Tag Archives: Children

When Children Die

Interview in NZZ with the leader of the palliative care section at the University of Zurich’s childrens’ hospital:

Wie sprachen [Kinder] darüber [ihre Ahnung, bald sterben zu müssen]?

Ein Kind sagte, es müsse zwei Koffer packen. Den einen nehme es auf seine Reise mit, den anderen lasse es zu Hause, damit es nicht vergessen werde. Ein anderes wollte auf einem Besen in den Himmel reiten. Ich habe auch schon ein kleines Kind erlebt, das kaum sprach und plötzlich zu seinen Eltern sagte, wie lieb es sie habe. Das war unglaublich berührend. Im Moment, als es das sagte, war der Satz noch nicht als Zeichen der Verabschiedung deutbar. Manchmal merken wir erst im Rückblick, dass das Kind gespürt hat, was kommt.

Was sagen Sie, wenn ein Kind Sie fragt, ob es bald sterben werde?

Das werde ich äusserst selten gefragt. Kinder fragen auch ihre Eltern nicht. Wenn, dann eher das Reinigungspersonal oder eine Lehrerin.

Weshalb?

Sie schützen die Eltern. Das heisst aber nicht, dass sie diese Frage nicht haben.

Human Intelligence and Helpless Infants

The Economist reports about research by Steven Piantadosi and Celeste Kidd from the University of Rochester who tried to explain why humans tend to be intelligent. Their answer: Because human babies are extraordinarily helpless when compared with other animals.

… human infants take a year to learn even to walk, and need constant supervision for many years afterwards [indeed]. That helplessness is thought to be one consequence of intelligence—or, at least, of brain size. In order to keep their heads small enough to make live birth possible, human children must be born at an earlier stage of development than other animals. …

… helpless babies require intelligent parents to look after them. But to get big-brained parents you must start with big-headed—and therefore helpless—babies. The result is a feedback loop, in which the pressure for clever parents requires ever-more incompetent infants, requiring ever-brighter parents to ensure they survive childhood.

Crime and Punishment

In a blog post, Alex Tabarrok argues that Gary Becker was wrong to argue that an optimal punishment system combines a low detection and punishment risk with a very severe punishment conditional on detection. Tabarrok argues:

We have now tried that experiment and it didn’t work. Beginning in the 1980s we dramatically increased the punishment for crime in the United States but we did so more by increasing sentence length than by increasing the probability of being punished. …

Why did the experiment fail? Longer sentences didn’t reduce crime as much as expected because criminals aren’t good at thinking about the future; criminal types have problems forecasting and they have difficulty regulating their emotions and controlling their impulses. … As if that weren’t bad enough, by exposing more people to criminal peers and by making it increasingly difficult for felons to reintegrate into civil society, longer sentences increased recidivism.

Instead of thinking about criminals as rational actors, we should think about criminals as children. … So what is the recommended parenting approach? … one thing all recommendations have in common is that the consequences for inappropriate behavior should be be quick, clear, and consistent.