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Joined: Sep 2013
Posts: 848
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Joined: Sep 2013
Posts: 848 |
Put me in the column of parents here who support the notion that leadership skills are best developed organically. In fact if they aren't learned organically, they aren't learned at all. And I don't think this is an issue for kids only, or for leadership only. This is why - at work - I want to poke my eyes out in order to avoid "career development" classes on mushy things like leadership, management, teamwork, mentoring, trust, women's issues and all the related Dilbert stuff. I have to do these "mandatory" classes all the time. I can honestly say I've never applied a single thing I "learned" in them. They are artificial, useless and profoundly irritating. To the extent it's useful for your daughter - let her know that it's not just her! Sue This is an interesting perspective. Organically learning... do you mean people somehow just figure out how to be good leaders by trial and error? I would submit that that isn't necessarily so. IMO, there's some good research that can help us make sense of some of the "soft stuff." I say this having had both hands-on learning experiences and camps/courses/books that supplemented those experiences.
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Joined: Aug 2012
Posts: 381
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Joined: Aug 2012
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Organically learning... do you mean people somehow just figure out how to be good leaders by trial and error? I would submit that that isn't necessarily so. Well - I suppose I mean something more like observation and opportunity, rather than trial and error. As we grow, we all observe good leaders. Then, opportunities rise, and a person may be assigned a leadership role or step into one that's unfilled. They emulate what they've seen, they add their own spin, see how it works, and maybe modify the next time. But honestly, I think there is some IQ analog for leadership (and those other soft things). A person has a certain capacity for it, and it will develop if they are given opportunity. Absent the capacity, it's just not going to happen, no matter what artifices are applied. Caveat - I'm just speaking from my own experiences. I have absolutely no expertise here. OP - sorry to stray from your original question. But I think the thread could show your daughter that her distress may not have been an entirely unreasonable response to the set-up. Sue
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Joined: Dec 2013
Posts: 50
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Joined: Dec 2013
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I have been slightly beating myself up for not truly understanding the purpose of the camp. My bad. I thought it was going to be a situation where the kids would put their leadership skills to the test, not a situation where one group was in training to teach another group how to lead. Maybe if my child would have been in the leading/training group she would have been successful :-) But as a "trainee" she was an epic fail.
One reason I did sign her up was because she does need to learn to work together better. She is pretty good at getting the job done and having others follow her, usually through some kind of democratic process. And she is also a pretty good follower IF there is a strong leader. The problems come when the leader isn't strong and she tries to right the situation by taking over (not always a welcome thing!)
I have always said she will be a great leader, however it remains to be seen if it will be a dictatorship or a democracy. I would prefer the latter....
Again, if nothing else, this whole episode reminds me that we still have work to do about how we go about communicating our displeasure over something. How we can not let a set back dominate our lives, but rather how we need to learn from it and build character in the process. I would like to not have to learn this lesson anymore, but I fear it will be a lifelong one for dd.
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Joined: Apr 2015
Posts: 647
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Joined: Apr 2015
Posts: 647 |
Organic to me just means uncontrived. I do think there's value in direct instruction about conflict resolution, organization, implementation, perspective-taking. As an aside-not sure the people I recall as "leaders" in adolescence are exactly the role models models I'd select for my kids...the movie Mean Girls comes to mind. 
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Joined: Mar 2013
Posts: 1,489
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I have been slightly beating myself up for not truly understanding the purpose of the camp. My bad. I thought it was going to be a situation where the kids would put their leadership skills to the test, not a situation where one group was in training to teach another group how to lead. Maybe if my child would have been in the leading/training group she would have been successful :-) But as a "trainee" she was an epic fail.
One reason I did sign her up was because she does need to learn to work together better. She is pretty good at getting the job done and having others follow her, usually through some kind of democratic process. And she is also a pretty good follower IF there is a strong leader. The problems come when the leader isn't strong and she tries to right the situation by taking over (not always a welcome thing!)
I have always said she will be a great leader, however it remains to be seen if it will be a dictatorship or a democracy. I would prefer the latter....
Again, if nothing else, this whole episode reminds me that we still have work to do about how we go about communicating our displeasure over something. How we can not let a set back dominate our lives, but rather how we need to learn from it and build character in the process. I would like to not have to learn this lesson anymore, but I fear it will be a lifelong one for dd. Don't beat yourself up over it. It happened.. it didn't work out you removed her from it. Not the worst thing to happen. You and your daughter learned something from it and you move forward. Find her a group activity that has a bit more focus and supervised more by adults. Keep in mind these are junior high kids. Socially this is one of the hardest ages and I'm sure that played a part in why this didn't work.
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Joined: Oct 2011
Posts: 2,856
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Organically learning... do you mean people somehow just figure out how to be good leaders by trial and error? I would submit that that isn't necessarily so. Not just trial and error, but observation and direct experience from the other end, too. You can observe others in leadership positions, see how effective their methods appear to be, and see if that's something that might be effective for you. And when you're being led, what factors make you want to follow this leader? Which ones make you want to ignore them? IMO, there's some good research that can help us make sense of some of the "soft stuff." I say this having had both hands-on learning experiences and camps/courses/books that supplemented those experiences. I agree, I just think it needs to be handled differently when presented to 12yos, because this is an age group where rebellion and hormonal changes are beginning in earnest, and social skills are definitely in the "emerging" state. It would probably be best to teach this age group leadership skills without explicitly saying so.
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Joined: Jul 2011
Posts: 2,007
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Well - I suppose I mean something more like observation and opportunity, rather than trial and error. As we grow, we all observe good leaders. Then, opportunities rise, and a person may be assigned a leadership role or step into one that's unfilled. They emulate what they've seen, they add their own spin, see how it works, and maybe modify the next time. Yes, I think observing and emulating is definitely a large part of this. It's also never clear to me what people mean by "leadership".
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Joined: Sep 2013
Posts: 848
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[quote=DudeI agree, I just think it needs to be handled differently when presented to 12yos, because this is an age group where rebellion and hormonal changes are beginning in earnest, and social skills are definitely in the "emerging" state. It would probably be best to teach this age group leadership skills without explicitly saying so.[/quote]
Totally agree with regards to age! I think the camp in question is a bit ambitious given its population. ;-)
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Joined: Feb 2014
Posts: 337
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Joined: Feb 2014
Posts: 337 |
OK, so you have a camp. You group the kids and give them some kind of fake task and expect them to learn leadership. Obviously this is a recipe for failure.
Because in a group, there can really only be one leader! So self-organizing ensures that the kids learn team work (hello, teamwork camp) but not that they will learn leadership.
Now, teamwork is a useful life skill and it sound like your DD could benefit from additional experience with it. Take that as your lesson -- dealing with stress, learning teamwork, coping with perceived and actual failure -- those are places to help her work on. And you have years yet to do that.
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Joined: Dec 2013
Posts: 50
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Posts: 50 |
I don't want to get too down on the camp, because it apparently works for a lot of kids and does a lot of good for others. Just wasn't the right fit for my little camper :-)
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