When I read the bit about the clip-on ties, I thought about a paragraph in another ACX book review that also didn't make it - which turns out to be a direct quote from the book:
"As we walked in single file, with red and green tracer fire arcing across the black sky
over the city, I realized that I had placed my life in the hands of the yo…
When I read the bit about the clip-on ties, I thought about a paragraph in another ACX book review that also didn't make it - which turns out to be a direct quote from the book:
"As we walked in single file, with red and green tracer fire arcing across the black sky
over the city, I realized that I had placed my life in the hands of the young corporal
leading the patrol, a twenty-two-year-old Marine. In my office back in Washington, we
wouldn’t let a twenty-two-year-old run the copying machine without adult supervision.
Here, after just two days on the ground in Africa, the corporal was leading his squad into
unknown territory, with a confidence that was contagious."
I think Shrier would approve of raising boys a bit more like the U.S. Marines? (Baron Baden-Powell might have agreed too.)
My own opinion is that Bad Therapy is in the category of "really dangerous mistakes" - which means they're built around a kernel of truth. Whenever you have a kid who's perfectly capable of doing more, but won't until you kick them up the backside, go ahead (metaphorically of course, although Shrier might not object to a physical kick). But you need to make double damn sure first that the kid's really capable of what you ask, because inside the ring of "potentially traumatic, but if it doesn't kill you it'll make you stronger" there is the ring of "actually traumatic and might actually kill you". Where that is varies for everyone, but for example it might be a stupid idea to give a haemophiliac kid a scout knife and think, as one did in my youth, you learn to respect the knife as a tool after you've cut yourself the first few times.
Also, I really liked your review! I read it the first time in the review contest.
Thanks for the kind words! I like your category of "really dangerous mistakes" the mistakes that are built around a kernal of truth. Because we seem to have. a lot of those these days ant they end up being particularly pernicious.
Haidt ended up talking about this in his newsletter today, that it's not just that smartphones are destroying kids they're destroying adults, because the adult never has to fully trust the kid, they can monitor them 24/7. He gives an example of someone embedding a GPS tracker in their daughter's pig tail!
When I read the bit about the clip-on ties, I thought about a paragraph in another ACX book review that also didn't make it - which turns out to be a direct quote from the book:
"As we walked in single file, with red and green tracer fire arcing across the black sky
over the city, I realized that I had placed my life in the hands of the young corporal
leading the patrol, a twenty-two-year-old Marine. In my office back in Washington, we
wouldn’t let a twenty-two-year-old run the copying machine without adult supervision.
Here, after just two days on the ground in Africa, the corporal was leading his squad into
unknown territory, with a confidence that was contagious."
I think Shrier would approve of raising boys a bit more like the U.S. Marines? (Baron Baden-Powell might have agreed too.)
My own opinion is that Bad Therapy is in the category of "really dangerous mistakes" - which means they're built around a kernel of truth. Whenever you have a kid who's perfectly capable of doing more, but won't until you kick them up the backside, go ahead (metaphorically of course, although Shrier might not object to a physical kick). But you need to make double damn sure first that the kid's really capable of what you ask, because inside the ring of "potentially traumatic, but if it doesn't kill you it'll make you stronger" there is the ring of "actually traumatic and might actually kill you". Where that is varies for everyone, but for example it might be a stupid idea to give a haemophiliac kid a scout knife and think, as one did in my youth, you learn to respect the knife as a tool after you've cut yourself the first few times.
Also, I really liked your review! I read it the first time in the review contest.
Thanks for the kind words! I like your category of "really dangerous mistakes" the mistakes that are built around a kernal of truth. Because we seem to have. a lot of those these days ant they end up being particularly pernicious.
Haidt ended up talking about this in his newsletter today, that it's not just that smartphones are destroying kids they're destroying adults, because the adult never has to fully trust the kid, they can monitor them 24/7. He gives an example of someone embedding a GPS tracker in their daughter's pig tail!