Nov 18, 2022·edited Nov 18, 2022Liked by Scharffington Post
Thanks for this Jamie; very thought-provoking. In thinking about this from my perspective as the parent of a 2-year-old, I experience how difficult it is after having gone through public education to shed the vestiges of achievementism; after our recent parent-teacher conference, it was difficult to accept the seemingly pedantic (yet, totally developmentally appropriate!) goals the teacher had - "shouldn't they be challenging him to learn/do something MORE?" (of course, the answer is "no"). Additionally, speaking from the perspective of a mental health counselor, it makes me think about the dialectic of acceptance vs. judgment on merits, and how so many interventions fall flat unless I as a counselor first engender the feeling of being accepted for who one is (think of how Mr. Rogers made you feel when watching him; those of you reading who grew up with him!). The message is "you are good as you are, and here is something you could try" versus "you need to do this to be better". I wonder if this is part of the flawed nature of this rewards system; yes, the kids act a certain way when you are rewarding them, but what happens when the rewards go away? Do they just feel like they, personally, are lacking because their rewards are now lacking? Parallels with capitalism in economics abound, of course. A helpful framework for parenting - permissive, authoritative, authoritarian) may also apply here - perhaps the rewards system verges too much towards the authoritarian side, whereas a more authoritative approach (stating values, modeling the values, engendering an atmosphere of acceptance within boundaries) would be more beneficial. Just a few initial musings!
I think you’d like Alfie Kohn’s book Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishment to Love and Reason https://www.alfiekohn.org/unconditional-parenting-book/. I agree with you about the different kinds of authority - there is being an authority (by modeling one’s mastery of something) vs. having authority, which just means having power to wield. It’s also much easier to take constructive critique from someone you trust, and trust can only be developed where the relationship is based on unconditional love. It took me a while, but eventually I realized that I really did love all my students unconditionally (in a quasi-parental way), even if I didn’t always like them. It also therefore probably took me a while to get better at showing it, as this is hard to do within a system so deeply based on pushing obedience and compliance, as well as sorting through competition, both somewhat antithetical to unconditional, trusting, caring relationships. We definitely need more Mister Rogers and less authoritarianism!
Thanks for this Jamie; very thought-provoking. In thinking about this from my perspective as the parent of a 2-year-old, I experience how difficult it is after having gone through public education to shed the vestiges of achievementism; after our recent parent-teacher conference, it was difficult to accept the seemingly pedantic (yet, totally developmentally appropriate!) goals the teacher had - "shouldn't they be challenging him to learn/do something MORE?" (of course, the answer is "no"). Additionally, speaking from the perspective of a mental health counselor, it makes me think about the dialectic of acceptance vs. judgment on merits, and how so many interventions fall flat unless I as a counselor first engender the feeling of being accepted for who one is (think of how Mr. Rogers made you feel when watching him; those of you reading who grew up with him!). The message is "you are good as you are, and here is something you could try" versus "you need to do this to be better". I wonder if this is part of the flawed nature of this rewards system; yes, the kids act a certain way when you are rewarding them, but what happens when the rewards go away? Do they just feel like they, personally, are lacking because their rewards are now lacking? Parallels with capitalism in economics abound, of course. A helpful framework for parenting - permissive, authoritative, authoritarian) may also apply here - perhaps the rewards system verges too much towards the authoritarian side, whereas a more authoritative approach (stating values, modeling the values, engendering an atmosphere of acceptance within boundaries) would be more beneficial. Just a few initial musings!
I think you’d like Alfie Kohn’s book Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishment to Love and Reason https://www.alfiekohn.org/unconditional-parenting-book/. I agree with you about the different kinds of authority - there is being an authority (by modeling one’s mastery of something) vs. having authority, which just means having power to wield. It’s also much easier to take constructive critique from someone you trust, and trust can only be developed where the relationship is based on unconditional love. It took me a while, but eventually I realized that I really did love all my students unconditionally (in a quasi-parental way), even if I didn’t always like them. It also therefore probably took me a while to get better at showing it, as this is hard to do within a system so deeply based on pushing obedience and compliance, as well as sorting through competition, both somewhat antithetical to unconditional, trusting, caring relationships. We definitely need more Mister Rogers and less authoritarianism!