A Blanket Training Tutorial

[Kitty]

Well, I guess it's more comfortable than the alternative she lists:

Playing on a pin would be painful.

Never mind angels, I guess quiverfullers argue about how many offspring can dance on the head of a pin. ;)

I also shudder at the words "first time obedience" and, of course, "training." And I agree that the space is too small and the time too long.

And I have my suspicions about the "tap the corners of the blanket and say no" crap. I imagine a little one have learned that a "tapping" parental hand and the word "no" were significant because of previous contact with that hand. Why not just place the child back on the blanket?

For that matter, why not make the blanket so rewarding that a short disappearance of parental attention is not bothersome?

Even at the level of simplistic behaviorism, these people fail.

And, of course, she could just be lying about whether she hits the child. :(

I'm glad someone else has suspicions about it too, but I had slightly different ones. How hard do you have to tap the floor around the blanket to get the point across? Just a light tap wouldn't do-- either the little one would associate a sharper tap and the "no" with previous experience, or the "tap" is pretty loud, and you're using something babies find quite unpleasant to get them to behave the way you want them to. I'm convinced that beyond the obvious fundie-speak and Christianese, fundies' ravings are all written in layers and layers of code that sane people can't hope to understand.

At least there was a small box of toys available in the post, but I think a lot of fundies would miss out on that, considering they severely restrict their children's toys or have a communal toy chest. These people do fail at having a basic understanding of behavior.

[thoughtful]

I'm glad someone else has suspicions about it too, but I had slightly different ones. How hard do you have to tap the floor around the blanket to get the point across? Just a light tap wouldn't do-- either the little one would associate a sharper tap and the "no" with previous experience, or the "tap" is pretty loud, and you're using something babies find quite unpleasant to get them to behave the way you want them to. I'm convinced that beyond the obvious fundie-speak and Christianese, fundies' ravings are all written in layers and layers of code that sane people can't hope to understand.

At least there was a small box of toys available in the post, but I think a lot of fundies would miss out on that, considering they severely restrict their children's toys or have a communal toy chest. These people do fail at having a basic understanding of behavior.

You're right -- the tap itself could be the aversive, depending on how it is done, even if the child didn't have unpleasant associations with a quickly-descending hand or object.

And, yes, one has to read between the lines with these schmucks. Euphemisms abound.

BTW, this comes up in animal training, as well. For example, "correction," to most people, means telling the learner "oops -- not that - this," which can, of course, be done quite gently. So you might imagine that, when you read that you are supposed to "correct" your dog, it means something like calling "come" if he is walking away.

But, to "must dominate them" trainers, it is a euphemism for applying an aversive, usually pain -- usually a jerk on the leash (which is attached to a choke collar) or a zap with a shock collar. So, what they write and say can sound benign to the uninitiated. But, if you substitute "briefly and repeatedly choke/shock your animal" whenever you read "correct," you get a better sense of what they are saying.

As ever, it blows me away that people not only want to control children with simplistic strict behaviorism, but that they then choose to use the nastiest part of it, which most people with a clue don't even use on animals any more. :(

[urban teacher]

Blanket training to my puppy means pee on the blanket because I missed her cues to go out.

[precious_one]

Blanket training is a crock of shit.

As someone else said up thread play pens, play yards, and even a gated off baby proofed room is fine to use. Usually the play pen ended being the toy box because my kids had too many toys. My favorite thing to use for the moments when I needed to get something done was the walker (I know it is not recommended today) was because they would just follow follow me around. Usually I did things such as cleaning and showering when they were either asleep or my husband was home to entertain them. My husband had to actually leave the house and go work somewhere 8 to 12 hours a day that is something a lot of fundie men don't know about.