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American Children Are Drowning in Self-Esteem

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Re: American Children Are Drowning in Self-Esteem

#51

Post by maroonblazer »

cwbrandsma wrote: post #37
NTDF9 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> That doesn't sound like very constructive criticism. A constructive criticism isn't a one-liner on HN. If you're skilled enough to show how that transition works, show it to them and make them learn it.

I think I understand what you are saying...but at the same time, given the example 6stringmerc used, there is nothing to "teach", the student has to practice more. That isn't teachable, the skill is only achieved via practice and work. (I give guitar lesions) Which we, as a society, also seem reluctant to do. "oh you must not be good at that, try something else", instead of "if you want it you are going to have to wo…

>guitar lesions

I'm changing the name of my band to this. ;-)

Re: American Children Are Drowning in Self-Esteem

#52

Post by charlesdm »

maroonblazer wrote: post #50
charlesdm wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you an American? I'm European, and maybe this is just personal experience / a personal anecdote, but whenever I've had conversations with an American I found that they tend to always be really excited and then casually ignore any further communication. It's much harder to figure out for me what an American _actually_ means vs say a Belgian or a British person. No point in being an open person if you're only touti…

I'm an American and my 10 yr old son is in an organized band that includes a weekly private lesson and a public performance. I agree with skywhopper that there's a time and place for criticism and right after the show, especially at that age, is not it. Also, part of the objective of having the public performance is to simply get kids comfortable performing publicly. My kid was practically shitting himself before the…

Right: 10yo - agree. But once you're past a certain age, e.g. 14-15, probably not? Then again, I don't think people should be rewarded either for showing up or putting in an effort. But for younger kids (e.g. Maybe I have different view on things, but if I look back at how much focus was put on putting in effort (and not actually achieving anything) during my high school years, then I think we have things wrong to some extent. It's even worse today than it was before -- I have a friend who works in a school and he says it's great that grading is being phased out.. not sure whether I agree on that.

Re: American Children Are Drowning in Self-Esteem

#53

Post by mjevans »

criddell wrote: post #45
NTDF9 wrote: post #22

What I've noticed common among a lot of Americans is a fear/inhibition of speaking the truth, mostly to not have a confrontation. I witnessed an example of this in a music performance of a teen rock band. In this performance, the band sucked overall. The guitarist didn't know what he was doing. But everybody (guardians, parents, teachers, friends) just keep saying, "Great performance brah, awesome shit, good going gu…

I might agree with you, but I would need more context. For example, my daughter did a rock-camp last summer. It was some neighborhood kids that got together with a teacher for 5 afternoons to learn six songs and after the camp was over, they put on a show to play the songs they had been practicing. The kids' talent levels ranged from truly amazing to early beginner. Nobody played flawlessly but everybody had a lot of…

Lauding the effort publicly seems like good re-enforcement.

The constructive criticism might be better off in a more private and 'safe' (biased towards the receiver) setting; this way shaming someone for a good attempt isn't the result.

Re: American Children Are Drowning in Self-Esteem

#54

Post by onewaystreet »

NTDF9 wrote: post #22

What I've noticed common among a lot of Americans is a fear/inhibition of speaking the truth, mostly to not have a confrontation. I witnessed an example of this in a music performance of a teen rock band. In this performance, the band sucked overall. The guitarist didn't know what he was doing. But everybody (guardians, parents, teachers, friends) just keep saying, "Great performance brah, awesome shit, good going gu…

Most people don't give honest feedback to others. I don't think that is a recent occurrence.

Re: American Children Are Drowning in Self-Esteem

#55

Post by Balgair »

sp332 wrote: post #4

If self-esteem is so high, why is suicide so common? Giving someone self-esteem doesn't mean letting them whine all the time. Your swimming instructors saying “C’mon dude, stop complaining, let’s get on with it!” IS giving the kid self-esteem! Teaching many ways to add is important because not all kids are going to be able to learn the same way at that age. Different methods are going to "click" for different student…

Facebook.

Suicide is considered 'contagious'. Before social media (1970) the 'contagiousness' (to really muddle a complex issue) was ~6. Meaning that each suicide 'affected' 6 other young people deeply, seriously disrupted their life, or left them feeling suicidal as well. Typically this was only close friends and family. Now, as we are all more connected, we see that a single suicide affects more people and more quickly. Now the 'contagiousness' of a single suicide spreads to 134 young people, a ~2100% increase.

My wife teaches and this is all over the local schools now [0]. Kids are now live streaming and live snapping these grizzly acts. It seems that you become the most popular kid in school in an instant and that you get a lot of social capital when you kill yourself live.

I want you to know that I am choosing my words carefully now: It is fucking crazy. Not even kids in a fucking Syrian war zone are doing this fucking crap. To borrow from Tumblr: I. Can't. Even. My wife is damn near at the end of her rope with this on top of all the other shit she has to deal with. I think she'll end up as yet another burnout teacher, I can't blame her.

The linked article has a lot more and better discussion on the complexities of these suicide clusters and how hard it can be to identify and stop them. These clusters seem not to be linked to self-esteem and 'everyone gets a ribbon' culture as strongly as they are linked to Instagram and other digital shrines/death-cults generators. They may be linked, but it seems that the root cause of the self esteem cult and the suicide clusters may be social media. They are correlated, but not causal. This brings up an interesting case with the military suicide rates, as they are a very tight community that the rest of America has forgotten. To quote an Iraqi Porto-potty, of all things: 'The USA is not at war, the USMC is at war'.

We are loosing the war with suicide, and social media is the enemy.

If you are feeling suicidal, there are many resources available. Here are some sources: Call: 1 (800) 273-8255 (english) 800 273 8255 (spanish) Visit: http://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ (English) http://www.didihirsch.org/spc-spanish (Spanish)

[0]http://www.newsweek.com/2016/10/28/teen-suicide-contagious-c...

Re: American Children Are Drowning in Self-Esteem

#56

Post by NTDF9 »

maroonblazer wrote: post #50
charlesdm wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you an American? I'm European, and maybe this is just personal experience / a personal anecdote, but whenever I've had conversations with an American I found that they tend to always be really excited and then casually ignore any further communication. It's much harder to figure out for me what an American _actually_ means vs say a Belgian or a British person. No point in being an open person if you're only touti…

I'm an American and my 10 yr old son is in an organized band that includes a weekly private lesson and a public performance. I agree with skywhopper that there's a time and place for criticism and right after the show, especially at that age, is not it. Also, part of the objective of having the public performance is to simply get kids comfortable performing publicly. My kid was practically shitting himself before the…

>> It's likely that greeting them with criticism of their playing as they walk off the stage won't do much to encourage them to try it again.

There's a way to frame it. At the end of a band performance, the audience (even if it is just 3-4 people) is encouraged to clap, even if the performance sucked. Usually, they do clap. This is enough of a positive reinforcement.

When the whole thing is over, before packing up, have a 15 minute meeting in which all you do is say,

"Great performance guys. You did a,b,c really well. Jeff, I saw you listened to my instruction. Hi five! Stacy, you did a good job. There were some mistakes in your chord transitions, let's talk about that so you can do it better next time"

Kids should grow up knowing they are doing well but aren't perfect yet. Let's keep improving until we get there.

Re: American Children Are Drowning in Self-Esteem

#57

Post by mgalka »

charlesdm wrote: post #43
skywhopper wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a time and a place for critique, and immediately after a performance is neither. Only a jerk with truly low self-esteem would think that it was appropriate to offer unsolicited criticicism of the performance skills of a teenager in a rock band to their face at the performance. If it's their music instructor, maybe. But again, that's not really the place. Next lesson would be the right time and place to get th…

Are you an American? I'm European, and maybe this is just personal experience / a personal anecdote, but whenever I've had conversations with an American I found that they tend to always be really excited and then casually ignore any further communication. It's much harder to figure out for me what an American _actually_ means vs say a Belgian or a British person. No point in being an open person if you're only touti…

What country are you from? In my experience Americas fall somewhere in the middle in terms of directness, compared to European countries.

I lived in the UK for a few years and found Brits very hard to read / resistant to confrontation. On the other hand, I'm married to a Spaniard, and when I'm over there, it's sometimes a bit uncomfortable how direct and open people are.

Re: American Children Are Drowning in Self-Esteem

#58

Post by sliverstorm »

6stringmerc wrote: post #35
pavel_lishin wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Hey, your timing on the G-C chord switch sucked" That doesn't sound like very constructive criticism.

It might not sound like it but it actually is quite helpful - translated it means "you are not doing well at a very basic thing and need more practice" because if a guitarist, on stage, can't hit a G-C chord switch competently, then there's really not a lot of wiggle room. They...suck...and need to be shown ways to improve. A lot of times the self-esteem-based response will dismiss the criticism as 'being mean' or so…

Do they not know they blew the chord switch? It seems like they'd know that.

Re: American Children Are Drowning in Self-Esteem

#59

Post by charlesdm »

mgalka wrote: post #57
charlesdm wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you an American? I'm European, and maybe this is just personal experience / a personal anecdote, but whenever I've had conversations with an American I found that they tend to always be really excited and then casually ignore any further communication. It's much harder to figure out for me what an American _actually_ means vs say a Belgian or a British person. No point in being an open person if you're only touti…

What country are you from? In my experience Americas fall somewhere in the middle in terms of directness, compared to European countries. I lived in the UK for a few years and found Brits very hard to read / resistant to confrontation. On the other hand, I'm married to a Spaniard, and when I'm over there, it's sometimes a bit uncomfortable how direct and open people are.

Belgium. It's not necessarily the directness that I mind, it's the fact that often people are (excuse my language) full of shit. They say A, but actually mean B. Which is a trait, for example, the British have as well, but one I seem to understand a lot better than when I'm dealing with Americans.

Re: American Children Are Drowning in Self-Esteem

#60

Post by gluggymug »

NTDF9 wrote: post #56
maroonblazer wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an American and my 10 yr old son is in an organized band that includes a weekly private lesson and a public performance. I agree with skywhopper that there's a time and place for criticism and right after the show, especially at that age, is not it. Also, part of the objective of having the public performance is to simply get kids comfortable performing publicly. My kid was practically shitting himself before the…

>> It's likely that greeting them with criticism of their playing as they walk off the stage won't do much to encourage them to try it again. There's a way to frame it. At the end of a band performance, the audience (even if it is just 3-4 people) is encouraged to clap, even if the performance sucked. Usually, they do clap. This is enough of a positive reinforcement. When the whole thing is over, before packing up, h…

You don't teach kids I assume. I do. I am a judo coach of kids.

I think the point is : It is not really up to the parents to be so critical of their kids. They should be supportive and positive.

It is really up to the coach to provide the technical feedback and it is more beneficial to assess performance at the next practice when the kids are back in a learning mode.

At that point they are mentally ready to practice over their problem areas straight away.

Parents can set their kids back by berating them at the wrong time.

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