Incidentally, I recall Carl Sagan writing (in a book I had to review for the press) that, if you want to keep a chimpanzee entertained royally for days, you just give it a mirror and a selection of hats. The resulting joy and hilarity are unconfined, both for the chimpanzees and the human observers. It does not matter if the chimpanzee is male or female.

My position has been clear, and I've expressed it directly to you. A child does not have the capacity to make these kinds of determinations, whether it's drugs, or what gender they are, and ultimately these decision can only be made by a more mature version of themselves. They should be validated, but not reinforced, because that reinforcement has huge consequences in how they develop, and may, or may not be of their own violation.



I do, and I've stated as much. It's not a binary decision, and one that does not have to be made, encouraged, or discouraged. The idea that even well meaning positive reinforcement does not **** with peoples identities and personalities in negatives ways is so contrary to the understanding how children develop, it's almost on the verge of malpractice, when it comes to what these "experts" are telling parents to do regards to children who are not much older than toddlers, and flies in the face of everything we know about child psychology.

For instance, you don't positively embrace a 7 year old when they talk about sex. You take a much more neutral stance, like, "I love your curiosity, but that's something we will have to talk about when you get older".

Just a quick question, do you understand why primate studies are particularly done to understand human behavior? Also, different levels of estrogen/testosterone will effect preferences even before socialization. I saw the study awhile back, I will try and find it for you.

https://academic.oup.com/jcem/articl...1/5119/2823336

It has been argued that the masculinization of play behavior that has been seen in girls with CAH can be attributed to parental influence due to expectations of a more masculine behavior in these girls triggered by the virilization of external genitalia at birth (13). Our results do not support this view. When a parent was present, there was no difference in toy play for the girls with the most severe form of CAH, and the girls with less severe forms of CAH played less, rather than more, with masculine toys.

I don't remember every point you ever made simply because I am speaking and debating with a lot of people here in this thread. The points that really come to mind when I see your avatar though is your constant attempts to psychoanalyze people and complain about this or that attempt at this or that. That said, I'll take it you hold a zero transition policy, in any form including social transitioning, until the age of 18, when they are legal adults. If not, feel free to correct me.

What evidence do you have that it is bad to give positive reinforcement to trans children for certain behaviors? I am curious how you would raise a trans child and to what extent you would not allow a child to dress in certain clothes. What if they snuck out and did it? Some parents have an open drug policy, as long as you let the parent know, then you can do drugs or drink alcohol. Pretty sure that has saved a few lives in the States i.e. drunk driving from a party. Would you go so far as show negative reinforcement to that child in order to possibly correct their behavior in your attempts to prevent a false negative, as you call it?

That is your opinion on how someone should raise their child. I would handle it differently. If my child talked about sex at 7, I would discuss it with them. I think a 7 year old could handle the birds and the bees. Better to hear it from me than someone else. That's a far cry from "positive embrace" though.

I'm really too busy with work to have anything more to do with this thread, but I would push back on the idea that conditioning can change one's gender identity. It seems that gender identity is so ingrained that I don't know you could just change that in someone.

This is a doctor saying this, when kids want to be marshmallows at that age, and he says they know, with conviction, what they are. Not to mention, and more importantly, it ignores Law of effect. Kid's will contort their own self-image for parents approval.

I’ve seen people become marshmallows when they reach middle age.

hardly a doctor, a psychologist. A lot of them are quacks.

They are not quacks. People in general do not do critical thought very well. It's essentially, learn a bunch of stuff from experts, then repeat that, and if any questions come up they are certain the experts have already thought of it, and the position still holds true. Conforming has merit. Then you have the opposite of the spectrum, those who are skeptics, and they can be just as irrational.

It amazes me a doctor would say something like that, almost certainly in the face of empirical evidence he's seen himself, with other personality issues that derived from parental influence. A seven year old will mold his behavior based on his parents response. This creates a problem when the kid turns out not to be trans.

You've been asked to provide some support beyond your opinion. I think you are arguing in the framework of what you think gender identity, which is likely wrong. You seem to think it's something like, for example, wanting to be a baseball player to please dad.

stfu

We are back to the no evidence, despite linking a source for you to start learning about behavior conditioning (it's only controversial, debatable to people like you). I would engage with you on the topic, but your oversimplification tells me you really don't know anything about it. It's just frustrating you all talk about "experts", but dont' have the first clue when it comes to what the actual research says about identify development, outside trans specific stuff, stuff you get from the "experts", which the research of identify contradicts the "experts".


Read this:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...5.2008.00567.x

Or any number of peer reviewed research that tells you kids identity is heavily influenced by their parents. This is not about overbearing dads (and the problems that issue creates).


All you have to do is read the research on identity development. There is a bunch on it. Again, the issue is not trans folks that are helped, but the innumerable false positives that's being created as result. Some parents will do it with good intentions, but the bad parents....the bad parents are the ones who push this on their kids, and the kids will conform...and might end up living a lie, without really knowing it, until much later.

Im curious who these "bad parents" are and what exactly it is you think they are doing. Are you suggesting some form of Munchausen syndrome by proxy?

Read the wiki article I posted. Operant conditioning.


People (and especially children) will repeat behaviors that results in positive reinforcement from people/parents, and will stop doing the behavior, if it results in negative reinforcement. This is known as Thorndike's law of effect.


This is backed up by tons of research. Kids repeat things that bring them positive attention, even if it's not entirely true/accurate.

This part is important:

We've reinforced behaviors, quite well, using this method, and in most cases, it's the natural response to conditioning desirable/acceptable behavior.


As far as your question, as ignorant as it is when it come to the parent/child dynamic...


Children see their parent as gods, who can do no wrong, even when the behavior is clearly bad to most adults. A kid does not know any better, because they have not grown up, and have very little experience, or knowledge to derive a competent opinion about who they are, themselves, and is largely predicated on how the parent views them, and their behavior. (A kid will argue about the authority being unfair, but they rarely argue about the parent being wrong)

This is known psychological stuff, that is completely ignored when it comes to trans issues, and kids. How many kids have been taught they are not gay, and the kids buy into it (at least until they mature, and realize what's going on)?

Cool story bro. So should parents reinforce behavior in line with the recommendations of relevant medical experts, or should they reinforce the opposite of those recommendations?

Always fun to see people like itshot pushing theories developed by known eugenicists.

...

That's what the "experts" think of him.

So what makes a parent good and a parent bad in your previous post?

Lets say we have two parents, Parent A and Parent B. Parent A has a trans child. Parent B has a "false negative". For simplicity sake, there is no apparent difference between the child of Parent A and the child of Parent B.

All of a sudden Parent A is good but Parent B is bad?

You say you aren't, but it looks like you are seeing this as black and white in certain areas. Children are not so easily programmed. I have two cousins that went to one of the best high schools in the nation, was sheltered from many things and they received perfect grades and went on to really good colleges. Within their first year of college, they ended up doing a bunch of drugs and dropping out. You can try to shelter your children from "bad" things, but it doesn't mean you are preparing them properly for the harsh realities of the world.

I personally think social transitioning is good and should be a part of the process to receiving blockers or hormone therapy. Maybe something like a minimum of 2 years of social transitioning, which I believe other countries require, with regular check ups and analysis to even qualify for more advanced treatment.

Does the citation count disprove that he was a proponent of eugenics?

Behaviorism as a whole hasn't been used in psychology since the 1950s. Cognitive psychology is now widely used and does not follow along with the law of effect. You are using outdated science to try to prove a point.

Which parent is more likley to generate false positives, a manipulative parent, one with altruistic intentions, but relies s on the doctor for what's best, or the one who actually researches behavior in children, and then learns about what the experts says about this particular topic, then coalesce the two?

Look at the activist, MrWookie, master, who out of pocket rejects the behavior science of one of the most prominent physiologist of the 20th century?





It is black and white. No one has refuted the Law of effect.



This is about encouraging a child to do something...that may or may not be in line with how the child really feels, and can have demonstrably lasting identity issues, and the child won't really be able to speak for themselves until they mature.

wow..


It's in a g'd text book!

The way you framed it appears that you are projecting behavior, intentions, and actions onto the parents. I am pretty sure a parent can be both supportive and do the research. I mean, a lot of these parents with 3 to 7 year olds now are millennials and we won't even go for a cup of coffee without checking out the 3 best alternatives and quadruple check the positive and negative reviews of each.

Well, when I said earlier that "this is not black and white" you seemed to agree by commenting that "it's not a binary decision" so I assumed you were agreeing with me, I guess not and you do view it as black and white.

I really think you are overvaluing operant conditioning and underestimating the complexities of parenting. It just isn't that simple. Don't get me wrong, positive/negative reinforcement works great for dogs and small children, but you cannot program a child to adulthood this way.

So if a parent, unsolicited, tells a child, "You know, it's ok if you are trans or gay, never be afraid to tell me who you are inside, I will love you no matter what." Is that bad parenting?

Go learn about psychology, then developmental psychology, then you can start making these claims. I've tried to be nice, and lead you along, but you have such a poor understanding of both...


You mean they listen to "experts", instead of deciding for themselves.



The issue is black and white, the solution, the solution runs into criticism because it flies in the face of some long-standing psychological principals with nothing to support that reversal, and no such reversal in other aspects of identity development.

Yes, you can. All the research I've read does not go out the window because you said so. Show me the research. I want the research/studies that are informing the "experts". It seems hard to come by....for some reason.