Today, let's talk about a very common question that many parents have not thought about:
Many people feel that children are bored with school because parents often criticize and scold children for learning problems and control children, so they lead to children's boredom.
So why is it that the same criticism and scolding, but the parents' criticism and scolding have not caused children to hate mobile phones and hate to play games?
If you think about this question, do you think it is a bit interesting?
Obviously, logically speaking, this is a bit unreasonable, the same criticism and scolding, but the result is completely different.
On the issue of learning, the more parents criticize and scold, the more children hate learning. But in playing mobile games, the more parents criticize and scold, the more children like to play mobile games.
Obviously, whether in learning or on the issue of mobile phones, parental criticism and scolding are definitely not fundamental influencing factors, otherwise they would not have produced such completely opposite results.
So what exactly causes people to hate or like it?
The fundamental factors that determine what people hate or like
In fact, if we analyze the learning and mobile phones, we will find the difference.
The difference between learning and mobile games is that even without the intervention of parents, children will still hate learning and will still enjoy playing with mobile phones.
In other words, before the intervention of parents, in fact, children have developed inherent attitudes towards learning or mobile phones, and parents have only played an accelerating role in it, making like more likes and dislikes more hate. So parenting is not a fundamental factor that affects children's likes or dislikes.
So what exactly determines what people like or dislike?
Quite simply, it's because of how much happiness an action brings us. The more pleasure an action can bring us, the more we will like it, and conversely, the more pain it brings, the more we will hate.
Children like to play mobile phones, because mobile phones bring happiness, you can play games and watch movies, you can also chat with people, the content is colorful, bringing more happiness to people, so children are easy to indulge. In order to pursue this happiness, even if you are criticized and scolded by your parents, it does not matter. Or in the eyes of the child, the parents' criticism and scolding is also a kind of effort to get happiness.
But learning is different, it often does not bring people happiness.
Compared with playing mobile phones, learning obviously takes more time and energy, but in the end there is very little happiness, and even not only no happiness but only pain, then the child of course hates learning. So even if their parents criticize and scold them, they are not willing to learn, because the pain caused by parents' criticism and scolding is not as good as the pain caused by learning.
Obviously, learning is somewhat less cost-effective than playing with mobile phones, so people are more likely to indulge in mobile phones and rarely like to learn.
Does that mean that children will hate learning? Not necessarily, because our happiness also depends on another factor, and that is the degree of our needs.
The more we need something, the stronger our desire will be, the greater the happiness that such a thing brings, and the more willing we are to pay for it.
Although mobile phones are certainly fun, but do we have to be addicted to mobile phones? Not necessarily, some people are addicted to playing, some people are addicted to reading, and some people are addicted to writing... The difference lies in people's needs.
If people don't have special needs, it is undoubtedly very happy to play with mobile phones. But if you're going to take the college entrance exam next week, and you want to go to college, then obviously you have a particularly strong desire for knowledge, so you will work harder to study instead of playing with your phone; similarly, if we don't work today and can't eat tomorrow, then we will work hard to make money, and we won't want to play with mobile phones...
The more we need something, the more we crave it, and therefore the greater the happiness we get after we get it.
So, it's not just the behavior itself that determines whether we like it or not, but also what we expect from the behavior. So, although learning can be hard and tiring, if we need to learn to meet a need, then we will enjoy learning.
For example, if we want to be admitted to Tsinghua Peking University and want to be a scientist, and this needs to be achieved through learning, then we will naturally have a strong desire to learn. For us, the joy of learning will be more than the happiness of mobile phones, so we will love learning.
To put it another way, it is precisely because today's children do not have a special desire to learn, and they do not need to learn to meet their own needs, so learning is of no value to them, so children do not like to learn.
How to make children need to learn
We want to make children need to learn, so we must first understand where the demand comes from.
In fact, combined with Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you know what needs people have.
In other words, as long as the child needs to learn to meet his or her own physical needs, security needs, belonging needs, respect needs, or self-actualization needs, the child will want to learn and will study hard.
Think about it, why did the children of poor families study harder in the past? Because they have a stronger physiological need, they know that only by going to college can they get out of the poor mountain village and eat enough.
Think again, why do you scold your child when your child learns? It is because your scolding threatens the child's safety, and the child needs to use learning to meet his own safety needs.
And why do some children keep working so hard to learn? It is because learning brings them a sense of achievement and value, and they want to continue to win the praise of teachers and the respect of their classmates, so they continue to work hard to learn.
And where does the demand come from? From the surroundings.
If children are in a particularly poor environment, they will have a special need for money.
If the child has no friends, then he will have a special desire to socialize and have a sense of belonging;
The child is surrounded by doctors, then the child will be interested in medicine, and grow up to be like a doctor;
So what parents need to do is think about how to build a special environment that prompts their children to have special needs, and this need needs to be met through learning. If this condition is met, the child will naturally study hard.
Think about it, what kind of environment should parents build to promote their children's special needs for learning?
This is actually the concept of our column "Using Feedback to Cultivate Children's Interest in Learning", which stimulates children's needs through feedback from the environment and makes children learn spontaneously and actively. I also shared a systematic approach in the column, interested can pay attention to my eponymous public account to learn.