Back to School | In the era of involution, "chicken dolls" are prevalent, how should parents grasp the "degree" of education?
Highlights of this article:
Some time ago, a Peking University roommate schedule went viral. The poster said that he just played with his mobile phone and slept after work, while his roommate at Peking University, who has graduated for 8 years, arranged fitness, video with his parents, dealt with work leftovers and arranged the next day's work, English reading and listening to audiobooks, and spent only half an hour playing with his mobile phone.
The poster is lamenting the "human gap", and as a parent, I am secretly thinking about the reasons behind this gap in an attempt to get some parenting inspiration.
What makes a self-disciplined student like the one in the post? What is the impact of school and home?
What is their family education model, and are there any common features that parents can learn from and replicate?
In this issue, we invite Professor Wei Jun, who studies family education, to the live broadcast room to talk about what parents can do to help their children in this era of involution. The following is the essence of Jing Fang and Professor Wei Jun's live conversation.
The full text has a total of 3775 words and a reading time of 10 minutes
Guest Introduction:
Wei Jun, Ph.D. in Educational Psychology, Chinese University of Hong Kong, is currently an assistant professor at the Institute of Education, Tsinghua University. His research interests include family education and adolescent development; academic motivation and self-regulation of learning; Feelings of self-worth in academic and social situations.
Family education should be strict and kind
I studied life sciences as an undergraduate and listened to some lectures in education and psychology. The influence of humanistic psychologists such as James and Maslow knows that human potential is enormous, but only a small part is truly realized. I'm thinking about how I can better realize the potential of each person. Education is a very important avenue.
I feel that family has as much influence on students as school does. In a school with dozens of students in a class, the teacher pays limited attention to a single student. Many times the educational impact of children is more personalized and comprehensive at home.
In previous years, there have been many studies on school education, but the research on family education is still relatively lacking. At that time, under the influence of the master's supervisor and doctoral supervisor, I slowly got involved in this field to do research, but also hoped to understand how parents should educate their children, so that their children can achieve better grades and higher overall quality. With this in mind, I also visited the families of many outstanding students and obtained some information.
Three characteristics of a family of exceptional talents
How do you define "outstanding"? In the domestic context, outstanding students must first have excellent grades, and at the same time their comprehensive quality should be good, moral, intellectual, physical, aesthetic and labor development in an all-round way, and at the same time their psychology should be relatively healthy.
For the cultivation of outstanding students, we have done a lot of teacher and student research, and also interviewed some excellent parents of students and asked them how to educate their children. After collating and summarizing these materials, I found that families that can cultivate outstanding talents have the following three characteristics:
1. Attach great importance to education and do our best to provide good educational conditions.
This includes providing children with various learning resources, actively understanding the child's situation at school, and cooperating with teachers.
Even if some family conditions are not very ideal, they will still do their best to provide good educational conditions for their children. For example, Lu Chaoyang, the "quantum genius" of the University of Science and Technology of China, is a very good scholar and became a professor at the age of 28. He was born into an ordinary peasant family, his parents attached great importance to education, and believed that knowledge can change destiny, and did their best to provide him with conditions.
2. Have basic upbringing principles – be kind to each other and lead by example.
"Strict" refers to parents who have high requirements and expectations for their children, believing that their children can achieve good results and be able to achieve excellent levels. At the same time, parents have strong principles when raising their children, such as emphasizing children's self-discipline in learning and helping children learn effective time management; For example, teach children to be kind to others.
"Kindness" refers to parents who love their children from the bottom of their hearts and respond to their children's emotional needs in a timely manner. Parents will actively provide support for any difficulties encountered by the child. Especially in adolescence, parents have less control, give children more opportunities to express their wishes, and let children have more independent choices.
In addition to being kind and kind, we must also lead by example. Teaching is always greater than words. Some of the outstanding people we looked at had a subtle impact on their children in their families where parents themselves were passionate and engaged in their work.
3. The family atmosphere is harmonious, and the relationship between husband and wife and parent-child is good.
Not only is the relationship between parents close and harmonious, but the relationship between parents and children is also equal and open.
For example, Cao Yuan, who became a scientist at the age of 22, has a good family atmosphere; There is also Tanfang Lin, where everyone can speak freely and express their views at home. This egalitarian atmosphere allows children to be more assertive and independent from an early age.
In fact, speaking of the first "attach importance to education", there are many parents who attach importance to education in today's society. But the current status quo of education seems to have gone to the other extreme, that is, everyone attaches too much importance to education, and the involution of education is a manifestation. So, from attaching importance to education to over-attaching importance to education, how to grasp this "degree"?
How to grasp the "degree" of family education?
1 How can we not "push too hard" to pay attention to education?
Hoping that children will achieve something, the strict requirements of parents are a must. But behind this strictness, there must be parents' trust in their children's abilities and potential - I think with your ability, you can do better, rather than dissatisfaction and debasement of your child's ability at the moment. Of course, parents also need to be accompanied by some rewards or freedoms.
For example, Cai Meier, the author of "Tiger Mother War Song" and the originator of chicken babies, is very strict with her daughter's piano practice, and she must also reach the amount of piano practice that day when traveling. It may seem unkind, but when her daughter completes her request, she gives her some freedom and rewards.
When it comes to interest cultivation, many parents will face this dilemma. At the beginning, the child learned well, but slowly did not want to learn, really when he gave up, the child will complain when he grows up - why didn't he push me at that time?
Taking this as an example, how to grasp this "degree" of parents? I think the key point is the parent-child relationship. The child's reaction is the degree to which you do a lot of things.
If parents have a close psychological connection with their children, they can keenly feel the emotional state of their children at this time. When promoting children's learning, it is necessary to see that the child is withdrawn because of difficulties, and he can still walk after pushing, or is he really psychologically resolutely resisting, just don't want to do it, and then treat it differently.
2 Be vigilant: fill your child's time with learning, and the crisis is behind
Many chicken parents who attach importance to education always want to fill their children's time, school homework, homework, various interest classes, cram schools... In the short term, it will lead to children's fatigue.
In the long run, it will wear down the child's passion and motivation, and the child will not be willing to work hard in a more free environment in the future. Because children's curiosity and enthusiasm for things have been oppressed. And this enthusiasm is the child's internal drive.
Once the internal drive disappears, everything is passive. Many of these students who were oppressed too hard in middle school just let go of play after they arrived at university, because the passion had been consumed and did not exist, and they would even get "hollow heart disease".
Leisure time is important so that the child's mind can grow freely.
3 In the era of involution, should parents cooperate or keep their distance?
Many parents will feel that it is a last resort to fill their children's learning time, and at the moment others are rolling, they also have to roll.
In this era of involution, do parents have to follow the crowd and have to roll, or can they keep their distance appropriately?
In fact, the best thing to do is to be able to be alone in the environment and adapt to the environment without being changed by it.
For example, everyone is emphasizing the tactics of the sea of questions, and when brushing questions is popular, parents can find out the weak points of their children's knowledge according to their children's situation, and do questions in a targeted and efficient manner;
For example, in the case of a lot of school homework, parents can pay attention to the child's status, on the one hand, improve the efficiency of children's homework, on the other hand, communicate with teachers more, do homework in personalization, and help children support small free space.
For example, those with a poor degree can do homework in the lower first grade, less copying homework with a good degree, and read more extracurricular books and expand the rest of the time.
To withdraw from the vortex of involution, parents should take a long-term view. When parents' goals are no longer only focused on kindergarten, junior high school and college entrance examinations, but consider the ability training of their children after they reach university and graduate from society, they will not be so anxious.
So, how can parents take a long-term view?
How to do long-term family education?
Parents have a famous school complex in their hearts, and it is best for children to go to a good elementary school at the beginning, followed by a good junior high school, high school, and finally a good university. This is also the reason why parents start to be anxious about involution since their children are in elementary school.
1. If the child does not attend a prestigious school, can the family make up for it?
Even if you don't go to a good middle school, it doesn't mean that your child doesn't have better room to rise.
1. The State has a number of measures to ensure equity, such as the allocation of quotas. Even less good schools can be allocated a few places to attend the future.
2. Even if the school is not so good, parents can still do a lot of supplementary work to help their children grow. You can do a good job of home-school cooperation, fully understand all aspects of the child's performance, so as to provide timely guidance.
If the school does not have good resources, parents can look for quality learning resources outside of school to allow their children to develop holistically. Take children to see the world, study tours, and go to more science and technology museums to see exhibitions to broaden children's knowledge and horizons.
3. If the child is interested, parents can also help the child form a skill, maintain the child's enthusiasm and internal drive, and achieve more in the future.
However, in cultivating children's interests, parents should also pay attention to two points:
(1) Achieving achievements in areas of interest requires a lot of accumulation in the early stage, and it is recommended that when the child is older (primary and junior high school), parents screen and subdivide the child's interests and focus appropriately;
(2) The cultivation of interest requires continuous encouragement and companionship from parents to boost when children are burnout.
2. In the long run, in what direction should parents raise their children?
1. When children are young, parents provide more positive experiences and spiritual support. Professor Qian Liqun of Peking University said that positive experience is a bright color of life and can provide spiritual support in people's gray moments.
2. Care for and cultivate children's interests and strengths. In this way, children can have a certain plan for their future, and under the premise of understanding their own characteristics, they can know the career they want to engage.
3. Pay attention to the character shaping of children at the social level. Such as empathy, cooperation spirit, etc. This requires parents to create more social opportunities and team activities for their children, and to guide and shape character in interacting with others. The experience of frustration in interpersonal communication is also valuable.
4. Pay more attention to the psychological level of children. Help children develop a positive and optimistic attitude, so that children can have more happiness in the process of growth.
Learning is not the whole of a child's life, personality cultivation and self-growth are more important.
A particularly important job for parents is to do a certain degree of object separation from their children and help them become the first responsible person in their own lives. When the child realizes that his life is determined and responsible by himself, and understands what kind of life he wants to live, learning is a natural thing.