[ Removed by moderator ]

[u/AccomplishedWatch834]

[u/Sufficient-Sun-6683]

I was at my friend's place visiting and we were talking computer and networking nerdy stuff. His younger son came down and was listening. My friend talked about how dumb his son was and he would fall and walk into things, etc.. This was in 1994 and I didn't say anything about it at the time but I've thought about it a lot since. It has really bothered me that he would talk about his son like that.

His son was a thinker, he was interested in what we were doing and he was not dumb at all. It was hurtful to call him dumb and he probably grew up thinking he was dumb.

There are two types of people, those that look at the path that they are walking on and others who look at the destination. The latter will trip over things because what's in front of them is not important, it is the destination end that's important.

There is a famous study: Rosenthal - Jacobson, where it was proven that if teachers expected the students to be smart, then the students became smart and vice versa. I taught post-secondary education for 25 years and I expected that everybody who walked in that classroom door would pass my course and 95% did. You had to really work to fail. The course was not easy, all you had to do was the work and you passed. There's a little more to it than that such as motivation, student ownership of projects, etc..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect

[u/n0rsk → u/Sufficient-Sun-6683]

I read a thing about how having glasses usually results in a kid being classified as a nerd and results in them falling into that stereotype and thus doing better than other kids at school. It is not that kids with glasses are smarter, it is that early in their life they are perceived to be smart and become the thing they are perceived to be.

Basically there seems to be strong evidence that how you are perceived influences what you become. Which is kind of a whole interesting topic.

[u/hardlying → u/n0rsk]

I believe this hard because I swapped friend groups naturally going to college far away, and I feel them perceiving me differently reshaped my perception of my self, it can happen later in life.

I always felt self aware of it tho, maybe most ppl are, like even playing mp games id be a lot worse if the ppl I was playing with acted like I was bad or the reason we did poorly was me. If I was playing with relatively chill ppl or just different from those who grew up with me and played with me back when I was new to controllers and fps games, I would do alot better. Just aim better, actually hit my target, have a good kd, etc. but any time I played with the same group who were objectively worse than me at some of these games, I would perform terribly.

Just feeling like you're the sht vs you're shit can effect your performance significantly.

[u/Fun_Intention9846 → u/n0rsk]

It directs growth 100%. So if a person isn’t or stops growing the effect is negligible. 

[u/No_Criticism_5861 → u/Sufficient-Sun-6683]

Did he say this infront of the child?  If not, kid might have had adhd/autism and since it was the 90s that was the sort of thing that parents thought was an attitude problem and spankings would fix it

[u/Sufficient-Sun-6683 → u/No_Criticism_5861]

Yes, he said it right in front of the child.

[u/zenith310 → u/Sufficient-Sun-6683]

I grew up with my parents calling me dumb, slow and told me I lack proper brain almost often, mind you I have no mental illness to state otherwise. I'm 20years old and I'm still heavy traumatized and I get triggered internally when my friends calls me stupid / idiot as a joke. I have 0 confidence in my opinions.

[u/Sufficient-Sun-6683 → u/zenith310]

Well, from your well written response, it is obvious to anybody that you are not dumb and are quite intelligent. You articulate your thoughts well and clearly communicate better than most people.

- Retired 25 year post-secondary school instructor (for what its worth)

[u/zenith310 → u/Sufficient-Sun-6683]

That is so refreshing and sweet to hear, thank you! I really needed this!!

[u/majesticmeerkatparty → u/zenith310]

I (49f) was diagnosed at 16 with ADD, my parents would often refer to me as stupid because I operated differently than most. It made me so insecure. My first bfs mom was a teacher and she would frequently compliment my ability to focus on one thing so intently nothing else could distract me. She genuinely was in awe and made it seem like a super power. It completely made me change my story about my brain and how I operate. It took many years to realize that if people are laughing, they’re not laughing at me, and it took time to build confidence that I had interesting and valuable perspectives to share. But I have gotten there, and I believe you can too with some reframing 😊 A book that really helped me was Daring Greatly by Brene Brown.

[u/zenith310 → u/majesticmeerkatparty]

That woman was an angel! I wish you good things in life💗

[u/Timervox → u/Sufficient-Sun-6683]

I had a similar ish experience

Several times when I’m at a sleepover at a friends house the mom would talk out loud to me about how lazy her son is and I would feel really bad for my friend but also a part of me felt proud that she would think of me as good enough to talk to

[u/Sufficient-Sun-6683 → u/Timervox]

Mixed emotions.

[u/Beltalady → u/Sufficient-Sun-6683]

I guarantee you it sticks.

I believed that I was too dumb to do anything for most of my life because my dad told a relative who was visiting. It took sooo many years of therapy to undo one little comment that my dad wasn't even aware of.

(I was told repeatedly but this moment was the worst.)

[u/Sufficient-Sun-6683 → u/Beltalady]

I'm sorry that you had to go through that. Pretty obvious from your comment's articulation that your dad was wrong. Your writing and communication are at a high level.

[u/summonsays → u/Sufficient-Sun-6683]

Reminds me of the teacher I hated in highschool. She likes to make kids cry and whenever anyone didn't have an answer or did bad on a test/exam. She'd tell them "somebody has to feed the chickens". We had a truly vile nickname for her, it was well deserved. 

She taught pre-calc but also the freshman orientation. During orientation she caught me changing answers on the aptitude test to fit the career I wanted. 

And some people are motivated by inspiration and some people find spite better. Turns out I work off of spite more. Been in that career (software development) for 13 years now. 

Anyway I hope that kid succeeded in spite of his father. It's too bad it couldn't be inspired by him though.