“Particularly prone to serious procrastination problems are children who grew up with unusually high expectations placed on them…or else they exhibited exceptional talents early on, and thereafter “average” performances were met with concern and suspicion from parents and teachers.”
Holy SHIT
WELL THEN
Yep.
They actually tested me for a learning disability in high school because I was consistently failing math.
They discovered that I actually scored in the 80th percentile in that sort of learning.
Problem was, in every other subject, I was in the 99.8th percentile.
I had never learned how to study because I never needed to—and then, when something proved to be even the slightest bit challenging, my brain went
“LOL nope this is impossible abort”
Meanwhile, this entire time I’m scraping by in subjects like English. The assignments I did turn in, I’d score top marks—but I’d avoid turning in projects I didn’t think were “good” enough.
Essentially, my brain had two settings: “100%” or “0%”.
This sort of Baby Genius shit makes kids and adolescents neurotic and self-destructive.
We learned about this in Child Development. And we learned to reward hard work and not good job. Like don’t say to a child, “oh you are so smart.” Say “Oh did worked so hard.”
Be proud of the child, not the achievement.
Be proud of the child, not the achievement.
Decades of research have been done on this by Dr. Carol Dweck. When the emphasis is placed on effort (a factor people can control) rather than talent (an innate skill), it’s a lot easier to see mistakes as a learning opportunity rather than something you just won’t ever be good at. And kids who were encouraged by effort were also more willing to take on more challenging work and considered it a lot more fun, while the kids who were praised for their intelligence were reluctant to put themselves in a situation where they might lose that identifier as a “smart kid” by making mistakes, so they preferred to do work they were confident they could master. Also, the kids praised for effort wanted to compare their results to kids who got higher scores, to see where they made their mistakes, while those praised for intelligence wanted to compare their results to kids who scored lower, to reassure themselves.
Not only does this set up “smart” students for a lot of trouble when they enter college and start being regularly challenged, the effects last long beyond that. It can be very hard for the “you’re so smart!” kids to unlearn as they become adults and struggle with even common adult things, and are afraid to ask for help because of that lesson they learned from misguided praise that they are supposed to be smart and supposed to know the answers.
…Honestly +1 here. It’s very well researched and documented and yeah. Making the emphasis on “You succeed and we are proud of you b/c you are SMART as an intrinsic quality!” makes failure/setbacks/difficulty -TERRIFYING- b/c if you’re “smart” it doesn’t happen and if you fail that means you’re not smart and that’s what everyone’s drilled into you as your main point of worth.
And the rates of anxiety disorders among “gifted student” kids are kinda horrifying.
This is why “you’re so smart” means absolutely nothing to me any more. It’s used as punishment as often as it’s used as praise.
Not Yelling At Children is Better Than Yelling At Children, More At 11
Water is wet? We been knew?
Every time you fucking morons dismiss these things as obvious. Every time you show that for all your “concern”, you know nothing about how these things work.
No matter how obvious, there being studies matters, because next time, when people are denouncing bad parenting and they are asked for scientific proof, instead of saying “Water is wet? We been knew?”, they can point to the study that legitimizes and proves it, and they can say “here’s the evidence, shitheads, now start being good fucking parents/acknowledging the bad that you cause”.
I absolutely hate how infantilized everyone is now like it’s not funny that you don’t know how to boil water you dumb bitch
*Filthy Frank voice* WHERE ARE YOUR PARENTS? WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOUR PARENTS?!
When I got my first job in food service the manager was super excited that I knew how to cut up fruit with a knife without injuring myself, damaging the kitchen, or violating the health code. And I’m just like… this is the bar? How are people failing this? How is the fraction of the population that cannot operate a goddamn knife even significant?
Don’t even get me started on the number of people who make it all the way to college without the ability to clean a fucking bathroom properly.
stop giving smartphones and tablets to toddlers to make them be quiet and start doing some actual parenting omfg
Inability to parent doesn’t stop there, though. I’ve seen multiple three and four year olds crossing a four lane road without holding their parents hands. Some were way ahead, some were lagging behind. All in danger because their parents were careless or more interested in their phones than their child.
Some of these idiots send their kids off to the toy department while they shop everywhere else in the store and if they forget something, when they get to the checkout lane, they’ll send the child to go get the item(s).
Those are the parents who are crying on camera for their local news station because they don’t know where their little jimmy went. I just wanna scream when I see it. It’s like, carol, you could have saved your son from a kidnapping and an almost death if you had just kept him near you, but no. You’re playing life on dumb bitch mode and now your child is suffering for it.
how about this: when i was 9 and my stepdad beat me until i passed out and i told my friends at school, my teacher over heard and i was interviewed by cps. they also went to my house when i was at school. when i got home, my step father was waiting on the couch, and told me who visited him that day. he told me if i ever snitched again he would beat me to within an inch of my life.
how about this: my mother locked me out of the house when i was 14 and when i cried so loud the neighbors called the cops, the cop told me i should have been respectful of my mother who was trying to sleep.
how about this. the demon you know is less scary than the demon you don’t.
children in abused households are raised to fear the idea of being taken away. children in abusive households see that help makes things worse.
dont you ever blame an abuse victim for not going to the authorities.
yes this okay to reblog!
Also, a lot of abused children don’t realize that they’re being abused or the extent of the abuse. It’s their normal. Their minds are formed by their experiences and if all they’ve known is one existence it can be difficult to recognize that it’s wrong
here is an idea: normalise the idea that adopting kids is a valid option even for parents who could conceive a child themselves, and not just an inferior backup option for parents who can’t
ifesbob 