Imagine when a kid falls and how western parents and traditional Chinese grandmas react
Is probably the confidence. From the day they start to walk. I still remember the time my older daughter started to walk. I think most parents would encourage their toddler kids to walk when the kiddos were still learning. I guess the same goes for the potty training. Now I recall we gave our older daughter chocolate when she successfully used the potty without peeing or pooing in the diaper. when we started potty training on her. And I clearly recall she asked for chocolate at her toddler daycare place when she successfully did it there.
In terms of teaching kids to walk or run, I also recall, that many years ago, in my college (China), sometimes we saw Western parents walk with young kids on campus. And occasionally, kids will fall, to my initial surprise, the western parents would usually let the kids get up by themselves, and in a way help them grow. This way of handling kids falling is totally opposite to what my grandmas would do: they would walk over, blame the ground, pretend hitting the ground, and so on.
Fast forward though, I think partially due to kids growing, partially due to our own aging, it seems we can use more patience as kids growing up. I know it’s easier said than done, especially for parents of teens, pre-teens etc.
I think the below tweet showed an excellent way the parent supported his kid. Lot of hard work, obviously. But it both improved her volleyball skills and perhaps equally important if not more, her confidence in playing volleyball.
Confidence without substance (or relevant skills) is ignorance, in a way or from my perspective. I think sometimes we all make those kind of mistakes.
Soldier On or Soldier Through
I think the confidence can also gained by trying, or in Charlie Munger’s case, he emphasized “solider on”.