Okay, so you know that moment when you're up at 3 a.m., and you want to have a good conversation that will refresh your mind and keep you up for a few hours, but no one talk-to-able is on, so you start reading Psychology Today articles?

Maybe not, okay, but I was at that point, last night.

There was this article on how we coddle kids too much. I read it, and, up until a certain point, I was glad to see that point of view published, because people do tend to stay too connected to their kids.

But, then there was this whole thing about how we tell kids they can do anything (along with grade inflation, hello), AND THEY CAN'T.

This kind of honestly blew my mind.

See, I'd been going through life with this attitude about careers and how, if I work hard enough, I can be anything. I'm seeing, now, that this was kind of crazy. Not because I'm not bright (I don't especially have a solid judgement on that, in reference to statistics, but I would assume that I'm not entirely dull, in any case), but because some things just aren't my forte. Sure, I COULD succeed in subjects I don't naturally do well in, but do I WANT to waste my time in classes that could cause my GPA to plummet and cause me to use HOURS upon hours everyday just trying to keep up?

(Just so you know, this whole subject makes me flinch. I was brought up by a school system that plugged students full of this You Can Reach The Stars stuff, so I'm still having some trouble with my dissonance.)

It doesn't make sense. It really doesn't. And I figure this out after taking a chemistry course and HATING it. Right now, I'm leaning so hard towards behavioral sciences and mathematics, but I'm changing my major to undeclared until I can get a handle on my interests and strengths (probably by reviewing what classes I elect to take). Much less kooky. Much more me, to be completely neutral until I fall in love.


Although...Araam and I were talking, last night, because I sent him an article that related to me, and suddenly I told him that, if I worked in the psychology field, I would work a lot more with parent-child relationships and improve that field.

That's the first time I've ever had a specific plan for ANYTHING, career and education-wise.


OH THE WONDERS OF THREE IN THE MORNING!

That's weird
I'm honestly very surprised that hadn't occurred to you before...I've been referring to that world-view as "Mickey Mouse Syndrome" for years now. Guess you weren't as cynical as I gave you credit for. :P
» middaymoon on 2011-05-09 07:29:21

Actually I do know that feeling, though I don't necessarily read Psychology Today articles to satisfy it.

And I'm mildly surprised you weren't aware of the terrible optimistic lies we tell children. XD I first realized that I wasn't really capable of everything during PE in 9th grade... I just could not run any faster than I was, and it occurred to me that I really couldn't just do anything I set my mind to.
» randomjunk on 2011-05-09 10:51:52

I totally see where you're coming from. I was brought up with that mindset, too. I also realized that we spend all this time teaching kids calculus when 90% of them will never use it. But the 10% of them that do really have to learn calculus at that age otherwise they won't be able to advance as quickly in later years. Crazy, eh? I still can't completely embrace the idea that people can't do things by setting their minds to it. I mean, ok, so not everyone is going to be an Olympic sprinter, but I bet everyone could be a concert violinist... it just might take some people 20 years and other people 100. All those people for whom it would take 100 years give up before they reach their goal. It's not that you *can't* learn chemistry, of course you can, it's just that you have better things to do with your time than banging your head against a wall when you could apply yourself to something else and get stupendous results much more quickly.

But maybe I am just naive and in a couple of years I will lose faith Middaymoon will wonder why I didn't come to this conclusion earlier.

I do think we coddle kids WAYYYY too much. But I don't really think there is harm in telling them that they can make it to the stars. Because when they're kids, we actually have no idea what they're capable of. They could be that 0.001% that beats all odds and reaches their dreams. So we telling them to follow their dreams and we keep teaching them calculus, just in case.


» Zanzibar on 2011-05-11 01:32:40

Sorry, you do not have permission to comment.

If you are a member, try logging in again or accessing this page here.