The hot research market is the embodiment of group anxiety, and summer vacation consumption reflects the psychology of family comparison
With the arrival of the summer vacation, the "mythical beast out of the cage" has made parents' lives more warm, but also brought different degrees of anxiety to some parents, which can be described as a few joys and several sorrows.
But unlike before, this generation of parents seems to have become extraordinarily "spendthrift". Tens of thousands of overseas summer schools that do not include round-trip travel expenses, sky-high college research groups led by top students, summer reading courses with bilingual teaching, mothers report without blinking, and the quota is often only in an instant, and it is common to find a vote... The high consumption bill makes many parents feel both financial and psychological pressure.
Why did parents suddenly start spending in retaliation this summer?
How much does it really cost to give your child a great summer vacation?
What exactly does this long list of bills mean?
Can the freedom of summer vacation for children be piled up with money?
Tencent Parenting "Parents Don't Have Internal Friction" invited Chen Zhiwen, editor-in-chief of China Education Online; Liang Jie, an economist and now teaching at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, deeply analyzed the reasons for the surge in parent-child consumption in the summer and provided reasonable advice to parents in anxiety.
Core Ideas:
"Travel thousands of miles, read ten thousand books", should make full use of the holiday, especially the long period of summer vacation, let children experience, experience, in the process of growth.
Now people standardize and standardize the summer vacation that should be very happy for children, hoping that children can have more or less gains during this period.
The research market is very hot right now, and it will remain a hot scene for years to come, reflecting everyone's group anxiety.
Q: More than half of the summer vacation has passed, and the topic of summer consumption has continued to rush to the hot search recently, and many parents have complained that they hope to start school soon so that the "mythical beast" can return to the cage as soon as possible. Some parents said that their parent-child consumption in the summer has exceeded 30,000 yuan. Did the two teachers themselves or their friends make any investment for the children's summer vacation?
Liang Jie: Many friends around me are discussing summer trips, and some parents take time off work to take their children all over the country or even around the world. This can also be understood, on the one hand, everyone has been stuck at home in the past three years and can't go anywhere, even in China, it is very difficult to travel during the summer vacation, and after holding back for three years, finally now, not only the domestic is open, but even the international is open, which is an opportunity for everyone to feel that they can be released.
But on the other hand, parents face high bills, whether domestic or international, the current consumption has increased significantly. However, the time when children can move freely every year, that is, during the summer vacation. Many parents believe that every year of their child's growth is very critical, so they simply bite their teeth and spend a lot of money to enroll their children in classes or take their children out to play. Now I am also surrounded by a hot scene, and I can see this situation every day in the circle of friends.
Chen Zhiwen: After three years of the epidemic, there is now a strong retaliatory travel, because parents and children are all holding back. So some high fees are actually understandable and normal. Some of my friends around me even cost far more than 30,000 yuan, and the travel machine wine alone exceeded it. Of course, there are some people who adapt to local conditions, and the mode of travel is low-cost or even cost-free, which I think is a diversified choice. There are many parents who are inseparable from the importance of work, and such parents often let their children fly solo to participate in some summer camp programs. I know a parent whose child is already in high school, and the parents support him to ride his bike back to his hometown. Another friend, a professor at Tsinghua University, took his son to the village where they had formed a group to help the poor for two weeks. Of course, there are many people who go abroad, and there are different arrangements according to the personality characteristics of different children.
Q: This year is the first summer vacation after the epidemic, how did this "retaliatory consumption" come about? Some people think that this is a projection of parents' anxiety about education, how to view this phenomenon?
Chen Zhiwen: The media and public opinion are focusing on education consumption under education anxiety. To take the simplest example, the so-called research studies during this period, especially the Qingbei research studies, have become a focus. There are also so-called tutoring classes and so on. This is another kind of summer vacation arrangement under educational anxiety. Frankly, I respect the parents' choice, but I have reservations about it. The purpose of winter and summer vacation is to let go of the study of cultural classes, classroom learning, and intellectual learning, and use a condition, time, and space outside the classroom to grow. "Traveling thousands of miles, reading ten thousand books", this road is to do things and experience. Therefore, this time should make full use of the holiday, especially the summer vacation with a relatively long period of time, so that children can experience, experience, and grow in this process. Research is a kind of growth, there is no problem, but now some research is too high-end, high-end or even curriculum-based, and some are even comprehensively exam-oriented. I saw the content arrangement of a research company's "Qingbei Research Camp", one of which is called "Immersive Experience of Tsinghua Peking University", but in fact, many of them cannot enter the school. The key is that one of the arrangements is in-depth exchanges with Tsinghua Peking University students, listing five themes, the first of which is: How to aspire to Qingbei from an early age? This thing is a bit like a pyramid scheme, a person who aspires to go to Qingbei since he was a child, can he go to Qingbei? How to get to Tsinghua Peking University? I think this is not a study at all, but more like a pyramid scheme.
What's more, there is not only such a channel for nurturing children's growth. What I am most disgusted with is that there are some training institution marketing that say that summer vacation is an opportunity to surpass others, and this kind of marketing does have some parents who are willing to pay, they sign up for many classes for their children, so the expenditure is high, but I personally disagree with this approach. At least none of the best kids I know are raised in cram school. Of course, there are also some children who need to go to tutoring classes to improve, and adapt to the needs. But at the same time, don't overdo it, it is still recommended to make more use of the summer vacation time to give children another opportunity to grow. Today's children, to some extent, lack not knowledge, but growth. My son said to another parent: "You should let the child do more things now, for example, you give the child 10,000 yuan, a thousand dollars is okay, you let him earn 200 yuan, 2,000 yuan, 20,000 yuan, the important thing in this process is to let the child have a basic concept of money." "I think it's a great idea. I also saw a parent on the Internet who gave his child wholesale some chicken feet and let the child process the chicken feet and sell them themselves. This arrangement is very interesting and interesting, and these are worth your reference.
Liang Jie: When I used to study, everyone's summer vacation was also diverse, some people usually lived in the city, went to the countryside to get in touch with nature during the summer vacation, and some people were willing to go to scenic spots, museums or travel abroad. At that time, the museum was not as exquisite as it is now, and going on a tour was not as precise as it is now to arrange exactly what to see, where to go, and what to gain every day. In the past, we thought that tourism is to play, there is nothing unknowledgeable, the important thing is to have fun for half a month. But now a lot of things have been quantified and turned into a utilitarian goal, and many things have gone awry. In the past, adults would think that if children happened to go to Beijing, it would be good to go to see Peking University and Tsinghua University, but now Tsinghua Peking University has become a check-in project, and everyone has to go. I support that the gates of Peking University and Tsinghua University should be opened for everyone to see, but there are too many people going. Many places also put up signs asking tourists not to disturb students' studies, because after all, a university's job is to learn the environment.
Now people standardize and standardize the summer vacation that should be very happy for children, hoping that children can have more or less gains during this period.
When we went to the museum as children, we probably didn't know what we saw, anyway, we saw it, and subtly felt that this was good, that was good, but we didn't know what we were looking at. And now it must be packaged as very professional, maybe children will not be engaged in museum majors in the future, not engaged in archaeology, but anyway, it is necessary to instill knowledge into it. In this process, the child needs to grow, but when the parents arrange everything, the child has no contact with society, no accident, no accident, no unplanned things, the child can not grow effectively.
So originally I was quite supportive of all the projects, go to Peking University, go to the museum, go to other places, but now even if I go to the countryside, I have to turn it into an anthropological fieldwork, which is the most terrifying place for me.
Many programs finally issue a certificate to prove what research program you have participated in, to ensure what kind of knowledge you have acquired, and you can have a certificate when applying to go abroad in the future. Many things originally did not cost money, such as going to the countryside to see or where to travel, buying a very cheap ticket does not actually cost much, but now it has to be packaged into a high-end project, including accommodation but also a star hotel, the whole process to ensure safety, equipped with an exclusive tour guide... Then these prices come up.
The biggest problem facing children now is that the whole summer vacation has become a mode of comparison, before you play yours, I play mine, I go to the countryside, you go to Beijing, what is the comparison between the two of us? But now after all are standardized, you go to sign up for a 20,000-yuan study tour, and my family's economic conditions are poor, and I only signed up for a five-thousand-yuan study tour, as if the difference came out. But what impact does this study tour have on the future growth and development of children? None of us can predict, the impact is subtle, there may be an impact, it may not have an impact, it may be a direct impact, it may be an indirect impact. It is not necessarily that a study tour group of 20,000 yuan is more powerful than 5,000 yuan, which is more conducive to growth. But now that all of them are installed in this framework, it will cause more pressure on the child. This is where the inner roll makes us feel helpless, everyone could have done without rolling, but you also rolled, I also rolled, and finally forced everyone to a very tired but not necessarily practical situation.
Q: Is it worth the money for parents who invest heavily in the holidays? What meaningful gains can it bring to children?
Chen Zhiwen: I think the education involution that everyone generally talks about is actually more simple involution of grades, and like the admission of universities in the United States, it is a comprehensive evaluation, multiple admission, and the summary sentence is "What are you good in addition to good grades, why?" "Because its essential logic is to pick the most productive people in the future, not the best students." In our country, we talk about the phenomenon of twelve or three, that is, the greatest social achievements in a class are often twelve or three, from this point of view, I believe that most parents may prefer that their children have a good life. Whether it is to be an official, to get rich, or to become a scientist, no matter what, it is influential and valuable. So from this point of view, we must pay attention not to simply fight for results. A large number of successful people not only strive for results, the results are good, but more mainly rely on other aspects.
From this point of view, I hope that parents, even if they go to the roll and compete, pay attention to the aspects lacking in their children's growth, and what is not the results of the roll, so that it is easier to win. The help a child receives in his development will in turn help him learn. For example, to exercise children's patience and concentration, some children after other grinding, he may finally find that the simpler things under the sky are still learning, and he will study seriously without parents saying it.
We need to let children know the real society, including uncertainty, accidents. For example, this year Beijing was flooded, and a research group from Inner Mongolia was blocked halfway, and when I saw this news, I was particularly moved and felt that the biggest gain of this study group was this process, the children were trapped on the train, and finally had to walk a few kilometers to transfer out. The whole process is an unprecedented experience for children, panic, restlessness, hiking, including the help of others in the process... It will inspire him a lot, many things. Similarly, a friend's child, who went home to see the elderly this year in time for the Texas earthquake, took a full dozen hours to arrive by high-speed train from the morning. There was a transfer in the middle that stimulated the child's ability, and he finally poured into another train regardless of three seven twenty-one, and finally arrived home in the evening. There was so much uncertainty in the process, and he started out with rules and found it didn't work, and finally he wanted a solution, which let him know that the world is full of uncertainty. Let our children learn this kind of growth, and I firmly believe that cumulatively, this kind of children will definitely win over those children who only have achievements.
Q: The cost of watching babies during the holidays has increased, parents say "spending money to buy freedom", and the market has launched various services for summer care, what is the future consumption scale and market growth trend from an economic point of view?
Liang Jie: I think this market will be very large in the future, and it will remain hot for a long time. The industry was interrupted for three years, and the tourism market was hit badly, but when the market recovers, it will grow at a blowout rate. In the past, there was also a form of study, when everyone thought that only a small number of high-end people would participate, and for an ordinary person, it was a matter of simply going to the north gate to take a picture and go by yourself. But now it is necessary to organize everyone, although it can only go to the gate of Peking University Tsinghua University to take a photo, and even rely on scalpers to enter. There is no essential difference between taking a photo outside the campus of Peking University and taking a photo on campus. It cannot be that as long as children step into Peking University, they will always have the inspiration of life in the next ten years. But this anxious mindset of parents is worth paying attention to. For parents, when calculating whether to report for this group, it is not how much money was spent, and what the corresponding return was. The biggest pressure comes from the parents of other children, the so-called herd effect, that is, you can not do it, but other people's children, Peking University has also been there, Tsinghua has also been there, Harvard has also been there, your child seems to have not been to anything. Although it is not possible to enter this school in the future, parents always seem to feel pressure, so they pay for it. In my opinion, many things did not have to cost money, but now they all cost money. For children, it may be a better experience to grow up is to give the child a little money, let him buy a train ticket to Beijing, find out on the map how to get to Peking University by subway, and let him go by himself. This is a very beneficial thing for the child, now participating in the all-inclusive study group, the child has been to Peking University, but ask him which direction of Peking University is in the southeast, northwest and northwest of Beijing, he may not know yet. So in my opinion, the market for research is very hot right now, and I believe it will remain a hot scene in the next few years, which reflects everyone's group anxiety. If there is demand, there will be supply, so many parents hope that their children can check in museums across the country in the summer, and the study group will naturally emerge, which is a spontaneous market phenomenon. Since this market already exists, what we should really care about is how to standardize this market, which is what the relevant departments have to do.