# Tested for Children by Children
**URL:** https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tested-for-children-by-children/35446
**Category:** Psychology and Mind
**Created:** [January 7, 2013, 5:16pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tested-for-children-by-children/35446 "2013-01-07T17:16:48Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@fuse](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/fuse)
#### Post date: [January 17, 2013, 6:18pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tested-for-children-by-children/35446/21 "2013-01-17T18:18:33Z")
[size=85]President Obama signs new gun law proposals as children who wrote letters to the White House about gun violence look on. CNN[/size]
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### Author:  [@Blurry](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Blurry)
#### Post date: [January 17, 2013, 6:32pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tested-for-children-by-children/35446/22 "2013-01-17T18:32:02Z")
So handing a child a book to read and asking them questions to determine how well they comprehended the content is child abuse now?
I knew there was something dodgy about my elementary school teachers. Motherfucker…
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### Author:  [@Kriswest](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Kriswest)
#### Post date: [January 17, 2013, 9:39pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tested-for-children-by-children/35446/23 "2013-01-17T21:39:33Z")
No, now folks let’s let him explain how giving a kid a book to read, then asking the tykes questions about the kiddie orientated books is abuse. He should be able to explain his position far better then he has so far. If its logical and legal we can all sue our parents and teachers. Ooh and sue the schools and governments.But, no one tell my kid.
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### Author:  [@dragon](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/dragon)
#### Post date: [January 19, 2013, 4:55pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tested-for-children-by-children/35446/24 "2013-01-19T16:55:24Z")
> [@Flannel Jesus](#):
>
> How do you know that the children were forced into having responsibilities and making judgements? How do you know it wasn’t a completely voluntary situation? Maybe they were asked, ‘Would you like to read this with me?’ and they wanted to, and then they did, and then they were asked ‘What do you think of it?’ and they answered.
> .
Because I wasn’t born yesterday!!!
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### Author:  [@dragon](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/dragon)
#### Post date: [January 19, 2013, 4:57pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tested-for-children-by-children/35446/25 "2013-01-19T16:57:35Z")
To all:
You are all being extremely naive. If it’s used to sell a book, or anything else for that matter, then it’s abusing somebody.
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### Author:  [@Flannel\_Jesus](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Flannel_Jesus)
#### Post date: [January 19, 2013, 5:33pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tested-for-children-by-children/35446/26 "2013-01-19T17:33:22Z")
I think you were born yesterday.
What do you think? They keep children in a dungeon? How do you imagine the testing goes down?
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### Author:  [@Mr\_Reasonable](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Mr_Reasonable)
#### Post date: [January 19, 2013, 5:44pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tested-for-children-by-children/35446/27 "2013-01-19T17:44:30Z")
I eat kix cereal because its kid tested but mother approved.
Dragon, if mothers approve the books after kids test them…is that OK?
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### Author:  [@Kriswest](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Kriswest)
#### Post date: [January 19, 2013, 6:18pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tested-for-children-by-children/35446/28 "2013-01-19T18:18:34Z")
I am still waiting for the details of abuse.
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### Author:  [@dragon](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/dragon)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2013, 4:48pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tested-for-children-by-children/35446/29 "2013-01-21T16:48:33Z")
> [@Kriswest](#):
>
> I am still waiting for the details of abuse.
There are many ways in which this is an abuse of children. The children who have been asked to read these books are, as it were, being given a “free sample”. The point of giving free samples is to get people hooked so that they will buy more. This is a very common technique.
But over-riding everything, YOU SHOULD KNOW that advertising is NOT benign, NOT in ANY of its aspects. It’s point is to manipulate and control. You only need to know this, and as I said, you SHOULD, to know that naything advertisers do is malign. You also should be able to recognise advertising when you see it, and this blurb about “tested by children” IS ADVERTISING.
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### Author:  [@dragon](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/dragon)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2013, 4:52pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tested-for-children-by-children/35446/30 "2013-01-21T16:52:59Z")
> [@Flannel Jesus](#):
>
> I think you were born yesterday.
>
> What do you think? They keep children in a dungeon? How do you imagine the testing goes down?
I think you have really no idea what constitutes abuse, how subtle it can be. You have probably succumbed to the white-washing done by scientists, businessmen, advertisers and the like to cover their unwholesome activities.
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### Author:  [@Flannel\_Jesus](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Flannel_Jesus)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2013, 5:15pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tested-for-children-by-children/35446/31 "2013-01-21T17:15:26Z")
I actually think I have a relatively wide range of behaviors I’d call ‘child abuse’, more than most people. I consider spanking to be child abuse, most people just consider it ‘discipline’. Lots of other things as well.
One thing I don’t consider child abuse is letting a child read a book and asking the child what he or she thinks of it.
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### Author:  [@statiktech](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/statiktech)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2013, 6:07pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tested-for-children-by-children/35446/32 "2013-01-21T18:07:47Z")
> [@dragon](#):
>
> There are many ways in which this is an abuse of children. The children who have been asked to read these books are, as it were, being given a “free sample”. The point of giving free samples is to get people hooked so that they will buy more. This is a very common technique.
So you don’t think the company doing the testing finds any actual utility in having children read, then provide opinions about, their books. The sole purpose of having children test the books is to get them addicted to product? Even if that were the case—which it plainly isn’t—what is wrong with encouraging children to read and think critically? If they were getting “hooked” as you claim, they’d be getting hooked on reading of all things. What’s the problem?
> [@](#):
>
> But over-riding everything, YOU SHOULD KNOW that advertising is NOT benign, NOT in ANY of its aspects. It’s point is to manipulate and control. You only need to know this, and as I said, you SHOULD, to know that naything advertisers do is malign. You also should be able to recognise advertising when you see it, and this blurb about “tested by children” IS ADVERTISING.
Then where does the abuse come in? The testing by children is prior to advertising. It’s for the benefit of the children. If they are tested and approved prior to selling, parents and children can at least be somewhat confident that they aren’t buying garbage that doesn’t do what it claims to.
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### Author:  [@Only\_Humean](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Only_Humean)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2013, 10:03pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tested-for-children-by-children/35446/33 "2013-01-21T22:03:59Z")
> [@dragon](#):
>
> There are many ways in which this is an abuse of children. The children who have been asked to read these books are, as it were, being given a “free sample”. The point of giving free samples is to get people hooked so that they will buy more. This is a very common technique.
You see, what you do here is to take a metaphor, and then assume it’s not a metaphor. Or maybe you think of community libraries as the equivalent of massive organised drug crime.
> [@](#):
>
> But over-riding everything, YOU SHOULD KNOW that advertising is NOT benign, NOT in ANY of its aspects. It’s point is to manipulate and control. You only need to know this, and as I said, you SHOULD, to know that naything advertisers do is malign. You also should be able to recognise advertising when you see it, and this blurb about “tested by children” IS ADVERTISING.
That doesn’t mean that everything they use to advertise is malign. Sex isn’t malign. Romance isn’t malign. Friendship isn’t malign. These are common themes in advertising.
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### Author:  [@Flannel\_Jesus](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Flannel_Jesus)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2013, 2:25pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tested-for-children-by-children/35446/34 "2013-01-22T14:25:13Z")
They are malign, Humean. You’ve been duped. Laughter is malign. Happiness is malign. Don’t buy into it, it’s abuse bro.
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### Author:  [@Daktoria](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Daktoria)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2013, 3:13pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tested-for-children-by-children/35446/35 "2013-01-22T15:13:18Z")
> [@dragon](#):
>
> I have noticed in my local library that some children’s books, advertised as Dyslexia Friendly, also advertise themselves as having been tested by children.
>
> This attitude to children is very common these days i.e. children are given responsibilities and required to make judgments that ought, in a healthy society, to be the sole responsibility of adults. Publishers are at it, schools are at it….the list is endless. This is extremely bad news.
>
> In a healthy society, children learn by being apprenticed to adults. (This is how young animals learn, after all.) To burden children with the responsibilities of adults is to cause them severe psychological damage. This is child abuse. And it is not just a few “dirty old men” that are at it - every adult in our society is at it.
I agree with this wholeheartedly. It isn’t just in consumer goods you see this either. It’s also in education where it’s perpetually tested by the kids who attend it.
When I was growing up in school, kids that got in trouble were often grilled similarly to the status of an adult in a court of law. This is despite how kids aren’t given legal education. We don’t teach children things like duty of care, burden of proof, reasonable doubt, or plausible deniability. In turn, they’re expected to argue in their own defense despite not necessarily knowing how to do so.
Only those kids born into insider information are capable of defending themselves. That is only kids born with legal contacts or with opportunistic emotions that understand the subjectivity of legal hearings are capable of conducting themselves assertively.
Sometimes, this even results in children being victimized by the more familiar. Those children who know the rules of engagement in legal hearings can anticipate what to do in order to manipulate and exploit the naive. For example, if I’m a bully, and I understand plausible deniability, then I can bully you. When you claim I’ve bullied you, I can simply deny that anything happened. Heck, if I have friends, I can conspire with them to say you’re projecting the bullying done upon me and get you into trouble on top of how I’ve bullied you already.
Another example would be if I understand provocation, I can claim that you provoked me into bullying you such that my response was entirely reasonable.
Coincidentally, a lot of bullying takes place due to the popularity contest influenced by pop culture consumerism. Those kids which don’t indulge are bullied by those who do. Children are taught to either submit to being experimented upon, or get tossed around in the experiment anyway.
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### Author:  [@statiktech](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/statiktech)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2013, 3:26pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tested-for-children-by-children/35446/36 "2013-01-22T15:26:13Z")
What are the rules of engagement in the instance of having a kid read a book and provide an opinion on it? Why would that kid need to defend or assert himself? Why is it reasonable to assume the child in such circumstances is being grilled, provoked, bullied, or taken advantage of in the least?
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### Author:  [@Daktoria](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Daktoria)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2013, 3:28pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tested-for-children-by-children/35446/37 "2013-01-22T15:28:44Z")
> [@statiktech](#):
>
> What are the rules of engagement in the instance of having a kid read a book and provide an opinion on it? Why would that kid need to defend or assert himself? Why is it reasonable to assume the child in such circumstances is being grilled, provoked, bullied, or taken advantage of in the least?
I’m talking about public education as a social environment. Children don’t read books in isolation.
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### Author:  [@statiktech](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/statiktech)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2013, 3:32pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tested-for-children-by-children/35446/38 "2013-01-22T15:32:48Z")
Well, that seem a little off topic, but OK. I figured you were actually agreeing with the OP’s argument that testing books on children is “abuse”.
> [@](#):
>
> Children don’t read books in isolation.
Are you sure about that?
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### Author:  [@Flannel\_Jesus](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Flannel_Jesus)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2013, 3:34pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tested-for-children-by-children/35446/39 "2013-01-22T15:34:46Z")
The post seemed off-topic to me as well.
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### Author:  [@Daktoria](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Daktoria)
#### Post date: [January 22, 2013, 3:38pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/tested-for-children-by-children/35446/40 "2013-01-22T15:38:27Z")
> [@statiktech](#):
>
> Well, that seem a little off topic, but OK. I figured you were actually agreeing with the OP’s argument that testing books on children is “abuse”.
I do agree with the OP. What I’m saying is it goes far beyond what the OP was saying.
Consumer goods are not the only area where “tested for children by children” applies.
If anything, my point should be more important because it’s one of the primary domains where consumer goods are used by children while growing up.
I apologize for editing my first post in this thread, but note what I said at the end.
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