5 ms·
I made a terrible mistake and I put a lot of pressure on my daughter to do well in school, do well in extracurriculars, etc. I made the measurement the goal.
by moosey 8y ago
I made a terrible mistake and I put a lot of pressure on my daughter to do well in school, do well in extracurriculars, etc.
I made the measurement the goal.
Now I'm trying to undo that damage and put it in her mind that at any point you can change direction, study, knowledge, but you need a few tools to do so: self-criticism, discipline, critical thinking. Initial progress has been good and our relationship is running quite a bit smoother, but Jesus I could have left my kid seriously messed up.
I think that a huge amount of this derives, in the US, from the continued degradation of the social safety net in this country. We have put an expensive gateway in front of success with very expensive college, and even with that there is no guarantee of a job that pays well enough for you to live comfortably. That in addition to the traditional standard of the "Atomic Family".
I have no proof of that, but it certainly seemed to have been a major factor in our house, but I have to recognize that individual human brilliance can occur at any point in life, and that the tools to act on it are more important than many of the things that she is learning at school.
- refurb 8y agocontinued degradation of the social safety net in this country What degradation? Spending on the social safety net has only ever increased, not decreased.
- sjg007 8y agoThe population has grown. Obviously spending increases. However, access to the safety net has decreased as have the net benefits. In other news water is wet.
- refurb 8y agoThe US population annual growth has barely broken 1% in the last 50 years. Social spending has increased at a greater rate.
- nugget 8y agoI used to believe this but it turns out that net benefits (by almost any measure) have increased continually: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-05-16/the-u-s-social-safety-net-has-improved-a-lot https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-05-16/the-u-... The fact that so many people don't "feel" more secure from these very expensive investments may point to other structural problems.
- sjg007 8y agoHuh.. thanks for the clarification. I should have googled first!
- Aeolun 8y agoOr maybe the social security net was always atrocious, now it’s just a little bit less so. (Not saying that’s necessarily the case, just that it could be)
- refurb 8y agoThe US has a larger social spending budget than Canada. So if the US is “less horrendous”, then canada’s must be even worse?
- mental1896 8y agoThis is a great point. I've taken a similar approach. The essay about Abraham Lincoln isn't really designed to teach you about the 16th president of the US--it teaches sentence structure, argumentation, clarity, research, etc. The grades are for the school to use to prepare next year's funding package; the assignment is for you to learn skills that may help put food on your table someday. Shifting the focus from grades to skills tends to give them a greater incentive to excel.
- nugget 8y agoWhat led you to believe that it was a terrible mistake?