Opening remarks
With the advent of the new college entrance examination era, to help children to recognize themselves and understand the society with a future-oriented vision, and to explore a career development path that is truly suitable for themselves, so as to achieve the goal of respecting children's personality, developing children's potential, and promoting the comprehensive development of children's comprehensive quality, which is a new topic of family education in front of parents. Especially in today's prominent problem of "education within the volume", formulating career planning for children as soon as possible is the way to break the situation. This book is excerpted from the new book "Family Helps Students' Life Planning" by He Yongli, a famous teacher and life planning expert in Chongqing, hoping to master scientific life planning methods and jointly protect children's career goals through systematic life planning knowledge sharing.
Expert Profiles
He Yongli, a career planning expert in primary and secondary schools, once served as a researcher-level teacher of Chongqing Eight Chinese Languages, presided over and completed two provincial and ministerial curriculum reform projects, and published works such as "New College Entrance Examination Full Score Composition", "Big Language and Innovative Thinking", "Teachers' Innovative Thinking and Language Expression", "Innovative Thinking Training in Stories" and other works. Plan and approve the "Career Planning and Management" teaching materials used by primary and secondary school students.
Strategies of praise
01
The process of praising effort is more effective than praising intelligence
Children who are praised as "smart" and "gifted" are easy to attribute their success to IQ and talent, have a "I should be better than others" ego psychology, and will avoid challenges, avoid results that do not match their intelligence, and fear of being questioned. Children who are praised for "hard work" and "perseverance" are easy to attribute their success to personal efforts, and it is easier to cultivate children's "growth thinking", so that children believe that the future is in their own hands, and if they work harder, they will have different gains.
When parents praise their children, they try to praise the process of their children's efforts, replace "you are very smart" with "you are very hard", so that children can clearly feel that their efforts are in the eyes of parents, and their efforts are rewarded.
02
Specific praise is more powerful than general praise
When praising children, some parents have their own language habits and like to say clichés and empty words over and over again, such as, "You are awesome!" "Good, keep trying!" These words and phrases are used more often, and children will slowly be "immune" to these words and "indifferent". Therefore, parents should actively look for their children's growth points and shining points, including the aspects of children's progress, brilliant aspects, unique aspects, etc., so that praise becomes concrete, meaningful, reasonable, and children are more encouraged.
For example, praise the child's progress: "Mom found that you can write homework today for 15 minutes without distraction, 5 minutes more than yesterday, this state is very good, to keep it!" Praise the child's attitude: "You can listen to other people's opinions with an open mind, which is very well done." Praise the child's creativity: "Your composition is full of imagination, and this ending is too unexpected for me." ”
03
Use "but" less so as not to weaken the effect of praise
Some parents want to praise their children, but they are afraid of their children's pride, or they want to point out the children's areas for improvement in order to do better next time, so after praising their children, parents will add a paragraph of "but" at the beginning. For example, "You speak English well this time, and your expression is very fluent."
However, the voice is not loud enough, the pronunciation is not standard enough, you should ..." The parents are well-intentioned, but the child's mood is like a roller coaster, from the peak of happy emotions to the emotional trough of depression and uneasiness. Such praise is not only ineffective, but also easy to cause children's disgust, and even make the parent-child relationship tense.
The right thing to do would be to separate praise from "but" more. Since they want to praise, parents simply praise the child for doing a good job, so that the child's efforts are fully affirmed. The content of "but" can be found in a few hours or every other day to find an opportunity to communicate with the child, do not let the "but" weaken or even negate the effect of praise, otherwise, the previous praise will be meaningless to the child.
In addition, parents can use "why" instead of "but" to better combine praise and advice. For example, parents can ask their children, "Why do you speak English so fluently and naturally?" Children will naturally recall the process of practicing English hard, and then parents will encourage children: "No wonder your spoken English is so good, it takes a lot of thought." I think the next time you speak English, you can make your voice a little louder, practice your English pronunciation again, and then speak pure American English, the effect will be better.
Rewarding strategies
Spiritual rewards are the mainstay, supplemented by material rewards
Material rewards are the simplest and most direct way to reward them, and the results are immediate. However, the side effects of long-term use of material rewards are also relatively large, and it is easy to cultivate children to learn for rewards, and to bargain with parents for rewards and other misunderstandings and bad behaviors, which is not conducive to establishing the internal driving force of children's learning. Therefore, parents rewarding their children should be mainly based on spiritual rewards, supplemented by material rewards.
Parents should usually use more spiritual rewards, pay attention to any small progress of the child, often encourage the child, and praise the child. Eyes, hugs, and praise can give children affirmation and encouragement, so that children can get more motivation to learn.
In addition, parents can use the form to record the excellent performance of the child to complete the homework on time and quality, and draw stars, smiley faces and other symbols on the form As a reward for the child, the child sees the stars and smiley faces that are constantly superimposed, just like seeing a "medal", which are the signs of the child's progress and success. Small rewards can be saved up to a certain amount, and children can also redeem them for a fun hands-on experience such as visiting museums, camping, traveling, etc. Such spiritual rewards stimulate the internal driving force of children's learning and growth more than material rewards.
Rewards should be timely
After the child makes good behavior, parents should immediately give rewards or positive responses, timely affirm the child's progress and success, let the child feel satisfied and happy, deepen the child's impression of receiving rewards, and thus help mobilize the child's enthusiasm for maintaining good behavior. When a child is rewarded in time for repeating good behavior, positive motivational stereotypes are generated, which allows this good behavior to be solidified and habitualized, which in turn helps the child develop good character that will benefit them for a lifetime.
Regular and irregular rewards are combined
Too frequent rewards are easy for children to rely on rewards, once the reward is revoked, the child may lose the motivation to maintain good behavior; and the frequency of rewards is too high, which will weaken the sense of excitement and achievement brought by the rewards, and its stimulation effect will gradually weaken. Therefore, parents can adopt the strategy of combining regular rewards and irregular rewards, control the frequency of rewards, use irregular rewards to maintain children's expectations for rewards, and adhere to good behavior.
Irregular rewards may seem irregular and uncertain, the child does not know when to be rewarded for something, his dependence on rewards will be relatively small, and he can maintain good behavior for a long time even without rewards. Irregular rewards can also allow children to experience a windfall, which is an added bonus, and its stimulating effect is more obvious, which can make the child's good behavior last longer.
04
Rewards should focus on a sense of ceremony
Parents should also pay attention to the sense of ceremony when giving their children rewards. For example, when the child achieves good results, the parents plan a small celebration for the child to surprise the child; when the child makes progress, the parent gives the child a big hug, and together with the child, carefully paste the small red flower on the homemade red flower list, telling the child: "Through your own efforts, you have won another medal of honor!" "This will leave children with good memories, bring great encouragement to children, make children have a strong sense of pride and belonging, and prompt children to live more actively and learn more energetically."
- END -
Wen | He Yongli Editor| Chen Wanwan
This article is excerpted from The New Parents Daily, Issue 947-948
Disclaimer: In accordance with the relevant provisions of the Copyright Law, please indicate the complete source of the original manuscript of the New Parents Newspaper when reprinting or quoting the original manuscript of the New Parents Newspaper. If the text and video manuscripts reproduced on this public account involve copyright and other issues, please contact the new parent newspaper.