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Haven't finished the article yet, but I already see several red flags as to where they got things wrong: 1. Self-esteem is a byproduct of self-compassion, not

Haven't finished the article yet, but I already see several red flags as to where they got things wrong: 1. Self-esteem is a byproduct of self-compassion, not external awards or compliments. External stuff produces other-esteem and yeah, it's the root of narcissism 2. They tried to produce self-esteem through removing any chance of suffering. Teaching people how to respond to suffering would've been much more productive. 3. Describing someone to themselves can be unintentionally harmful when judgment or comparison is used, whether it be positive or negative. This article shows how positive judgments (ie. compliments/praise) can be harmful. If anyone's interested in a functional alternative, I highly recommend the book "Nonviolent Communication."

strictfp 9y ago
I'm not so sure I buy into that theory of yours any more than the article. My personal theory is that self-esteem arises from the fact that you are aware of your acceptance in a social group. Knowing that you are welcome calms you and gives that assertive vibe. I don't think it matters how much you believe in yourself. At least not beyond a basic level. In fact, believing too much in a non-conforming self makes you a narcissist, and believing too much in a conforming self makes you vain.
- csydas 9y ago
  I would agree with this, and also that the 'damage' caused by "Everyone gets a trophy" is overstated immensely. My experience having coached children's basketball was that the consolation and participation prizes did little to nothing to console the children when they lost. Even if they got a ribbon or a tiny participation trophy, it didn't change their sour mood over losing unless the children genuinely weren't that interested in the competition to begin with, in which case I don't really think there's a problem in not being that invested in a competition. Undeserved praise and adoration does have negative side effects, and it likely isn't the healthiest way to raise children, but the over-emphasis on celebrating participation isn't the society ruining factor people make it out to be. At worst it's probably just a waste of resources and effort. On the other-hand, parents over-stressing and vicariously experiencing competition through their children is a very real problem, and the behavior of some of the adults I would see at gradeschool basketball games was just shocking, especially given that it was low division schools, so mostly just after-school sports. (i.e., there was no professional path here or proper competition for any child looking to take a chance at professional play someday - it was a bunch of 8 year olds running around the court, most of which couldn't even throw the ball high enough to reach the rim of the lowered basket). To see parents yelling and screaming at their kids to shove and hurt other children in order to win was just ridiculous.
  - J-dawg 9y ago
    On the subject of "everyone gets a trophy", I can't believe this still happens, because I've only ever heard it described in derisory terms. I've never heard anyone say "the school gave my kid a 14th place ribbon, how cute!". It's always "can you believe they give out ribbons for 14th place now?!" Kids are pretty astute at picking up on this stuff, and I expect that being given a 14th place ribbon just feels a little sad and pathetic to a kid. It probably doesn't do any real harm either, apart from contributing to landfill waste!
    - sailfast 9y ago
      Most of the time kids just get "season" markers. Like, "Thanks for playing on our soccer team 2017" which I don't see as that harmful. They're trophies sometimes, simple white plastic base with some gold circle or whatever (at least the few times I've seen it) - it's a nice way to close out the season and have something on the shelf to remember, not a huge deal. I think kids notice when the trophy says "First Place." I know I knew the difference.
      - Bartweiss 9y ago
        Yep. I've never actually seen a "14th place" ribbon, because I think even optimists know it would just be read as an insult. All I actually got were 'participation' awards, which were basically a trinket to remember the team or event by. There was a "protect kids self-esteem" bit, but that was entirely at the top end - there was no trophy saying "First Place". I certainly never saw trophies 'celebrating' losses.
    - brians 9y ago
      By contrast, my kids (all <8) are highly motivated to go to swim class on cold days by the ribbons given out—every participant, every class.
      - Bartweiss 9y ago
        I wonder how much of this 'debate' is actually just people talking about different age groups? A participation ribbon might well have motivated me at age 6, and frankly I doubt both the morality and common sense of anyone saying a six year old is too happy at a swim class. Keeping kids involved at that age seems like the biggest goal. On the other hand, I have annoyed memories of getting participation ribbons at 15 for doing terribly in races. They felt downright insulting, because I knew exactly how I'd done and I was basically getting a ribbon for taking a bus to the meet. A shocking number of educational issues seem to boil down to "6 year olds are not 15 year olds". That, and "offering things is better than enforcing them" - participation ribbons are way better than banning score-keeping, which I also got to see.
- sametmax 9y ago
  > I don't think it matters how much you believe in yourself That's not what OP said. Quote: > Self-esteem is a byproduct of self-compassion Self-compassion is not believing in yourself, it's accepting yourself as-is. And not just accepting in the sense of "settling for it". But having the same respect and nice feeling about you that you have about the others your like. While outside validation helps a lot in one to avoid rejecting oneself, it just removes a (huge) barrier for building self-esteem. Self-esteem can't come from outside. The problem with other people validating you is that as soon as you loose it, you loose what you though was self-esteem. And you get angry, you blame, you can't find solutions, and you ever give you all the responsibilities or remove yourself from all of them. If you succeed and get praise, it then inflate your ego and narcissism. But once you build self-compassion, even when you screw up, you still like yourself. But you can still see your fair part of responsibility in all this. And when your succeed, liking yourself as you are, you know what's really you, and what's really coming from outside help and luck. And you don't inflate your ego.
  - porjo 9y ago
    This is a great way to put it. > Self-esteem can't come from outside I do have to disagree here. Self-esteem ultimately must come from outside...just not from other people. As a Christian I believe that self-acceptance is rooted in knowing that I have intrinsic worth to God irrespective of what other people think of me. It's not about who I am or what I have or haven't done, but about who God is and what He's done for all of us.
    - sametmax 9y ago
      I'm not a believer, but I would assume that God is not outside (or inside, or in any location. As an absolute, this consideration feels like not applying to God. Hence can you define your relationship to God in a way that separate both from each others. Even the term "both" feels strange, as God is suppose to be everything and more. Coming from that, the idea of the acceptance from God is a concept you have in yourself. Maybe I got this wrong, intellectualizing spirituality is usually a terrible way to share about it.
- rosser 9y ago
  Is it really self-esteem if it's contingent upon acceptance within the social group?
  - rimliu 9y ago
    Of course. Social group influences a lot how you perceive yourself. You can only establish a value of something by comparison.
    - crawfordcomeaux 9y ago
      I'm noticing some language trends in this whole thread worth pointing out: - In OP, I wrote self-esteem is the root of narcissism, when I really believe it's a potential root. It can also be symptomatic because pretty much everything in the brain can flow both ways, so one person's symptom can be another person's cause. - We tend to forget the importance of the word "can." I'd rephrase what you wrote as "Social group CAN influence a lot about how you perceive yourself." It doesn't have to. Also, comparison isn't needed. Here's how I do it: I recognize a few key facts: - every person is unique in some way - every unique property of a person reflects something to be learned, even if the lesson is the opposite of said property - neural networks learn and apply learning - we are walking neural networks - the past is changed by observing the present Therefore, everyone is valuable in some special way, including myself. My self-esteem stems from reminding myself that others' perceptions of my experiences do not define my reality, my value, or my past. Those are all mine to define and nobody else's. I don't need to compare my subjective experience with someone else's in order to value mine.
  - Broken_Hippo 9y ago
    Not wholly, but partially. It doesn't matter much if you believe in yourself when few others do. The social group is more verifying your self-esteem.
    - crawfordcomeaux 9y ago
      I'd say it's easier to rely on external validation in many cultures because anything not well-defined is hard to teach. Poorly defined subjective experiences are even harder.
JustFYI 9y ago
The point wasn't to create any actual positive effect on the people. The point was to make them focus on life-long internal competition and quest for glory. They succeeded tremendously.
_Codemonkeyism 9y ago
Did not finish ... article ... but must ... write HN comment ...
- crawfordcomeaux 9y ago
  And yet...wrote...pertinent thoughts...not in article...but how...
mowenz 9y ago
Perhaps people get self-esteem from different sources? Personally I think people conflafe self-esteem with confidence. The article and the subject of it are doing this, and I'm a bit surprised it's not mentioned. "Unconditional positivity" will probably build confidence--faith in positive outcomes--but it doesn't appear to build self-esteem--high value or love for oneself. And someone can be completely unconfident and have very high self-esteem... But who knows: perhaps artificially-induced confidence can at least trick people into feeling like they love themselves. If it does, then good for them? Personally I could see myself end up thinking, worrying and beating myself up about being fake or phony, but that's just me. I might say it's not for me, but I would try not tell them directly with a Dwight-from-The-Office demeanor: "Wrong. Self-esteem comes from..."
- crawfordcomeaux 9y ago
  Not only do they get it from different sources, but how they get it from those sources can be wildly different. There seem to be multiple definitions of self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-worth floating around online, so I won't address them specifically. I'd say they all generally deal with finding meaning in one's self & the world. And finding meaning is a deeply personal thing. For example, I discover new meaning in my experiences by projecting their content/context into songs I'm listening to. My take on tricking myself into something: if learning to love myself requires some level of confidence, temporarily inducing said confidence, can be helpful when combined with a practice for learning how to love myself. The trick is doing it with intention and then weaning off the confidence booster. I already do this in various ways therapeutically. I was thinking about the second conscious voice in my head I accidentally created through my experiments & wondering if it's truly a second personality or if I'm simply playing pretend & naively fooling myself. Then I realized it doesn't matter because it's something helping me & as long as it's done in a transparent, authentic manner, nobody else has to care which it is, either.
vog 9y ago
> External stuff produces other-esteem and yeah, it's the root of narcissism Don't confuse root and symptoms, though. Excessive admiration contributes as much as exaggerated criticism throughout the childhood. If anything, the narcissistic personality disorder means a missing intrinsic self-esteem, which is tried to compensate by getting this from external sources - which somewhat "works", but not for long, so it must be repeated again and again.
- crawfordcomeaux 9y ago
  Agreed. To clarify, I think it's a potential root of narcissism. I suspect there are multiple paths to NPD with other-esteem emerging as a symptom in some & a root in others.
dghf 9y ago
#2 sounds very much like Stoicism, as to some extent does #1.
- crawfordcomeaux 9y ago
  Classical Stoicism (and not the "be an emotionless robot" nonsense it's often misinterpreted as) is very much like Buddhism & Nonviolent Communication.
icc97 9y ago
> Self-esteem is a byproduct of self-compassion There was a HN article on that recently [0] [0]: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/05/why-self-compassion-works-better-than-self-esteem/481473/?single_page=true https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/05/why-self-...
suneilp 9y ago
Teach people how to respond not just to suffering, but negative self-criticism and though patterns. Recognizing negative thought patterns is a bit difficult though, from personal experience. It's quite subjective and can be very personal.
usmeteora 9y ago
I agree. The immediate conflation that positive self regaurd = caccooning growing adults form their consequences was a good thing to lump together and assume the readers would accept. You can have positive self regard for kids and let them make their own decisions, experience mistakes and struggle to some degree to find their way out. The idea that they need your negative judgment on top of the consequences life will hand them for their actions anyways is the logical flaw and conflation here.
woodandsteel 9y ago
Nonviolent Communication is a wonderful book.
msolujic 9y ago
Another great book on subject: "Nurture shock"

strictfp 9y ago

I'm not so sure I buy into that theory of yours any more than the article. My personal theory is that self-esteem arises from the fact that you are aware of your acceptance in a social group. Knowing that you are welcome calms you and gives that assertive vibe. I don't think it matters how much you believe in yourself. At least not beyond a basic level. In fact, believing too much in a non-conforming self makes you a narcissist, and believing too much in a conforming self makes you vain.

csydas 9y ago
I would agree with this, and also that the 'damage' caused by "Everyone gets a trophy" is overstated immensely. My experience having coached children's basketball was that the consolation and participation prizes did little to nothing to console the children when they lost. Even if they got a ribbon or a tiny participation trophy, it didn't change their sour mood over losing unless the children genuinely weren't that interested in the competition to begin with, in which case I don't really think there's a problem in not being that invested in a competition. Undeserved praise and adoration does have negative side effects, and it likely isn't the healthiest way to raise children, but the over-emphasis on celebrating participation isn't the society ruining factor people make it out to be. At worst it's probably just a waste of resources and effort. On the other-hand, parents over-stressing and vicariously experiencing competition through their children is a very real problem, and the behavior of some of the adults I would see at gradeschool basketball games was just shocking, especially given that it was low division schools, so mostly just after-school sports. (i.e., there was no professional path here or proper competition for any child looking to take a chance at professional play someday - it was a bunch of 8 year olds running around the court, most of which couldn't even throw the ball high enough to reach the rim of the lowered basket). To see parents yelling and screaming at their kids to shove and hurt other children in order to win was just ridiculous.
- J-dawg 9y ago
  On the subject of "everyone gets a trophy", I can't believe this still happens, because I've only ever heard it described in derisory terms. I've never heard anyone say "the school gave my kid a 14th place ribbon, how cute!". It's always "can you believe they give out ribbons for 14th place now?!" Kids are pretty astute at picking up on this stuff, and I expect that being given a 14th place ribbon just feels a little sad and pathetic to a kid. It probably doesn't do any real harm either, apart from contributing to landfill waste!
  - sailfast 9y ago
    Most of the time kids just get "season" markers. Like, "Thanks for playing on our soccer team 2017" which I don't see as that harmful. They're trophies sometimes, simple white plastic base with some gold circle or whatever (at least the few times I've seen it) - it's a nice way to close out the season and have something on the shelf to remember, not a huge deal. I think kids notice when the trophy says "First Place." I know I knew the difference.
    - Bartweiss 9y ago
      Yep. I've never actually seen a "14th place" ribbon, because I think even optimists know it would just be read as an insult. All I actually got were 'participation' awards, which were basically a trinket to remember the team or event by. There was a "protect kids self-esteem" bit, but that was entirely at the top end - there was no trophy saying "First Place". I certainly never saw trophies 'celebrating' losses.
  - brians 9y ago
    By contrast, my kids (all <8) are highly motivated to go to swim class on cold days by the ribbons given out—every participant, every class.
    - Bartweiss 9y ago
      I wonder how much of this 'debate' is actually just people talking about different age groups? A participation ribbon might well have motivated me at age 6, and frankly I doubt both the morality and common sense of anyone saying a six year old is too happy at a swim class. Keeping kids involved at that age seems like the biggest goal. On the other hand, I have annoyed memories of getting participation ribbons at 15 for doing terribly in races. They felt downright insulting, because I knew exactly how I'd done and I was basically getting a ribbon for taking a bus to the meet. A shocking number of educational issues seem to boil down to "6 year olds are not 15 year olds". That, and "offering things is better than enforcing them" - participation ribbons are way better than banning score-keeping, which I also got to see.
sametmax 9y ago
> I don't think it matters how much you believe in yourself That's not what OP said. Quote: > Self-esteem is a byproduct of self-compassion Self-compassion is not believing in yourself, it's accepting yourself as-is. And not just accepting in the sense of "settling for it". But having the same respect and nice feeling about you that you have about the others your like. While outside validation helps a lot in one to avoid rejecting oneself, it just removes a (huge) barrier for building self-esteem. Self-esteem can't come from outside. The problem with other people validating you is that as soon as you loose it, you loose what you though was self-esteem. And you get angry, you blame, you can't find solutions, and you ever give you all the responsibilities or remove yourself from all of them. If you succeed and get praise, it then inflate your ego and narcissism. But once you build self-compassion, even when you screw up, you still like yourself. But you can still see your fair part of responsibility in all this. And when your succeed, liking yourself as you are, you know what's really you, and what's really coming from outside help and luck. And you don't inflate your ego.
- porjo 9y ago
  This is a great way to put it. > Self-esteem can't come from outside I do have to disagree here. Self-esteem ultimately must come from outside...just not from other people. As a Christian I believe that self-acceptance is rooted in knowing that I have intrinsic worth to God irrespective of what other people think of me. It's not about who I am or what I have or haven't done, but about who God is and what He's done for all of us.
  - sametmax 9y ago
    I'm not a believer, but I would assume that God is not outside (or inside, or in any location. As an absolute, this consideration feels like not applying to God. Hence can you define your relationship to God in a way that separate both from each others. Even the term "both" feels strange, as God is suppose to be everything and more. Coming from that, the idea of the acceptance from God is a concept you have in yourself. Maybe I got this wrong, intellectualizing spirituality is usually a terrible way to share about it.
rosser 9y ago
Is it really self-esteem if it's contingent upon acceptance within the social group?
- rimliu 9y ago
  Of course. Social group influences a lot how you perceive yourself. You can only establish a value of something by comparison.
  - crawfordcomeaux 9y ago
    I'm noticing some language trends in this whole thread worth pointing out: - In OP, I wrote self-esteem is the root of narcissism, when I really believe it's a potential root. It can also be symptomatic because pretty much everything in the brain can flow both ways, so one person's symptom can be another person's cause. - We tend to forget the importance of the word "can." I'd rephrase what you wrote as "Social group CAN influence a lot about how you perceive yourself." It doesn't have to. Also, comparison isn't needed. Here's how I do it: I recognize a few key facts: - every person is unique in some way - every unique property of a person reflects something to be learned, even if the lesson is the opposite of said property - neural networks learn and apply learning - we are walking neural networks - the past is changed by observing the present Therefore, everyone is valuable in some special way, including myself. My self-esteem stems from reminding myself that others' perceptions of my experiences do not define my reality, my value, or my past. Those are all mine to define and nobody else's. I don't need to compare my subjective experience with someone else's in order to value mine.
- Broken_Hippo 9y ago
  Not wholly, but partially. It doesn't matter much if you believe in yourself when few others do. The social group is more verifying your self-esteem.
  - crawfordcomeaux 9y ago
    I'd say it's easier to rely on external validation in many cultures because anything not well-defined is hard to teach. Poorly defined subjective experiences are even harder.

JustFYI 9y ago

The point wasn't to create any actual positive effect on the people. The point was to make them focus on life-long internal competition and quest for glory. They succeeded tremendously.

_Codemonkeyism 9y ago

Did not finish ... article ... but must ... write HN comment ...

crawfordcomeaux 9y ago
And yet...wrote...pertinent thoughts...not in article...but how...

mowenz 9y ago

Perhaps people get self-esteem from different sources? Personally I think people conflafe self-esteem with confidence. The article and the subject of it are doing this, and I'm a bit surprised it's not mentioned. "Unconditional positivity" will probably build confidence--faith in positive outcomes--but it doesn't appear to build self-esteem--high value or love for oneself. And someone can be completely unconfident and have very high self-esteem... But who knows: perhaps artificially-induced confidence can at least trick people into feeling like they love themselves. If it does, then good for them? Personally I could see myself end up thinking, worrying and beating myself up about being fake or phony, but that's just me. I might say it's not for me, but I would try not tell them directly with a Dwight-from-The-Office demeanor: "Wrong. Self-esteem comes from..."

crawfordcomeaux 9y ago
Not only do they get it from different sources, but how they get it from those sources can be wildly different. There seem to be multiple definitions of self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-worth floating around online, so I won't address them specifically. I'd say they all generally deal with finding meaning in one's self & the world. And finding meaning is a deeply personal thing. For example, I discover new meaning in my experiences by projecting their content/context into songs I'm listening to. My take on tricking myself into something: if learning to love myself requires some level of confidence, temporarily inducing said confidence, can be helpful when combined with a practice for learning how to love myself. The trick is doing it with intention and then weaning off the confidence booster. I already do this in various ways therapeutically. I was thinking about the second conscious voice in my head I accidentally created through my experiments & wondering if it's truly a second personality or if I'm simply playing pretend & naively fooling myself. Then I realized it doesn't matter because it's something helping me & as long as it's done in a transparent, authentic manner, nobody else has to care which it is, either.

vog 9y ago

> External stuff produces other-esteem and yeah, it's the root of narcissism Don't confuse root and symptoms, though. Excessive admiration contributes as much as exaggerated criticism throughout the childhood. If anything, the narcissistic personality disorder means a missing intrinsic self-esteem, which is tried to compensate by getting this from external sources - which somewhat "works", but not for long, so it must be repeated again and again.

crawfordcomeaux 9y ago
Agreed. To clarify, I think it's a potential root of narcissism. I suspect there are multiple paths to NPD with other-esteem emerging as a symptom in some & a root in others.

dghf 9y ago

#2 sounds very much like Stoicism, as to some extent does #1.

crawfordcomeaux 9y ago
Classical Stoicism (and not the "be an emotionless robot" nonsense it's often misinterpreted as) is very much like Buddhism & Nonviolent Communication.

icc97 9y ago

> Self-esteem is a byproduct of self-compassion There was a HN article on that recently [0] [0]: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/05/why-self-compassion-works-better-than-self-esteem/481473/?single_page=true https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/05/why-self-...

suneilp 9y ago

Teach people how to respond not just to suffering, but negative self-criticism and though patterns. Recognizing negative thought patterns is a bit difficult though, from personal experience. It's quite subjective and can be very personal.

usmeteora 9y ago

I agree. The immediate conflation that positive self regaurd = caccooning growing adults form their consequences was a good thing to lump together and assume the readers would accept. You can have positive self regard for kids and let them make their own decisions, experience mistakes and struggle to some degree to find their way out. The idea that they need your negative judgment on top of the consequences life will hand them for their actions anyways is the logical flaw and conflation here.

woodandsteel 9y ago

Nonviolent Communication is a wonderful book.

msolujic 9y ago

Another great book on subject: "Nurture shock"