Mothers are at the heart of family education, but every mother lacks an essay

Who am I?

In the legal sense, I am Gao Jinguo, and Gao Jinguo is me.

But a search shows that there are seven or eight hundred people in the country called "Gao Jinguo". Is "Gao Jinguo" me? Obviously not, it is just a code name, if you named it "High Silver Country" and "High Copper Country" when you were a child, you have to recognize it.

My puppy is named "Pomegranate". Like most pets, in the beginning, even if it is able to understand people, it does not know that it is a "pomegranate". Only by training over and over again, calling over and over again, it forms a conditioned reflex, combines itself with the code name "pomegranate", and gradually identifies itself as "pomegranate", "taking a name" can be considered successful.

After the name is successful, you enter the realm of "things and I are the same", for example, I think Gao Jinguo is me, and when others call, they don't have to think about it and react.

This process is called "self-identification."

It is obviously not just the name that produces self-identification, almost all the code names you have engraved in your heart will make you self-identify.

The most typical, such as poor students, excellent students, smart children, stupid children, rotten people, geniuses, and so on.

By calling out these code names in front of your child every day, you are actually making the child accept the self-identification with the code name.

You say every day that the child is stupid, and over time, the child will think that he is a stupid person, and it is impossible to produce any clever ideas.

When the child is two or three years old, he likes to mix, watch you wash the dishes, he also wants to help you; watch you mop the floor, he also goes to get the mop. Why do children stop working in elementary and junior high schools?

Because when you're two or three, three or four years old, you keep saying:

"Don't move, you'll break the bowl!"

"You don't drag, it will only get dirtier and dirtier!"

Forming self-identification in this kind of thing is simpler than the name, because the parent is telling the truth, and he does easily break the bowl, sometimes mopping the floor more and more dirty.

In a few moments, he would agree: I really can't do housework.

By the time he was tall and strong enough to support him in doing these chores, he had developed a "learned helplessness."

When the elephant was small, it was tied to a stake and could not break free, and after a few attempts, it no longer broke free. By the time it grew up, the strength could easily break free of the stake, and it would stop trying.

This is called "learned helplessness."

The age group when children are most likely to get involved in housework is when they are two or three years old. Don't be afraid of him dropping a few plates, that's something you have to go through in life. You forbid him to drop the plate, and he will avoid dropping the plate forever — not by improving his abilities, but by not doing housework.

Learned helplessness, coupled with self-identification with the inability to do housework, can form a strong psychological inertia. Suddenly, one day, you let him do housework, academic work, can he not resist?

On the contrary, positive self-identification will have a strong boost to the child's growth.

There is a school abroad, and one day suddenly a group of so-called "famous education experts" came. The group of experts "met" the students of a class, took the transcript, looked at it briefly, and then began to tick the roster.

Experts tell teachers that all the students they check out are smart, promising children who can succeed in subjects such as mathematics.

Then, the experts patted their butts and left.

A few years later, the teacher of this class was surprised to find that the experts " met" really accurately, and the students they hooked out did have a much higher grade than other children!

The truth is that this is just an experiment, and the experts don't know anything about the students, it's just a mess.

Why are their grades better? The reason is "self-identification.".

Affirmed by experts, children have confidence in their hearts – or at first, they themselves are skeptical, but this recognition makes them question the obsession of "I can't do it", begin to doubt "I can do it", and then change their learning attitudes.

No matter what the innate quality, a child, as long as there is a change in attitude, his performance and even achievements, it is easy to improve.

Even the slightest improvement reinforces his self-identity — and it seems that the experts are right, at least I have potential.

This reinforcement of self-identity will form a new boost, allowing him to further correct his attitude and work harder.

The magic of the expert is to start a virtuous circle of mechanisms, so that everything begins to develop in a good direction, even if the future is difficult.

And what many parents do is to start a vicious circle of organs, from the denial of the child to open the first step, and gradually strengthen the child's self-identification with negative labels, self-identification leads to a decline in their ability, lack of confidence, worse grades, weaker ability - and this, in turn, verifies the parents' words, "Mother is right, I am really stupid!" No matter how hard you try, you can't pass! ”

What's the problem? The first step is wrong, and then, the wrong step.

Today is Mother's Day. Mothers are the core of the family. No matter how far a man goes and the place is prosperous, he will also regard the place where he has a mother and a wife as his home.

Women are also the core of family education.

Family education is difficult, and it is not difficult to remember one thing: let children form a benign self-identity.

Tell him: You are a brave child. In the future, there will be many people who will rely on you to eat. As long as you are careful, no matter how difficult the problem is.

It is best that you write a "My Good Daughter/Son" as you did when you wrote the essay entitled "My Father/Mother", write down the child's strengths, advantages, and potentials, and talk to the child every day.

Even if you don't praise, say all day that the child is smart and a genius, after experiencing self-doubt and self-denial, at some appropriate time, the child will also have self-identification:

My mother always touted me as a mathematical genius, and I still don't believe it, but since I can solve such a difficult problem, it seems that my mother still has a certain truth...

Gao Jinguo, senior editor, is the author of 26 books, including "Good Parents Raise Good Children - 35 Educational Thinking Lessons for Parents", "Interesting Chinese History for Children (12 volumes)", "Stories of Teenagers Reading History (3 volumes)", "Life is a Practice", "The Layer of Window Paper of the Tang Dynasty", "Those Things in the State of Qi" and so on.