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Comment by maerF0x0 | Hacker News Reader

> When a child comes home excited with a great mark, say, “you deserve it! You worked really hard for that mark.

Ok, putting aside it's important to be emotionally warm towards your children and ensure they understand you love them "unconditionally"[1], I do think it's also important to help them to learn retrospect and to work smarter.

"What a great mark you've earned! What do you think was working about your approach?" (then praise and encourage them for whatever they say so long as it's remotely reasonable). I just say this because I feel like the "work hard" mentality actually hasnt served me in life. Once you work for a business no one cares how "hard" you work, if it's not smart first. Smart is the more powerful variable, you can work Smart and not hard and be quite successful. But work hard on stupid things? No one cares and you'll be overlooked and even hated on at times.

[1] - I'm not a parent, but honestly everyone has a limit, and frankly love should not be truly impossible to lose. My love will stop if they butcher my wife, burn down my house, and call me fat.

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I'd be pretty annoyed, as a child or not, if at every turn I'd be asked to retrospect about an accomplishment or even a failure.

Praising children for hard work rather than "for just being smart" is about their own personal wellbeing. Kids who get called smart in their early years have trouble facing real and difficult problems later in life, because they suddenly feel "wait, I'm not really smart" and other such pathological feelings. It's about encouraging problem solving, not just blindly working hard, and teaching that problem solving is a continually evolving process and not some innate thing that you either have or don't have.

It's true that the real world doesn't recognize hard work in a consistent way, but I think this is more about personal development and wellbeing rather than implying hard work will make you successful, for some definition of successful.

> I'd be pretty annoyed, as a child or not, if at every turn I'd be asked to retrospect about an accomplishment or even a failure.

Perhaps like: "I wanted you to celebrate/commiserate this emotional thing with me but instead you're always ruining it by trying to make it some kind of school thing--what the fudge, Dad..."

Or more correctly.

Congratulations on the mark. I'm sorry we subjected you to such an inhuman peer ranking activity. Society has become so psychotic that it's impossible for us to understand anything unless we quantify it and this is your initiation.

Lol, I loved how true this is, damn

I mean, would you? It is literally a defining capability for high level performance. Take a breather, enjoy success, but then look at it.

Though, make no mistake, there is a ton of variability in kids. I think I could reasonably do this with one kid, but I couldn't with another. And some kids need pressing, some don't seem to.

> I'd be pretty annoyed, as a child or not, if at every turn I'd be asked to retrospect about an accomplishment or even a failure.

I’m the complete opposite. I might be irritated if people made me relive a sore defeat too soon, but I love “stewing” in the victories.

If people ask me “amazing win man, how’d you do it?”, I’d revel in retelling the story, especially if I took a shot and was clever. “They all said my way wouldn’t work but I showed them”

Ha, and I’m the opposite in a different direction. I _hate_ positive feedback. What motivates me is failure and a fear of failure. I go out of my way to downplay accomplishments but will talk your ear off about how and why I failed or almost failed or knew about a failure condition.

Maybe the actual takeaway is to figure out what kind of feedback a child responds best to and use that most of the time. You know, paying attention to the kid.

>I'd be pretty annoyed, as a child or not, if at every turn I'd be asked to retrospect about an accomplishment or even a failure.

I meant what I wrote more in the spirit of "Great Job! Teach me whats been working well ? :) " A curious, open approach that they get to highlight what they're proud of or think is praise worthy.

As opposed to "Great Job, now let's go over the replay reel with a fine tooth comb to analyze it" ... I think I meant it much more casual and friendly than perhaps it read?

A problem with this kind of statement is that it doesn’t take into account that you live with a child pretty much 100% of the time. It’s not like any other personal relationship, especially in the early days. Having a child is intense, and most people without kids simply don’t have the experience to fully appreciate how relentless it is.

I write this simply to say that there is plenty of time to praise kids, and plenty of time to coach them. You don’t need to do both, at once, all the time. Ride the highs, survive the lows; the in-between times are there to teach and learn.

Edited to add: and have fun

I work with and around a lot of really smart people, including for my job. I have a very intimate relationship with the very smartest of those people. I get to see behind the curtain quite a bit. The top 10% have no idea how hard the top 1% work. Many think the top 1% are coasting because everything is so easy for them. I fall into that trap myself a lot. The truth is that most real results take time consuming work.

I once had a conversation with somebody who lost their bid for a networking job to some 18-year old kid who "probably just plays a lot of video games." They never saw the 1000 hours the kid had spent the last two years fighting for better network latency. They didn't know the kid could quote two dozen different RFCs and could give you the strengths and weaknesses of 6 different routing protocols.

Which candidate was "smarter"? I have no idea. I know which one had spent more hours preparing for the job. Even if their competition thought they were just playing around all hours of the day and night.

That's one of the annoying realities I am slowly having to face.

Among highly technical ICs, the people who are paid $500k/year often do tend to work 2x the people who get paid $200k. Sure, these people are also more efficient, more effective and more knowledgeable. But, most of all, they work some insane hours. It's incredible, they are thinking about work when they're eating, sleeping, on vacation...it's like an obsession.

I am in one such ~60 hrs/week job right now, and everyone in an IC role that's paid more than me, works more hours than I do. Yeah, my (supposed) compensation went up with this job hop, but in IC roles, hourly rates stay the same.

I love my work & my top 1% coworkers. But man, I look at the ones who are 10 years older than me, and that is not the kind of life I want to be living. I know a person who made millions before 25, and this person had never so much as taken a real vacation, watched a random TV show or played a computer game, despite always having the financial capacity to do so. I am not sure if there is dollar value for which I would give up those precious moments from my teens and 20s.

In the psychological research on domain expertise and performance, a common observation is that while greater expertise/performance is generally recognized to be the result of greater effort, people at lower levels vastly underestimate just how much greater effort.

Figuring out an eloquent solution to get work done faster and at higher quality is both smart and hard. It means taking the time to stop and think ahead, while also applying brain power to the problem.

The idea of avoiding rewarding ability is that we know it leads to smart kids who never learn how to put forth large amounts of effort, since often times up until college school is so bloody easy, they can skate by w/o developing good study habits.

The metric for intelligence has been the ability to retain information, and show such ability by regurgitating memorized data.

The metric became the target, and the regurgitated data became the goal, and not the memorization or rationalization that was intended. Data over substance, and recognition.

We learn about the wars, and their consequence in order to learn from the events. We do not learn about wars so that each of us can spit out meaningless numbers such as the date of the war, what route was taken, and who was fighting. The why is more important than the where. The How is more important than the when.

> The metric for intelligence has been the ability to retain information, and show such ability by regurgitating memorized data.

That is the metric for passing tests in the 1980s maybe. Maybe some TV stereotype of intelligence is someone who can solve a Rubik's Cube fast. Jeopardy also comes to mind.

But if you are talking about actual metrics, the ones used to measure intelligence, regurgitating facts is only a small part of that (testing different aspects of memory).

> We learn about the wars, and their consequence in order to learn from the events. We do not learn about wars so that each of us can spit out meaningless numbers such as the date of the war, what route was taken, and who was fighting.

When I studied history in school it was always with the goal of understanding the underlying motivations of the actors in play. I don't think I ever had to write down the date a battle happened.

I do understand that things got worse in the US after no child left behind passed, which is unfortunate.

> The why is more important than the where.

Studying the funding sources of the US Revolutionary War was fascinating, to say the least.

(Though I'd say that oftentimes the where and the why are closely linked, especially when it comes to natural resources!)

> I don't think I ever had to write down the date a battle happened.

Heh. Reminds me of coming to a (highly regarded) prep-high school in Eastern Eu back in the day. All seemed awesome at first glance. History teacher was ancient, which added to his cachet. Then the first oral exam came. We quickly caught on that this guy would ask a topic, and stop the student as soon as they deviated from the previously spoken lecture. After that it was a race to write every word he said verbatim, and regurgitate on command exactly word for word. I think the biggest contribution this school had for me is I now don’t feel anxious about the American schools my kids attend which many people complain are falling behind other countries, catering to the least common denominator, and similar. Compared to the rote fest I had I’ll take American schools any day :-)

> I don't think I ever had to write down the date a battle happened.

Maybe not, but if you didn’t know when the battles happened you’d have a very difficult time identifying how they influenced each other.

> But if you are talking about actual metrics, the ones used to measure intelligence, regurgitating facts is only a small part of that...

Your rebuttal is refuted by the entirety of our education system. Regurgitating facts is the /only/ measurement for intelligence in the US Education system.

Does the system care about details? Only memorized dates, times, and locations.

Does the system care about the why or how? Nope. That would require thought. Thought may instigate unrest. Unrest may lead to rebellion or revolution.

The education system only cares about your ability to memorize nonsensical data and regurgitate it at will.

I think you’re onto the solution here: praise hard work first and foremost but also praise cleverness and resourcefulness just as much.

Celebrating a milestone (birthday, graduating, completing a goal) and celebrating qualities that helped reach that milestone are two different things, in my mind.

"Did a good job" is a perfectly adequate milestone to celebrate. Adding qualifiers only introduces the idea of limits, imho. There's no point in setting the bar for someone with unknown potential.

I think what you say yo kids, and what you say to adults should be different.

And like either most of "growing up" the transition from one to the other is hard.

We want our kids to "work hard" because we know that to get places they will need to be able to do that. "Working hard" is a skill they need to learn.

But as adults, in the real world, "hard work" counts for nothing. The world rewards results, not the hours. Working effectively rewards more than working long. It's hard to explain to an employee that despite the fact they work "harder" than their colleagues, they get paid less because they deliver less. "Hard work" counts for very little.

Transitioning from hard work, to effective work, can be confusing for a young adult. That doesn't mean teaching children that hard work doesn't matter. It's precisely because they -can- work hard that it's possible to work smart.

> I think what you say to kids, and what you say to adults should be different.

I strongly disagree. Do you have children? Kids are smart and surprisingly logical. You don't need to molly coddle them about the value of hard work or even that they have different abilities to each other. You can deliver the news that they aren't as strong as their sister in a nice way just like you can deliver the news that an employee isn't as productive as their coworker in a nice way (and obviously avoid delivering it at all if possible in both cases).

If you want good parenting advice just watch Bluey. Look at how they talk to their children.

Doing postmortem reviews of mistakes is also important, if you are the type without natural competence. I spent a very long time wondering why I was always lost everywhere I go and always making the same mistakes, before I realized the problem was I was expecting my brain to just suddenly be able to do things after lots of practice, rather than using repeatable, failsafe systems like "Just assume you'll forget everything and always set reminders"

How about I just praise them if I genuinely feel they deserve it instead of picking and choosing when to praise in attempt to mold them into something I want them to be.

You're picking and choosing in either circumstance, and attempting to mold them in either circumstance.

No conscious choice. I just let my emotions guide the praising. Let fate mold them.

A judicious balance of “what comes naturally” and “what research shows is a good idea” is probably best.

What research. And what is the definition of best?

Generally speaking eons of evolution has shaped "what comes naturally" to be the parenting traits most effective at enabling survival of the fittest or some other trait that enables mass propagation of genes. But survival of the fittest is just one possible definition of "best".

You think your subconscious is “fate”?

Just an expression. I don't use conscious choice. Subconscious choice is more similar to what we understand as fate.

Authenticity is important. Praising effort because you read it improves outcomes, even if you internally don’t think it’s praiseworthy, would be inauthentic and eventually degrade your relationship in my opinion. However I’ve been amazed by my daughter for multiple reasons simultaneously. I’ve seen her solve a problem and thought to myself “wow she is so clever and persistent”, then mainly focus on one of those aspects when discussing it later.

Every parent thinks their kid is some kind of genius. It's a universal instinct that makes kids get more praise then they actually deserve.

Run with it. If nature makes you feel that way then "more praise then she actually deserves" is a valid method. Maybe she actually deserves it, but most likely she is average and you're just playing out what every average parent feels.

It's also nonsense. Who cares if you go through some pointless motions of pretending to be a hard worker?

If it comes easy, why not just let it be. For some people it comes easy simply because they are interested in it. Forcing them into busywork is purpose defeating.

Demanding that someone go do meaningless work so they don't get to coast, while a different student has to bust their ass, is absurd. IMO that's often what it is. Teachers get frustrated by underachievers, and how they're often more successful than people that work very hard.

It's not fair, and it hurts to see, but that's life.

> But work hard on stupid things? No one cares and you'll be overlooked and even hated on at times.

You clearly have no experience in multinational corporations, this quality is enough, with a bit of luck (ie don't get fired by chance in some broad firing rounds, your direct manager is not psycho, your whole location is closed etc.) to get quite far.

Corps need people who are willing to wade through bureaucracy, cumbersome rules and processes, chase people across globe and tick checklists. Hard work can get all that done, no real brilliance needed. Also there are tons of stupid things that are required by various regulations and laws for example.

I mean of course within limits. You are not going to move 10 levels higher to c-suite just by working hard for 2 decades, but having non-trivial career jumps is not unheard of.

These are separate things. Coach your kids. Praise them when they put in the work. Don't sour their successes by telling them they could do better. Accept them at their ability.

I was convinced by Alfie Kohn’s “Unconditional Parenting” and “Punished by Rewards”.

Praise sometimes hides lack of real interest so I give feedback

I agree. Fuck working hard. Working hard leads to being taken advantage of unless you have some leverage and know how to use it.

If your child calling you fat would cause you to revoke your love for them, I hope you're not considering parenthood.

there's an "and" in that sentence, not an or.

Unconditional love is a trope I want to die so badly. It's so.... Selfish? I read it as "You don't matter at all. I'm so big hearted and perfect; isn't it glorious?" I love my kid and wife because of who they are and specific things they do. And I tell them that. And I also tell them they can always change and my love for them will continue and change with them

If you think it's possible both to love someone and not think they matter at all, I think you're doing love wrong.

But isn't that what "unconditional" demands of you?

I guess the one condition is that they ate the individual that they are, and not some other individual. So it matters that they are that specific individual (e.g. your child).

I find the concept problematic as well. In practice there can certainly be limits.

I don’t think you can both love someone while also thinking they “don’t matter at all”. But maybe your definition of love is different.

A parent simply telling their child, unconditionally, that they love them isn’t enough. You have to believe they do matter and are worth something.

If you can say that about your child despite their many flaws, and potentially how they might hurt you [1], to me is what unconditional love is more about.

[1] That is, humans aren’t perfect, and will on occasion hurt other humans, to some extent — especially children that are still developing and trying to figure out what is and isn’t appropriate.

I don't think you're reading me properly. I think the statement is bs, not the feeling. Of course the individual matters! That's my entire point about the statement being bs.

And to the other half, of course the conditions are incredibly nuanced and context dependent and probably unknowable to boot. It's not some sort of "three strikes and you're out" situation.

> But isn't that what "unconditional" demands of you?

I think we're stuck on this word.

Unconditional means, to many, "without any conditions attached" i.e. I will love you even if you don't love me back. I will love you regardless of the amount of money, status, good looks, $FOO, $BAR or $BAZ you have.

I will love you, no matter the consequences, or the pain I will feel for doing so.

IOW, it is love you feel without control; if you have control over it, it is conditional.

I have not, until now, come across a definition of unconditional love to mean "I'm such a great person, I will love you even though you are not", or similar.

I agree the word is the sticking point. Unconditional to me means there is literally nothing that can change it. No conditions.

If you found out the relationship was a giant ruse created by a bored billionaire and the person began behaving completely differently because the contract ended: doesnt matter.

All sorts of wacky scenarios you can dream up.

I can't help but feel like saying unconditional love is a giant cop out. I love people for reasons. Important reasons. Some of those reasons can't change (e.g. you are my mom/dad/kid) but those aren't the only reasons. And it's important to me to communicate those attributes of people I love. And obviously the whole is bigger than the parts in some ineffable way. And I (try to) communicate that too.

But the whole concept of unconditional love says nothing. It is a cop out. And ultimately, a lie

Love is a choice, not a circumstance, and unconditional love is the strongest form of it. I choose to love you even if you stop having characteristics I like. I choose to love you regardless of any good or bad qualities you have. I love you because you are, but I'll even love you after you stop being (what else is grief?).

I don't know if you can understand it until you've received it. Until two years ago, I thought "love" itself was a lie we tell children to manipulate them into doing what we want, like Santa Claus.

But then somebody loved me. Somebody saw me, heard me, knew me, understood me. He found joy in my existence, often because of his own determination to do so, not because I was making it apparent.

He just loves me because I'm me and not him. If only one of us matters in this situation, from his perspective, it's me, not him. He wills my good for my sake, not his own, and even at his own expense.

You seem to be using "love" to mean something like "like a whole lot," and maybe that's why unconditionality doesn't make sense.

Love is an act of the will, not a response to a circumstance.

I think we'll simply agree to disagree. But suffice to say that I don't need you to explain love to me or tell me that what I feel isn't "real" love. And simply because we disagree on an adjective some people like to attach to their love and which I do not? How myopic and unnecessarily condescending of you.

I hope you experience unconditional love someday. I spent my whole life thinking, like you, that it wasn't real. That opinion was largely formed from infancy, by someone who did use it as you describe, to inflate his own beneficence at my expense.

All I can say is that I was completely and totally wrong about the nature of love (and, as I found out from that later, actually of the world). I don't think I could have understood that from someone's internet post about it. I may even have read their description of it as a condescending condemnation.

But it might have helped me hold out hope for what I now know to be true, hearing someone else insist it was real, against the unequivocal evidence of my entire life. And that hope would have been worth having.

I've vacillated a couple times on whether to respond to you, but apparently you've poked me in a place I can't just ignore and move on from.

My goodness you are a sanctimonious asshole. We are disagreeing about how to express extraordinary love. I think the common expression of "unconditional love" is both a shallow platitude and a lie. You think it is this over-the-moon perfect version of love. Fair enough, we disagree.

And yet, you have somehow twisted that into me not having experienced "unconditional love" that you apparently just discovered for yourself in the recent past? Do you always resort to debasing someone else's life experience when you disagree with their perspective?

The height of arrogance and foolishness you admit to is absolutely staggering! You claim this sole understanding of love, a question which has plagued and delighted humanity as far back as our history goes. And yet you, a person who has very recently fallen in love. Someone who confuses a partner who today sacrifices themselves for your benefit with one who will forever love you. You have it all figured out. You know the love I experience and give to my parents, my sister, my wife, my children. You know that it is not true simply because I think calling it "unconditional" is a shallow cop out. That I would deign to tell the people I love their attributes, our memories, our shared experiences and challenges, our disagreements, everything about us that is the reason I have love for them. Somehow, this expression which contains so much. This is less than the simple word "unconditional". What a farce.

I challenge you to actually describe your love for your new found partner. Be specific. Anything that could be used to describe some garden variety love between the main characters in a romantic comedy cannot be used. After you figure it out, tell them too. See if that description does not in fact strengthen your relationship and help your love grow.

I don't think that's what "unconditional love" means or should be taken to mean. It usually means that your ability to love someone is not contingent on an expectation of reciprocity. For example, an infant can't really verbalize affection, but you can nevertheless love them.

Unconditional love also doesn't mean "no boundaries". You can love someone while insisting, for example, that they respect your autonomy or decisions.

Perhaps that's the intent, but I don't think so. It's root is in Christianity (I think?). God loves you no matter what and all that.

I think you want a different term: though I'm struggling to come up with what it might be at the moment

If you love your child for who they are, then presumably you can describe what difference would make you not love them.

Its hard to imagine, and would probably break me. Something like admitted, intentional, malicious, torture of our entire family for no benefit whatsoever might do it.

Well, unconditional love does originate from the favorable treats you mentioned, but its also the stories you had with them, your experiences, your ups and downs. Everything that made your life a little more worthwhile by simply standing by your side. Past a point, i believe it is impossible to end that relationship voluntarily, for both sides.

If it was only because for who they are, I dont think your love for them would continue nor evolve, it would be a simple materialistic jealousy, never making it past conditions (hence, unconditional love).

You just defined unconditional love. If what they are and do is required - then if they stop doing you’d stop loving.

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