I hope that she can have extensive contact with society, explore nature, experience the world, and in the process, accumulate knowledge of the world.
——Xuan Xuan's mother
Last weekend, I accompanied my daughter to a dance competition in a foreign country, running all the way and competing intensely, and when I came home, it was already Sunday evening. Unable to rest, he hurriedly spread out his homework and made up for the two days of homework.
To say that it is not hard is absolutely false.
Many friends asked me: "Children learn to dance, there is no help for grades and further education, when a hobby to learn on the line, why insist on so long?" ”
Yes, a year's tuition, excluding the cost of training and competitions, just the usual class, it will cost more than 100,000, as well as daily transfers, accompanying the time and energy spent on practice and competition. Moreover, learning to dance will not help her daughter improve her academic performance, nor will it give her extra points for further education in the future.
So why is our insistence?
Looking back at the more than 5 years that my daughter learned to dance, from the original three years old to the current nine years old, nearly 2,000 days and nights along the way, classes, training, competitions... Persistence, confusion, anxiety and difficulty in between are definitely not covered by the word "hard".
What supports us to the present is the happiness that our daughter feels in persevering day after day, the sense of achievement that she has gained by working hard to win awards in the competition, the performance of not giving up when she wipes her tears in the face of difficulties, and the innocent friendship established with teachers and classmates in learning.
At the same time, I was also touched by my daughter's love for dance, which was the happiness emanating from the bottom of her heart on her face when she danced.
Of course, 5 years of learning is definitely not smooth sailing, and like many parents, we also have the confusion of not knowing how to choose the interest class, the confusion of the grade entering the bottleneck period and not being able to improve, and the countless thoughts of giving up.
But fortunately, we persevered and gained a lot.
Today, I would like to talk about my experiences and feelings in the past five years of accompanying my daughter to dance classes, and the three pits I have avoided.
When my daughter was three years old and preparing for kindergarten, the issue of interest classes was officially mentioned on the agenda, and I insisted:
My child is so smart, how can he lag behind other children?
I enrolled my daughter in six classes in one go, dance, Lego, swimming, painting, violin, English. If it weren't for the fact that the time was not really arranged, I would also like to report her a host, Go...
However, after a period of time, I found that such a life is really a bit overwhelming.
After work, hurried to the kindergarten, picked her up to go to class, after class back home it is more than eight o'clock, hurry to wash up and go to bed, the child does not even have time to sit down to build a building block, watch a cartoon.
As for the weekend, it's more like rushing, after one class, immediately driving to the next. Often, children fall asleep in the car.
Tired, still second, the key is that the high-intensity study makes the daughter completely lose interest in the class, always shouting that she does not want to learn, and wants to go downstairs with other children to play.
Realizing the seriousness of the problem, I thought about it and decided to subtract my daughter's interest class.
I repeatedly compared my daughter's current curriculum, and in the end, I kept two classes close to home and stuck to it for more than a year: dance and violin.
Two lessons a week, the child's time is obviously more, can ensure adequate sleep, there is also time to play with other children, at the same time, we can focus more on learning, communicate with the teacher about the child's learning, go home and review in a targeted manner.
Like the dilemma of addition and subtraction that I have encountered, I believe it is also a common problem of many parents.
As parents, we always want to give our children the best of everything, try more, and stimulate their learning fun, but blind addition will make children feel too much psychological pressure, make them feel tired and tired, and also violate the original intention of "addition".
Therefore, we must have "subtractive thinking", rather fine than more, sometimes, subtraction, also need courage.
Of course, subtraction is not simply to reduce some quantities, but to focus on time and energy, increase investment in the current curriculum, deep learning, dedication to companionship, and improve learning efficiency.
I understand the importance of persistence for the growth of children, and I also understand the truth that "quantitative change leads to qualitative change", so every week, rain or shine, I take my daughter to class.
Although many times I was tired and a little shaken, between the swings, my daughter's future finally overcame my inertia.
All along, she was a full-time child in her class, never absent from work except for illness and school activities.
When I come home in the evening, I'll let my daughter practice for about half an hour a day.
After doing so for almost two years, I discovered new problems.
The daughter's level is always stuck in a stage, there is no way to improve, every time she participates in a dance competition, the results are not too ideal.
Frustrated, after a deep chat with my daughter's dance teacher, and after reading a lot of materials, I finally understood the root of the problem: it turned out that hard work was not a simple repetition, let alone a simple accumulation of practice time.
Swedish psychologist Anders Eriksen proposed a concept: deliberate practice refers to planned and targeted training for the purpose of improving the level in a certain field.
Give children the opportunity to accumulate more deliberate practice, disassemble a big goal into several small goals, and get more internal driving force in the process of continuously achieving the goal, so as to empower the child's psychology.
Another child who took a dance class with his daughter, who had been here for less than a year, had made great progress. I was curious about how she had improved so fast, and after talking to her mother, I suddenly realized.
In the evening, after the child finishes writing his homework, she will let the child practice in the living room of the house for a while, record the daughter's movements into a small video, send it to the teacher, and after the teacher gives advice, she will take the daughter to practice deliberately.
At the same time, she will also work with the teacher to set short-term goals for her daughter, such as pressing her legs for three minutes, turning 50 laps in place, and so on.
Finding the root of the problem, I changed my approach and gave my daughter a deliberate exercise, and it was clear that the child's interest and grades had improved dramatically.
Compared with the big goal of "practice well, don't be lazy, and jump well", according to the different conditions of children, develop small goals that can be achieved and clear, so that children have a clear direction and can get breakthroughs.
This sense of breakthrough will allow children to regain interest, increase the concentration and persistence of learning, and thus achieve a virtuous circle of results.
My daughter's dance and violin lessons have been going on, but compared to the dance lessons, my daughter is obviously not very interested in violin lessons, and before each lesson, she will lean over me and say that she does not want to go to class.
When I went home and let her practice, she rubbed and rubbed, and it was hard to pick up the piano, and she didn't take it any lengthily, and she wasn't tuned at all.
I communicated with the teacher, and the teacher said that the child's sense of music is not strong, and the pitch needs to be improved.
I did not understand the teacher's implicit advice, and I stubbornly believed that the teacher's suggestions were the direction of my daughter's efforts.
Gritting her teeth and learning for a while, her daughter did not want to learn anymore, she cried and shouted: "Mom, I don't want to learn violin, it's not fun at all." ”
Good talk and good persuasion have no effect. Forcing her to go to class, the effect is naturally not much better.
I was confused and didn't know whether to continue learning or give up. If you give up, won't you give up your previous achievements?
That day, I went to an amusement park with my daughter, and when she was happy, I asked her why she didn't want to learn the piano, and she said, "I don't like it, it's not interesting." ”
I found the teacher and told me about my confusion and the child's feelings, and the teacher said very directly: "The child does not have a strong sense of music, the fingers are not long enough, the little thumb is short, and her personality is lively, very active, and not suitable for learning the piano." ”
Thinking about it, I eventually gave up violin classes to focus on dance learning.
If you want to say regrets, of course, there will be. However, my regret is not that she did not insist on learning, but that she did not have an interest in the violin, or that I did not understand the meaning of "giving up at the right time".
Stop the loss in time, don't get bored with your child, and let them put their energy into the courses they like more.
Teacher Wang Renping said: "Insisting on what you want to do is a kind of willpower, and insisting on not doing what you don't want to do is not a kind of willpower?" Compared with blindly insisting, knowing oneself, learning to choose, and knowing how to give up, it is a greater wisdom of life. ”
Children like to learn, we fully support, children do not want to learn, we give up at the right time.
Perhaps, many times, the feeling that children have experienced is enough.
Interest is the driving force behind children's learning.
The cultivation of children's interests should not be limited to interest classes, but should be in every corner of children's lives, mountains and rivers, human geography, science and nature, flowers, birds, fish and insects, can become the source of children's learning.
Now, my daughter's interest class has only one dance, and in our spare time, we always try to exercise with my daughter as much as possible, go to the park to climb the mountains to go on an outing, and doodle with her to do crafts.
Today's society is developing rapidly and fiercely, and the code for success is no longer a simple score and learning, and if you want your children to stand out in the future, you must compile a generous knowledge network for them.
In the interest class, the specialization of learning, the refinement of learning.
Outside the interest class, I learn a lot and learn a lot.
This multi-dimensional, multi-angle knowledge system can support children to go further and can support their children's future.
Give a thumbs up, I hope that all parents can cultivate their children's interest anytime and anywhere, protect their interest and enthusiasm for exploring the world, and encourage them together!