A young mother once asked me for help, saying that her two-year-old son Lele was born with a "hard stubble head" and did not let him do anything. Especially now that she has entered the first period of resistance, she has become more disobedient, which makes her very mad and does not know how to deal with the children of this period.
To be honest, I don't like such statements as "the first period of rebellion", "the period of adolescent rebellion", etc., it is a negative description of the normal behavior of children in their growth, it is the product of naïve cognition, and it is easy to mislead some parents. Children never have a rebellious period, nor a rebellious period, and children's nature is very gentle.
If they have rebellion, it is because they are suppressed or not understood. So I guess this parent must have had too much control over his child that he had to resist. When I said this idea, the mother shook her head and said that she was the kind of person who knew how to give her children freedom, never bound her children, and she now suspected that the child's "hard stubble" was habitual, considering whether she should be more strict with her children.
I asked her to give a casual example of a child who was disobedient.
She said that every time she took Lele to the market, she was very annoyed, because Lele wanted to touch and move everything she saw, and often took the risk of flipping something or getting people's vegetables and fruits on the ground. Especially recently, the child has become interested in tofu, every time he walks to the tofu stall in the vegetable market, he sees the tofu on the board, he wants to touch it, and he does not let him touch it and cry, and twice he angrily pulls the green pepper on the side of the vegetable stall to the ground, making the mother very angry, and it is useless to spank the ass twice, and now he does not dare to take the child to the vegetable market.
The mother thinks she is tolerant of her child and knows how to give her child freedom, but in the light of the facts described, this is not the case. So I said to this mom that kids at this age are curious about everything and want to move everything, and that's a way for them to understand the world. Especially in the vegetable market, so many flowers and green vegetables must attract children; he sees that parents can pick and choose around at the vegetable stall, and he also wants to imitate. Therefore, the child's "disobedience" is simply the misjudgment of the parents, and the parents manage too much.
Parents listened to me say this, arguing, in fact, usually when he touches those dishes, I don't control them strictly, just talk, but tofu is not the same as vegetables, he touched it, how can others buy it? People who sell tofu are also not allowed.
I said, very simple, let the child touch, you buy the piece that has been touched, go home and make a mapo tofu, or simply let the child crush the tofu to play with it, satisfy his curiosity, the problem will not be solved?
The mother was a little enlightened, but she said with some doubt, so what if he still touches the market next time? I said, buy it again. The mother looked at me with some surprise.
I laughed and said that a piece of tofu is only two dollars, even if you buy it every day for a month, it is only sixty yuan, which is equivalent to buying a toy for your child. Moreover, the child cannot be interested in a piece of tofu for so long, at most three or four days, he should be not interested.
This mom is a very perceptive person, I just nodded lightly and she immediately realized her problem. Since then, not only have children been allowed to touch tofu in the wet market, but they have also downloaded the method of making tofu from the Internet, and ordered a small mill for grinding beans and other related utensils to make tofu at home for children to see. The process of making tofu with Lele is a process of parent-child play, and all the tools are turned into children's toys. And so on, on other issues, she no longer simply disciplines the child, but uses the child's curiosity to expand a simple thing like making tofu, so that the child can feel more surprise and appreciate more knowledge.
Later, when I communicated with this mother again, she said that Lele has not only become sensible, but also very smart, and her IQ is significantly higher than that of children of the same age, thinking about the fact that she always said that children were "disobedient" before, it was really naïve, and now she really understands what is called "no matter the best pipe".
This article is excerpted from Yin Jianli's book "The Most Beautiful Education is the Simplest".