The process of learning requires that you don't skip steps. Skipping things you don't understand tends to have pretty bad consequences.
Timestamps:
00:00 The consequences of skipping things you don't understand.
02:59 The consequences of not learning how to work.
08:21 Mother makes child study a concept for an hour before asking for help.
10:27 Parents need to require children to be responsible.
12:19 The laziness of magical thinking.
14:24 Making it mandatory for a child to figure out the answers is vital.
15:58 Love is unconditional. Accomplishment and confidence are not.
Transcript:
The Consequences of Skipping Steps
A mother wrote and said that her teenage daughter, Melyssa, had gotten a little behind in the subject of math at school, so Mom was requiring that she work on her online math for 30 mins per day.
Mom said, “She came to me and said that she’s coming across stuff she doesn't understand, and can she just skip it. I said no, if she can’t do it, then she needs to dig in, go back to the place where she started to not understand things, and just work to figure it out.”
Skipping things tends to have pretty bad consequences. As soon as you do, you can hear the doors in the future slamming like a drum roll.
Every important opportunity has steps that were required to be taken before it: they call them pre-requisites.
I can’t count how many adults in college discovered that they couldn’t graduate at the time they anticipated, because they needed ONE more course, and when they went to enroll, they discovered that before they can even begin the class, they had to take another preliminary—or pre-requisite course—first. Graduation then is delayed a semester or even a year.
This business of learning things in a step-wise fashion is seen everywhere in the world, and particularly with math. I could show you how to solve a problem in differential equations in calculus, and you could probably mimic me, but if you had to solve another problem—even a similar one—you’d be lost if you hadn’t already taken basic math, algebra, advanced algebra, trigonometry, and so on. If you skip something in math, everything that comes later is almost certain to be confusing. She needs to learn this.
I know a child in another family, boy named Travis, who was an expert in “skipping steps.” He didn’t study in school, so he got terrible grades. He didn’t follow instructions at home, so he didn’t know how to work or be responsible.
Finally, at age 19, the parents told him that he had to leave home, because he spent all day playing video games, texting, watching porn, and tormenting his younger siblings. This child has skipped so many steps that the only place he could find to live for the next several months was under a bridge.
Finally, Travis benefited from a government program for young adults to help them get on their feet, but he did nothing there too. Over the Christmas holidays, the homeless program helped him get a temporary job as an assistant driver for Fed Ex, which is a pretty darned good job for a kid who graduated from high school by a margin of a single point (no kidding).
Travis spent all his money on jewelry and video games, so every opportunity that came along where he could have enrolled in a technical school or college at a reduced tuition was closed to him, because he had no money. He had skipped the step of saving anything.
The temporary job finished, and—unbelievably, considering his work ethic—they offered Travis a full-time job. For him it was like winning the lottery. But he had to shut the door. Why? Because during all the years he was at home, during ages 16, 17, 18, and 19, he never bothered to study for—or apply for—a driver’s license. He figured, why should he? He could just manipulate everybody around him to drive him everywhere.
So because Travis skipped that step, he couldn’t work at FedEx, which was located in a place without public transportation. He could have gotten the license at age 16, he could have purchased a used motor scooter for exactly the price of the fancy watch he was wearing, and he could have accepted that job that might have served him well for years—maybe a lifetime with a successful and stable company like that.
But Travis skipped some steps, so he had to turn down the offer, and right now he’s lying on his back on a couch in a group home, with no job, no income, nothing except complaints about how nobody is helping him.
See the pattern? You skip steps now, you WILL pay for it later. His parents didn’t know enough to teach him responsibility during all those years. They’re doing it now with Travis’s siblings
Teaching a Child Not to Skip Steps
Back to Mom: “I told Melyssa she needed to spend at least an hour studying a particular concept she didn’t understand before she could even ask me about it. She asked "Really, even though my math time is just 30 minutes?" I said yes, really, because figuring out things and finding solutions is that important.
**Glory, glory, hallelujah! A parent with the guts to teach the truth, even when it’s hard or unpopular. Mom, you provided a rock for your daughter to stand on. She wanted you to just save her, pull her into the boat, but instead you gave her a rock where she could figure out a solution. Nobody ever did that for Travis, but here you are teaching Melyssa principles that will save her life.
Mom: Later, after she’d done what I said a couple of times, Melyssa came to me and said she actually LIKED doing what I said. She felt confident and pretty cool that she had applied herself and figuring it out.
**Delightful. How can people discover that they enjoy being responsible for their own learning until they actually DO it? And so very few parents REQUIRE responsibility, so their children both (1) never learn it, or (2) discover that they would have LIKED it.
Magical Thinking and Skipping Steps
She was realizing that she usually makes no effort, has magical thinking about it, and it just kind of disappears into the underground of her mind. Same with many things; one of them being getting started on her driver's education. She was not clear at what age she could start.
**Consider what it means for a teenager with access to the Internet and essentially everything she’ll ever need to know—at least in her head—to say that she’s not sure when she can start driver’s education.
It’s inexcusable.
It reflects a complete lack of sense of responsibility.
It’s astonishingly lazy.
And it reflects what Mom talked about—magical thinking, which means believing that magically good things will just HAPPEN: information will arrive, job offers will present themselves, knowledge will be acquired, and a happy and fruitful life will magically arrive in an Amazon package.
She had talked to a few friends about it and not gotten a clear answer and decided to just let it rest.
**Crazy irresponsible, and see how it’s justified? “I talked to a few friends,” which sounds almost reasonable, except that those friends are just as irresponsible and uniformed as she is. 1000 people get together to solve a calculus problem and can’t, so—obviously—calculus does not exist. I’m not exaggerating about the pervasiveness of magical thinking amongst us, especially those children raised by parents who are immersed in the same fantasies.
Mom: I said what exactly is her question? She said, “Once you get your certificate from taking the online course for driver’s education, how long is it valid, since she needs it for going to the DMV to take the test.”
I asked her if she knew where the online course was? No.
Or what the minimum age was for taking the course? No.
Or the minimum age for taking the test at the DMV? No.
Mom: So I made it mandatory for her to figure all that out and get going. And she had to report back to me in 24 hrs.
**THIS is teaching responsibility. What needs to be done or known? “I don’t know.” Then go find out, or do the thing, and report back. THAT is teaching. Just hoping is magical thinking.
Example of Parent Teaching Self-Reliance
Mom: My younger daughter had a great attitude in math today when learning a new concept. She had done it wrong, so needed to erase it and was listening to my explanation. After several times, the light bulb went on, and she was excited about it. Then she asked "Am I clever that I’m really getting this? Am I getting it fast?"
**Important principle here. Love is unconditional. Accomplishment and confidence are NOT. You have to work for those, and they’re indispensable to a happy life.
Mom: I said, "It does not matter if you get it fast or slow. What matters is that you are getting it. Remember last week when you cried because you were slow and felt dumb about something you were learning? It didn’t matter. Eventually, you got it. And now you’re learning this subject more quickly. Who cares, as long as you learn? Dumb, clever, who cares?" She smiled and agreed. "And you know why it is getting quicker for you? Because you are not upset about the slow times, the times you don’t get it. You just keep going, and you know that you’ll learn what you need to."
**Brilliant teaching. Brilliant example to the rest of us about:
- Teaching immediately (Travis and his demonstration of attitude toward a sibling).
- Teaching self-reliance (daughter figuring out a problem instead of just asking for help)
- Teaching responsibility (requiring daughter to figure out a problem until she GETS it, and not skipping what’s difficult)
- Teaching self-worth: She taught her daughter that she could feel worthwhile and happy whether she was being slow or fast learning something.
**This was a lot of teaching, and we can all benefit.
