After watching the neighbor's foster son, I realized how powerful the "pickled radish" effect is
The essence of education is actually the self-cultivation of parents.
Some things don't need to be deliberately taught, how you do it, and children will naturally imitate it.
Author | summer
Over the weekend, the youngest son, who has been fostered by Aunt Zhang for 20 years, came from Nanjing to visit relatives for the first time.
In order to welcome the arrival of her youngest son, Aunt Zhang excitedly invited us to have dinner together.
After the meal, I couldn't help but sigh:
"The environment in which a child grows up is really important. ”
Aunt Zhang and her husband are not well-educated, and they have been running a small restaurant for a living.
They get up early and are busy at night, and they have no time to take care of their eldest son, nor do they have the ability to tutor their eldest son in his studies, so they let the eldest son grow up in free-range and blind play.
After going to school, Aunt Zhang's eldest son's grades were not good, and he frequently made trouble at school, and he was always asked to be a parent.
Every time she was invited to be a parent, Aunt Zhang either beat her eldest son violently or quarreled with her husband.
In the sophomore year of high school, Aunt Zhang's eldest son got into a fight with a classmate and stabbed the other party's eyes, and after Aunt Zhang lost a lot of money, she let her eldest son drop out of school.
Over the years, Aunt Zhang's eldest son has been idle, either making trouble everywhere outside, or getting drunk and dying at home.
A few days ago, Aunt Zhang's eldest son was also detained for drunk driving.
In contrast, Aunt Zhang's youngest son is really too good.
Although the youngest son has been fostered in his uncle's house in Nanjing, his uncle's family are all university teachers and are particularly attentive to his studies and education.
He is currently in his junior year at a 985 school, and he looks like a jade tree, polite, and has a steady and wise conversation, and won the first prize in a national modeling competition last year.
It is said that the environment creates people, which is really true.
Two children born to the same parents have very different personalities and fates because of the different environments in which they grew up.
What kind of environment do you give your child?
What kind of person the child will become
I remember that Qi Shanhong, a professor at Nankai University, once said:
"Giving children the best nurturing is like 'pickled radish'. ”
You throw the radish into the pickle jar, the 20-year-old soup, pickle the radish into it, do you need to work the radish? No, the taste goes inside.
You throw ginseng into the pickle soup of pickled radish, what does the ginseng taste like after 3 months?
If you make an old soup that has been soaked in ginseng for 30 years, pick up a few small radishes and throw them inside, and take them out after three months, will the radishes turn into ginseng?
No, the radish is still a radish, but taking a bite is ginseng, the shape has not changed, and what energy goes in is the essence.
In other words:
What kind of environment you give your child will become.
"The Secret of Awakening Your Inner Genius" also tells such a story:
A pair of twin sisters, when they were 6 months old, were sent by their parents to live at their grandmother's house and their grandmother's house respectively.
When it was time to go to kindergarten, the sisters were picked up by their parents.
At this time, the parents discovered:
The sisters have very different personalities.
My sister is introverted, and she usually always plays quietly and alone, and she is very well-behaved.
The younger sister is lively and enthusiastic, and always likes to make trouble.
My sister is very self-conscious, but she is not very enthusiastic about her parents and sister, and occasionally her parents hug her and kiss her, and she will dodge.
She is particularly reserved when faced with strangers, and it takes a long time to get used to it.
My sister is very clingy to her parents and sister, and she always wants to play with her sister, and she can quickly get acquainted with strangers.
In the face of criticism, my sister showed a strong sense of self-esteem, loved to cry very much, and loved to talk back. Even if you know you're wrong, you won't admit it.
My sister will gladly accept criticism and admit her mistakes very well.
Parents can't understand why the personality differences between twin sisters are so big?
The author of "The Secret of Awakening Your Inner Genius" helped the parents find the answer by taking a closer look.
It turned out that my sister's introverted personality was related to her grandmother.
Grandpa is often away from home, and most of my sisters are taken care of by grandma.
And grandma is a person with a wooden personality, who doesn't like to talk, and is very strict with the rules.
She hardly goes out except for grocery shopping, and rarely comes to the house.
My sister's lively personality is related to my grandmother.
Grandma was warm, talkative and laughing, and opened a small supermarket.
When the supermarket is not busy, my grandmother takes my sister around.
Sometimes, when a customer comes to buy something to find fault, my grandmother always admits her mistake with a smile first, and then slowly explains.
In this way, the sisters grew up under the two different environments and influences of their grandmother and grandmother, and formed completely different personalities.
As Stephen Vidal puts it:
"A child's character is formed in their experiences, not in their genes. ”
A child's character formation is a subtle process.
Their understanding of the world, the skills they have acquired, and the behavioral traits they show are all learned from the adults around them.
Whoever is closest to the child and gets along with the child the most will have the deepest influence on the child.
Problems in the child
99% of them are parents' problems
There is a group of comics that have gone viral in the circle of friends.
Each of the above sentences hits the pain points of parents:
If your child is lying, it's because you've overreacted to their mistakes;
If your child has low self-confidence, it's because you're giving them more advice than encouragement;
If your child doesn't assert himself, it's probably because when they were young, you always taught and reprimanded them in public;
If you buy everything for your children, and yet they still take things that don't belong to them, it's because you don't let them choose what they want.
If your child is cowardly, it may be because you are helping them too quickly and do not clear every obstacle in your child's development;
If your child is jealous, it may be because you are always comparing them to other children.
If your child tends to get angry quickly, it may be because you don't give them enough praise and they only get attention when they behave incorrectly;
If your child doesn't know how to respect other people's feelings, it may be because you are always commanding them and not paying attention to their feelings;
If your child is behaving rudely, they may have learned it from a parent or someone else around them.
In short, parents are the cause, and children are the effect.
Every problem in a child is a projection of the parent's problem.
I remember that the American psychologist Bandura once did a research experiment on "Bobby dolls".
He randomly selected two groups of children.
A group of children watched an adult assault (punch, kick, swear, etc.) on an inflatable plastic doll;
Another group of children watched an adult calmly play with an inflatable doll (without aggression).
He then took each of the two groups of children to a similar room with the same inflatable dolls, and he observed the children's behavior through a one-way glass.
It was found that:
Children who watch adults aggressively exhibit much more aggressive behavior than children who watch adults calmly play with dolls.
If quantified, the former is 11 times more aggressive and 23 times more verbal (e.g., name-calling).
It turns out that:
Parents are the most direct learning objects for children.
Children will learn to treat others and the world as their parents do.
What's even more terrifying is:
The power of bad is more powerful than good.
Bad role models and a bad family environment have a greater and deeper impact on children, and it is easier for children to develop unsound personalities or wrong behavior habits.
Therefore, when there are various problems in our children, the first thing we should do is not to blame the children, not to complain about why we can't raise excellent children, but to reflect on ourselves:
Is it because of my behaviors that have set a bad example for my child and caused a bad influence?
This is the most important vigilance we should have as parents.
Parents have changed
Children will naturally get better
One counsellor shared one such case.
A mother often worries about her child playing games for 5-6 hours a day, is angry that her child copies classmates' homework, and hesitates because her child is not interested in learning day by day.
She often quarrels with the child, and the child often talks back to her and does it against her.
She was worried that her child would do something stupid in a fierce emotional confrontation with her.
Later, with the help of a counselor, she began to change herself:
She changed the way she talked to her children, learned to magnify their strengths, and constantly affirmed them.
She began to let go and let the child be her own master, no longer forcing the child, controlling the child.
She began to study various parenting courses, emotional management courses, and learn to be an emotionally stable, relaxed and determined growing parent.
Half a year later, she was pleasantly surprised to discover:
Children spend less time playing games than 5 or 6 hours a day to about an hour, and sometimes they set standards for themselves:
No more than 4 hours per week.
The child no longer fights against her, and no longer uses crying and threats to solve problems and conflicts.
The child's academic performance has improved significantly, and he has set new learning goals for himself to prepare for the high school entrance examination and apply for the top international department in Chengdu.
The children's social activities are also becoming more and more abundant, and their personalities are becoming more and more cheerful, and the whole person is full of vitality.
As the People's Daily put it:
"The most important thing in China is not the children, but the parents. ”
Children are following in the footsteps of their parents, learning from their parents to grow up, only when parents make changes first, children can naturally become better.
I remember that the fairy tale king Zheng Yuanjie once said:
"When educating children, first of all, close your mouth, lift your legs, walk your life path, and show it to your children. ”
He himself has always adhered to one principle in the issue of educating children:
Learn from Dad first, and then learn from Bully.
He insisted on getting up at 4:30 every day to write, writing 6,000 words, and never stopped for 36 years.
His daughter asked him:
"Why do you wake up so early?"
He said:
"Get the important things done first, so that the day is very easy, otherwise you can't do anything. ”
Under his words and deeds, from the first day of school, the first thing his daughter does when she comes home from school is to do her homework without distractions, and then go to other things.
He never said to his daughter, "You have to work hard", but said to himself:
"Zheng Yuanjie, you have to work hard. ”
He worked hard to be a role model for his daughter, and his daughter also worked hard to live his pride - he was admitted to 6 prestigious universities with the best grades in the school.
So, you see.
Parents are always the best teachers for their children, and they are also the most powerful force for their children's growth.
Parents change themselves first, and children will change themselves with them.
Parents become role models for their children, and children become the pride of their parents.
When the parents are good, the children will be good.
Principal Li Zhenxi said:
"When we talk about the quality of a child, we don't ask, 'Who is the child's homeroom teacher?', we only ask, 'Whose child is this?'
The only thing that has to do with a child's successful growth is family. ”
Family is the soil for children's growth.
The quality of the family determines the quality of the child.
Parents should first work themselves to make themselves better, so that the family environment can become a fertile ground for nourishing children, so that children can grow gratifyingly.