If it's their music instructor, maybe. But again, that's not really the place. Next lesson would be the right time and place to get that feedback.
I agree with your statement in principle, but at the same time, people need to be willing to give some meaningful comments. If I'm trying to break through in a rock band, I want criticism so I can figure out how to improve. Being told "Good performance brah", if you know you sucked, sucks.
Also, part of the objective of having the public performance is to simply get kids comfortable performing publicly. My kid was practically shitting himself before the show, he was so nervous about playing in front of a crowd. So, a healthy part of the applause is recognition that they simply performed publicly. It's likely that greeting them with criticism of their playing as they walk off the stage won't do much to encourage them to try it again.
There's a way to frame it. At the end of a band performance, the audience (even if it is just 3-4 people) is encouraged to clap, even if the performance sucked. Usually, they do clap. This is enough of a positive reinforcement.
When the whole thing is over, before packing up, have a 15 minute meeting in which all you do is say,
"Great performance guys. You did a,b,c really well. Jeff, I saw you listened to my instruction. Hi five! Stacy, you did a good job. There were some mistakes in your chord transitions, let's talk about that so you can do it better next time"
Kids should grow up knowing they are doing well but aren't perfect yet. Let's keep improving until we get there.
I think the point is : It is not really up to the parents to be so critical of their kids. They should be supportive and positive.
It is really up to the coach to provide the technical feedback and it is more beneficial to assess performance at the next practice when the kids are back in a learning mode.
At that point they are mentally ready to practice over their problem areas straight away.
Parents can set their kids back by berating them at the wrong time.
Mike Matheny - the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals - wrote a letter to parents while he was coaching his son's little league team that touches on this idea. The whole thing is worth reading, but this is primarily his thesis:
"I believe that the biggest role of the parent is to be a silent source of encouragement. I think if you ask most boys what they would want their parents to do during the game; they would say "NOTHING". Once again, this is ALL about the boys. I believe that a little league parent feels that they must participate with loud cheering and "Come on, let's go, you can do it", which just adds more pressure to the kids. I will be putting plenty of pressure on these boys to play the game the right way with class, and respect, and they will put too much pressure on themselves and each other already. You as parents need to be the silent, constant, source of support."
Link to full letter: www.mac-n-seitz.com/teams/mike-matheny-letter.html
It is quite literally my job as a coach to point out a kids mistakes. They handle it really well nearly universally. But the overly critical parents (you can see them coming a long way off) cause so much negative reactions it makes my job harder.
And quite simply, anyone who has coached anything knows that being critical at the time of the event is almost universally detrimental (and not just for kids). Your mind/body is just not ready for coaching at the end of an adrenal dump event.
You need distance to evaluate performance, and the emotional burden of parent/kid relationships makes that more true not less.
Would you apply the same to, say, mathematics? Or chemistry? Or programming? Do you think the parents should not give their kids feedback on these subjects, and instead leave it to the teacher (aka technical coach)?
Look at it this way: you're starting a new job. A very stressful one, where you have to learn a bunch of new things, long days, and not just learning one thing - you're learning dozens of subject every day. There are a bunch of others in your cohort who are also learning and you're all compared and graded against each other.
Then you come home at night and you vent to your wife about your day and how this one guy is an ass-kisser and this other colleague is full of himself, with an example of something he said. And then your wife, who maybe took a college course on one of the topics you used as an example, says "yeah honey that sucks. BTW that example you just used, you're wrong, it's actually xyz". What would that accomplish? Would you think "oh thank you, now I didn't learn 50 new things today, but 51! Great!"? No, you'd think she massively missed the point, and is massively missing the point about you, and she would be.
I think that's the problem right there. When I was in school, the day was not long nor was it stressful. I suppose I'm inclined to agree with you that if the above circumstances are true, a parent should not behave that way. However, if those circumstances are true, and my kid seems at least average or above, I'd as a parent do some hard thinking and consider finding another school for him.
One thing I learned in all of my education: You may learn a lot when you are overloaded, but you learn nothing well. Not just at their level, but at university.
I'm good at a bunch of subjects - likely much better than the teacher (math, physics, etc). If school is so stressful that my kid cannot learn these well, and there is no room for help from me, then it's a bad school.
That's insane. Of course it is!
Until their skill in a subject surpasses yours, you're the only technical coach.
Which for all but one or two subjects, it will.
Look I'm not saying parents can't ever teach their children anything. What I'm saying is that parents need to know their place and role, and they can do much more good by being emotionally supportive and in general creating an environment in which children can and want to learn, than by being yet another instructor who's trying to cram ever more things into the child's head (much of which will be different from what their school or team coach is teaching them anyway).
I don't allow parents to do the "tiger mode" criticism on the sidelines because it is not objective. The parents have emotional investment in winning.
More importantly, it should be private and only for the eyes and ears of the team/band/player.
Being supportive of shitty performances is dishonest and shitty.
Then again... the "parents" of today cry fits if their kid plays like crap and doesn't get some sort of participation award.
A negative attitude coming from the parent can really upset the child and they won't learn anything from it.
As a coach I can't tell a parent what to say to their kid at home after they have a poor performance but I usually advise them to try cheer their kid up not cut them down.
It is my role as coach to provide the objective criticism not the parent's. It matters where the criticism comes from.
This is a part of the problem with the original article. Parents are too emotionally involved to teach their kids. They think their kid is special and then they constantly compare them against other kids and then they put the parental pressure on to the child. It isn't helping.
Maybe I have different view on things, but if I look back at how much focus was put on putting in effort (and not actually achieving anything) during my high school years, then I think we have things wrong to some extent. It's even worse today than it was before -- I have a friend who works in a school and he says it's great that grading is being phased out.. not sure whether I agree on that.
There's a difference between a well written function, and an entire application that's well organized and thought out. And there's a difference between playing in your garage and playing on stage.
Did the band suck because they couldn't play? Or did they suck because they were nervous? Well the only way to get over that is to play in front of people more.
I also think there should be a difference in expectations depending on where/what you're seeing. You have every right to criticize a group playing Madison Square Garden. But there's a reason the 14 year olds are playing O'Mallys Pub on a Tuesday, or the Ernie Ball stage at Warped Tour, and not the main stages or an arena.
What's particularly awesome and worth congratulating is watching a band of teenagers suck on stage, and then watching them a month later suck a little less. We should be striving for "better" rather than "great", in my opinion.
You want you son/friend to learn to code and his first project is copy-pasta from a book. Fantastic. Actually doing something is by far the number 1 challenge people never overcome.
Second project is also copy-pasta, that's only fantastic if you son/friend learn to be a typist. He and You both know he can do that. Does not mean you need to trash him, but showing the same enthusiasm as with the first project is counter productive, instead you should probably encourage him to tinker a bit with the program.
Challenge needs to grow. Sure you don't want to discourage a beginner showing how far he is from the mountain summit, but after climbing a step you need to show him the next one.
Is my friend just giving coding a go or are they trying to get a dev job?
Is my friend trying to show me what they have built or asking for help improving the quality of their code?
Etc etc.
Likewise is this a 14 year old athlete trying to compete at the state level? Or a 14 year old trying out football because his friends play?
I lived in the UK for a few years and found Brits very hard to read / resistant to confrontation. On the other hand, I'm married to a Spaniard, and when I'm over there, it's sometimes a bit uncomfortable how direct and open people are.
Sure! Let's do lunch! Week 42? No my in-laws will be visiting that week. Week 43? Sorry, I have a dentist appointment that week. Week 44, no I can't then, but maybe week 45? Oh, we have a christmas thing that week. Week 46? I'm not sure, but I think I need to keep that week open. How about we get back in touch after the holidays? Absolutely. Rinse and repeat.
I don't know Swedish from Martian, but I'm surprised the language doesn't have "pleasantries". They seem near universal.
I know that I (as an American) have had uncomfortable experiences with translated Chinese for instance, assuming someone was asking impertinent questions when it was really just them being polite.
I think most germanic languages are just much more focused on information content. On the other hand I can get into deep discussions with strangers, even disagreeing with each other, but not get emotional in any way, actually even enjoying the exchange. With Americans I feel there's a mountain of smalltalk and pleasantries to conquer until you can start being sincere. However that might also just me not understanding the culture enough to do that correctly.
Americans will make up a hundred reasons to not do something when they don't have a technical leg to stand on. I was starting to hate this Belgian guy because he wanted something done and I didn't want to spend the time required to do it. Finally, after coming up with all sorts of excuses, I just told him the truth and thought he'd storm out.
He just said "Fine! Now we can go have a beer"
Try to look at it from the other point of view rather than writing it off because it is not your "one true way".
The Scots and Irish can be brutally direct, while a Londoner will take great pains to avoid confrontation (in general).
Not to be glib, but when I lived in Europe I was shocked at how many unknown American bands they would fly out to play at tiny venues (bars, "underground" clubs) every weekend. I asked, don't you have your own unknown bands that rehearse in garages and dorm rooms? It turns out: not so much, not nearly to the level that this exists in America.
So maybe the difference is that Europeans like to shit all over their friends' bands?
Artists I particularly like are Robyn (pop), The Knife (electronic/“IDM”), Fever Ray (one half of The Knife), The Cardigans (pop), Lykke Li (indie pop), iamamiwhoami (experimental electronic) Opeth (death metal), Kleerup (electronic dance), Neneh Cherry (pop/hip-hop), José González (indie pop). Note: genres aren’t particularly useful but I thought some indication of what the artist is like is better than none.
If you like Röyksopp, I’d recommend checking out Kleerup, The Knife, iamamiwhoami, Lykke Li and Fever Ray.
Also, you may not know the name but you’ll be very familiar with the songs written and/or produced by Max Martin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Martin
Same in sports. They all go full hysterical mode when they qualify for the next round of 8. Er... boy, you do this every week, you haven't failed reaching the final once in the last 3 years, why do you and your team mates and your family need to overplay it so much as if you accomplished anything special? Do other players/athletes from other countries need to do the same? No.
I can't see the point to spread and spread and spread on things which have just been done how they should be done. Acknowledge them and move to the stuff which went wrong or can be improved, that's more interesting.
About making a fuss about nothing, I remember that time when I visited the USA as a teenager, and when we left most of the American adults began to cry (after we managed to escape from the bloody hugs. I don't know who invented hugs, but I hate him.). We looked at each other, wondering what was going on. It seemed our departure was something big, so we tried to force ourselves to do the same but we didn't manage to shed a tear. So we kids had to witness all these grown-ups crying for nothing. That scene shocked me, I remember it after 25 years.
(Okay, one possible explanation was that they may have thought that we were sent back to slavery in a third-world commie state, since God knows all countries don't have the luck to be in northern America.)
Yet you're from France, where people kiss each other as a greeting.
It was basically this:
1) Parents don't understand a child's emotional needs. Children need a foundation of love, which at an early age basically means attention from and interaction with caregivers.
2) Modern parents, especially pronounced starting with baby boomers, often feel they didn't get enough love and support from their parents. So they lavish their children with praise – frequently instead of focused attention – and think they're doing a good job.
3) This creates children who commingle love with achievement. That is, their parents love them because of their supposed achievements, and thus, if they're not achieving things, they aren't worthy of love. So children simultaneously have inflated egos but also very insecure egos. (This also ties into the whole idea that you should praise a child's effort, not their intelligence.)
That's all very abstract though. He gave a bunch of examples, but only one has stuck with me. Let's say your three year old comes to you with a drawing. Unless she's a prodigy, that drawing is going to be objectively bad, mostly squiggles with maybe a shape or two.
How most modern parents respond:
Parent: Good job! This is such a pretty drawing. I like how you used different colors. That's a great circle. You're a good drawer. Can you go draw me a square now?
Parent then goes back to watching TV, which would be a smartphone in an updated example.
How a parent should respond:
Parent: Thank you for showing me your drawing. I like how you used different colors and only drew on the paper. (legitimate praise is fine). What's this? (points to circle blob)
Kid: A horse.
Parent: Oh, a horse. Cool. Does she have a name? (or Is the horse happy today? Can he run fast? whatever. The point is to engage in open ended questions that show you care and let the kid drive the conversation, somewhat.)
Kid: His name is cow.
Parent: A horse named cow, how silly.
And so on.
Anyway, I'm sure people would have problems with my sample good response too, and I'm probably misremembering the details. I'm also not sure the baby boomer stuff is totally accurate. But the overall idea is to give attention and focused interaction, not undue praise, and that makes a ton of sense to me.
Edited for typos and formatting.
At some early point in my life i saw how meaningless praise was. Parents (mine and others) praised without warrant.. and it was obvious to me. Worse yet, i couldn't figure out where the line was - what was legitimate praise? I became distrusting of all praise, and rarely felt pride from anyone but myself. Which, honestly sucks.
Whether it's parents praising their children, or gifts at Christmas that people often don't want but smile and act like they do.. everyone is just lying to each other so constantly that everything of value feels so fake.
It's honestly quite upsetting to me. I wonder if it's like this everywhere? Is it mostly an American situation?
For example, my daughter did a rock-camp last summer. It was some neighborhood kids that got together with a teacher for 5 afternoons to learn six songs and after the camp was over, they put on a show to play the songs they had been practicing.
The kids' talent levels ranged from truly amazing to early beginner. Nobody played flawlessly but everybody had a lot of fun. The feedback the kids received was overwhelmingly positive and I think it had the effect of making the kids want to do it again next summer. People were congratulating them on their hard work and learning to play so many songs in very little time.
The kids that played at a high level would probably appreciate some criticism. The kids that were struggling may have been embarrassed and less likely to continue. I could be wrong about that, but it's my gut feeling.
The constructive criticism might be better off in a more private and 'safe' (biased towards the receiver) setting; this way shaming someone for a good attempt isn't the result.
Everybody's enthusiastic at the performance, like you say.
At the next lesson, they review the recording. But then, they've been receiving that kind of critique at every lesson. You should hear the conductor let 'em have it at orchestra rehearsal. Because of this kind of dialog and close analysis, they also know exactly how well they're playing, immediately and intimately. Part of the goal is to teach kids how to engage in the critical dialog, and to be self-critiquing.
With the typical teen rock band, there is no adult involvement at all, other than fiscal.
That doesn't sound like very constructive criticism.
If the overall performance was poor, and something so basic was clearly an issue, then maybe they don't realise?
This is like a development candidate being poor at simple interview problems - it simply is the case that often you don't know what you're doing wrong until you've developed skill, but people around you saying you're doing great can suppress your desire to work on that skill in favor of rushing ahead to interview where you fall flat on your face.
(An Open Mic D-Chord is a D-Chord (D A D F#) where they don't mute the lowest string and thus put a really nasty sounding E note on the bottom of the chord)
A constructive criticism isn't a one-liner on HN.
If you're skilled enough to show how that transition works, show it to them and make them learn it.
Which we, as a society, also seem reluctant to do. "oh you must not be good at that, try something else", instead of "if you want it you are going to have to work harder"
I'm changing the name of my band to this. ;-)
It's muscle memory, plain and simple. You just have to do it a lot, over and over. I've had music teachers essentially say "that part sucked, you need to spend more time practicing it". There's no trick to be told, there's no intellectualization that will help. Practice.
I’ve found this to more common among other cultural groups (for instance, some of my Indian and Iranian friends). I find Americans are generally on the blunt/direct/plain spoken side, sometimes extremely so.
Can you elaborate on who you’re comparing Americans to, and what contexts you find some other national/cultural group to have a different response?
Why, 90 comments under their shitty YT video, 7 of them heavily upvoted.
And even if they didn't know, right after the show isn't the time to mention mistakes.
It's hard enough to get up in front of people to speak, much less perform, so I think the situation you describe, if followed later by a discussion on what to improve and work on, is entirely appropriate.
Did you know that Steve Jones, the guitarist from the sex pistols, had to have another guitarist play behind a curtain for him for the first few shows? It didn't stop the band from changing popular music, and it didn't stop him from developing a very tight technique.[1]
Also known as the "Everything is Awesome" syndrome. And this is not just for kids. In American companies (at least as far as I could observe), management principles teach you that you should not say anything negative to the employee directly, instead talk about "opportunities for improvement", etc... It's everywhere.
And I wager that the political correctness is also very much linked to that.
Reward and punishment externalizes motivation. American's tend to reward and other countries to punishment.
However I bet you in those other countries they hate math just as much as everyone in USA.
If you want people to be intrinsically motivated, rewards like "Great Job, awesome" have the exact opposite effect.
I witnessed an example of this in a music performance of a teen rock band.
In this performance, the band sucked overall. The guitarist didn't know what he was doing. But everybody (guardians, parents, teachers, friends) just keep saying, "Great performance brah, awesome shit, good going guys" etc.
While this feedback raises self-esteem with positive feedback, there is no criticism of where they failed...at all!! Who's going to tell them, "Hey, your timing on the G-C chord switch sucked"?
When these same kids go for a "real" performance/audition, they suck at it, fail miserably and thus causing anti-social behaviors, anger, and in extreme cases, suicides.
I personally believe in a system of constructive criticism where positive feedback is necessary for the kids, yet someone actually tells them that they can do better in this, this and this area.
Irrationally high/low self-esteem is a bane for competition.