"Yuru Yucheng, tread on the snow to find the dragon."
The genius girl Gu Ailing is undoubtedly the jade jiaolong on the freestyle ski resort.
On February 8, Gu Ailing wore a flying dragon battle robe of his own design and perfectly reversed the movement of turning the body 1620 to the left, winning the third gold of the Beijing Winter Olympics for China.
On February 15, in the winter Olympics freestyle skiing women's slope obstacle course final, Gu Ailing fell down with a mistake in the second jump, and finally won the silver medal with 86.23 points in the third round of the Jedi counterattack.
The 18-year-old Gu Ailing has become a national idol with the "invincible" label of physical bullying + academic bully + high value, occupying the headlines of all media.
We will not repeat her resume. What I want to talk about today is the growth experience of such a talented and perfect girl with an Olympic gold medal in her left hand and a Stanford offer in her right hand, what experiences can be learned and copied by parents and children.
Gu Ailing's mother Gu Yan's parenting experience, the most said is "freedom" and "free-range":
"You don't have to go to Stanford, as long as you don't give up studying for the rest of your life."
"You can skip the 100-point test, as long as you have this knowledge."
If you copy this experience, give the child full freedom, really "free-range", the child does not love to learn, the child does not like to practice, that is to bring the child into the ditch.
If you think about it carefully, Gu Yan's concept of "stocking" has her premise.
First, Gu Ailing has developed good learning habits since childhood, has strong self-control ability, self-discipline ability, enthusiasm for learning, excellent grades, and clear goals, 6 years old determined to rely on Stanford, 13 years old determined to participate in the Winter Olympics, do not have to worry about her not loving to learn, do not insist on training.
Second, even if Gu Ailing does not take the Stanford exam and does not participate in the Olympics, her family environment and resources can most likely keep her in the elite class, and she does not have to rely on famous schools and gold medals to change her life.
Therefore, if you want to learn From Gu Yan's parenting experience, this "stocking" concept is not suitable for ordinary children. If our children do not have enough self-discipline ability, do not easily say "free-range". It is self-discipline such as Gu Ailing, who has also been under the leadership of her mother Gu Yan's "self-chicken", step by step to the "peak of life". This is the first parenting experience we want to learn from her:
Be a role model for your child
A reporter asked how to cultivate Gu Ailing's versatility, Gu Yan said: "I have liked to play since I was a child, that is, words are not as good as teaching by example. ”
Gu Yan herself graduated from the Department of Chemical Engineering of Peking University, is a closed disciple of Professor Shen Tong, a famous biologist and synthetic bovine insulin, a member of the Peking University short track speed skating team, and a ski instructor.
She studied in the United States at the age of 22 and received a full scholarship from Auburn University with a master's degree in biology; she was the director of the biogenetics laboratory at Rockefeller University School of Medicine; and later studied at Stanford University in the United States, where she received a master's degree in business administration (MBA).
When she graduated, a total of 12 financial institutions on Wall Street were ready to hire her, and Gu Yan finally chose Lehman Brothers Investment, which was in full swing at the time, and handled hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions during her work. In the dollar debt derivatives department of the banker's investment firm, she successfully conducted a $1.3 billion deal, which the Wall Street Journal reported on. This was a 1993 thing.
LinkedIn shows that Gu Yan is still working as a private investor and expert for Fusion Investment in China.
From a biologist to the investment banking industry, but also involved in the skiing world, Gu Yan herself has not given up looking for her favorite career, constantly challenging her various possibilities, and trying to do it to the extreme.
This is the best example of encouraging children to dare to dream and make persistent efforts for their dreams; dare to try and dare to challenge themselves.
Under such an exemplary role model, Gu Ailing has developed a wide range of hobbies and a mentality of not being afraid of challenges. “I'm in love with fear.” (I fell in love with fear) is an article published by Gu Ailing in the New York Times on February 2.
For danger, for fear, most people instinctively want to stay away, but Gu Ailing chooses to actively embrace fear and dare to challenge their limits.
This is why Gu Ailing reversed the reversal at the Beijing Winter Olympics.
As she said in a later interview:
"I think the spirit I want to convey most is to break my boundaries and not be afraid to challenge. So whatever the challenge is, it could be sports, it could be freestyle skiing, it could be your own study or work, but don't be afraid to challenge yourself, because only then can you go beyond your boundaries and do your best. No matter what color the medal, I want to be the best version of myself. ”
The courage to challenge, not to give up any possibility of their own, the pursuit of the best of themselves, I think this is the success quality that Gu Ailing learned from her mother Gu Yan. Gu Yan undoubtedly showed us the power of what is an example, and what is better than teaching by example.
Therefore, don't complain that children don't like to move when they watch TV, and their bodies are weak and energetic, so it is better to change into sportswear, put on sneakers, and do a good job of themselves first, which can naturally slowly affect children's love of sports.
Don't complain that children are not self-disciplined, do not complete their homework and play greedily, it is better to put down the mobile phone, put down the housework, turn off the TV, and accompany the child to sit on the cold bench to read books, write and write.
It is the sentence: Chicken babies are not as good as chickens. Expect your child to be excellent, then parents should not give up trying to become a better version of themselves.
Develop your child's self-drive
A reporter once asked Gu Ailing: "Is your mother a tiger mother?" ”
The mother and daughter laughed loudly, and Gu Ailing said, "What a tiger mother, my mother is a rabbit mother." ”
Talking about the educational experience, Gu's mother said: "When Ailing first went to school, the teacher said: Don't correct the children's typos, don't hit the children's creativity; praise them less for their intelligence, more praise for their efforts. I did just that. ”
And when Gu Ailing encountered homework problems and asked her mother, Gu Yan would look at the question and then tell her: "This problem is very simple, you will do it if you think about it." Gu Yan will not directly tell her daughter what to do, but encourage her to think for herself.
Not supervising the child's homework, but cultivating the child's curiosity and autonomy, and providing support rather than control to the child, is the most effective and authoritative parenting method that has been proven by 60 years of research.
Every year during the summer vacation, Gu Ailing returns to China for two months, and the schedule is full from beginning to end, taking cultural classes, learning music, practicing skiing, basketball, trampolines, and practicing water skiing at the Aquatic Olympic Center. No matter how full the time was occupied, Gu Ailing did not complain a word, because it was her own choice and her own interest.
The self-driving force cultivated from childhood is undoubtedly the key to Gu Ailing's success. This is the second lesson we can learn – to give control back to the child as much as possible and to develop a sense of competence and self-motivation.
In his best-selling book Drive, American trend expert Daniel Pinker argues that mastery, autonomy, and purpose are fundamental to driving force. In simple terms, mastery means that you become proficient at something; autonomy means that you have a certain degree of control; and the goal is that you want to accomplish something from the heart, and your motivation is real.
The key to helping children achieve self-driven growth is to help children gain a sense of control, become independent learners, learn to set their own learning tasks, set learning goals, and make learning plans.
Many parents have too much responsibility for their children's learning, believing that it is their parents' job to supervise their children's learning, so that every day they help their homework to fly and jump, and the child procrastinates, because they know that sooner or later, parents will "let" him do what he does and "teach" him how to do it.
Remember, it is not your responsibility to return the homework task to the child, and don't ask again: "Is the homework done?" Instead, he began to say, "Do you have anything you want me to help with tonight?" I wanted to know about it in order to schedule my evening time. ”
This is not easy for parents or children, may often end in failure, this is a gradual process, parents must hold the hand they want to help, even if the child either missed the homework, or there are many mistakes, or the homework is done very late, but also must be patient, because let the child learn to arrange their own homework, responsible for their own learning, is the most important.
Let children start from controlling their own homework, and slowly gain a sense of competence and autonomy, in order to learn to control their own life.
However, giving children a sense of control is not to blindly let go and ignore them, but to return more choices and communication rights to children. What parents have to do is to do a good job of a pusher role, a scaffolding role.
After Gu Ailing won the championship, some people began to attack Gu Yan as an opportunist because she made full use of resources to "pave the way" for her daughter. While taking Gu Ailing back to Haidian every year to learn the Olympic Mathematics, and then returning to the United States to test Stanford; while learning to ski in the United States and then returning to China to represent the Chinese team, she fully weighed the advantages of the external environment and helped her daughter realize her dream.
Use your own resources to provide the best education for your children and choose the best growth route, which every parent will do for their children. Therefore, rather than saying that Gu Yan is "speculating", it is better to say that this is her long-term "investment" in her daughter.
Of course, not every family has sufficient and high-quality resources when the child is young, or Gu Yan, who is also in the child's goal-oriented (Stanford, Winter Olympics) step by step selection, a little harvest, for the child to accumulate resources, for the growth of blessings.
In the summer of 2015, when 13-year-old Gu Ailing and her mother happened to be in Beijing, Gu Ailing was very excited to learn of Beijing's successful bid for the Olympic Games:
"Mom, I'm going to the 2022 Winter Olympics, and I'm going to say hello to everyone with Chinese."
Mother Gu Yan replied: "Then you must first qualify for the competition, and then you have to win the award, and only after winning the award can you be interviewed and have the opportunity to greet everyone with Chinese." ”
Gu Yan did not want to ski to become the whole of her daughter's life, but did not deny her daughter's dream, and helped her daughter list the plan, decompose this goal step by step, starting from participating in the Adult Open, to the World Cup, accompanying Gu Ailing to participate in major competitions, accumulating points, and finally getting Olympic tickets, and getting the olive branch thrown by the Sino-AMERICAN Ski Association at the same time, in the face of opportunity, Gu Yan supported Gu Ailing to choose to return to China.
In order to give her more time to prepare for the Winter Olympics, it is recommended that Gu Ailing complete the two-year course of high school in one year and graduate from high school a year early. Gu Ailing also balanced his studies and competitions well, and in September 2020, with a high score of 1580, he received an acceptance letter from Stanford University as he wished.
The cultivation of love, goal, autonomy and self-driving force has become the key to Gu Ailing's success.
The child's choice may not be correct, but try to give the choice and control to the child, help the child learn to make a strategy for the goal, and go all out for the goal.
Cultivate your child's spirit of play
On February 15, in the women's freestyle slope obstacle course final of the Winter Olympics, Gu Ailing got up to check his helmet after falling down after a mistake in the second round, and continued to prepare for the next round of competition, and finally won the silver medal with 86.23 points in the third round.
Netizens have congratulated Gu Ailing, who under great pressure has allowed the world to witness her "big heart".
Just the day before winning the championship (February 7), in the freestyle ski women's big jump qualifier, Gu Ailing made a huge mistake in the second round, the angle was wrong when landing, and the snowboard fell off after the fork, and this round Gu Ailing only scored 24.50 points, and the ranking slipped to 16th. Fortunately, she quickly adjusted her form and advanced to the final with a total score of 161.25 points in three rounds. And in the case of falling behind in the final, the first challenge 1620 grab board successfully won the gold medal!
France's Tess Ludder, the world number one in the same match, made a mistake in the final on February 15, and the moment she got up, she had an emotional breakdown and cried, and finally missed the medal.
After the last jump mistake on the Big Jump on February 8, Tess Ludd also cried on his knees and finally won the silver medal.
Enjoying the game, challenging herself, and not being afraid of failure is undoubtedly one of Gu Ailing's admirable qualities and one of the factors of her success.
In an interview after the match on the 15th, she said: "I trust the referees, sometimes they will give you points, sometimes they won't. Although I didn't win the game, I have already won a gold and a silver medal, especially today in the last jump, and I am proud of my ability to cope with pressure. ”
"I try to do the best I can to control things, and there are some things that you can't control and you have to accept."
The cultivation of Gu Ailing's spirit of competition is indispensable to her grandmother and mother.
Grandma Gu Ailing is a very "competitive spirit" person. Coaxing the young Gu Ailing to sleep, she would say "the game to see who falls asleep first." When Gu Ailing grew up, it was time to go to school, and Grandma described this as a competition with children to compete in multiplication skills. Once when she participated in a school running competition, she was left behind by the first place, and when she turned the corner, she saw her grandmother, who was only 1 meter 5 tall, standing in a group of tall parents, without fear, her arms flexed and clenched her fists, and organized all the parents to shout, "Eileen, NO.1!" Eileen，NO.1！ ”
"It turned out that I really became number one." Gu Ailing was still surprised to think about it now.
Believing that children can do it, believing in children's abilities, is very important for children's self-confidence and growth.
"Grandma told me, don't be afraid, do you think the things you are afraid of are because it is difficult?" Is it because you feel like you can't do it? But you can actually do anything. You have to train well and work hard! ”
Gu Yan encourages her daughter to find what she loves, but at the same time, she must challenge her boundaries and not be afraid to try new things on her own. Since he was a child, he said to Gu Ailing, "You have to try it again, and the worst result is that you don't like it, but if you particularly like it, then you will earn it." ”
Gu Ailing also said in an interview at the Beijing Winter Olympics: "Life is short, we as young people should constantly try new things, challenge things that may have been afraid before, and then enjoy the process." No matter what aspect you are, you can challenge it. ”
Even if he fell off the stage, Gu Ailing did not feel ashamed:
The whole world watched me fall, then watched me fall, everyone watched the skis, because they couldn't skate, you could skate, what a good thing!
You don't have to be afraid of what other people think, because you've been in such a good place, just enjoy it.
It's this kind of not being afraid of failure, and "I don't need everyone's liking." "Not liking me is their loss." The super mentality allows her to adjust her state in time even if she makes mistakes in the game, and directly stands on the podium and picks up gold and silver.
We have been emphasizing the cultivation of children's resilience through sports, in fact, to cultivate children's competition spirit, people's whole life is in the game, compared with themselves, compared with others, how to go all out to work hard, how to enjoy the game happily, how to look at failure indifferently, how to continue to fight after failure, not only children to learn, but also the spirit that we adults need to keep learning.
There are many factors to Gu Ailing's success, her efforts, her family environment, her education, and external opportunities, and so on. We learn from Gu Yan's parenting experience, not to cultivate another Gu Ailing, but to cultivate children like Gu Ailing, who are optimistic, upward, healthy, confident, have dreams, and dare to fight.
Let children fall in love with sports, let sports help your education, and let children become better themselves step by step.
Regarding sports, Gu Ailing has a particularly good saying:
All sports including basketball, don't think that someone else is doing better than you, whether other boys or girls, bigger than you or younger than you, you are the best, you have to start practicing with this idea, all the people who play well start from you.
A child's self-confidence begins with breaking through the impossible.