The Internet and Its Fallacies

Indulge me briefly in some irony: don't believe everything you read on the Internet.

Politics, parenting, scientific discoveries, sports... always check multiple competing sources. And teach your kids to do the same.

The only real antidote to idiocy is an open mind using facts as a filter. You'll notice I didn't say "truth." Facts and facts only.

Everyone is entitled to their own truths, be they about religion, politics, or which city has the better football team, just as everyone is entitled to their own opinions.

But no one - no one - is entitled to their own facts.

The roiling stew that is the Internet provides a marvelous place for a child to explore the limits of human knowledge. Like any other wide open space, however, it can be dangerous. I'm not referring to the sick bastards who prey on kids or the proliferation of pornographic websites - those are, perhaps, topic for future posts - but rather the competing truths one finds on countless blogs, vlogs, Twitter feeds, Facebook updates, opinion-masquerading-as-news sites, and the voices of the many commentators who write with more authority than they actually possess.

Commentators like, well, me. But, again, that's a post for another day. Here's your grain of salt.

How children navigate these sites will in large part be determined by what they have learned from their parents. If all they read or hear are the words of far-left or far-right political commentators, their view of the world will be filtered through those words. They will come to accept, with little critical thought, that certain religions, corporations, countries, ethnicities, or politicians are motived by pure malice, that entire nations or faiths are determined to rule and/or destroy the rest of us. I recall with great sadness reading, about 10 years ago, an article in the Los Angeles Times about a Palestinian-funded school that taught its kindergarteners that Israel was "the enemy."

"And what do we do to the enemy?" their teacher asked.

With apparent joy, the children cried, "kill them!"

Of course, children don't need to go school to be influenced in this way. It's all their fingertips, from the comfort of home.

What can parents do? Teach their children to read any website with one question in mind: "what would prove the author wrong?" And then seek out whatever occurs to them. Granted, the elementary school set is unlikely to independently seek out The Huffington Post or listen to Rush Limbaugh. Older kids, however, would benefit from this exercise.

Schools make a big deal of teaching the critical thinking needed to perform well on papers and exams. Those skills, properly taught in the classroom and reinforced at home, can apply to the virtual world. Collecting facts is good. They filter opinions and enrich dialogue. But best of all, they help vaccinate against idiocy.

When Parents Disagree About Discipline

One of the parenting truisms so often tossed about is "discipline begins in the home." I believe this to be true. Parents, after all, are a child's first - and primary - disciplinarians. Many of us say "no" to our children so often that the word starts to lose meaning. But what if parents don't agree with each other on how to discipline their child? Can two conflicting disciplinary philosophies manage to live under the same roof?

My wife and I had conversations about parental discipline even before we conceived, talking about stories we'd found online or in magazines and comparing notes from our own childhoods. You'd think that with such a long head start, two intelligent people with well-developed communication skills and three graduate degrees between them would have a solid discipline plan in place by the time their daughter was born.

Nope.

We actually agreed on most things: what behaviors we wanted to reinforce, what behaviors we wanted to see die a quick death, what values we wanted to instill, and how we'd always present a united front if the little one tried to play one of us against the other. My wife and I would back each other to the hilt, no doubt, no questions asked. In fact, there was only one sticking point: spanking.

One of us was spanked as a child. The other was not. Consequently, one of us believes that spanking is an appropriate means of discipline. The other does not. We went round and round on this issue for months, before pregnancy, during pregnancy, and after our daughter was born, each of us certain that the other side was wrong and neither of us giving ground.

Finally, after seemingly endless conversation - which, I'm happy to say, was always civil - and after getting a better sense of our daughter's personality, we settled on a compromise. Our daughter was not to be spanked unless and until her behavior became so unmanageable that we were out of disciplinary ideas, at which point, we'd revisit the issue and consider it as a last resort, depending on the circumstances.

With luck, it will never be an issue again. I hate arguing with my wife and I know she hates arguing with me. Moreover, I'm a special education teacher who, in theory at least, has a repertoire of behavior management strategies that should last me well into old age. I've successfully worked with kids on more medications than I can count and never once have I raised a hand to a child.

But... it's one thing to discipline someone else's child. Disciplining your own is another thing entirely. And any teacher, any parent, will tell you that what works for one child may backfire horribly with another. So even if our discipline strategy works on our first child, it may be useless with the second. At which point, we'll get to enjoy the whole spanking debate all over again.

So what does all this have to do with idiot-proofing your child?

Kids need a predictable home environment to feel secure enough to explore the world around them on the terms you want. They need to be able to say to themselves, "If I do A, mom will have Reaction B." Our jobs, as parents, is, yes, to make sure Reaction B goes with Act A but to also ensure that we have Reactions C, D, and E - all of them appropriate to Act A - on the back burner in case Junior decides to take Act A to the next level. If there is one shared trait every child has, it's the need to push their boundaries.

What Junior doesn't need is mom having Reaction B and dad having Reaction Q, with any chance of effective discipline lost in the conflict. Junior needs to know that mom and dad will have similar reactions to Act A because, when mom and dad turn around and promise something he likes in exchange for a particular behavior (good grades, housecleaning, etc.) he'll know that they will keep their word. And thus is security reinforced.

By providing a stable disciplinary environment, parents provide a child with a stable home. Kids, even adolescents, need predictability in their lives if they're to grow into intelligent, purposeful, and responsible adults. Such adults can come from a chaotic environment as well but even then, there is usually an element of stability somewhere in their lives: school, a trusted relative, an extracurricular activity, something upon which they can consistently rely.

Disagreeing with your spouse about discipline is fine, so long as the child doesn't learn to use that disagreement to manipulate one of you against the other. By working out a compromise and presenting a united front, you can provide stability for your children while you're still hammering out the particulars. And that united front, even if it's an illusion, offers the temporary stability you'll need to work out a more permanent solution.

Even if that solution is to simply wait and see what happens next.

The Parentelligensia

Most people with children are prone to moments of doubt about how good a job they're doing. They worry about seemingly minor details - should I have fed him something different for lunch? Why is she playing with these blocks instead of those ones? - and wonder, at every step, if they're doing the right thing for their child. These people are called "parents."

A few people with children, however, walk through parenting with the certitude of the righteous. They believe that not only are they doing what is right for their child, they know full well what is right for your child, too. These exemplary specimens of child-rearing brilliance are the "parentelligensia."

The parentelligensia have read every published word on parenting, from Dr. Spock to the latest celebrity mommy confessional, and don't hesitate to casually theory-drop what they've gleaned from the current issue of Parenting or Psychology Today. While there's certainly a great deal of merit in keeping up with parent-oriented periodicals, the parentelligensia have made it part of their life's work.

For most of us, it's enough to merely keep up with the Consumer Product Safety Commission's recall list or consult Consumer Reports before every major purchase. But not for the parentelligensia. They first check the various reports, then surreptitiously (or not) check your home for inferior or dangerous products the next time they drop by, delighting in the opportunity to enlighten you on the unsafe environment in which you are raising your little one.

Clearly, you are not as good a parent as they.

And while most parents are happy to indulge in an occasional spot of bragging at their child's accomplishments, the parentelligensia take it one step further, pointing out in various subtle and not-so-subtle ways that junior's athletic prowess or Ivy League scholarship is due in large part not to their child's hard work or constant practice but to superior parenting. My child did X, therefore I am a better parent than thou.

The true mark of the parentelligensia, however, isn't the obsessiveness of their reading or inability to separate their child's life from their own. Rather, it's their obliviousness to the idea that someone else with a contrary view might be right or - gasp! - that they themselves might be wrong. To hear it from them, there is one way and one way only to be a good parent. And that is the way of the parentelligensia.

The parentelligensia is filled with idiots. They're not idiots because they are stupid or are unwilling to work hard. They're idiots because they think they, and they alone, know how to raise a child "properly." They're the parents who tell your kid's teacher how her lessons should be planned, down to the bathroom breaks. They're the parents who tell your kid's coach how to maximize the potential of every player even though they themselves never played that particular sport. They're the parents who tell your kid directly that the way they do homework or treat their siblings is wrong, not because you said so, but because a magazine article/a book/their mothers said so.

The solution? For you the parent, it's simpler than you think, if you're willing to exercise a little patience: listen, nod, think about sex, wait for the conversation to end. Attempts at refutation will be useless... although, if you're in a snarky mood and quick on your feet, you can respond with some variation of, "Really? Because Howard Gardner - you know, the guy at Harvard who developed the whole multiple intelligences theory? - published a paper just last week that said the exact opposite of everything you just said."

[Note: I picked Howard Gardner because of the large number of schools that have adopted curricula based on multiple intelligences (or so they claim) and, since these eight intelligences collectively describe most human endeavors, you'll probably be covered for at least as long as it takes to get out of the conversation. And, I hear, he's a pretty cool guy.]

For your child, it's a little tougher, especially if they're young. Teenagers usually have the fortitude to either politely hear out an obnoxious adult or simply suggest the adult engage in an anatomically impossible sexual act before walking away. Young children, by which I mean pre-teen or younger, usually have more outward respect for adults and are more likely to believe what they hear. Self-extraction from such a conversation is more difficult for a third-grader than a high school sophomore.

Your child's response in this situation depends on the relationship he or she has built with you, the parent. If your child knows that you'll provide backup in the face of confrontation, and if you've repeatedly spoken to your child about how you want them handle a situation with an otherwise trustworthy adult, odds are good that your child will respond the way you want: ignoring the adult, running away, engaging in conversation (if and only if it's adult they know they can otherwise trust), but, most of all, telling you all about it first chance they get.

If, on the other hand, your child isn't certain that you'll be there for support, they'll respond in whatever way they think is best. And if your kid is eight years old, your idea of what's best probably doesn't match theirs.

Idiot-proofing your child in this case means talking over with him or her how to deal with adults who say things that contradict what you say. The particulars of this conversation should be specific to you and your child, based on your own family values. Whatever you say, though, it should include two things: a default response they can always fall back on - "Daddy said I have to do this or he'll get mad" or "you'll have to talk to Mom about that. I just want my allowance." - and the reassurance that you'll support whatever they do or say, even if it's not what you might want (after all, even the smartest kids forget their lines in a moment of confrontation).

The parentelligensia are convinced that they were put on this Earth for one reason: to share their brilliant parenting tips with the rest of us. They read books, magazines, blogs - perhaps even this one - and use that knowledge to inflate their already overblown sense of themselves, usually at your expense. Just remember that they can take from you only what you allow them. In their obliviousness, they might not even notice that they're getting nothing from you.

If self-awareness is the beginning of wisdom, the parentelligensia are idiots indeed.

In the Beginning...

...there were no idiots. All living humans got along just fine. They worked together, helped raise each other's children, and supported each other in the face of an unforgiving world. Kumbaya.

And then, one day, along came The Idiot. He seemed normal at first. He was articulate, because many idiots are. He was charming, because many idiots get by on their charm. But most of all, he appeared to be the opposite of what he was. He appeared to be intelligent.

And then he decided to breed.

Soon, his progeny appeared. And they grew up, articulate, charming, and deceptively intelligent. They, too, bred. Today, the world is overrun with The Idiot's descendants.

The Idiot is what you make of him. He may be someone of a different faith, a different political party, a different value system. Everyone knows an idiot, but no two people know the same one.

Most idiots are tolerable. They bumble about, believing what they believe, saying what they say, but for the most part leaving you alone. When they don't leave you alone, a simple rebuff - polite or otherwise - is usually all you need. It's all you need because you're an adult.

But what about your kids?

That's where this blog comes in. This blog is about how to help your child when he or she isn't left alone. How do you raise your child in such a way that he or she can politely listen to an idiot, pay attention to what the idiot says, and still avoid falling under the idiot's spell?

This project was inspired by my daughter, who turned one year old this week. Is it possible, I wondered, to raise her in such a way that she listens to others with whom she disagrees and still holds true to what her mother and I teach her? And if it is possible, how do I do it?

Over the coming months, and perhaps years, I hope to find out. I've started contacting parents of various faiths, politics, sexual orientations, and marital statuses for insight into how they are raising their children and how they themselves were raised. All of these parents are accomplished, intelligent individuals who have managed to immerse themselves in the idiocy around them and still keep intact a moral code that guides them through their lives.

As I talk with these parents, I'll try to share their best tips here. And if you have any tips you'd like to offer, please feel free to share them. My other goal is the creation of an intelligent dialogue among people who may not always agree on life's trivialities but who can find common ground in raising the moral, courteous, and intelligent men and women the world will need between this century and the next.