A previous article about why children "always mess things up", mentioned the importance of post-review, and then many friends complained: children are not willing to review with you at all.
Kind words to persuade the child to try again, the child ruthlessly refuses, patiently with the child to review why not do a good job, the child deliberately diverged from the topic and did not take the stubble.
On the other hand, many friends in the background asked, children always know that mistakes do not change, just eat, not long-term wisdom what to do?
In fact, here is the same question: if it is human nature to like to escape from difficult problems, how can we help children learn from mistakes and fight back from setbacks?
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Why does the child refuse to review?
The reason why the child refuses to review is nothing more than "not wanting to do" and "not doing", and the deeper idea is: do not believe that they can do better.
Sounds pessimistic, right? Everyone may think: our baby is usually confident, even a little over-inflated, how can it be so "pessimistic"?
In fact, this is not only a matter of self-confidence or self-evaluation, but also a way of thinking has not yet been formed - growth thinking.
The so-called growth mindset is a systematic mode of thinking with intellectual plasticity as the core concept.
To put it simply, those who believe that their intelligence and ability can be improved through learning and practice are looking at what is happening at the moment with a developmental perspective, believing that difficulties are only temporary, and frustration is also temporary.
People with a growth mindset in general have a "big heart", are not afraid of making mistakes or embarrassment, and will more actively accept setbacks, accept difficulties, and be willing to find ways to succeed.
Seeing this, you may also find that even adults do not necessarily have a growth mindset, and "big heart" is a rare quality.
The child's mind is not mature, and the view of things is only focused on the present; coupled with the child's lack of understanding of his own ability, lack of experience, and is particularly prone to setbacks in life, so the child still needs parents to be a good "guide".
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The soul asks: What is the child afraid of?
Deeply into the psychological characteristics of children, we will find that the key factor affecting the development of children's growth thinking is that the child's cognition of "failure", "success" and "difficulty" is not mature enough, and it will be trapped in the current situation, stagnating, summarizing, roughly these aspects of the problem.
Fear of failure
Before trying to do something, children often mistakenly think that they can do 100%, easy to see failure as a "bad result", think that failure should not happen, want to "eliminate" failure, so once they encounter setbacks, they will inevitably fall into a collapse, produce a strong sense of frustration, and determine that "trying again will fail again", so they simply give up.
It is customary to attribute success to talent
Usually, whenever a child does something, parents or people around them may not be able to help but praise the child "you are awesome", "you are very smart", "you are really good", and the praise is "people", not "things", which will make the children ignore the real efforts in this process, and let the children develop a way of thinking that the success is attributed to talent rather than hard work.
However, talent has always been illusory, not as can be controlled as solid efforts, and it is difficult for children to "reuse" talents when they make other attempts, so slowly children are no longer willing to challenge difficulties in order to keep their "talents".
Valuing your "face"
Children will also have "idol baggage", sometimes children encounter setbacks, unwilling to try again, may be hindered by face, do not want others to find themselves doing this thing badly, especially in the face of strangers present.
For example, when children are first exposed to skills such as roller skating, fencing, and playing ball, they will be particularly easy to give up at the beginning in the face of unfamiliar teachers and small partners, and it will take a long time to adapt.
I don't know how to overcome difficulties
Sometimes children actually want to overcome difficulties, but the difficulties are beyond ability, they are struggling to find a good way to break through, and the people around them have not provided help, so they may choose to give up. This is especially true for some children who are shy about asking for help, or who have a "high cold" personality.
In fact, the above types of children's common psychological states, in our adults are also very common, but many times we will mistakenly think that children are still "small", not so much psychological burden, but in fact, children due to limited cognition, in the face of setbacks and difficulties, psychological feelings will only be more intense.
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Solution: Back to "Review"
The double game is originally a Go term, which means that after a game is played, the Go player will re-lay out the game process on the board, thinking about which step is good and which step is not.
The gradual extension of the review developed into a kind of "review thinking": what happened at that time - how I did it - why I did it - if I tried again, there was no better way to deal with it.
In fact, the word "review" implies a very deep wisdom: to deal with setbacks and mistakes in reality, you can treat them all as a game of chess, lose and lose, as long as the summary is insufficient, continue to improve, there will always be a chance to turn over.
Guide children to look at failures and setbacks rationally, not to like things and not to be sad with themselves; and to "benefit" from them and maintain the belief and desire to "try again", which is what we "review" to do.
But the real "review" is not simply to make a summary, nor to let the child self-criticism and admit mistakes, but we need to strategically guide step by step, especially pay attention to ways and methods, especially for children who are sensitive and reject the review, we need to spend more thought.
The review is not a unilateral indoctrination of us adults, but the child's self-thinking and self-understanding, so for the child's different attitudes to the "review" of this matter, we can choose different strategies and methods:
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Children do not reject the review: push the boat along the water
If your child is still willing to talk about it after frustration, we can try the following specific steps.
Help your child to attribute objectively
The fundamental point of the review is to guide the child to look at the setback objectively, at this time, the emotions and language of our parents are very important, which will affect the child's intuitive feeling of frustration and failure.
Therefore, here we must pay great attention to our own words, do not blame and criticize the child, or directly negate, and deduct the evaluation of "clumsy" and "always do not use the brain" to the child. We should adopt the "right thing is not right" approach to help children find the reason for failure.
For example, if the child breaks the bowl when he tries to serve rice for the first time, we can first ask the child, is it not stable enough to use one hand to hold the bowl? Why does your baby think the bowl falls to the ground (note that we have to focus on the phenomenon of "bowl falling" rather than the personal factor of "how did you get the bowl off")?
Guiding children to explore the reasons for failure can make children understand that in the face of setbacks, the most important thing is to find out what the problem is, rather than falling into self-blame and frustration.
Try again with your child
When the child understands what the problem is, the desire to "try again" will be stimulated, and at this time we will give encouragement and support, and most children will be willing to try again.
But at this time, the child will have a certain psychological pressure, so we may wish to provide more help to the child when they try again, do the child's "scaffolding", such as helping the child adjust the posture of taking the bowl, telling the child how to use the fingers when taking, or we make a plan for the child, like putting the hand under the bowl to prepare for the response. In this way, children can more confidently try again and again, and slowly field to the "key to success", but also taste the joy of success.
Emphasis on little progress
The process of the child from "can't do" to "do" may be fast or slow, but when the child experiences the joy of success, it is we who "hit the iron while it is hot" to help the child strengthen the "success factor".
We can start by asking the child, "Why didn't the baby do it at the beginning and now do it?" What changes has your baby made? This will guide the child to review the whole process and realize the importance of "constantly trying and adjusting".
If the child can't summarize it for a while, it doesn't matter, we can help the child to summarize or demonstrate step by step, such as "when the baby first serves rice, because the fingers do not use all the force when taking the bowl, so the bowl falls off; the second time we adjust the grip position of the fingers; the third time we adjust the amount of rice, first play less..."
Do not underestimate this step, "summarize the changes in the process", the purpose is to make the child realize: as long as you find out the problem again and again, adjust and change again and again, solve the problem, and finally you can successfully do it. This is actually the essence of "growth thinking".
But there are also some cases where children are very reluctant to review at the beginning, they refuse to listen, and they are not allowed to mention it, what should we do?
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Child Repulsion Review: Side Attack
If you encounter such a situation, whether it is our encouragement, or comfort, review, in fact, it will make the child more rejected, and even lead to "parent-child conflict".
At this time, we may wish to first let go of the obsession of "review" and help children face setbacks step by step:
Disassemble the target
If the "setback" barrier cannot be crossed, we may as well let the child focus on the "goal".
You may have heard of the American functionalist psychologist William James's formula for self-esteem:
Self-esteem = success/ambition
Specifically, we can disassemble the task, start with a small goal, reduce the difficulty of the task, so that the child can quickly succeed and "taste the sweetness".
For example, when the child first started to shoot the ball, he was frustrated because he could not shoot continuously, and he was unwilling to try again, so we could replace the goal of "continuous shooting" with "only one shot", by playing with the child the game of you shoot me to catch the ball, so that the child can achieve the goal with only one shot, and naturally can be more easily achieved.
When the child is familiar with the feel of contact with the ball through the way of "only one shot", and can master the strength of the ball, we can encourage the child to try to shoot two, three times, etc. With enough practice, the child can naturally achieve the big goal of continuous shooting.
At this time, if we take advantage of the fact that the child is "immersed in the joy of success" and review with the child, the child will be more accepting.
Gamification replay
Children naturally like games, and when children are not willing to review, we can also use some games to help children strengthen their abilities in certain aspects.
For example, if the child breaks the bowl when he first serves rice, the reason may be that the hand strength is not enough, the grasping method is not right, or the hand-eye coordination ability is lacking, so we can use related games to exercise this lack of ability.
Similar games such as putting beans in a bowl and paper balls in a bowl by playing a game guide children to "Is this a very rice-serving action?" You've done a great job this time, oh, it seems that you have mastered the skill of serving rice, can you tell me how to do it? Thus entering the review, the child's acceptance will be better.
In fact, regardless of whether the child is willing to review after encountering setbacks, what we have to do is to protect the child's precious desire to "try again", because through "try again", the child can more truly feel that "their ability can be continuously improved through hard work and practice over and over again", and then develop growth thinking.
In summary, you may also find that there are actually several key points to help children develop "growth thinking":
Look at failures and setbacks rationally and have the courage to "try again."
Rather than "results", we value "process", and thinking in the process is the key.
We will praise the child, give the child positive encouragement, and when praising the child, try not to use the vague "gifted" language, but should emphasize the efforts made by the child and the limitations overcome.
Finally, you don't have to pay attention to the complete review process of everything, after all, children are challenging themselves every day, trying all kinds of new things, encountering setbacks is really commonplace, as long as you can make children understand that "setbacks can help us find a way to succeed, as long as we try a few more times".
Today's sharing is here, when writing the article, the various small setbacks and small problems that Baby has encountered since childhood have reappeared in front of us like a movie, and sure enough, every step of growth counts, and the child's frustration resistance and learning ability are stronger than we imagined, and we adults are also fighting side by side with children to gain a lot of strength.
Do you have anything you want to share about helping children break through difficulties and overcome setbacks? Welcome to leave a message Oh ~
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