche has somehow come to seem more palatable.

That theme comes through even more strongly here. But before you think that Mr Akst is favouring spanking, reading on, he is in favour something else:

Aside from these humane ploys, I’m a pragmatist. On mornings when it's up to me to dress bmy sons, for instance, I throw shirts and pants onto them as fast as I can, regardless of what they think or whether they're ready. I know I'm supposed to solicit their views in all this, but that usually results in a wrestling match. Work fast, and by the time they figure out they're missing a golden opportunity to argue, it's too late: they're already dressed. I figure if I keep this up, before I know it pretty soon they'll be old enough to read Bartleby instead of emulating him.

And neither of us will have to suffer through too many time outs or sore bottoms along the way.

He just goes for full command and control. No wonder he didn't like the book. At its heart is the idea that we are parenting kids so they can exercise good judgment themselves. Punishment is one means of communicating the dimensions of that judgment. If you decide instead to give them no control, you avoid the need for punishment and much else. Mr Akst doesn't like books like Parentonomics for a reason. Its philosophy shares much with that of economics that we want to allow people (including children) to make their own choices but to feel the consequences rather than to deny the choices themselves. Forget the spanking issue, this is an area where we seriously disagree,

Stellar advice on punishing

I must admit that when it comes to reading stuff on parenting, I usually prefer a good story than an advice manual. But this Slate piece by Alan Kazdin and Carlo Rotella demonstrates how a manual should be done.

The article takes a specific situation:

If you're a parent, you are probably familiar with being provoked into a blood vessel-popping rage that instantly overwhelms any resolution you might have made to stay calm. That's because kids are amazingly good at refining behaviors that they can turn to when they're upset or angry, especially in public, to make their parents even angrier—in fact, insanely angry.

And considers parental reactions in dealing with it. It is the kind of situation where you are torn between 'good' parenting versus a need for immediate gratification -- usually in the form of shouting but it could be any number of other actions. What are your options?

Kazdin and Rotella provide a menu. Of course, they provide it as a list but I am going to set it out the way I would like to see it: as a table. First, here is a table describing the various actions and trade-offs. It is useful but the article is richer in detail and discussion. Nonetheless, let's face it, nothing beats a good set of names for actions.

But once you have read that, the options can be summarised more easily as follows:

Of course that is just my assessment. But the parking ticket is closest to the economist way of looking at it especially in terms of not engaging in repeated punishment. Set the prices upfront in a predetermined contract. We know that takes foresight and effort but who could not want that?

Educational value

A group of students at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University have done a game theory project looking at the Parent's Dilemma in punishing children. Their analysis is available here. It is very insightful and interesting. I expect that got a high grade. What is good about it is that it does not presume that all parents are alike and demonstrates that some parents will have to favour different strategies depending on how much they hate (or I guess like me, enjoy) implementing punishments.

Take a hike!

This story got lots of publicity this week in Australia.

A NORTHERN TERRITORY man has been making his five-year-old son walk two-and-a-half hours to school every day, after he was kicked off the school bus.

When Jack Burt confessed that he'd been banned for five days for hitting the bus driver in the head with an apple core, dad Sam thought he should learn the hard way. He and Jack last week were getting up at 5.10am for the dusty 13km-hike from the Darwin rural area of Herbert, all the way to Humpty Doo.

Mr Burt also took the wheels off Jack's bike so he couldn't be tempted to ride to school.

While it is dangerous to pick up stories like this from the press, if we take it at face value, I gotta admire the nature of the punishment. It identifies the reason why bus travel is valuable and makes the child think about that for days. That said, while, in theory, that all looked good, the result wasn't too great:

But in the battle of wills between tall and short, the smart money's on Jack.

"Shame it didn't work," Mr Burt told the Northern Territory News.

"He got back on the bus Monday, and within three stops he was in trouble again. I couldn't believe it.

"I don't understand - he's good at school, he gets awards all the time."

However, a breakthrough might be in sight.

When Jack this week said he didn't mind walking - because it made him strong for fighting - he was told if he started fighting he might have to walk home in the afternoons too.

Jack's eyes got a little teary. He said he might not get home before dark.

Mr Burt told him not to worry - they'd leave the key out for him.

Jack is impressive for a 5 year old. This is an interesting contest.

Somehow I think they will work this out, eventually. Also, because it got all of this coverage, the message was sent to others about just what might happen if you didn't behave on the school bus.

Forgetfulness

In Slate today, Emily Bazelon laments her childrens' tendency to lose everything. She thinks it is some failing of their moral fibre over respect for property. In the end, she ends up bailing out her children and replacing lost items. Then she resorts to heavy-handed intervention to try and get things on the right path.

I think that she doesn't quite have the problem sorted out. The goal is not to build a respect for property but to get good habits established. The problem is that, in a world where you constantly remind kids or inquire as to the location of items, you are not doing that. What the child needs to do is sort out how to achieve the goal -- not losing stuff -- on their own taking into account all of the machinations and distractions that might be part of that operation. You just can't know that.

To convince yourself, just watch a forgetful child in action. They start out with an object and have a mission to take it somewhere. All is fine for a few seconds and then something happens. You can observe distraction setting in, the object gets put down and the child moves on. That's it.

You need to have something to focus their attention so that they get past the distraction or if that isn't possible they work out that they have been distracted and get themselves back on the right path. The problem is that they have to work it out, you can't possibly plan out for all contingencies.

Regular readers will recall that our response to this situation with our son was to get seemingly cruel and unusual in threatened punishments. For his lost lunchbox, the threat to replace it with an 'easy to remember' Disney Princess one. It worked a charm despite a later appeal that it was unfair on his friends (who were tempted to tease him and would get in trouble for it). What is more, his lunchbox returns and it is no longer an issue. The point here is that you have to focus them on the goal and to have a plan by which they have to invest more in the activity of 'not losing things' than whatever else happens to be around.

Science and parenting

In Slate, Alan Kazdin looks at the evidence on corporal punishment. His lament is that lots of parents still hit their kids despite the scientific evidence that it likely does harm. But the discussion is more about why parents do not pay attention to scientific research.

Part of the problem is that most of us pay, at best, selective attention to science—and scientists, for their part, have not done a good job of publicizing what they know about corporal punishment. Studies of parents have demonstrated that if they are predisposed not to see a problem in the way they rear their children, then they tend to dismiss any scientific finding suggesting that this presumed nonproblem is, in fact, a problem. In other words, if parents believe that hitting is an effective way to control children's behavior, and especially if that conviction is backed up by a strong moral, religious, or other cultural rationale for corporal punishment, they will confidently throw out any scientific findings that don't comport with their sense of their own experience.

The issue is that a parenting behaviour can appear to work right away (and so be affirmed) but actually do more harm later on or be otherwise ineffective. Scientific research can inform about the latter. And it is not just corporal punishment. Consider sleeping, eating and all sorts of other things where it is difficult to weigh the present and future.

The argument in the article is that governments need to ban violence against children and Kazdin again laments the lack of political traction in the US on that. But come on, is he really surprised. The same parents are the voters and if they see corporal punishment as effective and morally OK, why would they vote to ban it.

This suggests that the way to get parental behavioural change is not the public equivalent of corporal punishment -- bans and penalties for infractions. Instead, my guess is that social norms and changes will be more powerful. I have not looked into it, but my guess (hope) is that the degree of violence against children has fallen: e.g., less using of hard objects and more using of hands. Why has this occurred? Social pressure mainly.

The key to social pressure is exposure. And that is the issue with parenting. So much of it is within the confines of a household and not exposed socially. That is why pressures to breastfeed are stronger (as you leave the house sometimes) while punishment is another matter. Then again, how often are we seeing physical punishment performed outside the house? The point here is that we need to think far less from the hip and far more using science (this time on parenting behaviour) to actually produce changes.

Punishment Capital

Tim Harford runs a 'Dear Economist' column in the Financial Times whereby readers write in their problems and Tim helps them out. This week's column involves the use of incentives for discipline children. And here is part of the answer:

The challenge, then, is to make sure that you have punishments available to you that you are willing to carry out. You may be able to rise to that challenge by building up what Joshua Gans calls “punishment capital” – not to be confused with capital punishment. Professor Gans, author of a new book called Parentonomics, points out that if you are the source of a steady stream of money or sweets, that gives you a negotiating position. Threatening to remove the carrot (or rather, the flow of chocolate coins) is more credible than threatening to wield the stick. What one parent sees as junk food, Professor Gans sees as an “incentive opportunity”.

The threat of punishment

I have written before about the use of a laid out path of escalating punishments (especially ironic ones) to elicit quick attention. The idea is to dole out easy punishments with a threat of increasingly costly ones if behaviour isn't correct.

Today I can report a 'success' with this strategy with my 7 year old son. This time he left his coat at school. He does this because it is cold in the mornings and not in the afternoons. He then forgot to find his coat the next day. So the punishment path was simple, if he didn't bring his coat back today, he would be forced to wear one of his sister's hand-me-downs. This would be one of the ones she had been given but had considered too 'girly' to wear. We selected the coat and he tried it on for size.

Anyhow, he saw the path ahead and made a pre-pitch against it. He argued to me that it would be unfair on the other kids at school. Why? Because they would tease him and then they would get in trouble!

Quite an argument and very selfless. Anyhow, I said that was their problem and the threat stayed. And what do you know, the coat returned home today. Ta da!

You are on your own, kid

I love ironic punishments. This one from GeekDad is excellent:

The Puzzle:
Your son (or daughter if you will) has been caught overplaying his Wii past the allowable time. Your punishment, designed to build character as well as future gaming skills (because, you know, you're not capricious) has him put in an empty, windowless room devoid of any and all technology save for two, old-fashioned hourglass-type egg timers that precisely measure seven and four minutes respectively. You tell him that he is not allowed to come out and must stay in the room for exactly nine minutes. If he comes out over- or under-time, he is denied the Wii for the rest of the month. Your son is not wearing a watch or other piece of timekeeping device primitive or modern, but he is a clever and determined gamer and emerges on the nose in nine minutes. How did he do it?

The Solution:
Your son was on to you before you shut the door on him. He flipped both hourglasses over at the same time. When the four minute timer ran out, he flipped it again. When the seven minute timer ran out, he flipped that over. Seven minutes have now passed. When the four minute timer ran out again (the eight minute mark) he flipped the seven minute timer back over. Only a minute's worth of sand has fallen between the flips and when that minute runs out, he knows he has been in the room for exactly nine minutes.

I think I'll have to engineer an indiscretion so I can try it out on one of the kids.

Notes from the war

Recently people have asked me: "you write so much about your two eldest kids but Child No.3 rarely rates a mention? Is she a neglected third child?" Well, the answer is a definite "no," especially in terms of parenting attention and angst. When it comes down to it, this blog is a censored version of my parenting life. It is not and I do not claim it to be a full record. And when it comes to Child No.3, who is soon to turn 4, the terrible twos have seemed to lasted well beyond what one would have hoped. And in recent times, with a ton of work and other family issues going on: her tantrums became more frequent and harder to deal with. Without a resolution, I simply couldn't bring myself to write about it here.

You can take it from the fact that I am doing so now that, indeed, we think we are out of it now (hopefully). That is just as well. Another parent remarked when I was about to ask Child No.3 to do something she clearly didn't want to, "well, let's see how Professor Parentonomics handles this one." Fortunately, I did and helped the 'brand.'

But only a few short weeks ago, the best way of describing our relationship with Child No.3 was 'war.' Wars with young children are things that can grow slowly and escalate. When we realised where we were a couple of months ago, it was clear that we were dealing with greater and stronger tantrums than we wanted or had dealt with for the other children. But the cause was not at all clear. Child No.3 was going to pre-School now. That is more intense and she was not having her afternoon nap (the School wants this, but she doesn't need it at their scheduled time). So we just wasn't sure if she was just tired. We all throw tantrums when we are tired. And actually we were tired too and so we didn't enforce punishments to control tantrums with the same forced as we used to.

There is, however, another thing about Child No.3 that is relevant. Regular readers know of the strategic prowess of Child No.1. But Child No.1 is not our most strategic child. That honor easily rests with her younger sister. Child No.1 is easy to write about because she uses strategy to get what she wants and is calculating in understanding the incentives before her. And because what she wants is so transparent, it is easy to set things in place. You just have to program her the right way. What is more, she is upfront about her strategy, you know, much like an evil genius who just can't help explaining their evil plan to you. (By the way, if you want to read a good novel about that one, try this).

Child No.3 is very different. First of all, she is not transparent. When she wins, she knows it, but is savvy enough to keep it to herself. But you can see it in her movements. For instance, occasionally when we are running short of time I say, "look don't take you plates to the sink, just run upstairs and get undressed for bathtime." In response to this, Child No.1 would sing all the way, "I just gottaway with mur---DA, I just gottaway with mur---DA!" In contrast, Child No.3 would just go upstairs. No reaction but there is a small smirk on her face and a slight spring in her step. One suspects that on the inside, she is happier than any other child in this situation.

Which brings me to a second difference: this is all game to her. Child No.1 cares mostly about things (food and money) and fairness (no one gets more than her). Child No.3 like to win and she especially likes to win against her parents. Not having to do something is victory. That makes outcomes a zero-sum situation and Child No.3 is a master at picking her battles at a time of her opponent's greatest weakness.

Hence, the tantrums. Now you might think, what good would a tantrum do? Wouldn't you just punish them, be done with it and teach her that she can't win that way? That's the theory but implementation can have some issues. Let me tell you, with Child No.3, her strategic insight meant that a credible threat of a punishment and a clear demonstration that she had no choice but to comply did wonders. When she was 1 year old, we had a great party trick. Child No.3 would start crying and we would then tell her to stop including an authoritative finger. She would then cough and stop! Other parents would watch in awe. In reality, she had just been pre-programmed.

But with age, her ability to draw power from the dark side became stronger. The chief method of tantrum punishment in our household was the tried and true, 'time out' or 'corner' as we called it. Throw a tantrum and that is where you will find yourself. But with three children and lots of stuff going on, the threat became, "I will count to three and if you don't stop, you will be put in the corner." We just couldn't impose punishment immediately and so needed a remotely instrumented escape clause.

Child No.3 tapped into this. She became an expert at stopping just before we got to 3. That would have been fine but she learned the entire situation. She became an expert at stopping just before we had completely had enough and would actually physically put her in the corner. Resistence to doing what she was told and the resulting tantrum could last many minutes and finally when I was able to credibly go and punish her, she would stop. I'd think, damm, she got me again. Having stopped or complied, she would be off the hook. The problem is that her tantrums had become longer and more frequent and using this strategy she was sometimes getting away with "murrrrrDA." I was not happy and very frustrated and it was affecting my relationship with her.

It was with upon that realisation that the notion that we were at war came to the fore. The question was how to win it. Withdrawl wasn't an option but the insurgency was targetted, continuous and relentless. It was clearly aimed at a long-term breakdown in rules and a transfer of power. And it wasn't the sort of thing that having a talk about it was going to work -- we tried diplomacy but a 3 year old with dimples can see right through that. 'Talking' made us feel like we were parenting but, in fact, the war continued.

And it was hard to explain all this beyond our family. Child No.3 is a consumate extravert (a trait she inherited from her mother not me). She will target and charm any adult entering her domain. She is all "pleases" and "thank yous" because she knows that works. Other people we explained all this to her would look at her perplexed: "This is your monster?" I would counter, "You haven't seen her angry. You do not want to see her angry."

What we needed to do was shake things up and try and get ourselves onto a more sustainable path. It was with that thought that a few weekends ago, we committed ourselves to a policy that can quite accurately be called 'The Surge.' The idea was simple. We would punish immediately and with no warnings or opportunity for negotiation. And we would do it for the entire weekend without exception and without regard to cost.

And we did so do it and it was as awful an experience as you can imagine. Even though we had told her it was coming, when it did, she was, not surprisingly, shocked. She would find herself immediately in the corner. And she was not at all happy. The tantrum would, of course, get worse and by worse I mean loud. It would also become animated with "I didn't do that! You didn't count!" During this moment, I listened to the older two children debate the ethics of all of this:

Child No.2: "She's right, he didn't count. She just doesn't understand."

Child No.1: "Well, she knew she shouldn't be throwing tantrums, didn't she? Dad just wants her to stop."

Child No.2: "But she is very upset and it doesn't look like it's working. She is really loud. This is really annoying. Maybe we should help?"

Child No.1: "True it is annoying. I wouldn't get involved if I were you. You might be the target of more punishment yourself. Just be extra well-behaved."

And with that Child No.1 switched off her hearing aid (making us all envious of that option) and got on with her business.

That wasn't the end of the matter. Child No.3 decided to resist. She would escape the corner and fight, usually with me, for her freedom. And Child No.3 is really strong. Much stronger than your average 3 year old. So it was really tough to contain her.

Now it is perhaps best here to pause the story and note that much of what we were doing with The Surge was not the best 'time out' practice. I was somewhat aware of this at the time but this Slate article today pretty much demonstrates that that was the case. Using its criteria (and I recommend you read that article if you engage in time-out punishments), I have evaluated my own performance here.

As you can see, it is far from a perfect score and the Surge didn't not necessarily involve an improvement on all dimensions.

We were well aware that a Surge wouldn't actually solve anything unless we could withdrawl from it at a more peaceful outcome than before. So right from the start we had plan. If the Surge started reducing tantrums we would need to replace it with something else. Indeed, as the Slate article points out, you need something other than a time-out to use to manage the intensity of punishments. For Child No.3, the neglected third child aspect was that she had very little of her own. All of her toys were pretty much shared. She got little in the way of activities. And in our austere household, there were hardly any special treats or TV. You need to give in order to be able to withdraw.

But more critically, Child No.3 needed to feel she was 'winning.' So we enacted a chart system that hadn't worked for other two but might just work for her. We decided to give her a 'star' for each day she did not throw a tantrum. Make it through a week and she would 'win' a reward -- in our case, a toy of her own. So now if she was on the very of a tantrum, we could say, "do it and you will miss out on today's star." It required no immediate action on our part and so Child No.3 knew it was credible. Prior to the Surge, the tantrums and been so fierce, frequent and emotional that we couldn't have explained or transitioned fairly to this system. Afterwards, we could and did.

And it came with bonuses. For instance, at the same time, she developed a sore on her fingers that she sucked. We knew we would have to deal with this at some stage but the sore gave us the opportunity we needed to get her on-board. We used the chart to track behaviour and now she is 'finger sucking free.'

The war has ended but it took its toll. Our physical battles during the Surge left me with a crippling back injury that I am still recovering from. But the price was worth it. Indeed, there was some irony in the outcome. When I was having trouble getting my socks and shoes on to go to work, Child No.3 noticed and said, "Daddy, I can do that. I can help. I put my shoes and socks on without being told now." And with that she put my socks and shoes on. It was many years earlier than I expected to have this role reversal. I know that our battles are really not over, but it was a fitting reminder of a restored relationship.

Some previous posts on punishment are here, here and here.

Changing behaviour

I guess if there is one thing parenting is about it is trying to change a child's behaviour. In Slate, Alan Kazdin, a psychologist, looks at what not to do and what to do when trying to get your child to behave well. As I have noted before, to an economist, repeated punishment seems to be a sign of failure. However, the psychological viewpoint offers suggestions that might make things better.

Now, before anyone goes to the comments with stuff like, "I shout at my kids like my parents shouted at me and it is just fine," let me just advertise the article as 'something to think about.' Those come along every now and then and give us pause, for just a minute, to reconsider how we ourselves behave and whether it is doing good. This article is one of them.

For others, consider this one about praise and this one about goals.

Risky teenage behaviour

It is not everyday that an actual academic article appears about economics and parenting but the April 2008 issue of the Economic Journal contains a piece entitled: "Games Parents and Adolescents Play: Risky Behaviour, Parental Reputation and Strategic Transfers" by Lingxin Hao, V. Joseph Hotz and Ginger Z. Jin. The paper tries to understand risky teenage behaviour (you know getting pregnant, taking drugs, etc) and how it is related to parenting -- specifically, a parent's ability and willingness to use money later on to reward or punish such behaviour. It is both theoretical and empirical.

Let's begin with the theory. Gary Becker was the first economist to consider this issue. He looked at the interaction between a Rotten Kid and an altruistic parent. Rotten kids think about doing things that are destructive, not only to themselves, but perhaps to family members. The altruistic parent wants to deter such behaviour and so wants to punish kids who misbehave and reward those who don't. The problem is that after the fact a parent loves all their children equally and so may not be able to commit to the requisite punishments. Becker's analysis demonstrated that such commitment would be possible if parents could simply transfer the joy around with money. In that situation, a parent would observe that one kid misbehaved and benefited while another behaved well but sacrificed. To equalise the score, the parent would naturally give the 'good' child more. Indeed, once the Rotten Kid realised that this would occur, that kid fully internalised the impact of their behaviour on the rest of the family and harmony would reign.

Now, while this is a deep result, it is dependent upon being able to trade-off love and money easily. That is hard to do in which case, the parent faces a commitment issue and may well end up not punishing bad behaviour and, not surprisingly, such behaviour may occur. Let's face it, if you want to explain teenage risk-taking, that has to be the theoretical starting point.

What Hao et.al. do is notice that if a parent has a few children and faces this commitment issue, they may be willing to go hard on the older siblings to send a message to the younger ones. But it is trickier than that as the younger ones would understand they were just doing this and so that would be ineffective. To resolve this you have to believe that children are uncertain about how caring their parents are and that is what Hao et.al. do. If you are willing to go with all that you have predictions that older siblings will get less money from their parents than younger ones.

So what do they find when they look at the data?

Consistent with the reputation model, we find that daughters who had teen births or children who drop out of high school receive fewer parental transfers after reaching adulthood when the parent has a larger number of younger children in the family. Moreover, focusing on the offspring within the same family, we find that older siblings are less likely than younger ones to drop out of high school or to have births as teens. These findings are consistent with the reputation model’s implications that parents may have an incentive to engage in strategic responses to the risk-taking behaviour of their children according to birth order and that older children understand these incentives and are more likely to respond by refraining from committing risky behaviours compared to their younger siblings.

Of course, it may just be that larger families have less money to give to children anyhow and as income grows, the younger ones just get more. But it turns out that families with lots of money seem to behave in the same way as ones with low wealth.

It may also be that parents are just learning more about parenting. It is hard to distinguish this notion from one where parents are developing a reputation. However, if more learning is concentrated on the first born then there should be something more special about them than about the 2nd to nth child. The paper finds nothing special there.

This is a provocative and careful paper. Moreover, it is precisely the sort of work that makes non-economists think economists are crazy. I enjoyed it.

Saying you're sorry

In Slate, Emily Brazelon looks at the value of getting kids to apologise:

The other time I hear myself barking "Say you're sorry!" is when I'm with a friend and his or her kids, and one of my kids is being obnoxious, and I'm embarrassed. This one I can't really defend: It's a cheap way to signal that I, for one, have some manners; that I know my kids are being trolls and won't let them get away with it, at least not entirely. Forcing an apology is a lot easier than imposing a real punishment. So, it suits for small- to medium-sized infractions that I feel like I should address (or rather shouldn't be seen letting go). Especially, if I'm honest, toward the end of a long day.

Basically, she finds that for most things, it is the same as having adults apologise: it is a communication of someone's acknowledgement of a social wrong. The only difference with kids is that the communication is between parents rather than the wronger and wrongee.

That said, I am not sure if we are going to gather in a 'peace circle' and have our children discuss their feelings when they fight with each other. Not that there is anything wrong with that but it just isn't 'us.'

Instead, these school holidays whenever the inevitable fights between children emerged, I opted for a special 'joint' sending to the corner. This is the place in our house where children go for a time out. The usual rule is that there is no talking in the corner and no communication into and out of it except by the sentencing parent. However, with a 'joint' sending communication in the corner is allowed.

Initially, there was no such talking. Just two children sitting there with increasingly over-acting frowns of frustration, disgust and a vast array of annoyed emotions. Then eventually, the two of them realise their joint predicament and start to wonder what it was that put them there. Apparently, the triviality of it is not lost on them and they are soon giggling and plotting against their true enemy: me. The common cause resolves the conflict and harmony is restored. And the best part, I can do other things all the while. So zero parental effort/involvement equals the same outcome as a ton of parental effort/involvement. For the economist in me, the choice is a no-brainer.

The right tax

In economics, taxing bad behaviour (so called sin taxes) can be set equal to the costs of that activity on others. The end result is sometimes the bad behaviour occurs, the price is paid but everyone is at least as well off as before.

In parenting that is rarely the logic of punishment. It is often set to deter the said activity. Here is a story of a situation where that didn't work out; although the child was stunningly economically rational.

Renny: Momma I haffa sit in time out.

DaMomma: Huh? Why, Love?

Renny: I ate a candle.

(DaMomma, looking over to table where a candle has distinctive mouse-like gnaw marks on it.)

DaMomma (sigh): Okay, time to sit in time out then.

Renny: (Shrugging, trotting over to kitchen Naughty Corner.) O’tay.

Later, while making brownies:

Renny: Momma, I take the butter to show Daddy.

DaMomma: Okay, but don’t take it out of the wrapper, okay? I mean it.

Renny: O’tay!

(Later)

Renny: Momma … can Sissy sit in time out with me?

DaMomma: Baby, you already did your … why do you need a time out?

Renny: I opened da butter.

(There, on the living room floor, nowhere near Daddy, an opened, mushed stick o’butter.)

Renny (hopeful): Sissy do time out wid me? Momma? (Getting carried up the stairs to her room.) MOMMA NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! (Down on the bedroom floor, knowing the door is about to shut, hands on hips looking at Momma.) I. DON’T. LIKE YOU MOMMA.

DaMomma (Long, thoughtful pause. Then, leaning over) I LIKE YOUUUUUUU!!!!!

Later…

Renny: And den I opened da butter and she took me to mah room and made me cry!

Daddy: That IS sad, Renny.

DaMomma: Ren, are you sorry you ate the candle?

Renny (very serious blue eyes): Yes, Momma.

DaMomma: Are you ever going to do it again?

Renny: Oh, yes, Momma! And den I sit in time out!

Trading punishments

Yesterday, the 6 year old came back from swimming and his mother could not find his swimmers in his bag. Not only that his spare swimmers were missing too. This was not the first time this had happened but previously this had been worked out before everyone arrived home so the swimmers could be rescued.

Forgetfulness is not something we want to encourage and so he received a punishment. On Friday nights the family sits down to watch Survivor. This week he would miss out. He was upset and keep on claiming that he didn't know how this had happened. Those protests of innocence fell on deaf ears.

Today, his mother found the swimmers -- both pairs -- in his bag exactly where they should have been. Oops. Indeed, this was the second such incident in as many weeks. Last week, he had been accused of misplacing his school pants at home; something that seemed to me a hard thing to do. Turns out someone had mistakenly put his pants away in his sister's closet. Oops.

Each time the lynching accuser was his mother. So what to do about this. Now sometimes we have falsely punished but to maintain our reputation we had stuck with it as the child, at least, had no direct evidence of their innocence. They were younger too and it was plausible to them they had done something wrong. Yes, I know, this isn't fair but there is a bigger picture of the system here and it doesn't happen that often. After all, think of all the things they should be punished for but we are missing. The system balances out on average.

This time around the evidence was irrefutable. What to do? First, up was to restore the unfair punishment. I offered him a 'free pass.' The next time he did something that was due a punishment, he would get off with just a warning. As that was likely to be in the near future, he was happy with the deal.

But what to do with the false accusation which had (a) had not been a once-off (b) did not involve me? I suggested that the 6 year old be able to think of a punishment for his mother. That created amusement all round; well, except for one person. But it was accepted.

He struggled with what type of punishment to give. He toyed with going to bed early but quickly realised that that wasn't a punishment at all; and if he hadn't realised it, I would have pointed it out. Then he naturally gravitated towards the 'eye for an eye' philosophy. "Next time on Survivor, you won't be watching, Mummy."

He started to speculate on whether that was enough and perhaps she should be forced to sit through The Wiggles while we all watched. I love his sense of irony but pointed out that that bit was really just for his amusement and that perhaps he didn't want us to start thinking that we could add things we would find amusing to punishments too. So he left it at reciprocity.

All in all a satisfying outcome and no doubt his mother will think twice before accusing him of crimes in the future. Of course, I suspect it is only a matter of time before his older sister, who is very risk averse, hits on the idea of pre-punishment: you know, can you punish me now so that if the next one falls at a time that might be inconvenient or uncertain, she would have one in the bank. It is an interesting idea but one suspects that there is a reason one cannot pay for parking tickets in advance. You want the punishment cost to be immediate and linked to the activity rather than sunk. It will be interesting to see if my son's next crime is committed in haste.

Repeated punishment

In Slate, Emily Brazelon discusses proposals to outlaw spanking of children. Ultimately, there are two forces at work here. The first is the fact that violence -- even restrained beating -- is outlawed between adult to adult. The second are concerns about what damage spanking children might do. The former is enough for me not to spank our children but the idea of outlawing it for everyone has to be based, at first instance, on the evidence. If it turned out that the evidence was favourable (that is, it did little harm and helped with discipline), then we would have to move on to morals to deal with the policy issue.

But the Slate article tells us that the evidence is mixed but ultimately stacks up against.

This is the sort of research impasse that leaves advocates free to argue what they will—and parents without much guidance. But one study stands out: An effort by University of California at Berkeley psychologist Diana Baumrind to tease out the effects of occasional spanking compared to frequent spanking and no spanking at all. Baumrind tracked about 100 white, middle-class families in the East Bay area of northern California from 1968 to 1980. The children who were hit frequently were more likely to be maladjusted. The ones who were occasionally spanked had slightly higher misbehavior scores than those who were not spanked at all. But this difference largely disappeared when Baumrind accounted for the children's poor behavior at a younger age. In other words, the kids who acted out as toddlers and preschoolers were more likely to act out later, whether they were spanked occasionally or never. Lots of spanking was bad for kids. A little didn't seem to matter.

This seems broadly sensible and likely. It is the repetition of spanking as a punishment that is a problem. It could suggest that parents are unrestrained and relying on it too easily. Alternatively, it could suggest that as a punishment, for some children it does not work. To repeat it over and over again just doesn't help.

This blog hasn't looked at punishment yet. It is a little surprising because economics and game theory have lots to say about it. The economic theory of punishment is simple: set the punishment at just the level to deter behaviour. If the offender understands this, the possibility of punishment will deter the behaviour and no punishment will actually be given. That is, punishments that work, deter behaviour and are not repeated.

So if spanking is used as a punishment, if it is repeated, that means it isn't working. Stack that up with the evidence that it is the repetition of this type of punishment that causes damage and you have a case for outlawing repeated spanking. As Brazelon argues, if that involves outlawing the whole lot and then only prosecuting the worst offenses, then the case for the policy is made.

Notice that notions that spanking is the "only thing a child will understand" do not change the policy here. Repetition indicates it is not being understood the right way and so if that leaves a parent with nothing in the toolkit, so be it. The point here is spanking is not really in the toolkit. The other point, as I heard somewhere, is that this same argument also applies to tourists who need directions; a mild flogging is the only thing they will understand!

But the same principle -- repetition means failure -- applies to any sort of punishment. When it comes down to it, even those like myself who will not engage in any physical pain as punishment, shouting, incarceration and other forms of punishment, are not guaranteed to be any less emotionally damaging at a first order. And their repetition will likely generate the same ill effects as spanking.

In our house, the main form of punishment is the "dreaded" corner; that is, incarceration. Our house doesn't actually have many corners -- some rabid architect did away with them -- but do the place called the corner is a little dark space just inside the door to the garage. What this means is that being sent to the corner means isolation but also a mild chance of being hit by an inswinging door (so I guess we have a chance of physical punishment!).

Many offenses can entail being sent to the corner. Rudeness, tantrums, violence towards siblings, inability to resolve arguments, refusals to obey 'orders.' So the punishment is dealt out quite often. But it is not repeated often for the same offense.

But we also have orders of magnitude of increasing punishments. Corner first, denial of television, sent to room and sent to bed early all can be employed. Occasionally, things get out of hand. One day my eldest daughter at 3 years old, refused to do pretty much anything. Punishments escalated until she was in her room, naked and screaming with no toys. Not a pretty moment nor a proud one for me and it required a second parent to resolve the whole thing. But that is the exception that proved the rule. In that situation, punishments per se, didn't work. Something else was going on that would require more effort to resolve.

Our second eldest son was another matter. Whereas our daughter would be dutifully distressed being sent to the corner (something that indicated to me the message have been delivered), our son wouldn't react at all. He would go to the corner. Sometimes we would hear him singing, "I'm in the corner, I'm in the corner." It was a merry ditty but it often triggered discussions as to whether it was working. Well, forget immediate distress, the truth is, the behaviour wasn't repeated. That is the measure of success rather than looking at distress.

To my mind, there is a part of me that enjoys being innovative about punishments. I like irony. Failure to share a toy properly can lead to confiscation. Confiscation does not mean the toy is removed from sight. No, instead it is put high on a shelf but on display for all to see and not forget. Of course, real irony would be to take the toy and slice it in half. I have threatened this but not had to carry it out.

But you don't always have the time or energy to be creative. What you need then is credibility. As a game theorist, I worked out how to do this and managed to build a reputation in short order. I also know that their imagination is much more active than my own. So when I am not getting compliance with a request or order -- such as getting ready for bathtime -- I stand there and close my eyes and saw "I am thinking up a suitable punishment and if, when I open my eyes, you haven't done x, I will tell you it." Well, a flurry of activity always ensues. I do not think I have ever had to actually think up a punishment and who knows what they think it might be if I ever did! Technically, this is a situation where there is no punishment, just a credible threat of one. It will be interesting to see if this ever comes up in a future therapy session.