....... seriously..... wat
So. Tuesday, i couldn't remember if Sara had after-school tutoring or not, so I rang her with a store phone about half an hour after she got out, didn't get her, so I left a message I was going to Borders.
Soon as I got to Borders, a book on one of the tables caught my eye "Nuture Shock". Interesting. I pick it up and notice that the books underneath it aren't the same. I glance around and there's not another copy to be seen. Apparently, someone had brought from further back in the store and just deposited it there. Huh. Ok. So I take it to the cafe, get a small coffee and sit down.
Well the meat of it comes down to "Good job, you're smart" = the worst possible praise you can give your child. It de-motivates and gives no framework for dealing with future failures. Basically, if you tell your child the reason why they did so well was because they're 'smart', they think "Well I don't have to work very hard, I just have to be smart." and when they fail eventually, they automatically associate it with not being smart. Which isn't something they can really do anything about. If however, you give specific praise, such as, "Wow, all that hard work really paid off. Good job." They associate their success to their work. If they fail, they associate it with a lack of effort, which they can change.
Why is this important? because I got very little specific praise, and was always told, if not by my parents, then by my teachers that I was 'smart'. before LSMSA, I had one significant failure that I remember. I competed in a math competition and completely bombed it. I had always succeeded, to some extent, in everything I tried. I wrote off my failure as an abberation. But it bothered me.
Then came LSMSA. For the past seven years, after lsmsa, I've fought with the self-assessment that i wasn't the slightest bit intelligent, because I barely made it out. I barely graduated.
And it was all because everyone never said anything other than "Wow, you're smart." and then "Why are you failing?".
Sometimes the whole "Simplest answer is usually true" is damn irritating. I've been struggling with this for Seven Fucking Years. and that's it?
Talk about deflating my anger. Not that that's a bad thing. and this is an easy mindset to adjust. I had been thinking about my ACT score as a "Yea~ I'm smart~ w00t~". Now I've focused on thinking of it as "Man, it paid off to study."
So. Awesome. One more roadblock conqured.
Edit: To finish the start of this story, Sara didn't have after-school tutoring and she ended up waiting for an hour and a half for me to come pick her up. Still feel aweful about that.
Soon as I got to Borders, a book on one of the tables caught my eye "Nuture Shock". Interesting. I pick it up and notice that the books underneath it aren't the same. I glance around and there's not another copy to be seen. Apparently, someone had brought from further back in the store and just deposited it there. Huh. Ok. So I take it to the cafe, get a small coffee and sit down.
Well the meat of it comes down to "Good job, you're smart" = the worst possible praise you can give your child. It de-motivates and gives no framework for dealing with future failures. Basically, if you tell your child the reason why they did so well was because they're 'smart', they think "Well I don't have to work very hard, I just have to be smart." and when they fail eventually, they automatically associate it with not being smart. Which isn't something they can really do anything about. If however, you give specific praise, such as, "Wow, all that hard work really paid off. Good job." They associate their success to their work. If they fail, they associate it with a lack of effort, which they can change.
Why is this important? because I got very little specific praise, and was always told, if not by my parents, then by my teachers that I was 'smart'. before LSMSA, I had one significant failure that I remember. I competed in a math competition and completely bombed it. I had always succeeded, to some extent, in everything I tried. I wrote off my failure as an abberation. But it bothered me.
Then came LSMSA. For the past seven years, after lsmsa, I've fought with the self-assessment that i wasn't the slightest bit intelligent, because I barely made it out. I barely graduated.
And it was all because everyone never said anything other than "Wow, you're smart." and then "Why are you failing?".
Sometimes the whole "Simplest answer is usually true" is damn irritating. I've been struggling with this for Seven Fucking Years. and that's it?
Talk about deflating my anger. Not that that's a bad thing. and this is an easy mindset to adjust. I had been thinking about my ACT score as a "Yea~ I'm smart~ w00t~". Now I've focused on thinking of it as "Man, it paid off to study."
So. Awesome. One more roadblock conqured.
Edit: To finish the start of this story, Sara didn't have after-school tutoring and she ended up waiting for an hour and a half for me to come pick her up. Still feel aweful about that.