> I am not suggesting making them feel like losers when they fail. What should happen is you tell them: "You failed and it's all your fault, but so long as you learn from your failure and keep trying to succeed, you are on the right path."
Something as simple as undoing the participation trophy culture we've created would go a long way. There is a lot of utility in developing a healthy attitude toward failure. The problem is the pendulum swung way too hard from "win or come back on your shield" to "everyone is a winner in their own special way". Reinforcing either of these will lead to developmental problems. Though, IMO, at least the first one partially reinforces perseverance even in the face of failure.
> Praising a child is making them associate a good emotion with the thing they are praised for. Don't let that thing be failure. Even worse, don't let them believe they are fundamentally flawed and handicapped when that isn't true. When they see other kids work hard and succeed, the conclusion is effort is enough because they are incapable anyways.
I can add some more here: you can try very hard and fail. Failing is important because it builds grit. Grit builds the necessary framework to succeed even against odds stacked against you. If you simply make things easier, or reward someone for trying, it releases the happy chemicals that make it acceptable to not try harder. Part of the benefit of programs like ROTC, some sports, etc is that it can take someone who is an amorphous blob of suck and turn them into something they can be proud of. There's a lot to be said about that. Maybe there's some sort of relationship between the reduction in PE programs and the increase in this sort of "accepting failure" behavior.
You do not need to shark attack your child when they do poorly. However, you also should not praise them for being mediocre. Reinforce perseverance, as you suggest. It's your job to give your child the necessary framework to persist through struggle. Otherwise, as we have seen with many "adults", you end up with members of society who are fundamentally incapable of doing anything without constant praise. Casualties of the helicopter parenting generation.
> Something as simple as undoing the participation trophy culture we've created would go a long way.
My now-dated recollection is that most kids had no problem recognizing "participation" trophies as substandard and lacking prestige. Everybody--including the recipient--knew it wasn't a real win. They were something you sheepishly accepted hoping that you could minimize your time in the spotlight and that peers wouldn't somehow tease you for it.
So, hypothesis: Participation trophies exist because of by pressure from parents. Either as a way for teachers/kids to mollify parents who want to see their child "win", or else parents who think they can trick their child into motivation.
With that framing--cynical kids and mistaken adults--the "participation trophy culture" has wildly different problems and solutions.
I think it's a Chesterton's Fence thing -- nobody remembers why we give out participation trophies, so we continue giving them out. Their importance is overblown. Nobody is fooled.
I remember my daughter came home with a ribbon, and I asked her what it was for. She said: "Oh, it's just one of those ribbons that you get for participating."
We signed her up for kids' soccer. It was a league where they didn't keep score. Yet the kids knew exactly what the score was after each game, and who the best players were.
I remember as a kid that my motivation came from things where I could measure my own performance, such as getting through a math problem, or playing pieces on the cello, of escalating difficulty.
Mostly agree with what you said, looks like you also got downvotes though. The current sentiment is robbing kids of being able to accomplish things and be proud of themselves.
Like many things, extremes are easy and the lazy advocate for one extreme or the other but what is best is a healthy balance.
At the core I think a lot of adults grew up believing success or failure is their identity, it's who they are. Instead of overcoming that false belief, they twisted reality so that failure is as good as success. Their and their child's identity is still the outcome if their efforts except they dilluted reality and made a negative to be the equal of a positive.
Something as simple as undoing the participation trophy culture we've created would go a long way. There is a lot of utility in developing a healthy attitude toward failure. The problem is the pendulum swung way too hard from "win or come back on your shield" to "everyone is a winner in their own special way". Reinforcing either of these will lead to developmental problems. Though, IMO, at least the first one partially reinforces perseverance even in the face of failure.
> Praising a child is making them associate a good emotion with the thing they are praised for. Don't let that thing be failure. Even worse, don't let them believe they are fundamentally flawed and handicapped when that isn't true. When they see other kids work hard and succeed, the conclusion is effort is enough because they are incapable anyways.
I can add some more here: you can try very hard and fail. Failing is important because it builds grit. Grit builds the necessary framework to succeed even against odds stacked against you. If you simply make things easier, or reward someone for trying, it releases the happy chemicals that make it acceptable to not try harder. Part of the benefit of programs like ROTC, some sports, etc is that it can take someone who is an amorphous blob of suck and turn them into something they can be proud of. There's a lot to be said about that. Maybe there's some sort of relationship between the reduction in PE programs and the increase in this sort of "accepting failure" behavior.
You do not need to shark attack your child when they do poorly. However, you also should not praise them for being mediocre. Reinforce perseverance, as you suggest. It's your job to give your child the necessary framework to persist through struggle. Otherwise, as we have seen with many "adults", you end up with members of society who are fundamentally incapable of doing anything without constant praise. Casualties of the helicopter parenting generation.