I study kids and help-seeking. I wrote a whole book about it. So I have *a lot* of thoughts about those tweets with the dad and his daughter and the can of beans.

A thread. 1/

On the one hand, when parents swoop in and do everything for their kids, kids learn to fear failure and hard work.

So I get what the dad was trying to do - teach his daughter to work hard for what she wants and not be afraid to fail.

But, I also take issue with his approach. 2/

What's wrong with his approach? Especially given that she was successful in the end? Well, let's consider what the daughter might take away from this interaction, particularly in terms of her confidence in herself and her trust in adults. 3/

First, how might the daughter feel about herself after taking so long to figure it out? Especially if her dad said to her what he said in the tweets (e.g., she's not a "mechanically inclined kid;" "spatial orientation, process visualization... are not things she... intuits"). 4/

My guess - she'll assume it took her so long because there's something wrong with her. When, in reality, it was because her dad refused to give her the scaffolding (info and skills) she needed to succeed with the task. Can you imagine teaching kids math or reading this way?! 5/