A vicious loop of precaution and prevention
As parents, leaders and elders we want what’s best for our children or dependents. In the endeavors to provide them with the best of care we do a lot of pre-planning.
We plan on what time should they get up, what should they eat, what kinds of clothes they should wear, what kind of friends should they have, what kind of language should they use, what kind of social etiquette is appropriate and so on.
We get so involved in what they do that we end up planning their entire life. While there are very dynamic areas that can be the focus of this conversation I would want to focus on an aspect of this process that concerns me the most.
While I don’t intend to question the parents intent and respect their methods of teaching values to their children and believe that they do their best, I want them to be vary of this trap.
The trap of precaution prevention paralysis.
Let me define that with a very popular quote, “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you will land among the stars.” —Les Brown.
This is a quote by Norman Vincent Peale. “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”
I am quoting two authors to show how popular it is and here is one interpretation of it from quora.
“It can be interpreted that. If you’re aiming for something, even if you don’t achieve it, you’ll still be somewhere better than where you started.”
A lot of parents in today’s time use this as a resort to motivate their children and instill in their offspring a belief that they should aim for 90 and at least they will get 70 or 80 or whatever the child’s potential is based on the parent’s assessment.
Here comes the trap. It’s not a very sensible idea. And to understand why you will have to think beyond marks. Think real life. We are teaching let’s set a larger than life target which is clearly not the real target and then achieve whatever fall in an around the real target and then what? Feels happy about that? But tell me seriously who would really be happy about achieving anything like that and worst of all they can’t even discuss this with others. It sets a very very complex loophole in the feedback process.
Let’s understand this with an example, I want to go to Lonawala from Mumbai but I don’t want to not go there so let’s set a more godly target so at least I reach somewhere therefore the new target destination is Pune now but I should be happy if I reach khandala. Does that really work like that? No, right then what exactly is going on here. How are we so lost in taking responsibility for our children that we are making them follow a plan that is questioning their intelligence and we are okay with that. And then we struggle to make them understand that they need to take responsibility.
Do you want to know why? Here is why!
I had a very dynamic boss who was a very good sales person and a very caring individual. We had a plan in mind to grow the company but the plan always felt tainted.
So one time I had to get 100 registration for an event and plan the marketing as well as sales pitch for it. The problem however was that the company was okay hosting 30 people group as well but I was given a target which was 3 times that. I wondered why? And to my amazement I learned that if we target 100 at least 30 will come. As it didn’t settle with me well I raised this concern and explained how when I am saying 30 I mean 30 in the room not 30 leads and 30 calls. It meant I may call maybe a 100 or 200 people and ensure at least 30 seats are sold.
Do you see what I am trying to show you?
Why are we planning for our kids and stealing the opportunity to learn a very critical skill of strategy and planning?
I know many students who are okay getting 70%, they study a day before the exam over night and score that much. While that in itself is another concern of mine and we may talk about that real soon. Let’s use this example to demonstrate the potential of a child’s planning and strategy.
While there are somethings that require us to me more supportive of our children in major scenario we need to be more sensitive and trusting of the intelligence that each of us possess as human including your offspring.
This goes for many aspects of their development, don’t make the education easy make it interesting. When they were younger they used to listen but not anymore, have you ever thought back then they adjusted to what you thought of them and fitted themselves into your frame and as they grow and you want them to become independent and responsible they have to think and you thinking for them is creating a conflict of interest and they are raising a concern?
I don’t intend to offer a list of commandments for anyone on parenting, I want you to check if these are somethings that make sense to you and ask similar questions.
I do intend to talk about what I would have wanted as a kid, things that I learned later in life. But more on that a little later.
I often discuss this with my clients and the people who are eager to know what is it exactly that I do. And as easy as it is for me to understand the work that I do, it is equally difficult to explain it to almost everyone who asks
I was working with a wonderful lady she was an exceptional sales woman. Like all bosses do she used to plan what we should achieve and the rest of the plan. She trusted me enough to propose a target help me understand the significance of that target and so on.
In sales one of the aspects is setting targets and achieving it without it the flow is blocked and there is very little movement close to none. We all know how that can be. And we all depend on the outcomes as the survival of a business depends on sales and retention of a customer.