Recently, in the process of getting along with my son, I found that my child began to procrastinate! Every time after dinner, I told him to do his homework, and he stayed on the TV and fell in love. I shouted several times that the little guy didn't move, and there was always a sentence in my mouth: "I want to play a little longer!" ”
Every time I hear this, I don't get angry, as long as I promise him, he will get in the inch, play for a while and then continue to play.
I talked to the parents around me and found that many parents have this problem: the child has "procrastination", procrastination in doing things, and can do it at nine o'clock and never at eight o'clock. You call the kid and he always says, "Play for a while," "Let me play for five more minutes." Why is this happening to children?
Why do children always procrastinate? There are scientific reasons behind it
There is a concept in psychology called "delayed gratification", which means that we can control our current desires, do things we don't like first, and postpone what we want to do temporarily. Some people even think that this is a major difference between humans and animals, because animals generally do not have this ability, such as eating when hungry, and will not endure hunger to store food for future eating.
Compared with small children, our adults have a stronger ability to meet this delay. Although we often procrastinate and don't want to go to work, adults are mentally mature and know how to regulate and manage themselves. For example, when I am slack at work and want to relax, I tell myself: Now work is more important than fun, I have to finish work first, and then I will relax. And the child's ability to delay gratification is very weak.
Children are more likely to get involved when they play with toys and watch cartoons, and when adults interrupt him, it is difficult for them to control their desires and emotions, and it is difficult for him to accept the thought of losing the immediate happiness because of doing homework.
And children's concept of time is very weak, they often do not realize how much a minute is, how much is an hour. So when parents remind themselves, in order to continue the happiness in front of them, children will move out the "let me play for three minutes" reason and try to convince the parents. And often wait for three minutes to pass, the child has to play for three more minutes, and so on. In the eyes of children, "three minutes" is a vague concept, and they cannot clearly feel how long time has passed.
Rejection and compromise can hurt babies, and the standard answer is this
When this happens, the most common ways parents deal with it are nothing more than two.
One is explicit rejection, whoosh. For example, my cousin and her little daughter, whenever the child asked "I still want to play for three minutes", the cousin directly pulled down her face and yelled at her daughter: "No! Do it now. "The younger daughter often has to argue with her cousin again, and finally she goes to practice and study, every day." As her cousin said "no" to her child more and more, she slowly became indifferent to her mother, and even her smile became less.
The second response is compromise. When the child put forward the request of "playing for a while to learn", many mothers insisted at the beginning, but when the child showed strong grievances and loss, the parents could not help but soften their hearts and let the child play. The result of this is that many tasks cannot be completed and can only be postponed until the next day. Frankly, neither of these methods is good. The former can easily lead to children's boredom and rebellious psychology, and the parent-child relationship has also been destroyed. Although the latter gives the child temporary happiness, in the long run, this indulgence does more harm than good to the child. Children will lose the ability to allocate time reasonably and learn actively.
Is there a better way to deal with that? The answer is yes, I saw a very good parent-child daily routine shared by a parenting blogger a few days ago, which is a textbook answer, and parents can "copy homework". Whenever the blogger said "play for 5 minutes and then go", the blogger directly set an alarm clock next to the child, and when the time came, supervised the child to learn immediately. After a long time, he does not need the urging of his parents, he can turn off the alarm clock and go to study. Even in the later stage, children no longer need to use the external force of the alarm clock, they can take the initiative to complete the learning task.
There are two main advantages of this, one is to let the child make his own decisions, he believes that the time to do homework is his own decision, so the enthusiasm will be much higher, and the second is to solve the problem of the child's weak concept of time.
Cultivating children's self-control is fundamental to solving procrastination
1. Reduce the interference of external factors
Try to create a simple learning environment for your child. For example, the bed is for sleeping, do not let the child read a book in bed. The dining room and living room are places to relax and eat, and do not let children learn here. Because there are many external factors in these places, it will interfere with the child. When studying, lead your child to a special desk and don't put too many things on the table.
2. First discipline, then self-discipline
Self-discipline is always difficult at first, and children need a little help from the outside world. Parents can intervene at this time, first let the child accept other laws, and then gradually develop self-discipline.
3. Let children see the long-term benefits
Teach your child not to focus on the small profits in front of them. When the child does not accept the reality that he must write homework at this moment, parents should divert their children's attention. From "It pains me to study" to "I can play games and watch TV when I'm done." ”
Write at the end:
In order to solve the problem of procrastination in children, parents need to set an example for their children, strengthen their principles, and grow up with their children.