[Albatross2008]

Someone shared an excellent piece of advice on Facebook, about not punishing the behavior you *want* to see. That is, giving it some sarcastic response.

Johnny does his chore without being told. Mary and Susie get along well during the road trip. Jennifer is ready for bed on time. Joey passes his history final. Bobby says "please" and "thank you."

The reactions they get are something like:

"Will wonders never cease?"

"Somebody alert the media!"

"What's the matter, are you sick today?"

Pretty much any sentence containing "at last," "finally," "for once," or "for a change."

If failure and success are both punished, where is the motivation to improve? Why even bother?

I couldn't have agreed more. I was that shy, reclusive child who always stayed in my room. First thing family said to me every day was, "It's a miracle! Look who's up!" If they wanted me to be more sociable, this did NOT encourage me to come out of my room more often.

Strange thing is, on the page where this was originally posted, a few commenters were saying people are too soft these days and should learn to deal with sarcasm. Does that sicken you as much as it does me?

[Skeezyks]

Thanks for sharing this perspective. This sort of thing was extremely common back when I was young... many years ago now. It wasn't any more helpful back then than it is now.

[Albatross2008]

One of my father's favorite lines, as we were on our way to somewhere: "OK, kids, let's do something different while we're here. Behave."

Obvious message is, "Under normal circumstances, you don't behave as you should. If you do, it's an exception to the rule."

Low expectations all around.

And for that matter, what does "behave" even mean?