An unrewarding success
I have a feeling in this day and age we make normal special. Every child is celebrated for every achievement, no matter what the result. I agree that every child is special, unique and beautiful but, this process is doing harm.
Rather than invest the energy required to find out what a child's gifts are, we throw them into a variety of tasks with all of the other kids and no matter if they do well or poorly, they get hoisted on to the shoulders for a victory lap.
I think this has two core problems when it comes to motivation. Firstly, the kids that are doing well feel no benefit for doing so. And the kids that are doing poorly have no incentive to look further afield for their real talent or understand their skill gaps, they are doing well after all.
Encourage children to try many things, but let them fail at many too. I think it is through this failure that we build our sense of self, our determination and learn when to push on and, when to stop. The lessons in failure far outstrip success for value, and the whittle and hone the toolset and prepare the mind and body for a long, arduous and meaningful life.
The issue with the continual celebration of mediocre is that it becomes the reward for the achievement, like ice cream. Eat your dinner and you get dessert. The dinner is eaten for the reward not out of understanding of the requirements why a healthy meal is important. What happens when they have their own resources and no supervision?
People can of course argue that they are just children. Of course they are. Don't treat them like Tamagochis. A ten year old today has the possibility to live past 120 or more in decent condition with the coming advancements in a variety of fields. That is a long time to be mediocre, overweight and still without a passion.
Most of the core patterns of behaviour are developed in early childhood and once set, are difficult to change. Setting achievement bars low mean that someone can feel that sense when they get a high score on a mobile game.
Meaning of life achieved without achieving anything.
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
I think this may be part of a larger problem where fewer of our rewards are truly meaningful. As society gets richer many things get much easier to acquire and thus less meaningful; my grandparents' generation have stories about how big a deal it was to get a whole banana.
As we mindlessly try to move up the ladder of value, success leads to buying cars and houses as status symbols and trying to fake that it feels like a reward. Which is turn leads to defining success as having the most fake rewards, and builds a vicious cycle.
Figuring out how to organically motivate and reward people is one of the biggest questions for me as we approach a post-scarcity society. Things like UBI can manage the resource issue but they don't manage the motivation issue.
How do we figure out better what we value and use that to drive us toward our best selves?
This is indeed the issues and we can already see that most people will avoid work (including the things they enjoy) to rather be entertained through consumption activities. The UBI will likely increase this substantially. What do we do when we don't have to do anything? Nothing, by all observation. People want to retire to a tropical island and sip Daquiris and if they can do that at 30, they are successful. The masters of old would be ashamed at how frivolously we live life these days.
Daiquiris, oddly enough, are one of humanity's most-difficult-to-produce inventions. Both sugar cane production and fruit production rely heavily on exploitative labor practices and unsustainable resource use. (At least we're pretty good at ice.)
If we can get the system to the point where it sustainably automates daiquiri production, we'll really be at a point where everyone can sit around drinking them if they really want to. I like a good daiquiri every once in a while but that seems pretty boring.
learn something new every day... I have never had one ;)
As much as celebrating little achievements are important, teaching kids the important lesson of learning from their mistakes is also important--Managing failure is important. Many people grow without knowing how to handle setbacks which are usually a lot in life. People grow and feel entitled to success and when they are no longer getting their little carrots they become resentful or depressed.
From our failures we can learn valuable lessons that can help us make a better decision by avoiding certain mistakes we might have made in the past.
So, in a nutshell, we need to find a balance between both.
Another issue that comes from this is the shock when they get older and make a complete fool of themselves in an actual competative situation. I remember watching some talent contest and the entrant was an appalling singer and was told as much. Apparently his mum had told him his whole life that he was amazing. It was actually really hard to see his reaction. His mum certainly never did him any favours doing that.
I see it in gymnastics too. Girls who have trained and competed in the elite section where there are hardly any competitors and are used to always getting medals. Then they down size back to national level and discover they aren't as special as they thought and no longer get medals. There are also those who have natural talent and never work at it, then wonder why those that weren't naturally talented, but worked hard, are surpassing them.
It has so many effects across people's lives and I think is a major reason for some forms of depression as people are essentially encouraged not to do the work but, expect the outcomes of doing the work. It is a conflict in position and comes with disappointment, which would be fine but unfortunately, the same people haven't the skills to deal with the disappointment either.
Yes, precisely because they don't learn to cope as children when it's something that isn't so important and they have the support of adults to help them develop the coping mechanisms.
I totally agree with you. Overprotective parents do a lot more damage than they think, some even unknowingly. If you aren't failing, you aren't learning
I think there is also a social pressure component and parents are made to feel bad for exposing their children to failure even though the group knows it is their job to introduce disappointment.
Kids are intelligent, we can't overprotect their feelings at the expense of their development as functional and successful people.
Indeed, @tarazkp Most of the main behaviors are set in early childhood and once, it is difficult to change. But they should be careful that they can try anything from infancy
This should be required reading! Great Post.
Thank you. I wonder who should read it :)
What manner of wisdom is this?
I wish many parents and aspiring parents can come into the light of this statement. We should not impose on children, we should allow them to discover themselves through many attempts to get things done.
Thank you always, you are an inspiration.
Many people just think about achieved. This is good things, may be this post can be good things to share to others.
It's very important to encourage kids to try different things, but without failing once in a while they don't really learn how life actually is. If everything is always great then they never feel challenged and will probably take this with them into adulthood. That's a very interesting topic and I think it's great that you're sharing your concerns with us :)