Thread by @inspirationper

Did you know that a teaching approach that strongly emphasizes positive reinforcement as opposed to negative correction has huge benefits both inside and outside specific area you're teaching? Here's one part of how my parents helped my brothers and I excel in life.
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When I was growing up my mother was extremely talented in a lot of different ways (painting, writing, etc.) and she often spent time with my brother and I teaching us how to explore and work on these things together, with a strong emphasis on positive reinforcement.
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As she brought other people into our lives (nannies, teachers at school, etc.) she sought to find others that did the same. At the time the conventional wisdom in many places was that "children need to really know when they make mistakes so that they won't make them again."
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My mother heavily emphasized positive guidance instead finding teachers that said things like "Per has really creative spelling" or "he's so expressive with his artwork - he can't be contained by the lines." I laugh a ton thinking back on it because it's funny but helped.
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One of the big things that I got out of that positive reinforcement was that I LOVED spending time on these things. I got better at them because I wanted to get better - not because I felt I had to or there would be bad consequences if I didn't.
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The conventional wisdom at the time said that if my mistake wasn't emphasized, I wouldn't have motivation to correct it. My own experience was that I ended up being one of the best spellers in my class, ended up editing a school paper and writing articles for a local paper.
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I went on to do lots of other writing work, including creating and editing marketing and PR copy for U.S. and Canadian small businesses and contributing and editing for two online music tech. publications. My younger brothers each excelled at writing as well.
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An important part of that was accepting mistakes or failures as bringing us closer to our goal rather than being a step backward. It was really safe for us to "screw up" or hurt or struggle. That helped reduce anxiety, which so often limits our performance.
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My youngest brother Emile used that confidence to become one of the youngest editors to ever run the UCSB Daily Nexus, co-author self-help books and later to ace the LSATs and get a full ride to law school at USC.
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My other younger brother, Johannes, nailed his undergrad and then face the challenge of getting turned down by every grad school he wanted. He took a year off, moved out of state, worked as a barista and got an internship at a literary journal. Then got into UNCW.
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Johannes was thrilled because UNCW offered one of the only Master's programs that focused on novel writing as opposed to shorter form work. Johannes graduated, worked as an adjunct professor for UNCW, went and got another Master's in Sweden and wrote an auto-fiction novel.
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Johannes worked and that novel, dealing with various rejections and setbacks along the way, until he got one of the top literary agents in NY. They worked on revising the book and when the agent got the book out to publishers, there was a bidding war won by Simon & Schuster.
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So Johannes ended up with a book published by Simon & Schuster in the U.S. and by Polaris in Sweden with good reviews by prominent papers or magazines in both countries (including the New York Times and the New Yorker).
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Obviously I'm very proud of my younger brothers but I didn't go into all that detail just to brag (though they are my brothers so of course I'll do some of that). It's to make sure you take this seriously: you don't need to be "hard on" or "really push" people to succeed.
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Another reason is because you might get the idea that a family full of such high achievers that there would be a lot of competitiveness. The truth is few things fill me with as much sheer joy as cheering for my siblings, and they've been equally supportive my whole life.
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My parents never compared us to each other or to other kids or families. Each of our successes was treated as something that added to the whole and love and acceptance never felt zero sum. When we struggled, they filled us with love and encouragement.
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This is part of what I'm talking about when I talk about wanting to "pay that love forward." The results of being raised in such a supportive household weren't just a fluke: my younger brothers and I all benefitted a ton. Now I want to help share that love with others too.
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