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Comment by pbhjpbhj | Hacker News Reader

In think this has been shown to get worse results than praising effort.

I call my kids out for being lazy when they're being lazy.

Examples from this morning "I don't know what the second rucksack is": meaning "I can't be bothered getting it out the rucksack, you do it for me", my answer "You just want someone else to do it, stop being lazy and get it yourself". Also "I can't do it [take off my boots]": meaning "I don't want to bother, and my hands will get dirty", my answer "why should someone else get their hands dirty, just because you can't be bothered to pull" (then I demonstrated what to do, then mimicked his pretending he couldn't do it in order to demonstrate I knew what he was up to). It's not for nothing my kids get me Darth Vader merchandise!

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I think there's an important distinction here: in "stop being lazy" it is a verb, an act which is temporary and can be overcome, while in "he is lazy" it is an adjective, an attribute which can all too easily be taken as an indelible personality trait. I think it's only the latter that can be harmful.

> in "stop being lazy" it is a verb

It isn't.

No, but "being lazy" is an action, which can be stopped. It's much harder to stop being lazy if you are being told it's a facet of your identity.

Lazy, here, is a state. It could be understood as a temporary state like being asleep or being hungry, or a facet of one's identity.

"Stop slacking" might be better; it unambiguously refers to current behavior that a person can change immediately.

Lazy is an attribute.

"Being lazy" is a transient state.

That's the important distinction here.

I thought that maybe another language would have a word for this, and I found

https://spanishto-english.com/spanish-dictionary/haraganear

It calls "being lazy" an intransitive verb

That's very pedantic! While I didn't mean "it" in that statement to refer just to the word "lazy", I suppose it's true that "being lazy" also isn't technically a verb. Other commenters below have found more precise language, but I think a charitable reading of what I wrote is pretty clear in meaning.

How about "stop [acting] lazy"? 'Acting' has more of an implication of something you are putting on that can be easily changed, rather than 'being' which possibly implies something you are, that is not easily changed.

This is deeper down a rabbit hole than I really meant to go, but I personally think "being lazy" is appropriate; I spend time being lazy pretty often, and it isn't an act, it's true laziness, but it's also temporary.

Reminds me of a part from Cryptonomicon:

> '"I don't like the word 'addict' because it has terrible connotations," Root says one day, as they are sunning themselves on the afterdeck. "Instead of slapping a label on you, the Germans would describe you as 'Morphiumsüchtig.' The verb, suchen means to seek. So that might be translated, loosely, as 'morphine seeky' or even more loosely as 'morphine-seeking.' I prefer 'seeky' because it means that you have an inclination to seek morphine."

> '"What the fuck are you talking about?" Shaftoe says.

> '"Well, suppose you have a roof with a hole in it. That means it is a leaky roof. It's leaky all the time—even if it's not raining at the moment. But its only leaking when it happens to be raining. In the same way, morphine-seeky means that you always have this tendency to look for morphine, even if you are not looking for it at the moment. But I prefer both of them to 'addict,' because they are adjectives modiying Bobby Shaftoe instead of a noun that obliterates Bobby Shaftoe."

Plus one for Cryptonomicon reference ... such a great read once you get up to speed with the book. I finished it on my third attempt after quitting twice. Currently stuck on REAMDE ...

Honestly, I didn't find REAMDE to be worth the time. Re-reading Cryptonomicon would be time better spent.

Parts of REAMDE lagged, and it was weirdly paced - there were at least three parts of the book where I was sure I was approaching the conclusion, only to look down and see that I was 20%, 40%, 80% through the book. But overall, I enjoyed it.

I highly recommend SEVENEVES. It's like NS doing "The Martian" but weirder.

Though the word "Sucht" may imply that it derives from "suchen", it does not [1][2][3], making the translation "süchtig" into "seeking" just plain wrong, even loosley.

süchtig = addicted, hooked seeking = suchend

[1] https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/Sucht [2] https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/suchen [3] https://michelmasters.wordpress.com/category/etymologie-und-...

Context. Tearing down vs empowering.

I loved volunteering in my son's classroom(s). But I admit to having rage-fits when a beautiful, sweet, talented little 6 year old boy forfeits on a task, telling me "I'm stupid, I can't do anything".

There's no question how his parents talked to him.

I am not sure I would blame the parents. As a kid I would say that I was stupid and couldn't do anything even though everyone around me was telling me how smart I was. I watch the same thing occurring in my six year old daughter now, even though I am sure nobody is saying that to her. It was a confidence thing for me. This didn't change until I was in my teens and was clearly better at certain things than others.

For me it was effort required. I was an early reader, and the first few years of elementary were a breeze, but at some point I decided if I had to work at anything, I didn't want to do it.

If I couldn't immediately answer the question, I felt was just stupid and it wasn't worth my time.

This, in spite of a family insisting I was the greatest.

> This, in spite of a family insisting I was the greatest.

Some would argue it's because of your family insisting you were the greatest, in part.

>At some point I decided if I had to work at anything, I didn't want to do it. If I couldn't immediately answer the question, I felt [it] was just stupid and it wasn't worth my time.

Yep, you are a smart, great person. Your family loves you because of all of the smart, great things you do, in part. If something is hard and doesn't come naturally to you? It must be something stupid and not great. So don't worry, you are still smart and great, and people still love you. Don't try anything hard.

I'm obviously being facetious, but according to some experts (though not all, not even most), that emotional dynamic is encouraged by praising kids for their intelligence or abilities, instead of effort. I don't know how much I believe it, but that type of weird insecurity does seem fairly common among intelligent people who were extremely precocious.

If a kid thinks “smart” means that she knows the answers to lots of things then when she runs into things and doesn’t know the answer, she figures everyone is wrong and she is stupid. When a kid thinks that being smart means being able to sit there and figure things out and ask for help when needed, then she knows what to do to live up to the “smart” expectation and can accept the vision of herself as smart when she runs into something she doesn’t already know.

It's infuriating, but it's also an opportunity to do your little push towards a growth mindset: tell them that then they could practice more so they get better at it.

I'm convinced that the more we all tell kids that practice beats talent by a long shot, the happier our next generation will be. Even if only some people around a kid talk like that I'm convinced it can make a difference, get people into this growth mindset when they're big.

(TED talk about the growth mindset, if the term feels like manager bullshit mumbo jumbo to you: https://www.ted.com/talks/carol_dweck_the_power_of_believing...)

Well, as long as your convinced.

Hm, interesting. I assumed most people agreed by now that this growth mindset thing is real but maybe I missed something.

What would you say to a kid who says "I'm stupid, I can't do anything"?

I was that kid, and my parents and entire family were constantly telling me how smart I was. They were never verbally abusive.

Please note that it can also be his friends. Kids can be real assholes towards one another.

There isn't necessarily no question.

I went through a phase in high school where I was convinced I was very stupid. My parents certainly didn't talk to me that way, though.

You're right, I'm always surprised when I see parents carrying their kid's scooter or bike back from the park. How do they instill grit in children if the "hard part" of things are always done for them (assuming of course the child is actually capable of doing such things). Now they shouldn't flat out call the child lazy, that harms self esteem. But it should be clear that their child is expected to bring home the scooter they were just so happily riding around on.

Toddlers are pretty good at psychological manipulation (combination of genetic cuteness + constant practice) and some parents aren't very resilient against it.

Learning to fake cry to get adults to do things is pretty much the first intentional communication a baby learns as far as I can tell.

I so much agree that praising ability instead of effort is a mistake.

However, a word like "lazy" is a bit tricky. While you are saying "stop being lazy" (meaning - please cease the behavior you are exhibiting in this moment) it can have an undertone of "you are lazy", especially if repeated over the course of days/months/years.

I wonder if there is a better phrasing to respond in a scenario like a kid not searching for his own backpack. Maybe "Do the work!"

Be careful with the coldness.

This may backfire on you down the road.

Your children may stop respecting you as they gain independence.

Yes, but also my role as parent is not necessarily to be liked: I'm concerned to help him develop resilience and self-reliance above my own desire to be liked. It's a delicate balance.

> my role as parent is not necessarily to be liked

I wish more people understood/accepted this.

As long as you do not burn bridges, I think this is spot on. In the long run, when your kids are adults they will like you more for it than if you had been their "friend" during childhood.

"Liked" and "respected" are not the same thing. You can be one, both, or neither. You are right that the role of a parent is not necessarily to be liked, but it is to be respected.

Does anyone care to actually rebut this, or is it just going to be silent downvotes?

Umm my parents had this idea. It seems that me and my siblings internalized the idea that our parents didn't like/care about us and ended up with quite low self esteem. Most of us developed some anxiety disorders or depressive issues. Now my 24 year old brother sits in my parents house and plays DotA all day and my parents just complain about how he needs to get a job.

e: this is after massive academic self sabotage that ended up with him barely graduating from high school on the special ed track despite being probably 130+iq. He would show up late to every class, refuse to do his assignments, and roll his eyes and loudly yawn to mock the teachers the teachers before falling asleep at his desk. Despite this he'd still end up topping out exams in physics, chemistry, etc. But there were other issues at play like my mother being sick our whole childhood and my father having emotional and social problems from an abusive childhood.

I don’t think tough love makes children lose respect for their parents. Anecdotal, but my parents were pretty strict when it came to discipline and habits, and weren’t really warm people, and I have tons of respect for them.

Children lose respect for parents that are inconsistent, don’t have their shit together, or that do literally everything for them.

Telling your kids to knock the shit off and do X is not "being cold."

As pointed out in sibling comments your job as a parent is not to get your children to like you.

Your job is to get your children to behave in a way that keeps _you_ liking _them_.

I don't mean that in the sense of "unconditional love" but a pragmatic day to day annoyance and dissatisfaction that keeps building up. Don't accept that as normal.

If you start resenting the presence or behavior of your children you need to act. Better act long before that.

Kids are little psychopaths when they are young; they will manipulate the shit out of you if you let them. They can bring this behavior into adolescence and adulthood if not corrected. They absolutely need to be told, in no uncertain terms, to cut out the shit every once in a while, that teaches them you aren't going to put up with their manipulation and shows your high expectations for their behavior. It also shows them that there's going to be people in the world (bosses, for example) who are just going to expect something from you. That's not being cold, that's being a damn good parent.

And you know what, they actually do learn over time and their behavior does improve.

Saying "okay darling, I'll take your shoes off," doesn't built respect, quite the opposite, it teaches them to continue to manipulate you and that leads to a massive amount of disrespect.

The person I respect most in life is my grandma and she is the only one who called out the bullshit in me when she saw it. Same with my baby cousin (I'm more than 20 years older than him), he's a teenager now and I'm his favorite person in the world and I was the only person who called him out and let him know I expected him to behave around me, his parents let him walk all over them. He certainly had and still has zero respect for his parents.

Speaking of my baby cousin, his dad once asked me why I correct his grammar. I told him I didn't mind how he talks around his friends, but I wanted him to learn to speak correctly for the times he needs to portray himself professionally, like a job interview.

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