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[MetalSlimeHunt]

What you have to understand is that children that young are in Stage One of Kohlberg's Moral Development. It's egocentrically based, and they're driven by avoiding punishment. This is never an excuse to try and make them raise up to Stage Two, however. You may have to end a conflict with a stage one with "Because if you don't I'll [insert punishment here]", but that isn't how one should start the conflict. Just limiting it to that ensures that they will never progress.

[MonkeyHead]

Personally and prefessionally speaking, I learnt early on that trying to reason with children doesnt work. Often they are in the position of weakness in any potential conflict, and have little to lose by being stubborn and demanding - any gains are a bonus when starting with nothing. That and very few people below late teeage years understand the concept of concession and reward.

[MorleyDev]

My parents tactic for teaching me about getting things that take money was genius: On holidays, I would be given so much money for the fortnight. Not only was it entirely my responsibility to budget myself with this money, but they would allow me to keep any money remaining when we returned home to spend on whatever I wanted.

Soon they started giving me pocket money when not on holiday, and since I'd already learnt budgeting and saving money...yeah For me at least, it worked rather well.

[MonkeyHead]

Only drawback I can see with that is initially establishing with a child that there isnt going to be anymore when the given amount runs out - an "I want more" tantrum" would probably happen with an individual with lower emotional maturity once they are spent out.

[MorleyDev]

I can see how that'd be a problem. But if I tried that they'd threaten to put me in one of those children play ground holiday pens. Since they'd done it before (thinking I'd enjoy it) and discovered I hated those with a fiery passion that cannot be named, it was an effective threat ^^ Gotta work with what you got.

There's no one best way to raise a child, you have to know the ways that work best with the child's personality. If there's one thing parents can not control, it's the personality that develops in their children. They can accidentally screw it up, they try and nudge it in the right direction, but they can't really control it.

Some people need promises of more if they behave. Some people need a leash. Some people need a good smacking. Humans are a mixed bag.

[MonkeyHead]

Seems a theme emerging is that if a child is aware of the boundaries and consequences for breaking those boundaries (if they are firmly and consistantly applied),  it will behave. Whilst this isnt much of a suprise, it does have implications for those that dont form boundaries and apply punishment...

[Bdthemag]

Am I the only person who finds it odd some people are refering to kids by using the word it?

[Heron TSG]

'it' is easier to type than 'he/she'.

[RedKing]

"they" is a perfectly appropriate 3rd person indefinite singular.

Yeah, I'm a little bothered by the use of "it" as well. I don't even call my dog "it".

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Indeed, I don't consider the use of "it" alright until you get down to anonymous animals, and not standard until you get to insects and bacteria.

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

I call The Boy "it".

I call both of my brothers The Boy. It's a kind of joke, I guess.

[MorleyDev]

Actually if you use google to look up the definition of it:

Link
it/it/Pronoun
1. Used to refer to a thing previously mentioned or easily identified.
2. Referring to an animal or child of unspecified sex.

[Vector]

Yeah, it's the lack of using it for adult humans as well that's telling.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I hardly care about the official definition. It just feels demeaning to use "it" in reference to a child, and that's not going to be alright with me. Children are just as much people as adults are, and so deserve equal pronouns.

[Starver]

If you'll forgive me for dragging a Fortress happening into the RL-area of the forums, I have a screen-shot here of a battle report where the Soldier Ant Woman Blowgunner is referred to as "It".

(As in: "The Forgotten Beast attacks The Soldier Ant Woman Blowgunner but It jumps away!", but that's nowhere near as entertaining as "The spinning forgotten beast frozen extract[1] laced with Temptednail's[2] antman ichor strikes The Soldier Ant Woman Blowgunner in the head, shattering the chitin!" and, because the FB is setting absolutely everything on fire, both "The Forgotten Beast is caught in a burst of boiling spider venom!" and "The Forgotten Beast is caught in  a burst of forgotten beast flame!")

I'm not saying this is correct (probably due to the peculiarity of how Toady had to represent a transfer to mamallian gender types under the non-mamallian caste-based drone/worker/soldier subdivisions of the insect-race-made-humanoid in question, from the raws), but it is an example.


Back to the Real World, I'd personally, I'd use "They".  Then, if there was opportunity to edit my output I'd start hearing all the voices in my head of the countless people who have insisted that "They" is not a correct word for a singular use (to a similar degree that I might condemn the usage of phrases like "PIN Number" or "ATM machine" in theirs) and, if I could, re-write the sentence so as to be able to use some other phrasing that neither suffers so directly from genderlessness (or arbitrary gender assignment, typically but not always male, which could be seen as assuming some aspect to the only partly identified individual concerned) nor tries to assign the plural reference that some people abhor so.

Sometimes it takes an awful lot of rephrasing to get a result I'm happy with, but if one has a reputation for pedantry and doesn't wish to be hoist by ones[3] own petard...  I know I'm probably going to get caught out by the Pedant's Curse anyway, possibly due to bad or incomplete editing, but I don't want to knowingly leave any low-hanging fruit.


[1] "A towering blob of flame.  It has three narrow tails and it has a gaunt appearance.  Beware its deadly spittle!"

[2] The SAWB's titular name, acquired when she killed her first FB and became "Friendly".  She's dead now, thanks to the above FB, though.  But it looks like she injured it in some way.

[3] I know that the possessive of "one", as in the "indefinite personal pronoun", should be ended with Apostrophe-S, but I have this over-riding feeling that it should belong to the set of "irregular possessives" that forgo the apostrophe (and in several cases don't even terminate with an "s"!), i.e.: me, you, him, her, it, them, us => my, your, his, hers, its, their, our, (etc...)