The secret in parent-child reading: what you see is not what your child sees

Author 丨 Zhang Anne

Li Zhengrong has many labels on his body: a director of the Children's Literature Association, a parent-child best-selling author, a senior editor of the Beijing Evening News, a beijing gold medal reading promoter, and the mother of a 15-year-old boy.

When the creek is connected, it is difficult to remember its twists and turns; when the mountains form a continuous ridge, who can count how many hills it is composed of? Li Zhengrong smiled and told reporters: "I am very satisfied with these labels, because they are all the rewards of life for me!" I'm also glad that I didn't live like the nasty adult I used to be. ”

"Thank you for the life we can experience more than once"

Among the many ways of parent-child companionship, Li Zhengrong most respectfully recommends parent-child co-reading. Because children are time travelers, only occasionally entering the lives of their parents, will one day leave. Reading a book together is trying to build a time-space tunnel where parents and children can have a temporary connection together at a certain time. Sometimes, adults are honored to be invited into the world of children. Children will eventually grow up, and the time spent reading together is just the tile that adults can rescue before the world disappears.

At the age of eight or nine, Li Zhengrong especially liked the fairy tale book "The Wizard of Oz". The neighbor's child could not read, so she read it to him. The Wizard of Oz is about a little girl with a Tin Man, a Scarecrow, and a Lion, who goes in search of the Emerald King for her own goals. Such a long book, the little ZhengRong did not feel tired, and was deeply attracted by every unknown plot in the story.

When she read the book with her son Guangzai, she realized that the themes explored in this fairy tale were exactly the goals that everyone sought throughout their lives—family, courage, wisdom, and love. This is the joy of reading: the same book will have different gains at different stages of life.

When reading with Hikari, her only criterion for choosing books was to respect the child's state of psychological development. Because when reading, adults often pay attention to the contradictions and conflicts between the storyline and the main characters, and children will pay attention to the details that are ignored by adults and small characters that are not very eye-catching, which is very fun.

When reading Animal Utopia, Li Zhengrong and Guangzai discuss the protagonists, the little rabbit and the fox. Hikari focuses on the small supporting characters that flash by—hamsters in uniform suits and popsicles. His reasoning was: "These hamsters are like me and my classmates, don't look at the same school uniform, carry the same school bag, line up to walk out of the school rules, in fact, each of us is different - I just pretend to be the same as my classmates." 」 ”

Mother and son also read a lot of children's books about bears. Hikari believes that paddington bears are real, and Winnie the pooh is a fictional image, and for good reason: "Paddington bears live in London, london is a real world, and the people in it are all real." Winnie the Pooh lives in the Hundred Acres Forest, which is a fictional world, and the people in it are all fictional. When he said this, Guangzai was only 6 years old, and his words reflected the cognitive characteristics of five- and six-year-old children about the truth and falsity of the world.

When Hikari grew older, they began to read history books together. Li Zhengrong vividly recounted the vicissitudes of war and the changes of dynasties, hoping that Guangzai could pay attention to the ebb and flow of a person in the big era in the historical facts. Guangzai is more concerned about the impact of technological progress and technological development on history, such as how the Maxim heavy machine gun changed the pattern of war.

Li Zhengrong said: "Reading with children, I sometimes feel like I am awakened by magic in a sleeping forest, and I recall how I grew up. The first extracurricular book in my life was "Juvenile Literature and Art" that my father bought for a dime at a stall when I was 5 years old. It was a second-hand book, but I regarded it as a treasure. At that time, I didn't know many words in the book, so I read it so blindly, as if watching a magic show, a limited combination of simple words, but for me to present thousands of worlds. ”

Li Zhengrong also recalled how shy and timid he was when he was a child, because his health was not good, he was not good at sports, he could not play with other children, and could only bury his head in books. When she was 10 years old, she told a story to her classmates for the first time, and she was so nervous that her legs and feet were weak. But this did not affect her to play the magic of the story, and eventually won the applause and laughter of her classmates. Storytelling has also become an important way for her to build self-confidence.

"In this way, while telling stories to my children, I also sat on the time machine again and again, returned to my childhood, awakened those long-buried memories, re-examined my growth process, and gently repaired my childhood trauma." 」 Li Zhengrong regards the process of reading and educating children with children as a process of self-nourishment and self-repair, as a process of constantly enriching life and making life more and more complete.

"Because of parent-child reading, I can try not to transfer my anxiety about the world to my child, and try to learn to accept his slow, even random, pace of growth," she said. Thank you for the book, let me experience life more than once; thank you child, let me embark on a journey back to childhood, to understand how I grew up to be who I am today. ”

"Believe that fish have their own haihe river journey and do not have to learn to turtles to climb to land"

As a gold medal reading promoter, Li Zhengrong participates in hundreds of reading and education-related activities every year, and is the "book list maker" in the hearts of many parents. When giving lectures across the country, parents often ask her to recommend books to their children and raise a lot of parenting confusion. Whenever this happens, she sends out a famous sentence from The Wizard of Oz – all you need is to trust yourself. "In fact, this problem reflects the lack of trust in parents."

Behind the child's problem is a secret garden, mostly hiding the childhood stories of the parents. And those intractable and tangled parenting worries are often the unsolved growth problems of parents. Li Zhengrong was deeply touched by a sentence in the prequel to "The Lord of the Rings" - when you return, your world will be different.

Again and again, in the face of her parents' questions, she would patiently listen and respond gently: "I am not an expert, just a curious 'child'." I am willing to accompany you in this moment, and I am more willing to think of the solution to each problem as a journey with you to explore your own secrets. ”

Li Zhengrong explained the problem solutions provided for parents and the common sense of family education with scientific theoretical basis in a simple and simple way in the book "Is the Child's Problem a Problem: The Secret of Psychological Growth That Wise Parents Must Know". She was grateful for the questions she asked and asked herself to reflect on the love and exchange between parents and children.

Li Zhengrong especially likes a passage by psychologist Winnicott: "Perhaps the root of most problems lies in the rush: the desire to end unpleasant relationships or annoying communication quickly, the desire for children to grow up quickly or their own retirement, the desire for winter to pass or the completion of tasks, the desire to quickly get all the codes of life or fast-forward incomplete life... But in fact, we ignore the fact that the problem itself is a part of life, and that our goal in life is not to rush to death, but to live in great suffering and enjoy the only journey of mental maturity. ”

In her view, it is particularly normal for parents to encounter problems and self-doubts on the way to educating their children, "ups and downs are the true way life is, anxiety and tension are also the instincts given to us by evolution, protecting us to identify potential dangers and reminding us to stay away from traps." Anxiety and fear are part of our lives. We can try to accept those insecurities and walk with them. ”

In fact, when she first became a mother, Li Zhengrong also followed the script and raised her children according to the "standards" mentioned in the book. But the more she cares about whether her parenting style is "up to standard", the more anxiety and self-blame she feels in her heart, and even deeply confused and uneasy. So Li Zhengrong began to re-examine himself: When I became a mother, what happened to me? When he put down the so-called "standard", Li Zhengrong began to trust himself as a mother, and had the wisdom and courage to make choices that were more suitable for his children and his family.

Before Guangzai was 3 years old, in order to find a kindergarten that respected the natural development of children, Li Zhengrong visited more than a dozen institutions. This process made her feel more and more that it seemed more important to find a "development path" that matched the characteristics of Guangzai than the perfect life in the eyes of others.

"More than 10 years ago, kindergartens were still relatively elementary. Rather than how much knowledge I have learned, I am more concerned about whether my child will have two hours of exercise time every day after entering kindergarten. Is it necessary to learn elementary school content in advance? The results were almost always answers that I couldn't rest assured of.

Of course, there are also kindergartens with children as the core, respecting the natural development laws of children, and not learning the content of primary school in advance, but they are far from my home and need to move. Combined with the actual situation of the couple's work, we made a bold decision - not to go to kindergarten! "She began to take Guangzai to the newspaper office every day, to interviews everywhere, and to hang the child on her chest, like a pair of kangaroos mother and son.

Of course, not sending children to kindergarten does not mean not developing children's social interaction, and not approving of preschoolers learning primary school knowledge is not the same as not allowing children to learn. Li Zhengrong makes good use of social resources such as libraries, bookstores, museums, and children's palaces, and becomes an important supplement to the family education of children between the ages of 3 and 6.

Whenever friends around him are puzzled or questioned, Li Zhengrong always remembers a passage from the fairy tale "When the World Is Young" - "Onions, radishes and tomatoes do not believe that there is such a thing as pumpkin in the world." They think it's a fantasy. Pumpkin does not speak, grows silently. Both she and her husband firmly believe that children have their own life force, as long as they do not impose intervention. Fish have their own haihe river journey, rather than having to learn to climb to land like a turtle.

"I would like to be the only person in the house who knows about the cold night"

Li Zhengrong, a master of education with 5 years of experience as a high school Chinese teacher, very much agrees with the humanistic educational concept: "Everyone has the ability and motivation to develop their own potential." It is a learning process that allows learners to discover their own unique qualities, discover their own characteristics as a person, and thus become a perfect person. ”

The light boy who has not gone to kindergarten likes to run in the yard, like a walking plant, as long as there is sunlight, water and air, it can photosynthesize, and there seems to be endless energy on the body.

One afternoon, Li Zhengrong was sitting on a bench reading a book, and when he looked up, he suddenly found Guangzai lying on the ground, staring at the sky for a long time. She walked over to him and lay down in a posture imitating him, the two head-to-head. Hikari put his little foot on his mother's stomach and whispered, "Mom, you see, there are a lot of curtains on the trees." ”

Li Zhengrong was surprised to find that the tall locust trees and the branches and leaves of the plane trees were intertwined into a green network. The shining spots and thin light seem to change rapidly, and they seem to be condensed. And the white clouds in the blue sky quietly change their appearance between the leaves... She suddenly realized that for more than 30 years, she had only buried her head in a hurry, never stopped to look up at the empty but all-encompassing lush tree, "I deeply realized that the child is not the same person as me, and what he sees is different from what I see." ”

It was this afternoon of looking up at the blue sky that inspired Li Zhengrong, who began to write a column reading with Guangzai, and then published the book "Secrets in Parent-Child Reading: What You See Is Not What I See". The book was reprinted 4 times in six months, became a parent-child bestseller, and won the Golden Bull Award from the Chinese Editors Association.

"Each child is a unique life individual, so parents should respect and accept the child's innate temperament, learn to accept that the child shows a different development direction than adults expect, and respect different lives have their own growth methods." The child is my partner in life, the companion of life, I will share the scenery of life with him, and I will also appreciate the clouds he sees. In the interview, Li Zhengrong repeatedly emphasized "respect" and "acceptance".

Guangzai gradually grew up to become a humorous, witty and kind big boy, and Li Zhengrong, who has been 40+, is as energetic as ever, still full of curiosity about the world like a child.

After junior high school, Hikari became interested in Cosplay. Because he liked the heroine Ellie in the game "The End of America", at an animated exhibition, he simply played Ellie. In order to achieve the best results, it is also necessary to play the male protagonist uncle. Unexpectedly, Li Zhengrong jumped out at the first time and strongly asked to play the uncle.

Mother and son hit it off, one man dressed as a woman, one woman dressed as a man, and happily ran to the comic exhibition area, with a return rate of 200%. Moreover, Li Zhengrong is even more crazy than her son, and one of Guangzai's classmates uses cardboard to dress herself as a humanoid robot Gundam, and she wears her uncle to fill the field and chase people to take pictures...

In this way, she still feels that she is not happy. Recently, Li Zhengrong dressed himself as Mulan again and participated in the comic show with Guangzai again. Perhaps it is precisely because of this childlike heart, this respect and acceptance, that Guangzai, who has entered adolescence, still regards her mother as a friend and appreciates her "different and talented ghost animal".

"I would like to be the only person in the house who knows about the cold night." I want to hear you in my dreams, to hear the world, to hear about the forest. Li Zhengrong brought the world depicted by Rilke in his poems to reality.