Ball And Chain To Force Children To Study 346
You haven't tried everything to get your kids to study until you've tried the Study Ball. The Study Ball is a 21-pound prison-style device that locks onto your child's leg and only unlocks after a predetermined amount of study time has passed. The homework manacles can't be locked for more than four hours, and come with a safety key. The product website states, "Quite often, students who are having problems concentrating tend to get up every ten minutes to watch TV, talk on the phone, take something out of the fridge, and a long list of other distractions. Were they to dedicate all this wasted time to studying, they would optimise their performance and have more free time available. Study Ball helps you study more and more efficiently." Stop Teasing Your Brother Pepper Spray coming soon.
Straight out of the Stainless Steel Rat books (Score:3, Interesting)
The sons Harry Harrison's famous sci-fi super-criminal, the "Stainless Steel Rat," were sent to the harshest military academy in known space, because no other institution would be able to get them to do even a little of their studying. Apparently, the boys did do their studies because the instructors kept recapturing them and chaining them to their desk. As a side effect, they also became expert lockpicks.
http://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Stainless-Steel-Harry-Harrison/dp/0441004229/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242671490&sr=8-1 [amazon.com]
Re:Laughably Medieval (Score:5, Interesting)
And despite what various extremist think-of-the-children types will say.. I`m not some seething bottle of rage who has flashbacks of getting yelled at and attacks people at random as a result.
Yeah. I got spanked as a kid -- there's a difference between "spanking" and "beating" -- and honestly all my worst memories and issues regarding my parents are from when they hurt me emotionally, not physically. Some of those spanking straightened me out faster than anything else could have when I really needed to be straightened out, yet I got over the physical pain almost immediately. On the other hand things my parents might say, not even in the context of discipline, stuck in my craw for years.
Now of course there are parents that go to far and beat their kids too hard or too often and it loses all meaning and simply becomes abuse.
Outside of that extreme, I'm much more horrified by the parents who use guilt and passive-aggression to "discipline" their kids than the ones who spank their ass and then say what's done is done.
Re:Laughably Medieval (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, if you watch Better Off Ted, I think the character Ted is supposed to show someone completely lacking of any personality disorders. Part of the show's charm is how totally unrealistic he is.
I suspect a psychiatrist could find something wrong with his unusually cheerful demeanor and prescribe something right away.
Pay kids to go to school. Really. (Score:5, Interesting)
America is the richest nation on earth, with the most riches available for those who can pay for them. So:
Introduce an educational pay scale for students, starting aged 8, with remuneration based on performance and attendance. The scale is designed to ensure you are at least financially independent from your parents by the time you leave college, provided you have managed your education well enough: hounded out bad teachers, rejected time-wasting crap like sports, ensured you have plenty of teaching in things like mechanical engineering, bio-tech and accounting. You'll be able to afford the finest recreational sex, electronics and politicians by the time you are 20 -as long as you keep up the good grades and attendance. At that point, you should not only want to get a high-paying job in order to keep you in the style to which you have become accustomed, but be able to so so.
America then becomes the world's most highly-educated nation, and the world's most successful economy, in one generation.
Best of all, it would probably cost the country about the same as it does to pay for recreational "incentives" like balls on a chain.
This can't possibly end well (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Laughably Medieval (Score:2, Interesting)
Do you know for sure that you wouldn't have done as well or better without this sort of punishment?
Re:Laughably Medieval (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Laughably Medieval (Score:1, Interesting)
in the west, intelligence is ridiculed, as shown by parent post trying to use generalizations they know aren't true.
Is it surprising that if cool means !smart then kids will try to be dumb and cool rather than study? With this attitude, a lock will just enforce the uncoolness of studying.
In Japan, intelligence is valued, and the cool kids at school were both the smart and the athletic, and some were both. They have problems with kids studying TOO much.
Re:Laughably Medieval (Score:5, Interesting)
Wow... physical punishment works, yes?
Ok, there is the argument that you can reason with kids yes? So hence we must use physical punishment...
So here is an argument saying the physical punishment is actually very wrong. DOGS...
Can you reason with a dog? I don't think so... Dogs have the intelligence of about 1 year old. Dogs do react to discipline, much more than a human actually.
And the thing is how do you train a dog? By beating it? Sure it will listen to you, but out of fear. Will a beaten dog protect you? Not likely.
A dog is trained by non-contact discipline and paying attention to the needs of the dog. When a dog is made part of the "pack" it actually becomes a protector of the pack.
If people paid a bit more attention to this maybe people would understand that physical punishment is a weak response to not being able to deal with the situation.
BTW I was physically punished quite a bit, but it did nothing to change my habits. It only made more sneaky...