For ordinary families, how to reasonably invest in children's education under limited educational resources

introduction

At present, the topic of children's education is everywhere, it is consciously or unconsciously shaped into a race by many people, under the coercion of the involution of the educational environment, many parents involuntarily fall into anxiety, they feel that if they do not speed up the pace, their children will fall behind at the starting line.

This anxiety is especially acute in the average family. Some of my parents and friends are very representative of their ideas, and they generally believe that only by investing a lot of money in expensive extracurricular tutoring classes can children get a "pass" to success in the future and can they feel at ease. But is this really a rational investment in education?

In fact, for most ordinary families, due to the limited economic budget, it is obvious that they cannot invest in their children's education regardless of the cost like the local tyrants with superior economic conditions. What's more, blind economic investment is not a master key in family education, and excessive financial investment brings financial burdens, unnecessary mental pressure on children, and tension in family relationships.

We would like to explore a question here: that is, how ordinary families can raise children who can adapt to the future society, have self-learning ability and have a sound personality through reasonable investment with limited resources.

01 The Truth About Homeschooling Investment

The natural scarcity of high-quality educational resources makes the competition for access to these resources extremely fierce and expensive, which is beyond the affordability of many families, which also leads many parents to have such a deep-rooted belief that only the families with the most investment can get the best educational resources.

However, there is a big problem here, that is, the view of education investment is too narrow, and the one-sided understanding of education investment is "throwing money", thinking that "throwing money" can improve children's education.

But in fact, the real investment in family education is diversified, including time investment, emotional investment, knowledge investment, life skills development and so on.

The so-called time investment is mainly reflected in the time spent with parents and children, participating in their learning and living processes.

Emotional investment refers to providing support, encouragement and understanding as children grow.

The so-called knowledge investment refers to teaching children how to solve problems and the ability to think independently.

The development of life skills emphasizes teaching children how to cope with various challenges and opportunities in the real world.

We do not advocate that the average family over-invest in their children's education, which can lead to negative consequences in many ways.

The most direct impact is to strain the family's finances and greatly reduce the quality of daily life of the family.

Children are the parties who see their parents spending huge sums of money on themselves and may feel forced to take on the "expectation of returns" of the family's investment as a result, creating anxiety and stress.

In the face of these potential educational risks, we will explore how to ensure the all-round development of children through reasonable investment in family education.

02 Be rational in family education investment in order to go further

As the saying goes, you need to be rational in everything you do, and this is especially true when it comes to your child's education.

A parent friend I know, in order to train the child to become a piano artist, in the case of his own family conditions do not allow, follow the trend and learn from the local tyrants, spend a lot of money to hire a famous teacher for the child, buy an expensive piano, but the child's artistic talent is very average, and there is no interest in this area, and finally the child did not become a piano artist according to the original parents' vision.

It can be seen that educating children is not something that can be done as long as parents spend money.

Objectively speaking, although parents can give their children a greater advantage in terms of educational resources to a certain extent, this does not mean that they will be able to train their children to become talents.

If you can really train your child to be a top student by throwing money at it, it will be simple.

It is more important to optimize and improve your tutoring level.

Rational investment in family education should first start with the rational allocation of family education resources.

Rational allocation of educational resources does not mean favoring one over the other in all areas, but through the observation and understanding of children's interests, talents and needs, we can accurately invest in the areas that can best promote children's development.

This could be art, sports, technology, or social skills, but the focus is on making sure the investment is getting the most bang for its buck, rather than blindly following the herd.

In addition, another important idea for investing in education is to prioritize quality over quantity.

As parents, we should have a very clear goal, that is, we should first ensure the quality of education that our children receive, rather than just pursuing the external quantity of education.

For example, choosing a good teacher who can stimulate children's interest in learning and thinking ability is more important than enrolling in multiple mediocre tutorial classes.

One of my daughter's classmates, since the first grade, her parents have enrolled her in no less than 8 interest classes, and she seems to have learned a lot, but none of them can learn proficiently, and the time, energy, and financial resources invested are not proportional to the final gains.

It turns out that it is not always better to enroll your child in a cram school for interest classes, even if the child wants to learn and the parents have strong financial resources, but the child's time and energy are limited.

We need to reduce unnecessary after-school cram classes, and devote our limited time, energy and financial resources to improving children's core skills, such as reading habit formation and logical thinking training.

At the same time, we need to consciously cultivate children's self-management skills and sense of responsibility, and teach them to take responsibility for their own actions and decisions.

And a child who can take responsibility for his own actions and decisions will most likely not slack off on his learning.

03 Three Strategies for Investing in Ordinary Family Education

For most ordinary families, there are three strategies for investing in children's education:

The first is to pay attention to investing emotion and time in children

For ordinary families, they can't take out much money, but they can always come up with some emotion and time, and a lot of facts have proved that the emotions and time invested in children often bring good feedback.

Although these emotional and temporal investments do not cost much, they can leave a deep imprint on a child's mental and emotional development.

The second is to cultivate children's ability to think independently and solve problems

Parents with a little knowledge of education know that cultivating children's ability to study will not go long, and cultivating children's ability to think independently and solve problems is one of the important goals of education.

We can consciously guide children to explore problems, propose solutions, and put their ideas into practice.

Such an educational strategy not only stimulates children's creativity, but also makes them more comfortable in the face of various challenges.

The third is to create a beneficial home learning environment for children

In the past, there was a story of "Meng's mother moving three times", which was nothing more than to create a good learning environment for children.

A conducive home learning environment is key for children to be able to explore and learn.

The environment should be safe and have abundant learning resources (e.g., a variety of excellent reading materials, etc.).

At the same time, parents' support and encouragement to their children, as well as parents' own role models, constitute a home learning environment.

04 Make full use of the educational resources of the social support system

Let's not underestimate the impact of the social support system on a child's education, it is a powerful complement to schooling and family education.

For most ordinary families, social public education resources are also a valuable asset, which can significantly expand the family's educational capacity. These educational resources include a library, a history museum, a science museum, a community center, and more.

These institutions usually provide free or low-cost educational programs, such as libraries, museums, science and technology museums, etc., which often hold comprehensive reading activities, popular science lectures and other activities, which provide children with certain opportunities to learn new skills and expand their knowledge.

Parents can consciously collect more information about such public welfare activities, encourage their children to actively participate in these activities, and make full use of these educational resources, so as to make up for the lack of their own family education resources.

In addition, allowing children to participate in social practice activities, such as volunteer service and community welfare activities, can help children develop a sense of social responsibility, learn to work as a team, and apply the knowledge gained at school or home to solve practical problems.

Through these activities, children are able to better understand the workings of society and feel the value and significance of their participation in the activities.

epilogue

For ordinary families, they should invest in their children's education according to their ability and not overinvest.

Let's work together to infuse children with the concept of lifelong learning, establish the habit of self-driven learning, become individuals who can think, learn and innovate, and ultimately cultivate children who can adapt to the future society.