r/MadeMeSmile • u/astral12 • Jul 29 '24

Little girl performs by herself Good Vibes

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u/Primary-Border8536 Jul 29 '24

Idk why a parent or teacher didn't go and help him or anything

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u/vlncxntf9 Jul 29 '24

just from a stand point of teaching someone to be on stage - the show must go on. if you stop everything for a crying kid to take him off the stage just because he got scared and started crying he's never gonna overcome it.

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u/fugue-mind Jul 29 '24 edited Jul 29 '24

He only looks about 4. He's not at an age where this will teach him anything about "overcoming". More likely he will just have permanent stage fright moving forward, will never want to perform again, and just have a vague memory of terror on a stage from his youth lol

In general I agree with you, it's just not a lesson this kid is remotely equipped to learn from

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u/Aldamur Jul 29 '24

I have to disagree with you on this point. Toddler have to do mistake to learn. If you always take their hands on everything they will assume all the time they can rely on someone else, which is not the case when they are grown up.

Yes I have 2 kids.

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u/reddit_is_geh Jul 29 '24

They have to learn things within their emotional and intellectual capacity. Kids this age are more likely to get some minor trauma outcome than learn how to overcome it. Because as we all know, positive growth requires overcoming things within reach... Something like this is probably well outside his lane of cognitive and emotional capacity.

You obviously want to make them self reliant and encourage them to manage everything on their own as much as possible. But some things are just a little to extreme, which is exactly when parents need to step in and get them back on the rails.

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u/fugue-mind Jul 29 '24 edited Jul 29 '24

That's great. Just know that your point of view conflicts with everything we know scientifically about child development and psychology, but go ahead with your "feelings"; I'm sure they're just as reliable as decades of controlled research about thousands of children.

Like I said - In general, I'd agree with you, if he were a little older. But an experience like this does not cultivate resilience, rather it is much more likely to cultivate fear that will be even more difficult to overcome later on because he won't even remember or thus understand why he feels terror and humiliation at the thought of standing in front of a crowd of people.

Edit: PS, gently coaxing a terrified 4 year old off stage to decompress is not even close to "holding his hand" on "everything"

NEVER taking his hand when he needs help is just as bad as "always" taking his hand. In trying to teach him that he can't "always" rely on someone else, you may very likely end up teaching him he can "never" rely on someone else, which is its own fucked up can of childhood baggage.