[Nattering Nabob]

Yeah I'm gonna homeschool my kid because somebody tried to give him some self-confidence too...

It all started with that Mr. Rogers guy...

[Kman]

Yeah I'm gonna homeschool my kid because somebody tried to give him some self-confidence too...

It all started with that Mr. Rogers guy...

That is not the only reason why I want to homeschool, there are many others, this ad is just a symptom of the craziness prevalent in public schools, I mean you have to be a total idiot to think that everyone is equally smart or equally strong/capable at things. It is total freaking insanity.

[Godstud]

Schools teaching your kids self-confidence is not a bad thing. Reality is going to smack them in the face soon enough. Childhood is a great time to avoid that reality.

[Rancid]

I disagree with the above.

If you artificially build up kids too high, they are going to crash HARD. Look at all the unhappy people with quarter life crises these days. It's so bad we had to coin the phrase quarter life crisis! I think this was caused by raising kids with unrealistic expectations on life. You can't teach confidence, it is earned through experience. So rather than telling kids "YOUR GREAT!!" we should be encouraging kids to excel in a number of things. Say, academics, music, sports, art, martial arts, etc. etc. Then when they actually do a good job, only then it be ok to say "your great!" Confidence is built from within, not taught. All we can do as adults is to try and foster an environment which allows kids to grow, explore, and build their own confidence. That's why I love the idea of allowing kids to find something their interested in, and have at it.

[Godstud]

If you build up kids too high, they are going to crash HARD

Building up kids so they have self-confidence and can feel good about themselves is NOT going to cause them to "crash HARD".

I think this was caused by raising kids with unrealistic expectations on life.

Children ALL have unrealistic expectations on life. That's why they are children. If they didn't, then they'd ALL commit suicide as teenagers.

You can't teach confidence, it is earned through experience.

Yes, you can teach it. Are you not aware that school is an experience, too?

How Can Teachers Foster Self-Esteem in Children?
Teachers play an important role in nurturing a student's sense of dignity and self-worth.
By Robert Brooks, Ph.D.
http://www.greatschools.org/special-edu ... hildren.gs

Confidence is built from within, not taught. All we can do as adults is to try and foster an environment which allows kids to grow, explore, and build their own confidence.

Your second sentence contradicts your first one. Fostering an environment(like school) is part of the teaching(nurturing) process.

[Rancid]

Building up kids so they have self-confidence and can feel good about themselves is NOT going to cause them to "crash HARD".

I have a few friends that grew up with ridiculous expectations, only now they realize that the best they can do in life is a job in middle management. Now these people are depressed. This is a real thing these days. It stems from childhood, it stems from telling every single kid that they can become president regardless of their abilities.

Children ALL have unrealistic expectations on life. That's why they are children. If they didn't, then they'd ALL commit suicide as teenagers.

Well no shit, but part of growing up is to have these expectations adjusted properly. Parents encouraging these unrealistic expectations is terrible! You end up with really messed up depressed kids once they get slap in the face in their college years.

False.

That's not teaching, that exactly what I said. You need to foster an environment where the kid builds their own confidence! You cannot teach confidence, you really can't. You can only encourage, and foster/nurture the development of confidence. I can't just tell a kid "Hey kid, read this book, and you will automatically be confident." The most books or anyone can do is to encourage it's development. You cannot teach it.

Your second sentence contradicts your first one. Fostering an environment(like school) is part of the teaching(nurturing) process.

The word nurture doesn't exactly mean to teach. It means to encourage. Foster and nurture roughly mean the same thing.



My overall point is that we need to slowly adjust kids unrealistic expectations as they grow up. Encouraging unrealistic expectations on life is only setting them up for a hard fall. For some, it can put them in depressive states. The fostering of unrealistic expectations goes all the way through college for many people. It's terrible.

[Godstud]

Teach
cause (someone) to learn or understand something by example or experience
encourage someone to accept (something) as a fact or principle

Nurture
upbringing, education, and environment, contrasted with inborn characteristics as an influence on or determinant of personality

[Rancid]

It has different definitions.

Nurture:


1.take care of young thing: to give tender care and protection to a young child, animal, or plant, helping it to grow and develop
2.
encourage somebody or something to flourish: to encourage somebody or something to grow, develop, thrive, and be successful
"an agent who nurtured several budding young playwrights"
3.
keep feeling: to keep a feeling in the mind for a long time, allowing it to grow or deepen


If you're going to get all ho-hum about the definition of the word, then replace everywhere I said nurture with encourage. It doesn't change my point at all.

[Godstud]

Yes, yes it does have different ones, but it's all part of education. Experience, nurturing, etc.

[Daktoria]

You guys are having the exact problem I described earlier. The poster is meant to be taken synthetically so children aren't cowardly or arrogant.

Yes, this can be the problem with public education because professionals can be distant in not pointing out the correct amount of confidence.

No, there's no guarantee that parents will point out the correct amount of confidence either.

[Rancid]

Dak,

My responses were outside the scope of the specific poster. I was addressing the concept of how to inspire confidence in children, I was not addressing all of this cowardly/arrogance business.

[Daktoria]

Yes, I see your point Rancid, but it's a similar dichotomy. We encourage children so they're not cowardly, but we don't want to encourage them so much that they become arrogant.

Again, I don't really like the idea of using educators for this because they can be professionally distant, but so can parents. The key seems to be philosophical curriculum which gets handed down from one generation to the next.

Unfortunately, in a society where politicians only have 2, 4, and 6 year careers, this isn't going to happen. We really need legacy bound careers so politicians can commit to long term reforms.

[Nattering Nabob]

That is not the only reason why I want to homeschool, there are many others, this ad is just a symptom of the craziness prevalent in public schools, I mean you have to be a total idiot to think that everyone is equally smart or equally strong/capable at things. It is total freaking insanity.

A symptom of the insanity of public schools?

I would say that if this is a symptom then you are a hypochondriac...

This is nothing more than people trying to help kids...there are people out there who do such things you know...lot's of them...and not only do they try to help kids but they try to help anyone they feel are in need of help in many other venues besides school...people volunteer at suicide phone banks and food pantries and many other places...

This attempt to help others is a deep rooted human need expressed in every society and is even common to most religions...

These people are not pushing some political viewpoint but only doing what people throughout history have done: try to help others...

[Rancid]

Yes, I see your point Rancid, but it's a similar dichotomy. We encourage children so they're not cowardly, but we don't want to encourage them so much that they become arrogant.

Again, I don't really like the idea of using educators for this because they can be professionally distant, but so can parents. The key seems to be philosophical curriculum which gets handed down from one generation to the next.

I understand and agree. We don't want to raise kids to become douche bags, but we don't want them to become jelly with no backbone either. Life is a delicate balance.

[septimine]

A symptom of the insanity of public schools?

I would say that if this is a symptom then you are a hypochondriac...

This is nothing more than people trying to help kids...there are people out there who do such things you know...lot's of them...and not only do they try to help kids but they try to help anyone they feel are in need of help in many other venues besides school...people volunteer at suicide phone banks and food pantries and many other places...

This attempt to help others is a deep rooted human need expressed in every society and is even common to most religions...

These people are not pushing some political viewpoint but only doing what people throughout history have done: try to help others...

I'm not against helping kids achieve potential, but I am against encouraging narcissism and unrealistic expectations. Not every kid is going to be a winner, telling them that they are actually harms them when they find out they've been lied to. The best thing, as I said before is to require achievement before telling a kid they'll set the world on fire. Doing it backwards prevents the actual achievement because most people who have actually achieved things have also failed many times. If a kid is pumped up into believing that everything should be a cakewalk, the first time he fails, he'll quit.

[Nattering Nabob]

I'm not against helping kids achieve potential, but I am against encouraging narcissism and unrealistic expectations. Not every kid is going to be a winner, telling them that they are actually harms them when they find out they've been lied to. The best thing, as I said before is to require achievement before telling a kid they'll set the world on fire. Doing it backwards prevents the actual achievement because most people who have actually achieved things have also failed many times. If a kid is pumped up into believing that everything should be a cakewalk, the first time he fails, he'll quit.

And who is claiming everything will be a "cakewalk"?

[onemalehuman]

When can there be a general global law about self assured this moment is the same place every other living thing is balanced within the general rule applied to everything organic and inorganic supporting cellular adaption, "Adapt or become extinct."?

How would understanding time doesn't move out of this moment?

Nobody would believe it because humanity's experts of reality say it isn't possible in theory and theology?

Discover the real moment for yourself, it is liberating to loose one's character's rights to own a reality. Doesn't mean reality goes away either, just comes under a new set of laws being interpreted in physical results instead of metaphysical maybes.

Since this website was free, I give it some free advice to repay my participating in watching conversations avoid the problems fighting over invented issues of interpretation.

[Rich]

Well I must confess to being stupid. For example, when I was a child I couldn't understand the Christian moral message of the Bible, OK fair enough, but now I'm an adult I still can't understand it. There's other things I can't understand, like how can so called Libertarians and small government Conservatives support Bridge to Nowhere supporter Sarah Palin and how a murdering child raping, tyrant can be considered the ultimate moral role model for a billion people on the planet. This advert has further increased my self doubt. I don't believe in point 5 that nobody is better than anyone else, I believe in myself so I'm following point 1, but to follow point 5 I would have to abandon trust in my own opinions and so I would then be failing on point 1. oh how I wish I was intelligent enough to understand this.

[doc ob]

If parents want to keep children at home, they should have to pass an extensive philosophical exam, proving they're committed to teaching their children social values so they don't become alienated.

If anything, public education as we know it today is insufficient.

I've only been on this forum for two days, and it's nice to see that we share the same views on some things Dakortia, because I can tell from your posts that your opinions are well-founded, even though those relating to IR are completely different from mine.

I had never thought of the idea of testing parents for proficiency before allowing them to be home schooled, but it makes a lot of sense. I would have serious concerns about sending my children (if and when I had any) to state schools but I had never considered the notion of others doing the same that weren't capable of properly educating. Another issue I have on this is where would you find the time? I know Mill was home-schooled by his father, but I haver to assume that his father was already in a stable financial situation so as to spend adequate time teaching.

As for the self-confidence thing, I can somewhat see the point in the poster in a more general context: The mind being a powerful tool to overcome obstacles, self-belief goes a long way...

[septimine]

And who is claiming everything will be a "cakewalk"?

It's sort of an unspoken collary to the notion of I'm good at something. People who are good at basketball tend to find it easy. People who are good at Math tend to find it easy, etc. In other words, if I have ability -- and by the OP's poster EQUAL ability, I should find the task fairly easy. Except that it doesn't actually work that way -- people may have certain slight talents over other people, but contrary to popular myths, most people who get good at something work very hard at it. A person who spends 30,000 hours learning to play the piano is going to be much better than someone who spends 10,000 hours. And the person who spends 30,000 hours but doesn't work all that hard is going to do worse than the guy who works his arse off.

What modern easy life philosophies do is make it sound as though life is easy, fun, and that you should find a job that is easy, fun and not much work. Life just doesn't work that way.