Since you were ordered to do so, that’s not so much trust as obedience. Like say, when a civilian orders the military to disperse unarmed protestors. Is it cause the military trusts the civilian not to be corrupt and looking out for number one? No, it is cause the military is obedient.

Part of what we had to do was a mini-bootcamp, which included having us trust our fellow inductees to catch us when we fall backwards off a table.

Well, my head must have been top-heavy, because the girl who was supposed to catch it slipped (or let go). I could feel the concussion coming on as my body slid inexorably towards the floor.

Hmm. Would I have wanted to do this again? Heck, no! Did I do this again? You’re durned right! Was it because the Head Teacher of Prefects forced me and her into the same positions again? You got it! Did I actually fall straight backwards demonstrating trust? Well… they all said I did. For myself, if I ever sound retarded, you now know why.

Sometimes, you just gotta let yer kids refrain from doing stupid stuff like that. Again. Although I grant you I learnt from that incident that mankind is inherently treacherous, evil, vile and utterly untrustworthy, because we will all at one time or another fail to uphold each other, and that only God is entirely worthy of trust. So, it wasn’t so bad.

Actually, you do not want to teach a kid how to lose. You want to teach them how to put that loss behind them, learn from it, and BEAT (not beat UP, unless it was a boxing competition) the SOB the next time round. Sorta like, I don’t want to learn how to die. Or even die gracefully. I want to learn how to live. To accept that death is inevitable, perhaps.

It’s not a habit to stick with things after your experiences. The longer you hold to a habit, the more effort it will take to resist it. And the younger you obtain that habit, the more times you will revert even if you have made some progress against that habit later on.

Habits are survival orientated mechanisms that are inlaid over our nervous systems. The more you do an action the same way, with the same thinking and feeling each time, the deeper it sets in your physiological makeup. This is why acquiring habits while young, is such a permanent make up. Smoking goes for years and addicts and is a bad habit to cut, but at least smokers didn’t grow up chain smoking or what not since they were six or something.

As for me, I was stuck trying to explain to my daughter why someone yelled at her for being happy.

I hope you told her that in this world, some people can only be happy by making you miserable. They acquire happiness through theft and violence, rather than creation and capitalism.

When they are bereft and alone, if they are unable to find an easy resolution to their problems and whims, they will turn on you because you look like you have the golden touch to them. And if you have such wealth, then you shouldn’t mind giving some of it to the loser via sympathy or consideration or praises even.

It’s also good for my daughter to learn that not everyone is as tough as she is and to develop the compassion to deal with them

Compassion is naturally a gift of the strong to the weak. As it should be.

I am very, very happy to report that my friend herself figured out that her daughter needs to toughen up.

That’s only ever going to happen through action. And it doesn’t particularly matter what motivates that action, so long as it is done enough times.

I wonder if the prevalence of small families isn’t a factor as well. Sort of from an “all your eggs in one basket” mindset, partly from the recognition that kids will be kids, and when they’re _all_ your own, you can’t “accuse” someone elses’s kids of over-roughness, cheating, whatever.

>>I suppose that it takes just one short step for a whiny kid in the habit of going to Mommy for solace and comfort to graduate to being an “adult” used to going to the government for solace and comfort.>>

Think you’re on to something there, Danny.

Democrats in training, all.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/06/west_answers_obamarun_as_a_man.html

My experience in business is that when people fail–at least, past a certain level–the reason is usually not that they lack specific skills or degrees/certifications. It is usually something like an inability to listen to criticism, or to empathize with others, or to recover from a setback.

I have an extensive and depressing collection of posts on the damage done by ill-thought-out approaches to “self-esteem building”…

the superheated ’steem thread