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I've seen this advice before and I have so many issues with it. First, it just seems like this kind of "parental optimization" is likely to have such a small e

by jp57 3y ago

I've seen this advice before and I have so many issues with it. First, it just seems like this kind of "parental optimization" is likely to have such a small effect on long-term outcomes that it's probably a wash overall. Second, kids don't acquire all their information about themselves from their parents and teachers. By the time they reach early elementary school, kids, especially smart ones, know whether they are trying harder than their peers and whether they're succeeding more than their peers. They know what was easy and what was hard from their own experience, and they have a theory of mind and if an adult tells them something at odds with their experience they could just devalue that adult's credibility. Third, when it comes time to start thinking about what you want to do for a career, it really pays to choose the things where you can succeed without feeling as if you worked very hard. Finally "hard work", it self is a vague concept that I think often misleads young people into to thinking that effort is not merely a means to an end, but the end itself. In fact what we really mean by "hard work" is some combination of traits like diligence, conscientiousness, and persistence that lead people to dot all their 'i's and cross all their 't's, and not quit until they've succeeded. In fact, when you become an adult and are out working, nobody cares how hard you worked, only that you succeeded.

cykotic 3y ago
The post is light on details but they do cite one study. Do you have anything other than intuition for your beliefs? I’ve not studied the issue and know nothing about childhood development so my intuition is almost certainly riddled with misconceptions that have been debunked already. Do you have training in this area?
- analog31 3y ago
  The state of the art in this area is that training and studies are almost as trustworthy as intuition.
  - cykotic 3y ago
    I very much doubt this is true. Do you have any training in this area? I’m guessing no.
toast0 3y ago
> nobody cares how hard you worked, only that you succeeded. Kind of yes, kind of no. If you paint my house, I kind of assume you can do the bulk work, but I care more about the transitions. Did you do the hard work of taking the time to remove outlet covers and mask outlets? Or did you work quickly and paint most of the outlets, make the covers hard to remove and leave the wall under the covers unpainted? Either way, the house is painted, but the quality of the job and the likelyhood of referal is quite different.
mlyle 3y ago
> Second, kids don't acquire all their information about themselves from their parents and teachers. By the time they reach early elementary school, kids, especially smart ones, know whether they are trying harder than their peers and whether they're succeeding more than their peers. They know what was easy and what was hard from their own experience, and they have a theory of mind and if an adult tells them something at odds with their experience they could just devalue that adult's credibility. We're not saying to praise hard work that wasn't. We're saying to give more kudos for good outcomes from effort than good outcomes from natural talent. The reasons to do this: - Eventually things always get hard enough that you can't carry the day on talent alone. If you haven't learned to persevere in things that don't come naturally by then, you're going to have a bad time. - If your self-image is tied too much to ability, then every new task is a potential to fall down and "lose" what others consider special about you without much opportunity for gain; a lot of bright people avoid things that could be tests of their ability because of this fragile self-image. There's no simple word trick that can accomplish this alone, but framing rewards around effort is one thing (along with seeking appropriate challenge, etc) that can help. And if you've got a kid who's really talented, it's still likely to be problematic. My oldest is accelerated 4-6 years in math (depending on your baseline) and still breezes through everything with very low effort. But the few times that he's encountered something that's hard for him, he's folded and shown avoidant behavior very quickly compared to peers. He has not needed to build the skills, and characteristics of self-image, needed to try hard at difficult things and it shows.
- saiya-jin 3y ago
  One of worst failures/dropouts I saw at university were the guys smart enough to do entire high school without any significant effort (ie my roommate left books at school and aced it, in stark contrast with me). Then they eventually reached subject on uni where some serious effort was required even from them, and many just couldn't get themselves through the suck. Unlike say me who was already used to put effort into getting through, and just increased it a bit when it mattered.
  - gnicholas 3y ago
    Yes, this is why it's important for all students to be given the chance to be challenged, so that they can't skate through HS, which sets (some of) them up to be caught off-guard by university.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
bitshiftfaced 3y ago
There is actually a strong evidence base that found positive long term outcomes related to process praise (opposed to person praise).
P_I_Staker 3y ago
> Finally "hard work", it self is a vague concept that I think often misleads young people into to thinking that effort is not merely a means to an end, but the end itself. Really hit the nail on the head. I've been struggling to put this into words. I'd add that this really has to do with our notions of justice. When we see people not working, seeming to get away with something, it hurts to see another person try really hard and fail. There's really this cult of work for work's sake. I'd argue that hard work is inherently bad.

by jp57 3y ago

cykotic 3y ago

The post is light on details but they do cite one study. Do you have anything other than intuition for your beliefs? I’ve not studied the issue and know nothing about childhood development so my intuition is almost certainly riddled with misconceptions that have been debunked already. Do you have training in this area?

analog31 3y ago
The state of the art in this area is that training and studies are almost as trustworthy as intuition.
- cykotic 3y ago
  I very much doubt this is true. Do you have any training in this area? I’m guessing no.

toast0 3y ago

> nobody cares how hard you worked, only that you succeeded. Kind of yes, kind of no. If you paint my house, I kind of assume you can do the bulk work, but I care more about the transitions. Did you do the hard work of taking the time to remove outlet covers and mask outlets? Or did you work quickly and paint most of the outlets, make the covers hard to remove and leave the wall under the covers unpainted? Either way, the house is painted, but the quality of the job and the likelyhood of referal is quite different.

mlyle 3y ago

> Second, kids don't acquire all their information about themselves from their parents and teachers. By the time they reach early elementary school, kids, especially smart ones, know whether they are trying harder than their peers and whether they're succeeding more than their peers. They know what was easy and what was hard from their own experience, and they have a theory of mind and if an adult tells them something at odds with their experience they could just devalue that adult's credibility. We're not saying to praise hard work that wasn't. We're saying to give more kudos for good outcomes from effort than good outcomes from natural talent. The reasons to do this: - Eventually things always get hard enough that you can't carry the day on talent alone. If you haven't learned to persevere in things that don't come naturally by then, you're going to have a bad time. - If your self-image is tied too much to ability, then every new task is a potential to fall down and "lose" what others consider special about you without much opportunity for gain; a lot of bright people avoid things that could be tests of their ability because of this fragile self-image. There's no simple word trick that can accomplish this alone, but framing rewards around effort is one thing (along with seeking appropriate challenge, etc) that can help. And if you've got a kid who's really talented, it's still likely to be problematic. My oldest is accelerated 4-6 years in math (depending on your baseline) and still breezes through everything with very low effort. But the few times that he's encountered something that's hard for him, he's folded and shown avoidant behavior very quickly compared to peers. He has not needed to build the skills, and characteristics of self-image, needed to try hard at difficult things and it shows.

saiya-jin 3y ago
One of worst failures/dropouts I saw at university were the guys smart enough to do entire high school without any significant effort (ie my roommate left books at school and aced it, in stark contrast with me). Then they eventually reached subject on uni where some serious effort was required even from them, and many just couldn't get themselves through the suck. Unlike say me who was already used to put effort into getting through, and just increased it a bit when it mattered.
- gnicholas 3y ago
  Yes, this is why it's important for all students to be given the chance to be challenged, so that they can't skate through HS, which sets (some of) them up to be caught off-guard by university.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

bitshiftfaced 3y ago

There is actually a strong evidence base that found positive long term outcomes related to process praise (opposed to person praise).

P_I_Staker 3y ago

> Finally "hard work", it self is a vague concept that I think often misleads young people into to thinking that effort is not merely a means to an end, but the end itself. Really hit the nail on the head. I've been struggling to put this into words. I'd add that this really has to do with our notions of justice. When we see people not working, seeming to get away with something, it hurts to see another person try really hard and fail. There's really this cult of work for work's sake. I'd argue that hard work is inherently bad.