As parents, what do we expect of our children when they graduate from high school at the age of eighteen? Just going to a good university?
Are our children's focus only on academic performance, musical and athletic talents?
Julie Lythcott-Haims is a former provost at Stanford University and a best-selling author. She proposed "eight abilities that a person must have at the age of eighteen", which are not related to talent and schoolwork, but to life and survival. Let's refer to the comparison.
People aged one or eighteen must know how to talk to strangers
After the age of eighteen, whether children enter college or go to society, they have to face unfamiliar environments and strange people alone. Cramped nervousness, unsatisfactory words, spitting, wandering eyes, and helplessness are all common manifestations of "stranger communication phobia". And if an eighteen-year-old has these manifestations, the main reason is that he has not overdone from a child to an adult and does not have the maturity he deserves.
In secondary school, we need to train children to communicate with people in an adult way: take the initiative to greet people and introduce themselves, polite body language, including smiling and looking into each other's eyes, shaking hands at an appropriate scale, daring to ask questions, and so on. An eighteen-year-old learns a mature and generous way of communicating, which will make the other party quickly develop respect and affection at the first meeting, rather than being slighted because of youth.
Two- and eighteen-year-olds must be able to quickly familiarize themselves with their surroundings and find roads and means of transportation
When the child is young, the parents have always been the "driver" of the child, taking the baby to participate in various activities and long-distance travel, no matter where the child is just a passenger, they do not need to distinguish between the southeast and the northwest to arrive at the destination safely.
But when they come to a strange city, an unfamiliar campus, or live in a city for a short time during a summer internship, everything depends on themselves. So they must know: how to quickly find a travel route, how to calmly face the chaotic traffic conditions, how to refuel self-driving cars, how to make long-distance travel plans, and so on.
Being able to quickly familiarize yourself with the surrounding road traffic environment in an unfamiliar environment is actually a very important survival skill.
Three- and eighteen-year-olds must be able to manage their studies or work, clarify the amount of coursework and the weight of the workload, and keep in mind the deadlines for various tasks
Many parents often remind their children of what to do: homework, activities, and the date and time of the competition. The schedule is mastered by parents, and children are accustomed to passively following parental reminders. When they leave their parents and have to face these things alone, they often don't know how to arrange time, adjust priorities and priorities, so some people are addicted to the game network on weekdays, and when it is time to hand over their homework, they can't stay up late on the last night.
We may as well slowly let go after our children go to secondary school and let them learn to take responsibility for themselves. Even if they forget to complete their homework because of their own negligence and affect their grades, parents must learn to ignore it and let their children learn from it. This allows the child to learn self-time management.
Four- and eighteen-year-olds must learn to care for the rest of the family, rather than standing idly by for everything in the family
In order not to let their children become a selfish, indifferent and unwelcome adult, parents should let their children do small things for the family every day, even if it is just to brush the dishes and take out the garbage, so as to cultivate their children's awareness of caring for their parents and serving others.
Five- and eighteen-year-olds must be able to deal with interpersonal issues
When the child encounters some "difficult" contradictions between classmates and friends at school, parents may wish to restrain the impulse to help appease, calmly observe, and see if the child can bear and solve it alone.
Six- and eighteen-year-olds must be able to cope with the ups and downs of life
Especially when children have just entered college, there are too many changes in their lives. Some people can't accept their own "failure", psychological collapse, and even suicidal thoughts. Therefore, it is very important to cultivate children's psychological stress resistance, fade the idea of perfectionism, and have a normal heart, so that children can get used to and survive the ups and downs, ditches and bumps on the road of life.
Seven- and eighteen-year-olds must have the ability and experience to make money and know how to manage money
Let the child earn some money with their own labor before the age of eighteen, and let them manage the money they earn, which will cultivate a positive view of money, truly understand the value of money, and know how to live within their means.
Eight- and eighteen-year-olds must be able to take risks
If all the decisions made by the child from small to large are made by the parents, from what musical instrument to learn, what extracurricular activities to participate in, to which university to choose, what major to study, that is to say, the child is walking on the paved road designated by the parents all the way, neither making a decision nor taking risks.
But one day they will have to face the choices in life alone, they must make their own decisions, take risks, bear the consequences of possible failure, and they need to understand that all success comes through failure.
Before the child turns eighteen, parents may wish to try to let the child make some decisions for themselves. And some major decisions about the future of children, such as further education and choice of major, parents should not arbitrarily say anything. It's best to involve your child in making decisions, let them analyze the pros and cons and risks themselves, and be mentally prepared for each possible failure.
The above eight points seem ordinary, but if you think about it, it is not easy to do it. If we want our children to become a confident, mature, and at ease adult in life at the age of eighteen, we should quickly check and check them to make up for the lack of abilities.