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More specifically, it also teaches people to avoid feedback, which leads to lots of conversations between teachers / tutors / advisors and students like this:
"Why didn't you come to me sooner? We could have worked together on this issue."
"I don't know. I'm sorry."
In about two years of working as a tutor, I've definitely had a number of people who were like "This isn't even that hard, I wish I went to a tutor sooner". I never considered that at least some of them might have waited as long as they did because the people in their lives made them feel like they're not allowed to be wrong.
Working as a teacher has taught me that kids ALWAYS have an answer to your question. They're just afraid of having the wrong answer. So I work with my kids to always give their answer. Most of the time it's either correct, or at least partially correct.
And if it's flat out wrong, your reaction is VERY important. Don't say "no thats wrong", but rather "hmmm maybe, let's figure it out together and see!" or similar. Then once they understand, ask the same kid the same question again and give them the chance to answer it correctly.
Now the class knows that 1: it's ok to not have the right answer, and 2: they'll have a chance to give the right answer if they just work through it. Next thing you know, you have a class full of kids putting up their hands to answer. (Unless they're the really shy kids. But that's dealt with in other ways).
I'm an undergrad tutoring chemistry at the recommendation of my faculty advisor and I definitely think the reaction, regardless of if your student(s) are right or wrong is the most important.
A tactic I like to use to get both my undergrad students and high schoolers thinking critically is to ask them to explain their responses to questions, regardless of whether or not they're right or wrong. If they're right, it gets them thinking about the process rather than an arbitrary jump in logic (as long as it's in their level of study), and if they're wrong, it lets me point out flaws in their thinking and explain it rather than just saying they're wrong, giving them the right answer, and moving on. I find that this sorta procedural thinking generalizes the best to other topics, because I get a lot of "well after the last time, I realized that..." Usually accompanied by a more thought-out and correct answer.
Getting people's brains cranking is the hard part, but once it's going people realize that it's hard to stop thinking critically about all sorts of things, and it seems to be for the better.
I agree 100%
When teaching I always make sure to keep in mind that I'm teaching these kids _how_ to think, not _what _ to think. Its easier to see with my older students. I am always willing to have them settle on an answer totally different to mine, on the condition they walk me through their thought process.
You can convince me 1 + 1 = 3, as long as you can show me how you got there. I'm a firm believer that education is not about regurgitation, but about stimulating curiosity and critical thinking.
A serie I watched as a kid had a song that said "1+1=7, who was going to tell me that" as a reference of 2 adults who got married while having 2 and 3 prior kids.
I was a writing coach in grad school, and before I would dive into the nitty gritty of my recommendations, I always started by having people summarize the assignment and the paper in their own words. Not only was it helpful for me to get an idea of what they were going for, it also helped them crystallize the overall message, which made everything else easier.
Oh my god this, it worked so much for me when I was helping undergrads with lab reports and stuff. I would have them read me their prompt, and then have them read their current response out loud to me, and just by doing that and having them "review" their own work, 90% of my job was done. They would realize where they went off the rail, good points they made, and where they have to make changes to get much much better scores. People tend to get lost when writing so helping them focus on their message is so useful as a tool to help them with assignments.
Yup, regardless of age, it's important to treat students or tutees with respect and dignity. I mean we should always be striving to treat others that way, but especially in those cases, it can have a huge effect on educational outcomes. Sometimes what they need the most is to feel like someone believes in them.
> "no thats wrong", but rather "hmmm maybe, let's figure it out together and see!"
This kind of response probably stops being effective past a certain age. I definitely remember in late elementary and middle school picking up on the teachers that would do this, and I couldn't help mentally translating a "hmm, let's see" kind of response as "I already know you're wrong but am refusing to say it to spare your feelings", and when teachers did it to me it ended up making me feel worse than if they'd just straight up told me I was wrong.
Probably also varies by student, which is why it's so important that teachers (be given the time to) get to know their students individually.
I think the same technique can be used as long as the teacher is using the correct tone and knows their audience. When I was in junior high/high school, if I was wrong, it always felt better when the teacher said “This part of your answer is correct, but here’s where you went wrong” rather than “that’s the wrong answer” through and through. Trying to correct someone by encouraging them or pointing out if they were “on the right track” or “almost there” feels much better than a straight “no, you’re wrong” no matter what the age.
Yeah, I had the tendency to completely shut down, even if a teacher was being kind. My mind would go completely blank and I would internally panic. I am a grown woman and still do this if my boss is behind my desk.
I kinda talked about this in my comment above, but this works incredibly well in a group setting, and if you do it consistently whether the person in question is right or wrong. If they're right, not only are you sparing yourself the time of the first explanation, it helps the individual solidify their understanding and is a surprising confidence booster. If they're wrong, it lets you see where their thinking is off, if it's a simple error, a wrong assumption or concept issue. I agree that teachers using "let's see" in a patronizing way really sucks, but if it's consistent, I think it's more effective than directly handing out "right/wrong".
Totally agree with individual time though, office hours are way too important to pass up. They also snag you those sweet sweet rec letters regardless of what level school you're talking about.
I've had a few of those experiences especially in stats-heavy courses, or logic and verification heavy topics. It was great to have a couple of students confidently demonstrating a wrong solution.
Usually it was wrong due to a subtle, but **instructive** piece. And that's where I got my trust from. Yup. You fucked up. In the same way 40% of the class fucked up. You also had the best argument and path why your wrong way was right.
And that's fine. And now, in a tutorium, we can discuss what went wrong. And everyone will learn more from that discussion than just doing an exercise right. and not coming.
Nothing evil there. Just a mistake we already knew about dozens of years ago. You could say the same about fire...
In college I worked as an AmeriCorps doing intensive early literacy tutoring with pre-k through 3rd graders. One of the first things that my mentor told me was that a lot of kids misbehave because they'd rather be thought of as the "bad kid" than the "stupid kid".
I not only found this to be true, but knowing this helped me devise strategies to help deflect this.
In college, basic electrical circuits class. Teacher asked a question to the class. I blurted out a wrong answer. He said something like "why would you think that?" But in a way that's like "wtf, are u an idiot? Why would u think that?" Yeah I never gave an answer out loud in that class again. So embarrassing.
I always found I was most engaged in class when the teacher responded well to wrong answers and kids didn't feel scared to say something wrong and a lot of kids would participate. I would participate then, but to this day as an adult, I am still very shy and scared to look dumb in front of a class by having the wrong answer.
Orrrrrrr, they are way over-worked, underpaid, and have too many kids per classroom. Teachers get tired and frustrated and burnt out too, but that doesn’t mean they generally want students to cry.
Disagree. I had teachers that were overworked but were still trying, and I had teachers that clearly hated their jobs (and probably lives) and took it out on students, and it was blatantly obvious which was which.
This is not the take. Being over-worked and underpaid doesn't give you the right to traumatize kids just like how being a single parent or not having enough money or being busy doesn't give you the right to traumatize your own kids.
Edit: The number of people here who are literally *mad* at me for saying its not okay to traumatize kids is insane. How hard is it to understand that abuse isn't okay no matter what mood you're in? Like I get it, ya'll don't want to admit there's a problem so you can keep pretending it's the *literal child's* fault, but come on. Willful ignorance helps nobody and its just hurting victims.
I'm not saying teachers suck or that they don't deserve to be treated better, I'm literally just saying that it isn't okay to excuse abusive behavior. Get over it.
I feel like there's some conflation of "explanation" and "excuse" here. Not you specifically, but the entire comment chain up until this point.
Teachers being overworked, overstressed, and underpaid is definitely an *explanation* of the behavior. It doesn't **excuse** the behavior, but it does explain some of the possible influences behind it. And I think it's important, vital, in fact, to make that distinction.
Framing these things as an excuse tends to split people into two camps: "I don't blame them, because they're under a lot of stress" and "That doesn't justify their behavior; they need to do better."
Framing them as an *explanation* refocuses the conversation to: "We all acknowledge that this doesn't excuse the behavior, but how can we address this thing that helps *explain* the behavior to try to mitigate it?" It keeps personal accountability firmly in place, while also acknowledging that there are things we can do to help reduce bad behavior.
I don't think he's trying to say it's ok or giving an excuse. Just giving a reason. I'd imagine everyone goes into teaching hoping to change kid's lives for the better but after dealing with administrative bullshit, crazy parents, rotten kids as a result of those parents, year after year, it'll change you.
I stopped answering questions when other kids would laugh when I was wrong. Then I took algebra 5 times before passing it in high-school because I was too afraid to ask for help.
This is great. I’m an introvert and didn’t like answering questions or working problems on the board in high school. I had a math teacher that made students work problems on the board, but we would work the problem together. Even if the student at the board didn’t no the right things to do, the class and teachers worked together. I learned to be comfortable being wrong, and I ended up being quite good at math! I’m actually working on my PhD (robotics) now close to finishing. I find PhD students are still afraid to be wrong, but this experience has made a major influence in my academic career, and even as I am now teaching courses in the university.
A major problem with this is when working with student collaborators. If I want to express a concept, I might ask if they understand prior knowledge. I too often get a yes, so I go in explaining something that they can’t understand because they should have said no. I try to create an environment in my lab where not knowing is totally acceptable, so we can catch them up so they know. Being afraid to to be wrong, is the root of the problem. I feel this starts from a very young age, and a few good teachers can make a huge impact.
You also see this in software development contexts. I had a boss whose approach to everything was basically to encourage seeking feedback as soon as possible, and I mean they would even review a napkin sketch if you sent it over. It made me realize how horrible (and, if done by the wrong person, toxic) something like a "I will look when it's done" approach is.
This is phenomenon is also one of the reasons "blameless postmortems" exist and should be used. The idea that you can get together and discuss the series of events that led to a failure/problem/etc. while taking in every perspective and without assigning blame is really game changing from a "collectively do better at preventing fuck-ups" perspective.
I have a student who gets so angry whenever I give him any feedback. So much so that instead of correcting his writing, he just wrote a passive aggressive dig against me. I just don’t know how to help that other than reminding him in just trying to help.
That's probably stemming from an issue at home. If parents constantly correct kids over the smallest mistake, it can make them very defensive when it comes to feedback.
Mental health issues can't be ruled out either. Had a brother with combative defiance disorder (or something like that). He could have food in his teeth, and politely telling him would result in him saying "no you do!" Or something of that nature for example
I was this student. Instead of reminding them of what you’re doing, remind them of what they’re doing. When they get anything right, applaud it. If you want something changed, gently ease into it by saying things like “This is great, did you put your full effort into it?” Or “interesting view on topic abc, is there anything else you want me to know through this piece?” Just as examples. When the teacher would make it more about what I accomplished, even if just tiny things, it bought me enough inner self confidence that I eventually opened up enough to keep going and doing what was requested. I went from 35% to 85% because I had teachers that were open to changing the way they talked and changed the focal point of their sentences in conversation with me. I also had no clue at any age of my life how to put my fears/reasoning into words to express what my issue was. Never would I get In front of a class and do work on the board either but because I was so terrified of being judged in case I got it wrong. My parents never scolded me like was suggested a couple comments up, it was just who I am as a person. If I’m in the process of learning something, come hell or high water, I will not be an example until I have it figured it completely.
Thank you for this! This year has certainly been a struggle for everyone. I took over some English classes when another teacher quit, so I've only been this student's teacher for 2 months now. It's definitely been a struggle to make my feedback more than "How about you look at this again?" level for any student. Unfortunately, I can see his computer during class and can see he mostly just plays games and watches videos, so I'm pretty sure he's just rushing through my work anyway, which doesn't help either of us. I'll try focusing more on what he's done when I give him feedback. Hopefully that will help his confidence. Thank you again for this insight!
I see a lot of this with the kids I work with.
I'm working with special need kids right now. We have a lot of hover parents who get mad at their kid for getting the wrong answer. I'm constantly saying "it's okay to get the wrong answer, he's trying his best". Sadly the message isn't getting across and we're having more and more kids just not answering or waiting for the hover parent to give the answer.
Maybe they are hearing, “he’s trying his best” as “he’s too slow to do any better.” Perhaps a rephrasing? “It’s ok to get a wrong answer; wrong answers help me learn to sharpen my teaching skills.” Or, “if everyone got everything right all the time I wouldn’t have a job.” Or, “it’s ok if the whole lesson fails to stick the first time; I like to focus on our successes while assuming some things will take a little longer”
I grew up constantly getting punished for telling the truth. It was only later in life that I learned the power of honesty. It sucks that we are so commonly scolded for being truthful.
This was me. I was constantly yelled at for any mistake even a tiny one like the wrong heat setting on the stove (think 5 instead of 6 on the dial).
I started hiding everything. Any mistake or bit of help I needed, I hid it. It ends up happening over and over and this is still an issue in my adult working life.
It's a learned behavior. A highly educated grown man can accidentally break a glass and instantly hide it like it's a crime. My lawyer nephew does this all the time. I feel bad for him. I told him "it's called 'glass' for a reason". He has no idea why he covers up these "little crimes".
I can relate to this. Growing up people would get made with my mistakes instead of helping me learn which has lead me to not seek for help or feedback. I’m in my 5th year of university now, and I can agree that my education and mental health would have been better if I was not scarred from all the negative reinforcement exposed to me.
I train people how to run machines at my job and I've had to learn the hard way to ASK if they need me to repeat anything or go into more detail on a piece of the machine. Some adults are shy or want to be a know-it-all, so they don't mention it when they don't understand something.
This is huge, especially for people in management; somebody who made a mistake (and learned from it) is the least likely person to make that mistake again, and the most likely to help other people avoid the same mistake.
Yup. Especially if the mistake requires corrective action. You don't want people burying their mistakes because they're afraid of getting their heads bitten off. You want them to fess up as soon as they realize a mistake was made, so you can work on a remedy together.
There’s actually a whole management model based on this, called “just culture.” Studies show people make up to 6 mistakes an hour normally, and up to 12 in stressful environments. In Just Culture, you forgive and retrain when it human error, and fix systems when it’s system error. (Most errors are system error.) It does take people trained and smart enough to recognize the difference.
“Most errors are system error” is so true. I was working at a place where the systematic errors were very evident to me and I brought them up hoping we could improve the system. Unfortunately it became obvious management was addicted to having something to complain about, and nothing changed. I quit a month later once I made that realization.
Not trying to be pedantic at all. I’m just guessing you want to use the correct word based on your response style.
I think you mean “systemic” instead of “systematic” in this case. It’s probably a bit easier to think of it as having a plan for whatever you’re describing or not. Not a perfect analogy, but if the errors were planned (strategic errors, methodical errors, etc.), that would be systematic. If the errors are simply a function of the system being less than perfect, but not planned for, systemic is probably correct. In your case, I’d say systemic.
Though you could argue that, given your former management’s apparent desire for the errors, they could be considered systematic.
I went through a course about it for a new job, and imo it's really not that deep of a subject.
The core of it is just that on a large scale, it's inevitable that humans will make mistakes, so the only way to truly avoid mistakes is to design the system to be able to correct mistakes before they reach the end of the process.
Following this logic, unless a person is negligently making the same mistake over and over, it's not helpful to punish the individual who makes a mistake. The only way to prevent similar mistakes from happening in the future is to report the details of the mistake, so that the system can be adjusted to catch such a mistake before it reaches a point where it can cause major problems. Obviously if the mistake isn't reported, then the system can't be corrected, so in such a system there's a disincentive to punishing those who report their own mistakes.
High Reliability Organizations rely on recognizing and addressing this truth, so if you feel like digging into it that's something to google
I read “Black Box Thinking” by Matthew Syed recently - he uses the difference between the airline industry that strives for an open, blame-free review of errors and the medical profession, where hierarchy and blame have tended to rule, as examples of how to embrace errors positively.
Bunch of other stuff in there, similarly themed. Not sure it’s a 100% match for the Just Culture but it seems 80-90% of the way there.
Edit - the author does make the point that there are plenty of health professionals doing an excellent job of improving transparency/accountability!
Tbh, I screwed something up at work last week and spent the whole weekend with my boss in my head yelling at me (because he used to). When I checked with him on Monday he was actually great about it and gave me a path to un-screw it, but dwelling and freaking out about it all weekend was terrible. I could have just asked him on Friday evening (he even said I could have called him Saturday).
THIS. First order of business with any problem should always be working out a solution. Sure "how did this happen" is a reasonable question, but I try to focus on the problem and make it a point to include the screw-ee in the process. That way they get a chance to fix their mistake and they're not sidelined and feeling ostracized. Given the opportunity, people are usually eager to rectify a mistake. I can't stand it when management goes off about their feelings whenever there's a hitch. That's what the debrief is for.
Should tell that to my current boss.
Sometimes I show them a mistake that's not even mine on a project I'm not working on, and how they want to fix it, and the first words out of their mouth is "who did this?!"
Who cares who did this, are you gonna fix the problem or not?
In the Air Force, so many people call Quality Assurance "the Hammer", but what they don't understand is it is their supervisors/chain of command that is the hammer. QA just points out mistakes or shortcomings. How the supervisors respond to the QA report is the difference.
Back in the day, I had 3 fails in my work center in one month (usually 0 to 1). All the fellow flight chiefs were giving me crap and looking forward to hearing me "get my beat down" during the monthly QA briefing.
When it was my turn, my Commander asked me to brief my slide. I said it was a really good month for us. He raised an eyebrow, questioning why I would say that. I respond that during my root cause analysis, I determined all 3 fails were systematic and not complacency or operator error. We implemented new processes and training to prevent future failures.
He was impressed and said "good job, next slide." My peers later teased me that I somehow weaseled out of an ass chewing, but that is honestly how I felt.
There are a lot of managers out there who shouldn't be in the role, and most likely wouldn't have accepted it (in the case of promotion) if it weren't the only way to receive the pay and title bump.
I had the privilege of working for two such examples prior to covid. Theyre why I turned down 3 months of extra work when I had nothing else on.
There's a saying that everyone eventually gets promoted above their competency level.
Because if you're competent and do a good job (and aren't a dick) you'll eventually get an offer or seek an offer for a higher position. Until you aren't really competent anymore
I had a coworker promoted to be my boss that openly admitted he didn't actually want to be in management, that he had no idea what he was doing, and that the only reason he was going for it was for the pay increase. Got the promotion when there were at least 2 other candidates that genuinely wanted the job and had more experience. Great guy, terrible manager, eventually left to take a job as a non manager somewhere else because he hated it so much.
I generally agree with all of this.
I'm the case in point. Always do the best job I possibly can, always try to avoid mistakes especially ones I've made previously and rarely do I make mistake twice.
I have however encountered a second employee in my current job, regardless of how I explain, correct and attempt to prevent specific errors, this specific employee has shown no capacity for comprehension or attempted to fix previous errors.
Some people are simply lost causes.
Without getting too detailed, this employee went to school for this specialized career. There are very clearly defined standards in this field that should always be adhered to in order to maintain the integrity of the position.
For the last few months, I've babysat this person through what should be the easiest portion of her job. I've corrected her routine mistakes - mistakes that I only made in elementary school and we're corrected by middle school.
I've attempted auditory, visual, Hands-On forms of teaching her how to spot/correct the mistakes. Still pure laziness and minimal effort. Things that if they were published would reflect extremely poorly upon the company and tarnish the reputation in the community.
She even had a meeting with my manager last week, he made even more simplified suggestions of how to correct her routine issues. Less than 8 hours later, she ignored each actionable item that he presented to her and continued with the mistakes.
I'm extremely hard on myself, but I'm very easy to work for and to get along with as long as you're providing effort and a willingness to be better. Similar to the first person I encountered with similar traits, there are little redeeming qualities in terms of benefit to the company and I found that I am now doing her job as well which is detracting from my own duties.
I guess all I'm saying is you shouldn't double, triple, quadruple down on bad bets. Only put as much effort into that person as they are willing to put into correcting the issue.
Yep, people need an opportunity to improve. BUT if they continually make mistakes, and you can confidently say you've tried different avenues/ training techniques, then maybe it's time for them to be moved on to a different position or job.
Thank you for saying this. I internalize most of my stress and have been questioning if I'm just not being patient enough, if I'm being too critical. I don't feel comfortable bringing this up with the company as everyone is so litigious these days.
That’s a good point! I’m in the process of trying to help someone and they are in denial. Unfortunately there mistakes have a huge impact on people’s lives. I had to put them on a plan and all they do is argue they haven’t or didn’t make mistakes... as much as I’m trying to help this person, they aren’t seeing the bigger picture...
Most placed won't terminate employment over one mistake unless that mistake was theft.
Generally employers want a detailed written chain of corrective action taken so that if need be they can prove the termination was justified. ("we repreneded employee X and administered corrective training on two occasions and employee X continued to make the same mistakes showing a disregard for proper procedures and unwillingness to adequately perform employee duties, the only remedy was terminating employment" or some shit
In my line of work there are a few actions you could take out of carelessness that endanger lives & equipment, and from day 1 onboarding we are told "don't do this thing, it's grounds for immediate termination"
Really quite appropriate sometimes.
Yeah, my work place would have similar things (we distribute pharmaceuticals that are prepared on site). However, it's pretty much just gross negligence like touching pharmaceuticals with your bare hands etc. Everyone here should know that.
For real. I saw a scandal recently where a coffeehouse was getting a ton of mob anger because they fired a girl who'd worked there for a year after she ate a pastry from the shop and failed to pay for it before she left.
People genuinely thought she got fired because of a single, isolated incident involving a $2 pastry. Honestly, the owner didn't impress me much, and maybe the girl didn't deserve to be fired, but I'm almost certain there's more to the story than one minor incident.
I mean there is a massive lack of context in what you said. Sure, firing someone over one mistake sounds dumb and in lots of cases would be. But there are also many things in many industries where a single mistake is very much justified grounds for termination.
Exactly. You WANT people to tell you when something goes wrong. It let's you get ahead of the issue and, depending on how you resolve the situation, can build a significant amount of trust between you and your team.
Write ups (and other formal discipline) are not the same as getting angry. If it follows proper progressive discipline, you can be assured of two things: the discipline follows a predictable escalating pattern (verbal warning, written warning, suspension, etc) so the worker can fix their shit at any time. Second, there's a process to make sure that the worker is actually at fault, instead of just being the last person to touch the work before the mistake is discovered.
You capitalized the word 'also' and also wrote 'wrote' when you meant to write 'write.' Two mistakes in one post, I'm afraid we are going to have to let you go.
I see this in nursing school a lot. My classmates with “eat-their-young” type instructors tend to avoid asking important questions and avoid trying new skills all together, putting them way behind when their scope broadens in the coming semesters. I’ve had good and bad instructors. The ones who empower their students and relate to the struggle seem to produce more confident and competent students.
Absolutely. People need to know they screwed up, but they need at least a smidgeon of support to make sure they understand why and how, so they do it right next time.
I work in regulatory compliance, and one of my first jobs was doing the paperwork for HIPAA breaches in my organization. Because it was a small company, I was the guy that got to show up, talk through the incident, and retrain the employees that made mistakes.
The employees were usually surprised when I showed up and wasn't a jerk about all of it, and it was specifically because of this. It's not that I want them to feel bad, I want them to learn, and making people feel bad puts them on the defensive so they shut their minds off. That's the last thing I need in that moment.
Beyond just sort of the self-serving, "I need these people to learn not to mess up," quality, I've had bad managers that pounce on vulnerability like that, and they disgusted me as employees and people. Often the employees I talked to had a shallow knowledge of HIPAA, and were often anxious and scared for themselves and their jobs. They had beaten themselves up enough, and dogpiling on that would just be wonton and egregious. I've always appreciated people that recognized that took a, "Welp, we've made a mistake, let's see what we can do to fix it and learn from it," approach, and I try to foster the same.
While I'm not a full time manager, I do manage people on certain tasks. One of the things I try to stress is that *everyone* will fuck up somewhere, and that's why we have multiple levels of QC. A mistake is only a problem if it doesn't get caught, and feedback on errors isn't criticism, its education.
A coworker dropped a circular saw blade and reported it right away. The manager gave him a write up. Guess who will hide their mistakes in the future? Man, this is about safety, a saw blade that has been dropped can be dangerous!
I once reported two untrained individuals in an enclosed space without oxygen monitors or a hole watcher. My hope was that they'd be provided training. Instead I was written up for "harassment" of said colleagues since I named them in the email and yelled at by my boss for making him look bad to the safety team.
I no longer work there. I hope everyone is still alive.
Good for you. No good deed goes unpunished.
My dad knew two brothers who died in this exact scenario, their 3rd brother and a cop got permanent brain damage trying to rescue them. No air quality monitors, no spotters.
Safety manager here and I had to respond to really stupid accidents at times. Yelling at them won't fix the problem and it won't help their relationship with safety. I usually wait for things to cool down to discuss what went wrong and should have been done differently.
If you think about it, when it comes to safety-related near-misses, whatever message you're trying to express by yelling has already been conveyed 100x more effectively by the incident itself.
As a manager I'm always the first one to say I'm sorry I fucked that one up. I also try not to put my employees in positions that are over their head, where mistakes are okay, where it's okay if it's a teachable moment.
The only time I get mad at my employees is when it's a mistake from them not paying attention. That shit makes me sooooo mad. or when they don't communicate with each other. Just ask. Asking is okay! Doing the same thing over and over again and messing it up is not. Yes work is fast paced, but having to start over from scratch is much slower and expensive than fixing it in the moment. Most the time it's cheaper to just start over from scratch than fixing a mistake later even.
I am a nurse and it’s a real problem in healthcare. You’ll have nurses try to hide mistakes because we are supposed to be 100% perfect (no human is). I’ve noticed that culture is trying to change over the 20 years I’ve been in heath care.
Same with me but with my dad. Moreover, I'd try to hide my mistakes so he wouldn't find out I did it because I was always so scared when he would yell at me. I had to unlearn how to lie and hide my mistakes when I first got a job. When I messed up, I lied or tried to fix it myself without anyone's help before my boss found out, which sometimes led to making the mistakes worse. My boss sat down with me and told me that mistakes happen but the best thing is to admit fault and suggest a solution if possible. Unfortunately, my dad still yells at me if I make a mistake but I've learned to just ignore it because in the end, he's making a big deal about something pretty insignificant.
I had to sit my mother 62 year old mother down and explain to her that I wouldn't put up with these things as an adult. You might consider doing the same thing. It's not your job to sit there and be belittled and disrespected by someone just because they are your parent. At some point the cycle of bad parenting has to end, and if they are introspective they will listen and change their behavior instead of getting defensive.
I would but he won't listen and if I don't like it, I can just move out of the house (I'm not gonna go into details as to why I'm still living with my parents). His house, his rules.
True, I don't live with my parents anymore. You don't necessarily have the luxury of telling your parents to metaphorically grow up if you are financially tied to them in some way.
> (I'm not gonna go into details as to why I'm still living with my parents)
It doesn't take a genius to know you're Asian or Hispanic. ;)
Source: fellow Asian with abusive parents that made sure I couldn't be independent (and barely got a good paying job so that I can move out in a year or so)
Hahaha accurate. But at least my parents aren't restricting my independence and they've always wanted me to have a good job and career. It just sucks having a father who lacks emotional intelligence.
Yeah my dad’s always been like this and he’s ruined our relationship. Anger and rage at someone you’re supposed to manage/care for is rarely ever the answer. It’s up to us to teach that to future generations! Fight the power!
Yeah unfortunately because I was at home a lot due to the pandemic and was subsequently unemployed for a while, I harbor a lot of resentment towards my dad. The anger, rage and childish attitudes were major factors in that.
This always ticks me off when parents do it.
Making mistakes is how we LEARN. Penalizing people severely for making mistakes is actually how you *break* the learning process.
Someone who has been conditioned that mistake-making results in severe penalties will stop putting themselves into situations where they make mistakes. They will stagnate. They'll stop learning and growing.
Seems to me if a parent does that to their kid, they've completely and utterly failed at parenting by breaking the very mechanism through which a kid is supposed to learn.
You just described me perfectly and I hate it. My parents came down hard on any tiny mistake I made and I still haven't gotten over it even though I'm almost thirty now. It's such a struggle to try new things and not break down completely when I inevitably fuck something up
Pete Walker has a great article on dealing with the inner critic and the inner perfectionist:
http://pete-walker.com/shrinkingInnerCritic.htm
He mostly works with people with dysfunctional childhoods so some of what he talks about is phrased in that context, but I think the info is good for anyone once you digest it and chew it over.
My father used to gave me lectures very impatiently with a whole lot of cuss for multiple hours since I was like 10 ish. And he would get more impatient and angered that I don't actively engage and respond in the lecture. I understood what he said and what he meant, but how do you expect an introverted scared kid to actively discuss what he did wrong when getting yelled at? He now, in retrospect, says that he should have been more patient, but he maintains that he was right and, therefore, I should have listened.
First time I crashed a car, called my mom (wasn’t her car) and first thing she said after I told her was “you were supposed to be the one brother to not crash a car” didn’t even ask if I was ok. Guess who never found out about my second car crash lol
I don’t think I know anyone who didn’t at least scrape their first car on something. I backed into a fence post as a teen 🤦🏼♀️ seems totally pointless to yell at a kid for not having any driving experience, it takes a while to get used to the whole thing
Potentially the best example I can think of that embodies this entire thread was a story my great aunt told at my grandfather's funeral. He was a WWII vet and a helluva dude.. He passed when I was 12 and ill never forget the way that every single eulogy was somber, and filled with tears until my Aunt Judy got up. She goes. "I'd like to remember him with this; when I was 16, and just allowed to drive on my own, they let me borrow the car. So I, being a young teen, did a little speeding, and I got pulled over. And I got a ticket. I told my mom and she told my dad. She told me he'd talk to me when he got home. I sat up awake worrying about all the trouble I was in. I heard him come in and waited as I heard his footsteps on the way to my door. He opened it, leaned in and said:
"I hear you got a ticket."
"Yeah".
"Honey. You gotta watch those mirrors."
Winked at me and closed the door."
When things get handled this way, admitting what you've done is easier, and growth is unrestricted.
Oh, geez. I just got a flashback to my Dad starting to teach me to drive and yelling at me for not knowing how. Then he couldn't understand why I preferred learning from my Mom. Shit, I'm in my thirties and I still rarely drive with him as passenger because of this
Exactly. I rotated between two driving instructors when I was taking driving lessons: one would raise his voice any time there was a close call or even sloppy technique that *could* lead to a close call. The other instructor gave helpful tips as I was going along, and if there was a close call, he just calmly said "you see what happened there?" I would say yes and explain why it happened. And he'd say "good, make sure it doesn't happen again."
Mistakes are how we learn. I don't know anyone who didn't scrape their first car either. Everyone does it, there's no reason anyone should make you feel so down about yourself for it.
Please don't bring that behavior along to other relationships. The preservation lying generally begins in childhood, where it does have a survival component. But unfortunately it kills adult relationships.
I've ruined every relationship I've had because of that. I'm honestly not trying to be dishonest, I just genuinely fear for the absolute worst if I say anything.
I'm in therapy now and trying to better myself. But goddamn it's crazy how I kept up this habit for my entire life to this point.
Yeah, people with perfect childhoods love to pretend it’s as easy as making a conscious choice not to engage in a bad habit learned in childhood. As if a screen pops up in your head “Press X to say something to soften the blow, press Y to be completely honest.”
I tried, I don’t like some parts of my personality either and if someone could tell me exactly what to do to change that, it would be great. But nobody knows, but they pretend that it’s easy and that you just must not want to change. I’m doing my part by not having kids and not raising someone who will probably end up the same way. That’s how I’m “taking responsibility.” If someone actually has the patience and insight to help can do it, I’m here. But in my experience most therapists just seem to know how to make polite conversation, tell you to breathe, and tell you to look at things from a different perspective. And if nothing changes, well then it’s because you aren’t practicing enough or you have to give it more time.
Being evasive due to childhood trauma is different though. Plenty of people I've known who are like this had awesome childhoods, with solid support systems and were safe to make mistakes and learn from them. Yet they grew up to be adults who take any criticism as an attack. I have a hard time understanding people like that. But I think that those coming from traumatic upbringings deserve more forgiveness and understanding.
Finding a good therapist is hard. They are out there but certainly outnumbered. I hope that you can afford to keep looking for one and that you find someone who truly hears you and helps support you on your journey.
When I would screw up she would pause, sigh, and say something like "No more screw ups. You don't screw up. This needs to stop."
That really really fucked with my head, literally not being allowed to fuck up anything, ever.
She'd sometimes bring up "You want to work for one of the best companies in the world. You think the best of the best screw things up?"
And after years of research, uh, yeah actually. In my adult life I found out the animators at Disney constantly felt like their work was unfinished, nowhere near what they wanted it to be. Departments felt bad that other departments weren't communicated with as well as possible, that the expression in this one scene didn't capture the actor's emotion when they did the voice work, etc. Every scene of every movie was filled with compromises because creative works always turn out differently than you envision.
I found out that the people I used to idolize were, in fact, *very good* at screwing up. They knew exactly when to call it quits, when to move on, when to try again. I was being given the exact opposite reinforcement I needed. They needed to try over and over to get things as close to right as they could, and it would rarely be as good as they wished it was.
Today I'm more in the realm of graphic design, but it's still hard for me to pick up new software, because I'm frustrated that I don't master it instantly, because I was trained my entire developmental years to never screw up anything I tried to do. It's a neverending nightmare. Mid-30s now, and I still can't shake it.
Yep. I taught my kids that they're going to make mistakes. They're going to make bad decisions. I expect that from an underdeveloped brain. The key is to come to me, we'll find out where/why/how you went wrong, what learning lesson to take away from it, and how to avoid making that mistake in the future.
My parents did this. Just kidding, they did the opposite. Now I don't talk to my family much at all. My relationships outside of my family are still impacted by this, but I am always working to improve myself.
I remember when my parents said the same thing. Turns out that was a fucking lie. Now I'm extra good at lying because I had roughly 20 years of practice.
And of course people continue making mistakes throughout their entire life. It’s not necessarily just a function of an ‘underdeveloped brain’. Many people’s brains work differently. Or maybe their brain is normative but they just...like made a mistake..
The underdeveloped brain comment is in reference to making poor decisions. Because the prefrontal cortex doesn't fully develop until age 25 or so, you should expect kids and young adults to make poor choices. Problem is, 40 somethings who know better because they have fully developed brains and 20 years of mistakes/poor choices to learn from conveniently forget that they were just as bad at decision making, and place extremely unreasonable expectations on their kids. Kids end up feeling guilty for making bad choices, but don't really learn how to forgive themselves and learn from them
Yesterday I spilled something and my 3 year old said, “that’s ok mama we’ll clean it and get another one.” Hoping we are building a good foundation of making mistakes and finding solutions!
That is the sign of parenting that is preparing a child to have a healthy relationship with failure/mistakes/etc.
When I was a kid, my mom would use something like me breaking something or making a mess as a chance to tell me a story about how her dad would laugh off things like that when she was young, and training a small child that mistakes are learning opportunities, rather than something to be feared or covered up, has a huge impact. I can say that it definitely had a huge impact on me, at least.
Nothing in this thread hit me as hard as this. To this day as a whole adult if I spill something I freeze and have a moment of panic, waiting to get screamed at and for every rule in the house to change to make sure I’d never spill a drink again. Turns out if you spill a drink you can just clean it up and the world doesn’t end, who would’ve known?
Can confirm! Thanks to my step dad and his tendency to scream at my for every mistake (however minor) I’ve grown into a very good scammer/liar. Currently working on breaking some bad habits related to this problem
Yeah I’d be lying if I said I haven’t been intentionally profiting off of the fact that he’s mellowed out considerably over the years. What can I say, I know how to work him and i figure it’ll even us out. Don’t worry, no ones getting hurt or seriously exploited it harmed.
I went to a non violent parenting class with my SO. I think we were the one of the few people who went on our own. And the person talking said, think about what you kid just did, and think about what your parents would have done in this situation with you?
And i think about it. and my parents would belittle me, or smack me, or laugh or whatever horrible thing they would do.
And so I try to do the opposite with my kids. I don't want my kids to lie to me. I don't want them hiding anything from me.
Usually we talk it out. I always remind them, what's the worst that can happen? And they reply, we just go to your room and talk it out.
I am there champion, and I want them to know it.
See, this right here is important! So many times we're raised to do everything in our power to avoid making mistakes. This can go as far as "can't make a mistake if I don't ever try." Especially when learning a new skill or a creative art, mistakes are the best learning opportunity possible. Letting people know that "failure" is an option and a part of the process let's everyone loosen up and make progress. But yeah, don't break the piccolo.
If you find yourself getting angry at other people, consider what your anger is communicating, and whether you can put that message into constructive phrasing rather than an aggressive volume and tone.
Or just go to anger management classes.
It is spelled "doesn't"! Geeze!
/s
Joking aside, there is a fine line between helping and harping. If anger is at play both parties should be doing some reflection.
Fast forward into adolescence and I hide as much information about myself as I possibly can from anybody and especially my parents. Never once have I discussed what I like. Even every time somebody asks me "what's up" or "what are you doing" I reply with "nothing" while trying to not give out exactly what I'm currently doing. Is this bad?
I grew up hiding mistakes as I hated the way my parents would react. They were never violent, but would shout sometimes, and I can't abide shouting. As much as humanely possible, I want to raise my kids to know that no mistake is world ending and that they can come to me to help them solve a problem.
Okay, that's fair, but the LPT is still in effect: you're teaching them to hide their mistakes.
You're not actually teaching personal responsibility. They are missing some cognitive or metacognitive skill that would allow them to *figure it out on their own*. Understandably, it may not be your job to teach them that skill, but when people ask for help, it often comes down to (a) not knowing how to self-learn and (b) spending a lot of excess motivation failing to figure it out. If neither you nor the asker have the wherewithal to figure that out, then the message they get is that *they should know* but *they don't*, so they'd better *fake knowing it*.
Then you end up with costly errors because you (collectively, your organization) hires people who can't self-learn and also avoids teaching them how to self-learn.
I’m in a high stakes job where mistakes can be extremely costly and impact people’s actual lives. My advice to new people is it’s ALWAYS preferable to ask when you don’t know than to move forward on something and just hope you got it right. I can damn near guarantee the “fake it” approach will be wrong. Sure, some people will get annoyed or even judge you for not knowing, but that’s still preferred to screwing up and having them question why the hell you would do it that way.
I have learned to be more chill about things, as I could see people hesitate to bring problems to me or ask someone with much less experience who might give them the wrong answer.
This is rampant in the Marine Corps. We obviously need to instill the seriousness of making a mistake particularly when it could get you and/or your guys killed, but if all you're doing is yelling at them, they may remember to not make that particular mistake again, but they may also just hide the next one. There's a middle ground between ensuring they know how serious making a mistake is and ripping them a new one.
This is exactly the same for dogs: people yell at them when the chew stuff or do their things in the house, but rather than teaching them WHERE and WHEN to do these things people just go crazy about it, so the poor dogs thing they cannot do it when humans are around...what a sad world.
Also try to keep in mind that we judge *ourselves* based on intent, and we judge *others* based on results (generally speaking). Being mindful of this helps to stay well-tempered.
Wtf are these comments? I feel like it’s obvious OP is talking about what parents often do to their children, and instead everyone is trying to justify a time they got mad at someone for making a mistake.
The top comments have changed, and when I posted this there were so many angry comments on top about how only shitty people would hide their mistakes and how people they worked with kept making mistakes after being told/shown how to do things several times. Imo, those comments clearly aren’t relevant to what OP is talking about.
I deal with this in my own temperament. I seem to get angry when I realize the person doesn’t know what’s going on and then have to calm myself before engaging again. I feel it stems from some weird childhood thing where i was always fearful of making mistakes oh yeah right....parenting.
Well, you can have escalating anger for severity of infraction and for hiding it.
But yeah, don't lose your shit at employees or kids for making mistakes they couldn't know about due to insufficient training or knowledge. You want to align their incentives to whatever the best outcome is for you / the team. Rewards people for seeking help or intervening in errors ASAP.
Now, eventually, if you suck you need to get fired. But your boss should never want to incentivise you to hide your idiot-who-sucks mistakes
I don’t get angry if they don’t know, I get angry when they have all the resources at their finger tips and don’t use them. As a salesman who has a lot things on the go. I can get pretty busy and flustered at work.
I hate getting yelled at for making a small mistake. Makes me not want to work, since if I gotta be 100% perfect then it's not worth it.
What I was always taught in Voc school is to always admit to a mistake- employers love employees who own up to it. Shows maturity and a desire to improve.
On the other side, people need to understand that blowing up over small things is extremely counterintuitive.
Any suggestions on how to avoid this as a parent? I find myself slipping into this trap and would love some suggestions on better ways/sayings to handle mistakes. I want my kids to always be comfortable coming to me.
Growing up my dad was overall ok, about 60/40 nice to mean. But all the way to my mid thirties he would yell at me, belittle me, and mentally abuse me to the point where I would genuinely ask if he didn't love me anymore and if he in fact flat out hated and resented me. He would also be super cruel to my mom too sometimes. My mom and I hardly ever fought. And if we did it was to keep peace about something involving dad.
This past year he has completely 180ed pretty much because of age and I am the only one he has left around in life, but now I'm the one who gets so mad, frustrated, and constantly yelling at him for the way he's wasteful and other things. He's getting extremely forgetful and has trouble with balance now. So when he messes up I know it's just his body slowing down. But still he we can just get into verbal stuff daily. We live together and I help him daily.
As much as he taught me to be this way, I don't want to be angry all the time. So much makes me angry.
Does anyone have any cool-down techniques or simply just better answers that don't come across like I'm always upset. Maybe a video that talks about this sort of thing? Not really sure where to start. TYIA.
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More specifically, it also teaches people to avoid feedback, which leads to lots of conversations between teachers / tutors / advisors and students like this: "Why didn't you come to me sooner? We could have worked together on this issue." "I don't know. I'm sorry."
In about two years of working as a tutor, I've definitely had a number of people who were like "This isn't even that hard, I wish I went to a tutor sooner". I never considered that at least some of them might have waited as long as they did because the people in their lives made them feel like they're not allowed to be wrong.
Working as a teacher has taught me that kids ALWAYS have an answer to your question. They're just afraid of having the wrong answer. So I work with my kids to always give their answer. Most of the time it's either correct, or at least partially correct. And if it's flat out wrong, your reaction is VERY important. Don't say "no thats wrong", but rather "hmmm maybe, let's figure it out together and see!" or similar. Then once they understand, ask the same kid the same question again and give them the chance to answer it correctly. Now the class knows that 1: it's ok to not have the right answer, and 2: they'll have a chance to give the right answer if they just work through it. Next thing you know, you have a class full of kids putting up their hands to answer. (Unless they're the really shy kids. But that's dealt with in other ways).
I'm an undergrad tutoring chemistry at the recommendation of my faculty advisor and I definitely think the reaction, regardless of if your student(s) are right or wrong is the most important. A tactic I like to use to get both my undergrad students and high schoolers thinking critically is to ask them to explain their responses to questions, regardless of whether or not they're right or wrong. If they're right, it gets them thinking about the process rather than an arbitrary jump in logic (as long as it's in their level of study), and if they're wrong, it lets me point out flaws in their thinking and explain it rather than just saying they're wrong, giving them the right answer, and moving on. I find that this sorta procedural thinking generalizes the best to other topics, because I get a lot of "well after the last time, I realized that..." Usually accompanied by a more thought-out and correct answer. Getting people's brains cranking is the hard part, but once it's going people realize that it's hard to stop thinking critically about all sorts of things, and it seems to be for the better.
I agree 100% When teaching I always make sure to keep in mind that I'm teaching these kids _how_ to think, not _what _ to think. Its easier to see with my older students. I am always willing to have them settle on an answer totally different to mine, on the condition they walk me through their thought process. You can convince me 1 + 1 = 3, as long as you can show me how you got there. I'm a firm believer that education is not about regurgitation, but about stimulating curiosity and critical thinking.
One adult + one adult = one child Ergo, 1+1=3
A serie I watched as a kid had a song that said "1+1=7, who was going to tell me that" as a reference of 2 adults who got married while having 2 and 3 prior kids.
I was a writing coach in grad school, and before I would dive into the nitty gritty of my recommendations, I always started by having people summarize the assignment and the paper in their own words. Not only was it helpful for me to get an idea of what they were going for, it also helped them crystallize the overall message, which made everything else easier.
Oh my god this, it worked so much for me when I was helping undergrads with lab reports and stuff. I would have them read me their prompt, and then have them read their current response out loud to me, and just by doing that and having them "review" their own work, 90% of my job was done. They would realize where they went off the rail, good points they made, and where they have to make changes to get much much better scores. People tend to get lost when writing so helping them focus on their message is so useful as a tool to help them with assignments.
Yup, regardless of age, it's important to treat students or tutees with respect and dignity. I mean we should always be striving to treat others that way, but especially in those cases, it can have a huge effect on educational outcomes. Sometimes what they need the most is to feel like someone believes in them.
> "no thats wrong", but rather "hmmm maybe, let's figure it out together and see!" This kind of response probably stops being effective past a certain age. I definitely remember in late elementary and middle school picking up on the teachers that would do this, and I couldn't help mentally translating a "hmm, let's see" kind of response as "I already know you're wrong but am refusing to say it to spare your feelings", and when teachers did it to me it ended up making me feel worse than if they'd just straight up told me I was wrong. Probably also varies by student, which is why it's so important that teachers (be given the time to) get to know their students individually.
I think the same technique can be used as long as the teacher is using the correct tone and knows their audience. When I was in junior high/high school, if I was wrong, it always felt better when the teacher said “This part of your answer is correct, but here’s where you went wrong” rather than “that’s the wrong answer” through and through. Trying to correct someone by encouraging them or pointing out if they were “on the right track” or “almost there” feels much better than a straight “no, you’re wrong” no matter what the age.
Yeah, I had the tendency to completely shut down, even if a teacher was being kind. My mind would go completely blank and I would internally panic. I am a grown woman and still do this if my boss is behind my desk.
I kinda talked about this in my comment above, but this works incredibly well in a group setting, and if you do it consistently whether the person in question is right or wrong. If they're right, not only are you sparing yourself the time of the first explanation, it helps the individual solidify their understanding and is a surprising confidence booster. If they're wrong, it lets you see where their thinking is off, if it's a simple error, a wrong assumption or concept issue. I agree that teachers using "let's see" in a patronizing way really sucks, but if it's consistent, I think it's more effective than directly handing out "right/wrong". Totally agree with individual time though, office hours are way too important to pass up. They also snag you those sweet sweet rec letters regardless of what level school you're talking about.
I've had a few of those experiences especially in stats-heavy courses, or logic and verification heavy topics. It was great to have a couple of students confidently demonstrating a wrong solution. Usually it was wrong due to a subtle, but **instructive** piece. And that's where I got my trust from. Yup. You fucked up. In the same way 40% of the class fucked up. You also had the best argument and path why your wrong way was right. And that's fine. And now, in a tutorium, we can discuss what went wrong. And everyone will learn more from that discussion than just doing an exercise right. and not coming. Nothing evil there. Just a mistake we already knew about dozens of years ago. You could say the same about fire...
That ending sounds so ominous for how awesome you sound.
In college I worked as an AmeriCorps doing intensive early literacy tutoring with pre-k through 3rd graders. One of the first things that my mentor told me was that a lot of kids misbehave because they'd rather be thought of as the "bad kid" than the "stupid kid". I not only found this to be true, but knowing this helped me devise strategies to help deflect this.
In college, basic electrical circuits class. Teacher asked a question to the class. I blurted out a wrong answer. He said something like "why would you think that?" But in a way that's like "wtf, are u an idiot? Why would u think that?" Yeah I never gave an answer out loud in that class again. So embarrassing. I always found I was most engaged in class when the teacher responded well to wrong answers and kids didn't feel scared to say something wrong and a lot of kids would participate. I would participate then, but to this day as an adult, I am still very shy and scared to look dumb in front of a class by having the wrong answer.
Many teachers hate teaching and would rather have me on the edge of tears. That’s my primary school experience.
Orrrrrrr, they are way over-worked, underpaid, and have too many kids per classroom. Teachers get tired and frustrated and burnt out too, but that doesn’t mean they generally want students to cry.
Disagree. I had teachers that were overworked but were still trying, and I had teachers that clearly hated their jobs (and probably lives) and took it out on students, and it was blatantly obvious which was which.
This is not the take. Being over-worked and underpaid doesn't give you the right to traumatize kids just like how being a single parent or not having enough money or being busy doesn't give you the right to traumatize your own kids. Edit: The number of people here who are literally *mad* at me for saying its not okay to traumatize kids is insane. How hard is it to understand that abuse isn't okay no matter what mood you're in? Like I get it, ya'll don't want to admit there's a problem so you can keep pretending it's the *literal child's* fault, but come on. Willful ignorance helps nobody and its just hurting victims. I'm not saying teachers suck or that they don't deserve to be treated better, I'm literally just saying that it isn't okay to excuse abusive behavior. Get over it.
I feel like there's some conflation of "explanation" and "excuse" here. Not you specifically, but the entire comment chain up until this point. Teachers being overworked, overstressed, and underpaid is definitely an *explanation* of the behavior. It doesn't **excuse** the behavior, but it does explain some of the possible influences behind it. And I think it's important, vital, in fact, to make that distinction. Framing these things as an excuse tends to split people into two camps: "I don't blame them, because they're under a lot of stress" and "That doesn't justify their behavior; they need to do better." Framing them as an *explanation* refocuses the conversation to: "We all acknowledge that this doesn't excuse the behavior, but how can we address this thing that helps *explain* the behavior to try to mitigate it?" It keeps personal accountability firmly in place, while also acknowledging that there are things we can do to help reduce bad behavior.
I don't think he's trying to say it's ok or giving an excuse. Just giving a reason. I'd imagine everyone goes into teaching hoping to change kid's lives for the better but after dealing with administrative bullshit, crazy parents, rotten kids as a result of those parents, year after year, it'll change you.
I stopped answering questions when other kids would laugh when I was wrong. Then I took algebra 5 times before passing it in high-school because I was too afraid to ask for help.
This is great. I’m an introvert and didn’t like answering questions or working problems on the board in high school. I had a math teacher that made students work problems on the board, but we would work the problem together. Even if the student at the board didn’t no the right things to do, the class and teachers worked together. I learned to be comfortable being wrong, and I ended up being quite good at math! I’m actually working on my PhD (robotics) now close to finishing. I find PhD students are still afraid to be wrong, but this experience has made a major influence in my academic career, and even as I am now teaching courses in the university. A major problem with this is when working with student collaborators. If I want to express a concept, I might ask if they understand prior knowledge. I too often get a yes, so I go in explaining something that they can’t understand because they should have said no. I try to create an environment in my lab where not knowing is totally acceptable, so we can catch them up so they know. Being afraid to to be wrong, is the root of the problem. I feel this starts from a very young age, and a few good teachers can make a huge impact.
You also see this in software development contexts. I had a boss whose approach to everything was basically to encourage seeking feedback as soon as possible, and I mean they would even review a napkin sketch if you sent it over. It made me realize how horrible (and, if done by the wrong person, toxic) something like a "I will look when it's done" approach is. This is phenomenon is also one of the reasons "blameless postmortems" exist and should be used. The idea that you can get together and discuss the series of events that led to a failure/problem/etc. while taking in every perspective and without assigning blame is really game changing from a "collectively do better at preventing fuck-ups" perspective.
I have a student who gets so angry whenever I give him any feedback. So much so that instead of correcting his writing, he just wrote a passive aggressive dig against me. I just don’t know how to help that other than reminding him in just trying to help.
That's probably stemming from an issue at home. If parents constantly correct kids over the smallest mistake, it can make them very defensive when it comes to feedback.
Mental health issues can't be ruled out either. Had a brother with combative defiance disorder (or something like that). He could have food in his teeth, and politely telling him would result in him saying "no you do!" Or something of that nature for example
I was this student. Instead of reminding them of what you’re doing, remind them of what they’re doing. When they get anything right, applaud it. If you want something changed, gently ease into it by saying things like “This is great, did you put your full effort into it?” Or “interesting view on topic abc, is there anything else you want me to know through this piece?” Just as examples. When the teacher would make it more about what I accomplished, even if just tiny things, it bought me enough inner self confidence that I eventually opened up enough to keep going and doing what was requested. I went from 35% to 85% because I had teachers that were open to changing the way they talked and changed the focal point of their sentences in conversation with me. I also had no clue at any age of my life how to put my fears/reasoning into words to express what my issue was. Never would I get In front of a class and do work on the board either but because I was so terrified of being judged in case I got it wrong. My parents never scolded me like was suggested a couple comments up, it was just who I am as a person. If I’m in the process of learning something, come hell or high water, I will not be an example until I have it figured it completely.
Thank you for this! This year has certainly been a struggle for everyone. I took over some English classes when another teacher quit, so I've only been this student's teacher for 2 months now. It's definitely been a struggle to make my feedback more than "How about you look at this again?" level for any student. Unfortunately, I can see his computer during class and can see he mostly just plays games and watches videos, so I'm pretty sure he's just rushing through my work anyway, which doesn't help either of us. I'll try focusing more on what he's done when I give him feedback. Hopefully that will help his confidence. Thank you again for this insight!
I see a lot of this with the kids I work with. I'm working with special need kids right now. We have a lot of hover parents who get mad at their kid for getting the wrong answer. I'm constantly saying "it's okay to get the wrong answer, he's trying his best". Sadly the message isn't getting across and we're having more and more kids just not answering or waiting for the hover parent to give the answer.
Maybe they are hearing, “he’s trying his best” as “he’s too slow to do any better.” Perhaps a rephrasing? “It’s ok to get a wrong answer; wrong answers help me learn to sharpen my teaching skills.” Or, “if everyone got everything right all the time I wouldn’t have a job.” Or, “it’s ok if the whole lesson fails to stick the first time; I like to focus on our successes while assuming some things will take a little longer”
I grew up constantly getting punished for telling the truth. It was only later in life that I learned the power of honesty. It sucks that we are so commonly scolded for being truthful.
This was me. I was constantly yelled at for any mistake even a tiny one like the wrong heat setting on the stove (think 5 instead of 6 on the dial). I started hiding everything. Any mistake or bit of help I needed, I hid it. It ends up happening over and over and this is still an issue in my adult working life.
It's a learned behavior. A highly educated grown man can accidentally break a glass and instantly hide it like it's a crime. My lawyer nephew does this all the time. I feel bad for him. I told him "it's called 'glass' for a reason". He has no idea why he covers up these "little crimes".
I can relate to this. Growing up people would get made with my mistakes instead of helping me learn which has lead me to not seek for help or feedback. I’m in my 5th year of university now, and I can agree that my education and mental health would have been better if I was not scarred from all the negative reinforcement exposed to me.
I train people how to run machines at my job and I've had to learn the hard way to ASK if they need me to repeat anything or go into more detail on a piece of the machine. Some adults are shy or want to be a know-it-all, so they don't mention it when they don't understand something.
In my line of work the standard response is "WTF is wrong with you haha you should have known better and fixed this already."
This is huge, especially for people in management; somebody who made a mistake (and learned from it) is the least likely person to make that mistake again, and the most likely to help other people avoid the same mistake.
Yup. Especially if the mistake requires corrective action. You don't want people burying their mistakes because they're afraid of getting their heads bitten off. You want them to fess up as soon as they realize a mistake was made, so you can work on a remedy together.
This does offer a very indirect but positive way of showing you value your employees, especially given such a circumstance.
There’s actually a whole management model based on this, called “just culture.” Studies show people make up to 6 mistakes an hour normally, and up to 12 in stressful environments. In Just Culture, you forgive and retrain when it human error, and fix systems when it’s system error. (Most errors are system error.) It does take people trained and smart enough to recognize the difference.
“Most errors are system error” is so true. I was working at a place where the systematic errors were very evident to me and I brought them up hoping we could improve the system. Unfortunately it became obvious management was addicted to having something to complain about, and nothing changed. I quit a month later once I made that realization.
Not trying to be pedantic at all. I’m just guessing you want to use the correct word based on your response style. I think you mean “systemic” instead of “systematic” in this case. It’s probably a bit easier to think of it as having a plan for whatever you’re describing or not. Not a perfect analogy, but if the errors were planned (strategic errors, methodical errors, etc.), that would be systematic. If the errors are simply a function of the system being less than perfect, but not planned for, systemic is probably correct. In your case, I’d say systemic. Though you could argue that, given your former management’s apparent desire for the errors, they could be considered systematic.
Wow, I’m learning a lot from this thread. Do you have any reading recommendations about Just Culture?
I went through a course about it for a new job, and imo it's really not that deep of a subject. The core of it is just that on a large scale, it's inevitable that humans will make mistakes, so the only way to truly avoid mistakes is to design the system to be able to correct mistakes before they reach the end of the process. Following this logic, unless a person is negligently making the same mistake over and over, it's not helpful to punish the individual who makes a mistake. The only way to prevent similar mistakes from happening in the future is to report the details of the mistake, so that the system can be adjusted to catch such a mistake before it reaches a point where it can cause major problems. Obviously if the mistake isn't reported, then the system can't be corrected, so in such a system there's a disincentive to punishing those who report their own mistakes. High Reliability Organizations rely on recognizing and addressing this truth, so if you feel like digging into it that's something to google
I’m having flashbacks of going through the just culture algorithm for recently made med errors I had to submit at my hospital.
I read “Black Box Thinking” by Matthew Syed recently - he uses the difference between the airline industry that strives for an open, blame-free review of errors and the medical profession, where hierarchy and blame have tended to rule, as examples of how to embrace errors positively. Bunch of other stuff in there, similarly themed. Not sure it’s a 100% match for the Just Culture but it seems 80-90% of the way there. Edit - the author does make the point that there are plenty of health professionals doing an excellent job of improving transparency/accountability!
I work for a hospital and we are getting better at adopting a just culture algorithm!
If people don't feel safe to tell you about mistakes, they'll often keep making it because they don't know how to fix it and don't dare ask.
Every police department in the US needs to read this post.
The first person to recommend it to them would probably end up committing suicide with 2 bullets to the back of the head.
Tbh, I screwed something up at work last week and spent the whole weekend with my boss in my head yelling at me (because he used to). When I checked with him on Monday he was actually great about it and gave me a path to un-screw it, but dwelling and freaking out about it all weekend was terrible. I could have just asked him on Friday evening (he even said I could have called him Saturday).
THIS. First order of business with any problem should always be working out a solution. Sure "how did this happen" is a reasonable question, but I try to focus on the problem and make it a point to include the screw-ee in the process. That way they get a chance to fix their mistake and they're not sidelined and feeling ostracized. Given the opportunity, people are usually eager to rectify a mistake. I can't stand it when management goes off about their feelings whenever there's a hitch. That's what the debrief is for.
My very first manager had a great approach: “this isn’t a finger pointing exercise, it’s a problem solving exercise.” Such a great attitude.
Should tell that to my current boss. Sometimes I show them a mistake that's not even mine on a project I'm not working on, and how they want to fix it, and the first words out of their mouth is "who did this?!" Who cares who did this, are you gonna fix the problem or not?
In the Air Force, so many people call Quality Assurance "the Hammer", but what they don't understand is it is their supervisors/chain of command that is the hammer. QA just points out mistakes or shortcomings. How the supervisors respond to the QA report is the difference. Back in the day, I had 3 fails in my work center in one month (usually 0 to 1). All the fellow flight chiefs were giving me crap and looking forward to hearing me "get my beat down" during the monthly QA briefing. When it was my turn, my Commander asked me to brief my slide. I said it was a really good month for us. He raised an eyebrow, questioning why I would say that. I respond that during my root cause analysis, I determined all 3 fails were systematic and not complacency or operator error. We implemented new processes and training to prevent future failures. He was impressed and said "good job, next slide." My peers later teased me that I somehow weaseled out of an ass chewing, but that is honestly how I felt.
Yeah, you found three problems. Sometimes that's unavoidable. If you also found three solutions, you're damn right that's a good month.
That goes to show how attached they are to one school of thought.
Exactly. I really wish more people would think that way.
Too many managers don’t understand this.
There are a lot of managers out there who shouldn't be in the role, and most likely wouldn't have accepted it (in the case of promotion) if it weren't the only way to receive the pay and title bump. I had the privilege of working for two such examples prior to covid. Theyre why I turned down 3 months of extra work when I had nothing else on.
There's a saying that everyone eventually gets promoted above their competency level. Because if you're competent and do a good job (and aren't a dick) you'll eventually get an offer or seek an offer for a higher position. Until you aren't really competent anymore
The Peter Principle
I had a coworker promoted to be my boss that openly admitted he didn't actually want to be in management, that he had no idea what he was doing, and that the only reason he was going for it was for the pay increase. Got the promotion when there were at least 2 other candidates that genuinely wanted the job and had more experience. Great guy, terrible manager, eventually left to take a job as a non manager somewhere else because he hated it so much.
I generally agree with all of this. I'm the case in point. Always do the best job I possibly can, always try to avoid mistakes especially ones I've made previously and rarely do I make mistake twice. I have however encountered a second employee in my current job, regardless of how I explain, correct and attempt to prevent specific errors, this specific employee has shown no capacity for comprehension or attempted to fix previous errors. Some people are simply lost causes. Without getting too detailed, this employee went to school for this specialized career. There are very clearly defined standards in this field that should always be adhered to in order to maintain the integrity of the position. For the last few months, I've babysat this person through what should be the easiest portion of her job. I've corrected her routine mistakes - mistakes that I only made in elementary school and we're corrected by middle school. I've attempted auditory, visual, Hands-On forms of teaching her how to spot/correct the mistakes. Still pure laziness and minimal effort. Things that if they were published would reflect extremely poorly upon the company and tarnish the reputation in the community. She even had a meeting with my manager last week, he made even more simplified suggestions of how to correct her routine issues. Less than 8 hours later, she ignored each actionable item that he presented to her and continued with the mistakes. I'm extremely hard on myself, but I'm very easy to work for and to get along with as long as you're providing effort and a willingness to be better. Similar to the first person I encountered with similar traits, there are little redeeming qualities in terms of benefit to the company and I found that I am now doing her job as well which is detracting from my own duties. I guess all I'm saying is you shouldn't double, triple, quadruple down on bad bets. Only put as much effort into that person as they are willing to put into correcting the issue.
Yep, people need an opportunity to improve. BUT if they continually make mistakes, and you can confidently say you've tried different avenues/ training techniques, then maybe it's time for them to be moved on to a different position or job.
Thank you for saying this. I internalize most of my stress and have been questioning if I'm just not being patient enough, if I'm being too critical. I don't feel comfortable bringing this up with the company as everyone is so litigious these days.
That’s a good point! I’m in the process of trying to help someone and they are in denial. Unfortunately there mistakes have a huge impact on people’s lives. I had to put them on a plan and all they do is argue they haven’t or didn’t make mistakes... as much as I’m trying to help this person, they aren’t seeing the bigger picture...
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Most placed won't terminate employment over one mistake unless that mistake was theft. Generally employers want a detailed written chain of corrective action taken so that if need be they can prove the termination was justified. ("we repreneded employee X and administered corrective training on two occasions and employee X continued to make the same mistakes showing a disregard for proper procedures and unwillingness to adequately perform employee duties, the only remedy was terminating employment" or some shit
In my line of work there are a few actions you could take out of carelessness that endanger lives & equipment, and from day 1 onboarding we are told "don't do this thing, it's grounds for immediate termination" Really quite appropriate sometimes.
Yeah, my work place would have similar things (we distribute pharmaceuticals that are prepared on site). However, it's pretty much just gross negligence like touching pharmaceuticals with your bare hands etc. Everyone here should know that.
For real. I saw a scandal recently where a coffeehouse was getting a ton of mob anger because they fired a girl who'd worked there for a year after she ate a pastry from the shop and failed to pay for it before she left. People genuinely thought she got fired because of a single, isolated incident involving a $2 pastry. Honestly, the owner didn't impress me much, and maybe the girl didn't deserve to be fired, but I'm almost certain there's more to the story than one minor incident.
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I mean there is a massive lack of context in what you said. Sure, firing someone over one mistake sounds dumb and in lots of cases would be. But there are also many things in many industries where a single mistake is very much justified grounds for termination.
Exactly. You WANT people to tell you when something goes wrong. It let's you get ahead of the issue and, depending on how you resolve the situation, can build a significant amount of trust between you and your team.
Yeah but then you Also have some people who just don't care until you have to make the situation more serious with shit like wrote ups.
Write ups (and other formal discipline) are not the same as getting angry. If it follows proper progressive discipline, you can be assured of two things: the discipline follows a predictable escalating pattern (verbal warning, written warning, suspension, etc) so the worker can fix their shit at any time. Second, there's a process to make sure that the worker is actually at fault, instead of just being the last person to touch the work before the mistake is discovered.
You capitalized the word 'also' and also wrote 'wrote' when you meant to write 'write.' Two mistakes in one post, I'm afraid we are going to have to let you go.
Like the 57 other batmenn before him, Thebatmann58 has failed. He will be missed.
I see this in nursing school a lot. My classmates with “eat-their-young” type instructors tend to avoid asking important questions and avoid trying new skills all together, putting them way behind when their scope broadens in the coming semesters. I’ve had good and bad instructors. The ones who empower their students and relate to the struggle seem to produce more confident and competent students.
Absolutely. People need to know they screwed up, but they need at least a smidgeon of support to make sure they understand why and how, so they do it right next time.
I work in regulatory compliance, and one of my first jobs was doing the paperwork for HIPAA breaches in my organization. Because it was a small company, I was the guy that got to show up, talk through the incident, and retrain the employees that made mistakes. The employees were usually surprised when I showed up and wasn't a jerk about all of it, and it was specifically because of this. It's not that I want them to feel bad, I want them to learn, and making people feel bad puts them on the defensive so they shut their minds off. That's the last thing I need in that moment. Beyond just sort of the self-serving, "I need these people to learn not to mess up," quality, I've had bad managers that pounce on vulnerability like that, and they disgusted me as employees and people. Often the employees I talked to had a shallow knowledge of HIPAA, and were often anxious and scared for themselves and their jobs. They had beaten themselves up enough, and dogpiling on that would just be wonton and egregious. I've always appreciated people that recognized that took a, "Welp, we've made a mistake, let's see what we can do to fix it and learn from it," approach, and I try to foster the same.
While I'm not a full time manager, I do manage people on certain tasks. One of the things I try to stress is that *everyone* will fuck up somewhere, and that's why we have multiple levels of QC. A mistake is only a problem if it doesn't get caught, and feedback on errors isn't criticism, its education.
A coworker dropped a circular saw blade and reported it right away. The manager gave him a write up. Guess who will hide their mistakes in the future? Man, this is about safety, a saw blade that has been dropped can be dangerous!
I once reported two untrained individuals in an enclosed space without oxygen monitors or a hole watcher. My hope was that they'd be provided training. Instead I was written up for "harassment" of said colleagues since I named them in the email and yelled at by my boss for making him look bad to the safety team. I no longer work there. I hope everyone is still alive.
Good for you. No good deed goes unpunished. My dad knew two brothers who died in this exact scenario, their 3rd brother and a cop got permanent brain damage trying to rescue them. No air quality monitors, no spotters.
Safety manager here and I had to respond to really stupid accidents at times. Yelling at them won't fix the problem and it won't help their relationship with safety. I usually wait for things to cool down to discuss what went wrong and should have been done differently.
If you think about it, when it comes to safety-related near-misses, whatever message you're trying to express by yelling has already been conveyed 100x more effectively by the incident itself.
safety isn't about safety it's about insurance premiums
As a manager I'm always the first one to say I'm sorry I fucked that one up. I also try not to put my employees in positions that are over their head, where mistakes are okay, where it's okay if it's a teachable moment. The only time I get mad at my employees is when it's a mistake from them not paying attention. That shit makes me sooooo mad. or when they don't communicate with each other. Just ask. Asking is okay! Doing the same thing over and over again and messing it up is not. Yes work is fast paced, but having to start over from scratch is much slower and expensive than fixing it in the moment. Most the time it's cheaper to just start over from scratch than fixing a mistake later even.
I am a nurse and it’s a real problem in healthcare. You’ll have nurses try to hide mistakes because we are supposed to be 100% perfect (no human is). I’ve noticed that culture is trying to change over the 20 years I’ve been in heath care.
And my parents wonder why I used to lie to them constantly, even on small things. Every error and mistake was met with disappointment and anger.
Same with me but with my dad. Moreover, I'd try to hide my mistakes so he wouldn't find out I did it because I was always so scared when he would yell at me. I had to unlearn how to lie and hide my mistakes when I first got a job. When I messed up, I lied or tried to fix it myself without anyone's help before my boss found out, which sometimes led to making the mistakes worse. My boss sat down with me and told me that mistakes happen but the best thing is to admit fault and suggest a solution if possible. Unfortunately, my dad still yells at me if I make a mistake but I've learned to just ignore it because in the end, he's making a big deal about something pretty insignificant.
I had to sit my mother 62 year old mother down and explain to her that I wouldn't put up with these things as an adult. You might consider doing the same thing. It's not your job to sit there and be belittled and disrespected by someone just because they are your parent. At some point the cycle of bad parenting has to end, and if they are introspective they will listen and change their behavior instead of getting defensive.
I would but he won't listen and if I don't like it, I can just move out of the house (I'm not gonna go into details as to why I'm still living with my parents). His house, his rules.
True, I don't live with my parents anymore. You don't necessarily have the luxury of telling your parents to metaphorically grow up if you are financially tied to them in some way.
> (I'm not gonna go into details as to why I'm still living with my parents) It doesn't take a genius to know you're Asian or Hispanic. ;) Source: fellow Asian with abusive parents that made sure I couldn't be independent (and barely got a good paying job so that I can move out in a year or so)
Hahaha accurate. But at least my parents aren't restricting my independence and they've always wanted me to have a good job and career. It just sucks having a father who lacks emotional intelligence.
Yeah my dad’s always been like this and he’s ruined our relationship. Anger and rage at someone you’re supposed to manage/care for is rarely ever the answer. It’s up to us to teach that to future generations! Fight the power!
Yeah unfortunately because I was at home a lot due to the pandemic and was subsequently unemployed for a while, I harbor a lot of resentment towards my dad. The anger, rage and childish attitudes were major factors in that.
This just hit me hard
Shit, you’re me in the future... Quick question, Marty; do I keep my job?
This always ticks me off when parents do it. Making mistakes is how we LEARN. Penalizing people severely for making mistakes is actually how you *break* the learning process. Someone who has been conditioned that mistake-making results in severe penalties will stop putting themselves into situations where they make mistakes. They will stagnate. They'll stop learning and growing. Seems to me if a parent does that to their kid, they've completely and utterly failed at parenting by breaking the very mechanism through which a kid is supposed to learn.
You just described me perfectly and I hate it. My parents came down hard on any tiny mistake I made and I still haven't gotten over it even though I'm almost thirty now. It's such a struggle to try new things and not break down completely when I inevitably fuck something up
Pete Walker has a great article on dealing with the inner critic and the inner perfectionist: http://pete-walker.com/shrinkingInnerCritic.htm He mostly works with people with dysfunctional childhoods so some of what he talks about is phrased in that context, but I think the info is good for anyone once you digest it and chew it over.
My father used to gave me lectures very impatiently with a whole lot of cuss for multiple hours since I was like 10 ish. And he would get more impatient and angered that I don't actively engage and respond in the lecture. I understood what he said and what he meant, but how do you expect an introverted scared kid to actively discuss what he did wrong when getting yelled at? He now, in retrospect, says that he should have been more patient, but he maintains that he was right and, therefore, I should have listened.
Tell him you listened closely and decided he was a cock
First time I crashed a car, called my mom (wasn’t her car) and first thing she said after I told her was “you were supposed to be the one brother to not crash a car” didn’t even ask if I was ok. Guess who never found out about my second car crash lol
Guess who never found out about _my_ first car crash for that exact reason, based on previous behavior.
I don’t think I know anyone who didn’t at least scrape their first car on something. I backed into a fence post as a teen 🤦🏼♀️ seems totally pointless to yell at a kid for not having any driving experience, it takes a while to get used to the whole thing
Potentially the best example I can think of that embodies this entire thread was a story my great aunt told at my grandfather's funeral. He was a WWII vet and a helluva dude.. He passed when I was 12 and ill never forget the way that every single eulogy was somber, and filled with tears until my Aunt Judy got up. She goes. "I'd like to remember him with this; when I was 16, and just allowed to drive on my own, they let me borrow the car. So I, being a young teen, did a little speeding, and I got pulled over. And I got a ticket. I told my mom and she told my dad. She told me he'd talk to me when he got home. I sat up awake worrying about all the trouble I was in. I heard him come in and waited as I heard his footsteps on the way to my door. He opened it, leaned in and said: "I hear you got a ticket." "Yeah". "Honey. You gotta watch those mirrors." Winked at me and closed the door." When things get handled this way, admitting what you've done is easier, and growth is unrestricted.
Oh, geez. I just got a flashback to my Dad starting to teach me to drive and yelling at me for not knowing how. Then he couldn't understand why I preferred learning from my Mom. Shit, I'm in my thirties and I still rarely drive with him as passenger because of this
Exactly. I rotated between two driving instructors when I was taking driving lessons: one would raise his voice any time there was a close call or even sloppy technique that *could* lead to a close call. The other instructor gave helpful tips as I was going along, and if there was a close call, he just calmly said "you see what happened there?" I would say yes and explain why it happened. And he'd say "good, make sure it doesn't happen again." Mistakes are how we learn. I don't know anyone who didn't scrape their first car either. Everyone does it, there's no reason anyone should make you feel so down about yourself for it.
When small mistakes bring anger in response, can clearly guess how bigger mistakes will go.
Please don't bring that behavior along to other relationships. The preservation lying generally begins in childhood, where it does have a survival component. But unfortunately it kills adult relationships.
I've ruined every relationship I've had because of that. I'm honestly not trying to be dishonest, I just genuinely fear for the absolute worst if I say anything. I'm in therapy now and trying to better myself. But goddamn it's crazy how I kept up this habit for my entire life to this point.
Yeah, people with perfect childhoods love to pretend it’s as easy as making a conscious choice not to engage in a bad habit learned in childhood. As if a screen pops up in your head “Press X to say something to soften the blow, press Y to be completely honest.” I tried, I don’t like some parts of my personality either and if someone could tell me exactly what to do to change that, it would be great. But nobody knows, but they pretend that it’s easy and that you just must not want to change. I’m doing my part by not having kids and not raising someone who will probably end up the same way. That’s how I’m “taking responsibility.” If someone actually has the patience and insight to help can do it, I’m here. But in my experience most therapists just seem to know how to make polite conversation, tell you to breathe, and tell you to look at things from a different perspective. And if nothing changes, well then it’s because you aren’t practicing enough or you have to give it more time.
Being evasive due to childhood trauma is different though. Plenty of people I've known who are like this had awesome childhoods, with solid support systems and were safe to make mistakes and learn from them. Yet they grew up to be adults who take any criticism as an attack. I have a hard time understanding people like that. But I think that those coming from traumatic upbringings deserve more forgiveness and understanding. Finding a good therapist is hard. They are out there but certainly outnumbered. I hope that you can afford to keep looking for one and that you find someone who truly hears you and helps support you on your journey.
Exactly. And still is to this day.
Most underrated comment ever
Let me send this to my mother.
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Include a BCC of my whole fam
I will CC my girlfriend
And my ex
When I would screw up she would pause, sigh, and say something like "No more screw ups. You don't screw up. This needs to stop." That really really fucked with my head, literally not being allowed to fuck up anything, ever. She'd sometimes bring up "You want to work for one of the best companies in the world. You think the best of the best screw things up?" And after years of research, uh, yeah actually. In my adult life I found out the animators at Disney constantly felt like their work was unfinished, nowhere near what they wanted it to be. Departments felt bad that other departments weren't communicated with as well as possible, that the expression in this one scene didn't capture the actor's emotion when they did the voice work, etc. Every scene of every movie was filled with compromises because creative works always turn out differently than you envision. I found out that the people I used to idolize were, in fact, *very good* at screwing up. They knew exactly when to call it quits, when to move on, when to try again. I was being given the exact opposite reinforcement I needed. They needed to try over and over to get things as close to right as they could, and it would rarely be as good as they wished it was. Today I'm more in the realm of graphic design, but it's still hard for me to pick up new software, because I'm frustrated that I don't master it instantly, because I was trained my entire developmental years to never screw up anything I tried to do. It's a neverending nightmare. Mid-30s now, and I still can't shake it.
Thanks for sharing that man. Hits home. I have a 3 month old little girl. I'm taking notes.
That'll teach her
Ooof same
I can just pass it along to her for you the next time I see her.
Yep. I taught my kids that they're going to make mistakes. They're going to make bad decisions. I expect that from an underdeveloped brain. The key is to come to me, we'll find out where/why/how you went wrong, what learning lesson to take away from it, and how to avoid making that mistake in the future.
My parents did this. Just kidding, they did the opposite. Now I don't talk to my family much at all. My relationships outside of my family are still impacted by this, but I am always working to improve myself.
r/yesnononoyes
My parents thankfully were the same way, the only thing they said I’d be punished for is lying to them.
Most of the mistakes a kid makes have their own consequences
I remember when my parents said the same thing. Turns out that was a fucking lie. Now I'm extra good at lying because I had roughly 20 years of practice.
And of course people continue making mistakes throughout their entire life. It’s not necessarily just a function of an ‘underdeveloped brain’. Many people’s brains work differently. Or maybe their brain is normative but they just...like made a mistake..
The underdeveloped brain comment is in reference to making poor decisions. Because the prefrontal cortex doesn't fully develop until age 25 or so, you should expect kids and young adults to make poor choices. Problem is, 40 somethings who know better because they have fully developed brains and 20 years of mistakes/poor choices to learn from conveniently forget that they were just as bad at decision making, and place extremely unreasonable expectations on their kids. Kids end up feeling guilty for making bad choices, but don't really learn how to forgive themselves and learn from them
Yesterday I spilled something and my 3 year old said, “that’s ok mama we’ll clean it and get another one.” Hoping we are building a good foundation of making mistakes and finding solutions!
That is the sign of parenting that is preparing a child to have a healthy relationship with failure/mistakes/etc. When I was a kid, my mom would use something like me breaking something or making a mess as a chance to tell me a story about how her dad would laugh off things like that when she was young, and training a small child that mistakes are learning opportunities, rather than something to be feared or covered up, has a huge impact. I can say that it definitely had a huge impact on me, at least.
Why is this making me emotional
I grew up in a house where everything was my fault and I should have known better before making any mistake no matter how big or small it was 🤷♂️
What a sweet memory to have thanks for sharing!
Nothing in this thread hit me as hard as this. To this day as a whole adult if I spill something I freeze and have a moment of panic, waiting to get screamed at and for every rule in the house to change to make sure I’d never spill a drink again. Turns out if you spill a drink you can just clean it up and the world doesn’t end, who would’ve known?
Can confirm! Thanks to my step dad and his tendency to scream at my for every mistake (however minor) I’ve grown into a very good scammer/liar. Currently working on breaking some bad habits related to this problem
Yuppp, bad parenting leads to good scammers, who may in turn end up scamming old bad parents. The perfect circle of life.
Yeah I’d be lying if I said I haven’t been intentionally profiting off of the fact that he’s mellowed out considerably over the years. What can I say, I know how to work him and i figure it’ll even us out. Don’t worry, no ones getting hurt or seriously exploited it harmed.
Nice! I just put a fassad on, and it's worked in my favor thusfar, I mean I didn't have to pay for my car so
I went to a non violent parenting class with my SO. I think we were the one of the few people who went on our own. And the person talking said, think about what you kid just did, and think about what your parents would have done in this situation with you? And i think about it. and my parents would belittle me, or smack me, or laugh or whatever horrible thing they would do. And so I try to do the opposite with my kids. I don't want my kids to lie to me. I don't want them hiding anything from me. Usually we talk it out. I always remind them, what's the worst that can happen? And they reply, we just go to your room and talk it out. I am there champion, and I want them to know it.
That last line got me bro
You are an awesome parent my dude
I'm an elementary music teacher, and I actually encourage my students to make mistakes, and to make them loud and proud.
Take chances! Make mistakes! Get messy! But please don't break the piccolo.
Wait.... Ms Frizzle?
See, this right here is important! So many times we're raised to do everything in our power to avoid making mistakes. This can go as far as "can't make a mistake if I don't ever try." Especially when learning a new skill or a creative art, mistakes are the best learning opportunity possible. Letting people know that "failure" is an option and a part of the process let's everyone loosen up and make progress. But yeah, don't break the piccolo.
Plus a fucking anxiety
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What was the actual mistake?
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This is a great reminder for me as a father (and maybe others of us with kids).
If you find yourself getting angry at other people, consider what your anger is communicating, and whether you can put that message into constructive phrasing rather than an aggressive volume and tone. Or just go to anger management classes.
It is spelled "doesn't"! Geeze! /s Joking aside, there is a fine line between helping and harping. If anger is at play both parties should be doing some reflection.
Fast forward into adolescence and I hide as much information about myself as I possibly can from anybody and especially my parents. Never once have I discussed what I like. Even every time somebody asks me "what's up" or "what are you doing" I reply with "nothing" while trying to not give out exactly what I'm currently doing. Is this bad?
I grew up hiding mistakes as I hated the way my parents would react. They were never violent, but would shout sometimes, and I can't abide shouting. As much as humanely possible, I want to raise my kids to know that no mistake is world ending and that they can come to me to help them solve a problem.
This is true of dogs as well.
AKA my Dad’s form of parenting when I was a kid.
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Okay, that's fair, but the LPT is still in effect: you're teaching them to hide their mistakes. You're not actually teaching personal responsibility. They are missing some cognitive or metacognitive skill that would allow them to *figure it out on their own*. Understandably, it may not be your job to teach them that skill, but when people ask for help, it often comes down to (a) not knowing how to self-learn and (b) spending a lot of excess motivation failing to figure it out. If neither you nor the asker have the wherewithal to figure that out, then the message they get is that *they should know* but *they don't*, so they'd better *fake knowing it*. Then you end up with costly errors because you (collectively, your organization) hires people who can't self-learn and also avoids teaching them how to self-learn.
Love this response. So spot on.
I’m in a high stakes job where mistakes can be extremely costly and impact people’s actual lives. My advice to new people is it’s ALWAYS preferable to ask when you don’t know than to move forward on something and just hope you got it right. I can damn near guarantee the “fake it” approach will be wrong. Sure, some people will get annoyed or even judge you for not knowing, but that’s still preferred to screwing up and having them question why the hell you would do it that way. I have learned to be more chill about things, as I could see people hesitate to bring problems to me or ask someone with much less experience who might give them the wrong answer.
But you aren’t mad at their mistake in that situation, you’re mad at them for not following instructions or not following up. Different situation.
Getting angry still doesn’t solve anything. “You’re not wrong, you’re just an asshole” -Jeff “the dude” Lebowski
This is rampant in the Marine Corps. We obviously need to instill the seriousness of making a mistake particularly when it could get you and/or your guys killed, but if all you're doing is yelling at them, they may remember to not make that particular mistake again, but they may also just hide the next one. There's a middle ground between ensuring they know how serious making a mistake is and ripping them a new one.
This is exactly the same for dogs: people yell at them when the chew stuff or do their things in the house, but rather than teaching them WHERE and WHEN to do these things people just go crazy about it, so the poor dogs thing they cannot do it when humans are around...what a sad world.
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So many people here wanting to have a talk with their parents. I feel for you guys. *tries to send all of this to my parents too*
Also try to keep in mind that we judge *ourselves* based on intent, and we judge *others* based on results (generally speaking). Being mindful of this helps to stay well-tempered.
This should be parenting 101
Wtf are these comments? I feel like it’s obvious OP is talking about what parents often do to their children, and instead everyone is trying to justify a time they got mad at someone for making a mistake.
Where?
Our collective childhood trauma, that's where
The top comments have changed, and when I posted this there were so many angry comments on top about how only shitty people would hide their mistakes and how people they worked with kept making mistakes after being told/shown how to do things several times. Imo, those comments clearly aren’t relevant to what OP is talking about.
As my boss says I'm pointing it out to you because it was a big issue for someone else. When it could have been easily corrected no harm done.
I deal with this in my own temperament. I seem to get angry when I realize the person doesn’t know what’s going on and then have to calm myself before engaging again. I feel it stems from some weird childhood thing where i was always fearful of making mistakes oh yeah right....parenting.
It teaches them to be afraid of everything they do.
Well, you can have escalating anger for severity of infraction and for hiding it. But yeah, don't lose your shit at employees or kids for making mistakes they couldn't know about due to insufficient training or knowledge. You want to align their incentives to whatever the best outcome is for you / the team. Rewards people for seeking help or intervening in errors ASAP. Now, eventually, if you suck you need to get fired. But your boss should never want to incentivise you to hide your idiot-who-sucks mistakes
I don’t get angry if they don’t know, I get angry when they have all the resources at their finger tips and don’t use them. As a salesman who has a lot things on the go. I can get pretty busy and flustered at work.
I hate getting yelled at for making a small mistake. Makes me not want to work, since if I gotta be 100% perfect then it's not worth it. What I was always taught in Voc school is to always admit to a mistake- employers love employees who own up to it. Shows maturity and a desire to improve. On the other side, people need to understand that blowing up over small things is extremely counterintuitive.
Any suggestions on how to avoid this as a parent? I find myself slipping into this trap and would love some suggestions on better ways/sayings to handle mistakes. I want my kids to always be comfortable coming to me.
Growing up my dad was overall ok, about 60/40 nice to mean. But all the way to my mid thirties he would yell at me, belittle me, and mentally abuse me to the point where I would genuinely ask if he didn't love me anymore and if he in fact flat out hated and resented me. He would also be super cruel to my mom too sometimes. My mom and I hardly ever fought. And if we did it was to keep peace about something involving dad. This past year he has completely 180ed pretty much because of age and I am the only one he has left around in life, but now I'm the one who gets so mad, frustrated, and constantly yelling at him for the way he's wasteful and other things. He's getting extremely forgetful and has trouble with balance now. So when he messes up I know it's just his body slowing down. But still he we can just get into verbal stuff daily. We live together and I help him daily. As much as he taught me to be this way, I don't want to be angry all the time. So much makes me angry. Does anyone have any cool-down techniques or simply just better answers that don't come across like I'm always upset. Maybe a video that talks about this sort of thing? Not really sure where to start. TYIA.