When I talked to a teacher over the weekend about the sensitivity, self-esteem and need more encouragement for today's children, the teacher told the story of one of his students.
The student, a 15-year-old girl, has suffered from depression and is now taking a break from school at home.
She excelled in her studies, but she was small and thin. From the first to the second year of junior high school, no matter how the classroom is adjusted and how the students' seats are rotated, she will always be in the center of the first row. Because she is not only the shortest, but also has poor eyesight. The teacher took special care of her at her mother's request.
Her mother, a primary school teacher, was particularly concerned about her physical and mental health, and was always worried that her daughter would have low self-esteem because of her small size.
My mother always asked the teacher: "My daughter has better academic performance than other classmates, but she is smaller than other classmates, please praise and encourage the teachers to make her image 'bigger'." In other words, the mother wants the teacher to help her daughter improve her image as much as possible. After all, teenage girls care a lot about their image.
It can be said that in order to make her daughter more confident, the mother spares no effort to praise her daughter.
When she went to pick up her daughter from school, she would trumpet in a group of parents that her daughter was very smart since she was a child and that she learned faster than other children no matter what she did, and in front of her daughter, the mother preferred to show off her daughter's academic performance.
Some parents are tired of listening to it too much, and will deliberately ridicule: "Your daughter is the essence version, no one can compare." It made her daughter very uncomfortable and fled in a hurry.
"Smart" and "strong learning ability" are the labels that mothers deliberately put on their daughters for their self-confidence. But for the sake of these two labels, my daughter had to do her best to support it.
In fact, her daughter's intelligence is very ordinary, not "smart" and "strong learning ability" at all, but she is more diligent than others, so her academic performance is far ahead in the entire primary school stage. After entering the first year of junior high school, although she can still maintain her academic performance at the top, she has obviously felt the pressure of studying, but her mother does not understand her daughter, and in order to praise her daughter's image, she still praises her daughter for being "smart" when she meets people.
When her daughter's diligence was seen, when her daughter's occasional regression in grades was known, and when her daughter couldn't cope with the increasing number of subjects, her daughter gave up.
After entering the third year of junior high school, her daughter did not do homework or study, but became addicted to watching TV, chasing dramas, and chasing stars. She uses another image of "no longer likes to study" to maintain her "smart" label.
Daughters need to use a false "self-confidence" to confuse others and confuse themselves, including their mothers, teachers, and classmates.
The daughter's heart has fallen into a deep inferiority complex and helplessness. The "smart" and "self-confidence" that her mother has worked hard to build for her has long been unable to withstand the blows of the facts again and again, and she is full of messes.
The inferiority complex of "short stature", superimposed on the self-denial inferiority of "not being smart and unable to cope with multi-subject learning", made her daughter's self-confidence completely collapse, but for the sake of face, she used the extreme behavior of "rebellion" to cover up and deceive herself.
Her heart was finally torn apart in pain and suffering, and it became natural for her to suffer from mental illness.
But her mother didn't understand, she didn't know that it was her blind boasting that pushed her daughter into the abyss of pain and made her daughter depressed.
Someone has done a survey on some teenagers suffering from depression and found that most of these patients have excellent academic performance, and they have a halo of "smart" on their heads, they have learned more than their peers, know more, and behind the surface of "self-confidence", in fact, there is an inferiority complex and pain that cannot see the light.
"Praise" and "push" can encourage people and make them run faster, but they can also crush people and make them fall down and never get up again.
In today's home education, it is very popular to give children all kinds of encouragement and all kinds of praise. Because we all know that only praise and encouragement can cultivate children's self-confidence, and make children love learning more and learn better.
It's just that there is a question of "degree" in everything, and there is a question of whether the force is used in the idea.
If the "praise" is unrealistic and the "praise" is excessive, the result is absolutely counterproductive. Especially praising one's own conditions, such as praising one's smart brain and being beautiful, the consequences are even worse.
I know a little boy who has been quick to react and very clever since he was a child, and almost everyone who sees him will praise him for being smart. But this bright little boy disappointed his parents, and his academic performance has been hovering in the middle of the class. When someone said to him: "Your brain is so smart, but you didn't get good grades", he looked up and responded: "I don't want to study, I don't care about those dull questions and rote memorization." "He really didn't study hard, and he often didn't even write his homework. Everyone's opinion of him is: this kid is very smart, but he doesn't like to learn.
Later, a cousin of his, who studied psychology, revealed a problem after a deep chat with him: it was not that he did not like to study, not that he did not want to get good grades, but that he was afraid that after he studied seriously, his grades would not be among the best, and his reputation as "smart" would be ruined, because he knew that he had the problem of "Ma Daha", and it was difficult for his grades to always remain on the verge of "perfect score" or "perfect score" like some classmates.
The little boy didn't like to study because he was labeled as "smart", and he was afraid that he wouldn't be able to show "smart" all the time, so he avoided studying.
Those children who are praised for being smart often give up a lot of things that should not be given up in order to maintain their smart image, such as "seriousness" and "hard work";
It's not that the child can't boast, but he should boast at the right time and to the point.
First of all, praise the child at the right time and on the right occasion.
Generally, when the child finally achieves good results after some efforts, the child is appropriately encouraged. This kind of encouragement and praise needs to be timely and well controlled. Boundless or countless compliments will make children get carried away, become fluttering and even empty-eyed.
Secondly, praise the child to the point.
Praise and encourage children, the focus should be on the process of children's efforts, and praise the children for what they can change. Praise children can not talk generally, feel free to label, to be targeted, it is best to praise details, the more specific the better, so that children can clarify their strengths and the direction of their efforts. To praise children, we must put an end to praise that does not conform to reality, and the most taboo is "the world is big, and my baby is the only one".
There is such a sentence in the best-selling parenting book "Child, Give Me Your Hand": praise, just like penicillin, must not be used at will, and the time and dosage must be cautious and careful, otherwise it may cause adverse reactions.
May parents keep it in mind!
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