Quote:
Originally Posted by ck2d
No one's answering your question. 
I'll jump on the bandwagon and say, that correcting an error is not a criticism.
But how to deal - the best way is to not personalize it, which it seems you are doing, so try to stop.
For me, I always try it on. Meaning, even if everything in me wants to reject what was said, I always try to see that perspective. If could be that I made an error! In which case, great - thank you so much for pointing it out to me! It could be that I'm not seeing everything, that I missed a crucial detail. Once again, great - thank you for the help! Or it could be that it just makes no sense at all.
If it's a fact that is being disputed - that's not criticism, that's just pointing out an error.
If it's an opinion - well, people have different opinions. That's not a criticism either.
So back to what I said originally - the most important thing is to not personalize it. If you do, you won't learn anything - won't learn if you made a mistake with facts, won't learn if it was someone's opinion and has nothing to do with you, won't learn new information that might change your opinion. Instead, you sit there sucking your thumb, which is pretty useless.
Granted, sometimes it's really easy to reject the impulse to personalize something, and sometimes it takes work and time. But if you feel criticized and you don't really look at it, you're wasting an opportunity. Don't do that! You might not get that chance again. |
You are right! A good criticism can be an opportunity to change you mind, learn or correct an error.
I also share your claim about the difficult for people, in general, to avoid personalizing a criticism. In the case of avoidants is even moré difficult bc an avoidant tends to take other people remarks as personal. They monitor each word to validate the poor image they have of themselves.
So, I go where I wanted to arrive. Criticizing is, like many other things, an art.
The constructive criticism loses its effect when it is made in a bad manner from a formal point of view, and it can be percived as personal.
The hamburger method is something I use everyday with my kids.
I didn't know it's what's called in that way. I use it for simple common sense, but I've got here what I copied from the net.
Hamburger method
One style of constructive criticism employs the "hamburger method",[10] in which each potentially harsh criticism (the "meat") is surrounded by compliments (the "buns"). The idea is to help the person being criticized feel more comfortable, and assure the person that the critic's perspective is not entirely negative. This is a specific application of the more general principle that criticism should be focused on maintaining healthy relationships, and be mindful of the positive as well as the negative.[11]