Good lord, I think we have the same husband. Including the refusal to learn manual transmission!
I don’t know. I’m working out going back to school (for nursing, waiting for the kidlet to be big enough and my husband to get a job that will let me stop working for a bit), and it worries me. I know it’s going to be some tough stuff, and a lot of rote memorization. In short, I know I’m going to have to learn how to learn, and that’s a really terrifying thought. How do people learn stuff? I’ll let you know if I figure it out.
During my (and my siblings) “I can’t” stage, my dad would make us do 10 push ups whenever he heard the term uttered forth from our mouths. We hated doing push ups, so this was amazingly effective. If we were going to say it because we just didn’t feel like trying, the thought of having to do those push ups shut us right up. If we were going to say it because we were experiencing real difficulty, we learned to express it in more productive ways. It worked quite well and I plan on using this method on my future children.
We also had unusually good upper body strength compared to other kids our age!
It sounds like Lumpy wishes his/her nephew had this level of intensity (but in a healthy way).
Not having kids, maybe I’m not the best expert on the subject. But it seems to me that there is a very real danger that this behavior is not a phase or a stage and is setting the tone for a life of mediocrity and failure. As NajaNivea, pointed out, there are plenty of pathetic adults who never grew out of the “I can’t” attitude. And they annoy the shit out of other people who end up having to pick up their slack.
It seems to me that somehow you want to instill in your nephew a sense that yes, you will likely suck at something the first time you try it, but if you keep at it, you WILL improve. Quite often, the winner isn’t the biggest or strongest or smartest, but simply the person who wants it the most.
Unfortunately, I believe a lot of it might be just a part of who they are on the inside. Some people have that desire to try things and others just don’t.
Interestingly, the White Star’s “unsinkable” Olympic class ships were 2 for 3. The RMS Titanic of course being the first to go down spectacularly. Lesser known was her sister ship the HMHS Britannic later sinking a few years later due to a German mine or torpedo hit.
But eventually, with some hard work and luck, the RMS Olympic managed to stay in service for many years before finally being decommissioned (although not before striking two ships, one on purpose - a german U-boat, and the other by accident).
So with a lot hard work and perseverence, the White Star was able to manage to make a ship that, while not “unsinkable” at least didn’t sink on it’s maiden voyage.
Well, when I got to the store and saw that there was a big sale going on, I called him to tell him and ask if there was anything else he’d like me to look for–clothes or whatever. He answered the phone all pissed-off but I ignored it and in a totally pleasant way held my half of the conversation. We hung up but I periodically called him about different stuff and each time he answered he was less and less hostile until, by the time I got home, he was more or less fine.
Get this, though. At some point I was verbally patting myself on the back for such a good score (really nice leather office chairs, normally $181 and picked up for $80 each!) and his response? With absolutely no irony or sarcasm whatsoever, he says: “we should put you in charge of all the shopping in the future.” :smack:
So now he’ll have decided it’s successful not only to throw a temper tantrum and quit halfway through, but that I’m some kind of shopping expert and should be handed this task forever more. Sigh.
And actually, you know what gets me most about this whole thing is that he’s not a dumb guy. He’s a geneticist six months away from finishing a PhD. He’s a bright and capable young man.
I don’t know how helpful this is, but my parents used to absolutely sneer at me if I said “I can’t”. My mother would stop me instantly and say “No, you WON’T. Say that because it’s what you mean. It’s not that you CAN’T it’s that you WON’T” and to this day I cannot hear someone say “I can’t” without thinking “I won’t”.
I don’t know how true it is, but I do know this: At 37 I’ve done a lot of things I never dreamed I could because I rarely, if ever use that term. IMHO, “I can’t” really usually is short for “I won’t”. I won’t because it’s boring, I won’t because it’s not fun, I won’t because I want the reward without the work. I can’t is short for all of those things and more.
Henry Ford said “Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right”. I think that’s absolutely true in most cases.
I’ve suffered from perfectionist tendencies, too, and have finally found it a really useless way to be. One thing said to me in interviewing a very accomplished wise old 90 year-old musician,Othar Turner about how he learned to play the fife, really clinches it:
He was pretty straighforward, and said you just kept at it and learned. He told of his mentor, who gave him his first fife, and said “Don’t nothing make a fail but a try.” From such a great man, that sticks with me. I love that photo, too, because, there he is in his mid-90’s, loving passing his skill on to his granddaughter, Sharde.
I think a key point that’s been overlooked is this child’s age. 6 year olds, first graders, seem in general to be more morose, more negative, more doubtful than other elementary schools aged children. I have two kids, both of whom went through the same thing at the same age (and now at 18 and 21 are again bursting with self-confidence and, really, hubris) and I taught K-5 for a long time. I think some of this may be just plain developmental issues. There is a big cognitive change that happens at this age, a shift from thinking that they are the center of the world to a view that encompasses more than their own personhood. There are people in the world that are, in fact, better than them at some things and that takes some getting used to.
Don’t over analyze this kid. Let him/her make his own way, and see what the lay of the land is in a year or two.
On another point, kids don’t always have to feel good about themselves. Self-doubt and an understanding of failure are actually incredibly valuable traits/skills that are underutilized in our society. The self-esteem movement became a trainwreck in my opinion because it focused exclusively on telling folks how great they are. It didn’t offer any guidance to people about the areas that weren’t so great. I can’t remember who said it but the quote is “the paradox of engineering is that success doesn’t teach you very much”. Engineers learn far more when things fail than when they work and that makes the next project much more successful. You learn more from the things you try and fail at than the things you get right the first time.
I’m sure this is not the popular position but there it is.
Oh, tell me about it! My husband’s about three months away from finally finishing his dissertation (liberal arts, granted! ) and he can’t figure out how to pack a diaper bag?! Yet every time we’re out, he asks me, “Did you bring a bib and spoon? What about a diaper? Is there any diaper creme?” Look, you nitwit, obviously you know what goes into a diaper bag - just find the stuff (most of it’s probably still in the bag from last time) and PUT IT IN!!!one
And you’re so right. I let him get away with it, 'cause if I don’t, he’s bitchy. Then suddenly it becomes, “but you did it so well last time, and I’m no good at this stuff!”
Isnt’ it just good enough to learn that we are all good at some things and not others?
To equate “I can’t” with “I won’t” seems like a heavy burden to bear. Perhaps it’s the age bracket that we’re talking about here but at some point, we have to accept and embrace that there are things that we simply cannot do and that it’s OK.
This has been my experience. My oldest went through this from about ages 6 - 8. It was necessary to show her the things she was good at and a lot of getting her to see that no one was good at everything to help her get past this stage. I used to say to her “There is nothing you can’t do if you try. Except you really can’t turn into an elephant. Or a spider. Or a cartoon. Well actually you could turn into those things if you died and decomposed and worms incorporated you into the soil and you grew into a plant and then that plant was eaten by an elephant and that food was used as fuel for making a baby elephant. So I guess there really isn’t anything you can’t do. Hmmpf.” I use absurdist humor a lot with my kids.
She still has minor fits when she gets frustrated (pouting a bit and making frustrated noises) but if I ignore it she’ll try again. If she’s really having a hard time she’ll come and ask for help in a productive way, “Mommy, do you know how to…”, and I’m happy to help her. It’s such a pleasure to hear her say “Mommy, look what I did!” and to know that she has good reason to be proud of herself.
I totally agree about having some self-doubt and understanding failure. No one ever gets everything on their first attempt. It is okay to not be sure if you can do something, it’s okay to not do something right the first time.
) and he can’t figure out how to pack a diaper bag?! Yet every time we’re out, he asks me, “Did you bring a bib and spoon? What about a diaper? Is there any diaper creme?” Look, you nitwit, obviously you know what goes into a diaper bag - just find the stuff (most of it’s probably still in the bag from last time) and PUT IT IN!!!one
