8 ms·

What children lose when their brains develop too fast

100 points by jkuria 5y ago

blip54321 5y ago
Conclusion isn't supported by evidence. Evidence cited shows kids need diverse experience. That's very different.
- kaetemi 5y ago
  Yeah. From my experience, when I see my daughter get stuck in a dead end on something, it's much more effective to move her onto something completely different until she's ready for the thing she got stuck on before. Forcing her to succeed at a task just reinforces frustration.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- phkahler 5y ago
  Maybe that's why unstructured play is important. They explore and figure stuff out on their own.
syspec 5y ago
https://archive.ph/i2Jdl https://archive.ph/i2Jdl
kaetemi 5y ago
Teach your kids to fear failure, and they'll learn to fear failure.
- ed_balls 5y ago
  I think that might be the biggest sin with today's school system. Big penalties for mistakes and optimisation for perfection (math and spelling tests). In reality you "want" to make mistakes, because that means you took risk. They are inevitable. Once you internalize it it's quite liberating. How quickly and well you recover from mistakes is much more important.
  - HEmanZ 5y ago
    The problem with mistakes is that there are at least two kinds of mistakes that happen in school: 1) Mistakes where a student genuinely tries but fails because they didn't quite find the right solution. 2) Mistakes where a student gets it wrong because they put 0 (or even negative) effort into learning or trying to solve the problem. Mistakes of the first kind should be celebrated, mistakes of the second should be harshly scorned. Unfortunately, as I remember most of my classmates in school (lower, upper, and especially university) the vast majority of mistakes were made in #2. I don't know what the school system can do about this. How can you differentiate between the two with the information available to instructors?
    - HKH2 5y ago
      In Math, you can tell students to show you how they got the answer to a problem. I think the bigger problem is that '100%' is often the goal, yet it is far from optimal; get students out of the 'all or nothing' mindset, so they don't become cynical.
      - SamBam 5y ago
        In my English schooling system (GCSE and A Levels), if a math question was worth ten points, the correct final answer would be worth exactly one point. The other nine points were for the steps, and, indeed, were a hint that there were probably ten distinct steps (although usually you could combine several steps and still get full marks so long as it was clear). Among other things, this also allowed for error-carried-forward: if you made a stupid arithmetic error on step 3, and all your subsequent steps had the wrong values, you would only lose one point, though your final answer was completely wrong. This always amazed the Americans I speak to, for whom it seems there's just a random point or two for "showing your work."
        xpe 5y ago
        I would love to see this approach used in more schools.
- sriku 5y ago
  One issue I see in school systems is that a failure is just indicated as that - "wrong, try again" or "failed". The consequences of being wrong aren't immediately real. When they are (as at a vegetable market in chennai where I am) you learn quickly how to (for ex) calculate correctly so you don't lose money, how to use a balance to weigh things, how to talk to people well, etc. Saying "if you get this wrong now, in the future when you do X you'll have trouble" is completely unmotivating.
  - sriku 5y ago
    Kids take pains to get their robux and other in-game points calculations correct for example because theyfeel real for them. Otherwise it is just a matter of following your teacher's rules.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  In my experience, kids (and adults) are not receptive to learning until after they've failed. Sometimes it takes repeated failure :-/
  - kaetemi 5y ago
    Yep. And making failure fun is the way to go.
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      My mom would tell me "do well in school or you'll grow up to be a ditch-digger!" My first W2 job was grunt landscaping work. It was pretty motivating to get an education.
robmc 5y ago
I've seen comments here about school (both successes and failures), limits on kids and aspects of learning. However, the article seems to be focusing on allowing a child to be a child. I have a reasonably high ACES score and while it's anecdotal on my experience, I can say for sure it affected my learning. I needed to worry about adult aspects of living when I was very young. I was focused on staying alive and didn't have the capacity to learn the way I could have. My partner is a teacher and I can say, she is regularly working with kids, families and different support groups to try to help kids be in a place to actually learn. More info in this can be found at: https://developingchild.harvard.edu/media-coverage/take-the-ace-quiz-and-learn-what-it-does-and-doesnt-mean/ https://developingchild.harvard.edu/media-coverage/take-the-... There are other notable effects of a high ACES score and being on the older side myself, I can add my anecdotal comment that I fit comfortably into my score.
niknoble 5y ago
If the research showed that Adverse Childhood Events led to better outcomes in the people who experienced them, would we be reading news articles that say so?
- robmc 5y ago
  I've certainly seen articles that have the overcame adversity elements; however, I suspect, a deeper look at the individuals history either includes significant intervention or are an outlier for some other reason. As far as research, I have yet to find anything that supports positive outcomes to significant adversity.
vmception 5y ago
A stress free life makes you cognitively and genetically stronger, at least according to this and the general conclusion of epigenics There is no pride to be had from dealing with stress So a carefree life it is Seems like a timeless tale for parents to try to make that environment for their children and then not be able to relate
- jvvw 5y ago
  Stress is a strange thing though because short-term stress can be good for us whereas chronic stress generally isn't. Robert Sapolksy has written some interesting books on the subject. I certainly don't think one should deliberately inflict stress on one's children, but I suspect experiencing brief mild adversity now and again helps to build resilience. I tend to veer on the side of trying to coach them through problems they encounter rather than using my powers as an adult to remove those problems.
  - vmception 5y ago
    Although I get that for modern developed society, I do think of the structure of a romanticized village like life in the right jungle environments or some very communal islands. With the right ecological stasis, entire generations of people just … live. Replicating that in more developed but adhoc society requires many orders of magnitude more resources, but opens up other pursuits that are beneficial. When I’m around spiritual/hippie people, alot of them act like children, unadjusted for the demands of modern society, and I step back and think “why do I care?”. Mostly because they wont be able to adapt and execute well in other environments. But I can see a medium or balance that can be pursued as well.
    - jvvw 5y ago
      Yes - I guess what we do as parents is prepare our children for the society they are going to enter and how to best do that depends on what that society is. Although I suspect other environments have different types of stresses, but perhaps less chronic ones. Many tribal societies have some sort of right of passage for males at adolescence which involves stress of some sort.
known 5y ago
"The job of the parent is not to impose his/her will on the child, but to get the child to listen to his/her own inner voice. Inspiration, not just prescription" --Shmuley Boteach (b. 1966) http://www.netmba.com/mgmt/ob/motivation/maslow/ http://www.netmba.com/mgmt/ob/motivation/maslow/

100 points by jkuria 5y ago

blip54321 5y ago

Conclusion isn't supported by evidence. Evidence cited shows kids need diverse experience. That's very different.

kaetemi 5y ago
Yeah. From my experience, when I see my daughter get stuck in a dead end on something, it's much more effective to move her onto something completely different until she's ready for the thing she got stuck on before. Forcing her to succeed at a task just reinforces frustration.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
phkahler 5y ago
Maybe that's why unstructured play is important. They explore and figure stuff out on their own.

syspec 5y ago

https://archive.ph/i2Jdl https://archive.ph/i2Jdl

kaetemi 5y ago

Teach your kids to fear failure, and they'll learn to fear failure.

ed_balls 5y ago
I think that might be the biggest sin with today's school system. Big penalties for mistakes and optimisation for perfection (math and spelling tests). In reality you "want" to make mistakes, because that means you took risk. They are inevitable. Once you internalize it it's quite liberating. How quickly and well you recover from mistakes is much more important.
- HEmanZ 5y ago
  The problem with mistakes is that there are at least two kinds of mistakes that happen in school: 1) Mistakes where a student genuinely tries but fails because they didn't quite find the right solution. 2) Mistakes where a student gets it wrong because they put 0 (or even negative) effort into learning or trying to solve the problem. Mistakes of the first kind should be celebrated, mistakes of the second should be harshly scorned. Unfortunately, as I remember most of my classmates in school (lower, upper, and especially university) the vast majority of mistakes were made in #2. I don't know what the school system can do about this. How can you differentiate between the two with the information available to instructors?
  - HKH2 5y ago
    In Math, you can tell students to show you how they got the answer to a problem. I think the bigger problem is that '100%' is often the goal, yet it is far from optimal; get students out of the 'all or nothing' mindset, so they don't become cynical.
    - SamBam 5y ago
      In my English schooling system (GCSE and A Levels), if a math question was worth ten points, the correct final answer would be worth exactly one point. The other nine points were for the steps, and, indeed, were a hint that there were probably ten distinct steps (although usually you could combine several steps and still get full marks so long as it was clear). Among other things, this also allowed for error-carried-forward: if you made a stupid arithmetic error on step 3, and all your subsequent steps had the wrong values, you would only lose one point, though your final answer was completely wrong. This always amazed the Americans I speak to, for whom it seems there's just a random point or two for "showing your work."
      - xpe 5y ago
        I would love to see this approach used in more schools.
sriku 5y ago
One issue I see in school systems is that a failure is just indicated as that - "wrong, try again" or "failed". The consequences of being wrong aren't immediately real. When they are (as at a vegetable market in chennai where I am) you learn quickly how to (for ex) calculate correctly so you don't lose money, how to use a balance to weigh things, how to talk to people well, etc. Saying "if you get this wrong now, in the future when you do X you'll have trouble" is completely unmotivating.
- sriku 5y ago
  Kids take pains to get their robux and other in-game points calculations correct for example because theyfeel real for them. Otherwise it is just a matter of following your teacher's rules.
WalterBright 5y ago
In my experience, kids (and adults) are not receptive to learning until after they've failed. Sometimes it takes repeated failure :-/
- kaetemi 5y ago
  Yep. And making failure fun is the way to go.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    My mom would tell me "do well in school or you'll grow up to be a ditch-digger!" My first W2 job was grunt landscaping work. It was pretty motivating to get an education.

robmc 5y ago

I've seen comments here about school (both successes and failures), limits on kids and aspects of learning. However, the article seems to be focusing on allowing a child to be a child. I have a reasonably high ACES score and while it's anecdotal on my experience, I can say for sure it affected my learning. I needed to worry about adult aspects of living when I was very young. I was focused on staying alive and didn't have the capacity to learn the way I could have. My partner is a teacher and I can say, she is regularly working with kids, families and different support groups to try to help kids be in a place to actually learn. More info in this can be found at: https://developingchild.harvard.edu/media-coverage/take-the-ace-quiz-and-learn-what-it-does-and-doesnt-mean/ https://developingchild.harvard.edu/media-coverage/take-the-... There are other notable effects of a high ACES score and being on the older side myself, I can add my anecdotal comment that I fit comfortably into my score.

niknoble 5y ago

If the research showed that Adverse Childhood Events led to better outcomes in the people who experienced them, would we be reading news articles that say so?

robmc 5y ago
I've certainly seen articles that have the overcame adversity elements; however, I suspect, a deeper look at the individuals history either includes significant intervention or are an outlier for some other reason. As far as research, I have yet to find anything that supports positive outcomes to significant adversity.

vmception 5y ago

A stress free life makes you cognitively and genetically stronger, at least according to this and the general conclusion of epigenics There is no pride to be had from dealing with stress So a carefree life it is Seems like a timeless tale for parents to try to make that environment for their children and then not be able to relate

jvvw 5y ago
Stress is a strange thing though because short-term stress can be good for us whereas chronic stress generally isn't. Robert Sapolksy has written some interesting books on the subject. I certainly don't think one should deliberately inflict stress on one's children, but I suspect experiencing brief mild adversity now and again helps to build resilience. I tend to veer on the side of trying to coach them through problems they encounter rather than using my powers as an adult to remove those problems.
- vmception 5y ago
  Although I get that for modern developed society, I do think of the structure of a romanticized village like life in the right jungle environments or some very communal islands. With the right ecological stasis, entire generations of people just … live. Replicating that in more developed but adhoc society requires many orders of magnitude more resources, but opens up other pursuits that are beneficial. When I’m around spiritual/hippie people, alot of them act like children, unadjusted for the demands of modern society, and I step back and think “why do I care?”. Mostly because they wont be able to adapt and execute well in other environments. But I can see a medium or balance that can be pursued as well.
  - jvvw 5y ago
    Yes - I guess what we do as parents is prepare our children for the society they are going to enter and how to best do that depends on what that society is. Although I suspect other environments have different types of stresses, but perhaps less chronic ones. Many tribal societies have some sort of right of passage for males at adolescence which involves stress of some sort.

known 5y ago

"The job of the parent is not to impose his/her will on the child, but to get the child to listen to his/her own inner voice. Inspiration, not just prescription" --Shmuley Boteach (b. 1966) http://www.netmba.com/mgmt/ob/motivation/maslow/ http://www.netmba.com/mgmt/ob/motivation/maslow/