Studying of how parents influence their kids generally conclude that “being” of the parent is more important than what they specifically do with the kids.
Could you explain this? Or link to info about such studies? (Or both?)
If a parent has a low self esteem their child is also likely to have low self esteem.
The low self esteem parent might a lot to prove try to do for his child to prove to himself that he’s worthy.
There a drastic difference between a child observing: “Mommy hugs me because she read in a book that good mothers hug their children and she wants to prove to herself that she’s a good mother and Mommy hugs me because she loves me”.
On paper the women who spents a lot of energy into doing the stuff that good mothers are supposed to do is doing more for their child then a mother who’s not investing that much energy because she’s more secure in herself.
Being secure in herself increase the chance that she will do the right things at the right time signal her self confidence to the child. A child who sees that her mother is self confident than has also a reason to believe that everything is alright.
As far as studies go, unfortunately I don’t keep good records on what information I read from what sources :( (I would add that hugging is an example I use here to illustrate the point instead of refering to specific study about hugging)
If a parent has a low self esteem their child is also likely to have low self esteem.
Yes… and studies show that this is largely due to genetic similarity, much less so to parenting style.
Being secure in herself increase the chance that she will do the right things at the right time signal her self confidence to the child.
Which still means that it boils down to what the mother does.
The thing is, no one can see what you “are” except by what you do. Your argument seems to be “doing things for the right reason will lead to doing the actual right thing, instead of implementing some standard recommendation of what the right thing is”. Granted. But the thing that matters is still the doing, not the being. “Being” is relevant only to the extent that it makes you do.
Oh, and as for this:
There a drastic difference between a child observing: “Mommy hugs me because she read in a book that good mothers hug their children and she wants to prove to herself that she’s a good mother and Mommy hugs me because she loves me”.
There’s a third possibility: “Mommy doesn’t hug me, but I know she loves me anyway”. Sometimes that’s worse than either of the other two.
But the thing that matters is still the doing, not the being.
What do you exactly mean with “matter”?
If you want to define whether A matters for B, than it’s central to look whether changes in A that you can classify cause changes in B.
But the thing that matters is still the doing, not the being. “Being” is relevant only to the extent that it makes you do.
When one speaks about doing one frequently doesn’t think about actions like raising one heart rate by 5 bpm to signal that something created an emotional impact on yourself.
If an attractive woman walks through the street and a guy sees her and gets attracted, you can say that the woman is doing something because she’s reflecting light in exactly the correct way to get the guy attracted.
If you define “doing” that broadly it’s not a useful word anymore. The cracked article from which I quoted doesn’t seem to define “doing” that broadly. On the other hand it’s no problem to define “being” broadly enough to cover all “doing” as well.
If “what you are” is the only/most effective way to change “what you do” (eg unconscious signalling) then the advice of the original article to focus on “what you do” is poor advice, even if it is technically correct that only what you do matters.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
— Aristotle
It goes both ways. And it’s meaningless to speak of changing “what you are” if you do not, as a result, do anything different.
I don’t think the Cracked article, or I, ever said that the only way to change your actions is by changing some mysterious essence of your being. That’s actually a rather silly notion, when it’s stated explicitly, because it’s self-defeating unless you ignore the observable evidence. That is, we can see that changing your actions by choosing to change your actions IS possible; people do it all the time. The conclusion, then, is that by choosing to change your actions, you have thereby changed this ineffable essence of “what you are”, which then proceeds to affect what you do. If that’s how it works, then worrying about whether you’re changing what you are or only changing what you do is pointless; the two cannot be decoupled.
And that’s the point of the article, as I understand it. “What you are” may be a useful notion in your own internal narrative — it’s “how the algorithm feels from the inside” (the algorithm in this case being your decisions to do what you do). But outside of your head, it’s meaningless. Out in the world, there is no “what you are” beyond what you do.
As was pointed out elsewhere in these comments, there are situations where changing “what you are”—for example, increasing your confidence levels—is more effective then trying to change your actions directly.
Let’s say that you don’t do something that you want to do, because you’re not confident enough.
What is the difference between doing that thing, and improving your confidence which causes you to do that thing? What does it even mean to distinguish between those two cases?
And if improving your confidence doesn’t cause you to do the thing in question, then what’s the point?
Edit: On a reread, I might interpret you as saying that one might try (but fail) to change one’s actions “directly”, or one might attack the root cause, and having done so, succeed at changing one’s actions thereby. If that’s what you mean, then you’re right.
However the advice to “change what you do” should not, I think, be interpreted as saying “ignore the root causes of your inaction”; that is not a charitable reading. The author of the Cracked article isn’t railing against people who want to do a thing, but can’t (due to e.g. lack of confidence); rather, his targets are people who just don’t think that they need to be doing anything, because “what they are” is somehow sufficient.
I’m rather curious how parents can “be” something to children without doing, since it’s supposed children don’t know their parents before their first contact (after birth, I mean).
I didn’t said that they aren’t doing anything. I said that identifying specific behaviors doesn’t make a good predictor.
Characteristics like high emotional intelligence are better predictors.
Working on increased emotional intelligence and higher self esteem would be work that changes “who you are”.
Taking steps to raise their own emotional intelligence might have a much higher effect that taking children to the museum to teach them about
I think I have heard of such studies, but the conclusion is different.
Who the parents are matter more than things like which school do the kids go, or in which neighborhood they live, etc.
But in my view, that’s only because being something (let’s say, a sportsman), will makes you do things that influence your kids to pursue a similar path
Could you explain this? Or link to info about such studies? (Or both?)
If a parent has a low self esteem their child is also likely to have low self esteem. The low self esteem parent might a lot to prove try to do for his child to prove to himself that he’s worthy.
There a drastic difference between a child observing: “Mommy hugs me because she read in a book that good mothers hug their children and she wants to prove to herself that she’s a good mother and Mommy hugs me because she loves me”.
On paper the women who spents a lot of energy into doing the stuff that good mothers are supposed to do is doing more for their child then a mother who’s not investing that much energy because she’s more secure in herself. Being secure in herself increase the chance that she will do the right things at the right time signal her self confidence to the child. A child who sees that her mother is self confident than has also a reason to believe that everything is alright.
As far as studies go, unfortunately I don’t keep good records on what information I read from what sources :( (I would add that hugging is an example I use here to illustrate the point instead of refering to specific study about hugging)
Yes… and studies show that this is largely due to genetic similarity, much less so to parenting style.
Which still means that it boils down to what the mother does.
The thing is, no one can see what you “are” except by what you do. Your argument seems to be “doing things for the right reason will lead to doing the actual right thing, instead of implementing some standard recommendation of what the right thing is”. Granted. But the thing that matters is still the doing, not the being. “Being” is relevant only to the extent that it makes you do.
Oh, and as for this:
There’s a third possibility: “Mommy doesn’t hug me, but I know she loves me anyway”. Sometimes that’s worse than either of the other two.
What do you exactly mean with “matter”?
If you want to define whether A matters for B, than it’s central to look whether changes in A that you can classify cause changes in B.
When one speaks about doing one frequently doesn’t think about actions like raising one heart rate by 5 bpm to signal that something created an emotional impact on yourself. If an attractive woman walks through the street and a guy sees her and gets attracted, you can say that the woman is doing something because she’s reflecting light in exactly the correct way to get the guy attracted.
If you define “doing” that broadly it’s not a useful word anymore. The cracked article from which I quoted doesn’t seem to define “doing” that broadly. On the other hand it’s no problem to define “being” broadly enough to cover all “doing” as well.
If there is no other method, then advising people to ignore changing what they are in favor of what they do is bad advice.
I am having trouble parsing your comment. Could you elaborate? “no other method” of what?
Also, who is advising people to ignore changing what they are...? And why is advising people to change what they do bad advice?
Please do clarify, as at this point I am not sure whether, and on what, we are disagreeing.
If “what you are” is the only/most effective way to change “what you do” (eg unconscious signalling) then the advice of the original article to focus on “what you do” is poor advice, even if it is technically correct that only what you do matters.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” — Aristotle
It goes both ways. And it’s meaningless to speak of changing “what you are” if you do not, as a result, do anything different.
I don’t think the Cracked article, or I, ever said that the only way to change your actions is by changing some mysterious essence of your being. That’s actually a rather silly notion, when it’s stated explicitly, because it’s self-defeating unless you ignore the observable evidence. That is, we can see that changing your actions by choosing to change your actions IS possible; people do it all the time. The conclusion, then, is that by choosing to change your actions, you have thereby changed this ineffable essence of “what you are”, which then proceeds to affect what you do. If that’s how it works, then worrying about whether you’re changing what you are or only changing what you do is pointless; the two cannot be decoupled.
And that’s the point of the article, as I understand it. “What you are” may be a useful notion in your own internal narrative — it’s “how the algorithm feels from the inside” (the algorithm in this case being your decisions to do what you do). But outside of your head, it’s meaningless. Out in the world, there is no “what you are” beyond what you do.
As was pointed out elsewhere in these comments, there are situations where changing “what you are”—for example, increasing your confidence levels—is more effective then trying to change your actions directly.
Let’s say that you don’t do something that you want to do, because you’re not confident enough.
What is the difference between doing that thing, and improving your confidence which causes you to do that thing? What does it even mean to distinguish between those two cases?
And if improving your confidence doesn’t cause you to do the thing in question, then what’s the point?
Edit: On a reread, I might interpret you as saying that one might try (but fail) to change one’s actions “directly”, or one might attack the root cause, and having done so, succeed at changing one’s actions thereby. If that’s what you mean, then you’re right.
However the advice to “change what you do” should not, I think, be interpreted as saying “ignore the root causes of your inaction”; that is not a charitable reading. The author of the Cracked article isn’t railing against people who want to do a thing, but can’t (due to e.g. lack of confidence); rather, his targets are people who just don’t think that they need to be doing anything, because “what they are” is somehow sufficient.
Oh, I didn’t realize that. You’re right, that is a much more charitable reading.
Yep.
I’m rather curious how parents can “be” something to children without doing, since it’s supposed children don’t know their parents before their first contact (after birth, I mean).
I didn’t said that they aren’t doing anything. I said that identifying specific behaviors doesn’t make a good predictor. Characteristics like high emotional intelligence are better predictors.
Working on increased emotional intelligence and higher self esteem would be work that changes “who you are”.
Taking steps to raise their own emotional intelligence might have a much higher effect that taking children to the museum to teach them about
I think I have heard of such studies, but the conclusion is different.
Who the parents are matter more than things like which school do the kids go, or in which neighborhood they live, etc.
But in my view, that’s only because being something (let’s say, a sportsman), will makes you do things that influence your kids to pursue a similar path