8 ms·

> being taught about it How do you teach something like this? In a classroom, or is it only good incase it comes from experienced parents?

sametmax 8y ago
You can't teach this in the classroom: it's not school's mission, plus it sometimes goes against its agenda. Teaching this can only be done by somebody close to you. Family or friends. However, two conditions make it rare that it happens: said relatives must know about it, and they must be willing to teach it. Very few people actually know about this: either they do it without understanding that they do it, or they don't do it. It's a rare combination to have somebody acting in this way, and understanding deeply the ins and outs of it. As for the will: teaching it means it does not go against the person agenda. It means the person must have the ability to teach. And the desire to invest the time and energy to do so, as it's a long process that involves patience, failure, and a lot of leading by example. Bottom line: it's hard to be a good parent. Damn it, who knew? However, if I decided to teach it to somebody (I decided not to have children), I wish I would be able to do do the following thing: - Be extremely honest. Half of the problems in this game is about all the lies we tell each others. That adults are always right. That schools is always here to help you. You have to be nice. They are wrong and you are right, or vice versa. Justice exists outside of the human mind. Being a child is easy. I'd talk about the pain I had, I listen to their pain. - Talk about cost. A lot. Social cost. Punishment. Long term consequences in life. Being hurt. And hurting others. This must be demystified. It's not something special. It's life. It's ordinary. It's not the end of the world and it's the same for everybody. You can find happiness between those. But you need to make conscious choices about the costs, and not let them happen to you. - Be patient. Accept failure. Talk about it. My father used to double anything the school would punished me with. So basically, if a bully kicked my ass and I defended myself, I would pay 3 times for basically minding my own business. This is the opposite of what you want. - Teach about basic grooming, fashion, language and social conventions. Show them as tools instead of constraints. You can change clothes and wording to match occasions: formal when needed, fashionable when required, personal when with loved ones. Once you master them, you can actually use them less and less and be yourself more and more without friction. Life is funny that way. But as long as you reject them as artifact of our sick societal system, they will be a burden to you. - Have the "boundaries" talk. How to respect others. How to make others respect yours. By body language. Verbally. Physically if needed. It's weird to have something that artificial to deal with, and so it's even more important to highlight it. - Lead by example. Speaking only helps so much. You must show. And involve.
- Demigod33 8y ago
  So loading it up on a website and letting kids do their things is not enough? What would be required to learn this by themselves, if a blogpost is not enough? Memorization by repetition, self-improvement cycles, what do you think would be enough that they can learn it by themselves?
  - sametmax 8y ago
    You don't learn guitar with one blog post. This is more abstract than guitar. There is not one technic you can follow. Those skills use less the intellectual part of the brain and more the emotional one. It makes them hard to mass teach because words suck for explaining them. I don't have a simple solution to offer, as I learned it by trial and errors, and also luck. Therapy helped me but it's not scalable. Meditation too but it's very slow, and good luck to make teenagers practice it seriously. I would still recommand them, with the warning that quality vary hugely between practicians. Lots of good books have helped as well. They are useless without practice though. Because in the end, the only way to learn is to be in the situation, react differently and evaluate, then adapt. Anyway, to all those with these challenges, good luck. It's possible to live an happy life as a square in a circle world. But it does requires to adapt and you may be the only one in charge to find a way. Despite my seemingly pessimistic view on the topic, a positive way of seing this is to say : hey, nobody did it, let's make a website with plenty of content, practical examples in videos and exercices for those who need it. You'd need a dozen of contributors with different social background and gender to make something that's worth it. Things need to be very visual, so acting will be important. You need kids to be part of it as you'd get out of date easily. You'd need to remove judgement out of it. Not the right place to get your "drug are bad" messages through is. Repetition is important, but sustainable progression is another. Practicing those skills will get you in trouble at first. But more importantly, the emphasis must be based on real experiences from the teaching and in the exercices. Hard to get righ. Interesting challenge. A nice idea to explore.
ams6110 8y ago
Participation sports can go a long way for some of this. Developing strength and fitness naturally builds self-confidence and a positive self-image. Self-confidence results in a willingness to defend oneself and helps deter bullying.
- scarface74 8y ago
  Or forced participation in sports could do just the opposite for kids who were uncoordinated, have mild physical disabilities, etc... I hated PE classes until the one or two I had to take in high school. Then I could elect to take weightlifting. I wasn’t coordinated at all but I could “pick things up and put them down”. But no amount of “self-confidence” and having a “positive self-image” would stop a short fat uncoordinated computer geek [1] from getting bullied. No I wasn’t bullied in high school but I’m sure it didn’t have anything to do with being “self confident” and I wouldn’t have been able to “defend myself” against the football players if half of them weren’t my friends. [1] I got better as an adult - got more into physical fitness and became a part time fitness instructor.

sametmax 8y ago

You can't teach this in the classroom: it's not school's mission, plus it sometimes goes against its agenda. Teaching this can only be done by somebody close to you. Family or friends. However, two conditions make it rare that it happens: said relatives must know about it, and they must be willing to teach it. Very few people actually know about this: either they do it without understanding that they do it, or they don't do it. It's a rare combination to have somebody acting in this way, and understanding deeply the ins and outs of it. As for the will: teaching it means it does not go against the person agenda. It means the person must have the ability to teach. And the desire to invest the time and energy to do so, as it's a long process that involves patience, failure, and a lot of leading by example. Bottom line: it's hard to be a good parent. Damn it, who knew? However, if I decided to teach it to somebody (I decided not to have children), I wish I would be able to do do the following thing: - Be extremely honest. Half of the problems in this game is about all the lies we tell each others. That adults are always right. That schools is always here to help you. You have to be nice. They are wrong and you are right, or vice versa. Justice exists outside of the human mind. Being a child is easy. I'd talk about the pain I had, I listen to their pain. - Talk about cost. A lot. Social cost. Punishment. Long term consequences in life. Being hurt. And hurting others. This must be demystified. It's not something special. It's life. It's ordinary. It's not the end of the world and it's the same for everybody. You can find happiness between those. But you need to make conscious choices about the costs, and not let them happen to you. - Be patient. Accept failure. Talk about it. My father used to double anything the school would punished me with. So basically, if a bully kicked my ass and I defended myself, I would pay 3 times for basically minding my own business. This is the opposite of what you want. - Teach about basic grooming, fashion, language and social conventions. Show them as tools instead of constraints. You can change clothes and wording to match occasions: formal when needed, fashionable when required, personal when with loved ones. Once you master them, you can actually use them less and less and be yourself more and more without friction. Life is funny that way. But as long as you reject them as artifact of our sick societal system, they will be a burden to you. - Have the "boundaries" talk. How to respect others. How to make others respect yours. By body language. Verbally. Physically if needed. It's weird to have something that artificial to deal with, and so it's even more important to highlight it. - Lead by example. Speaking only helps so much. You must show. And involve.

Demigod33 8y ago
So loading it up on a website and letting kids do their things is not enough? What would be required to learn this by themselves, if a blogpost is not enough? Memorization by repetition, self-improvement cycles, what do you think would be enough that they can learn it by themselves?
- sametmax 8y ago
  You don't learn guitar with one blog post. This is more abstract than guitar. There is not one technic you can follow. Those skills use less the intellectual part of the brain and more the emotional one. It makes them hard to mass teach because words suck for explaining them. I don't have a simple solution to offer, as I learned it by trial and errors, and also luck. Therapy helped me but it's not scalable. Meditation too but it's very slow, and good luck to make teenagers practice it seriously. I would still recommand them, with the warning that quality vary hugely between practicians. Lots of good books have helped as well. They are useless without practice though. Because in the end, the only way to learn is to be in the situation, react differently and evaluate, then adapt. Anyway, to all those with these challenges, good luck. It's possible to live an happy life as a square in a circle world. But it does requires to adapt and you may be the only one in charge to find a way. Despite my seemingly pessimistic view on the topic, a positive way of seing this is to say : hey, nobody did it, let's make a website with plenty of content, practical examples in videos and exercices for those who need it. You'd need a dozen of contributors with different social background and gender to make something that's worth it. Things need to be very visual, so acting will be important. You need kids to be part of it as you'd get out of date easily. You'd need to remove judgement out of it. Not the right place to get your "drug are bad" messages through is. Repetition is important, but sustainable progression is another. Practicing those skills will get you in trouble at first. But more importantly, the emphasis must be based on real experiences from the teaching and in the exercices. Hard to get righ. Interesting challenge. A nice idea to explore.

ams6110 8y ago

Participation sports can go a long way for some of this. Developing strength and fitness naturally builds self-confidence and a positive self-image. Self-confidence results in a willingness to defend oneself and helps deter bullying.

scarface74 8y ago
Or forced participation in sports could do just the opposite for kids who were uncoordinated, have mild physical disabilities, etc... I hated PE classes until the one or two I had to take in high school. Then I could elect to take weightlifting. I wasn’t coordinated at all but I could “pick things up and put them down”. But no amount of “self-confidence” and having a “positive self-image” would stop a short fat uncoordinated computer geek [1] from getting bullied. No I wasn’t bullied in high school but I’m sure it didn’t have anything to do with being “self confident” and I wouldn’t have been able to “defend myself” against the football players if half of them weren’t my friends. [1] I got better as an adult - got more into physical fitness and became a part time fitness instructor.