My daughter loved to draw when she was a child, and when she got a pen, she started to draw everywhere, on the walls, on the table, on the bench, on the pillow, everywhere she drew pictures that we couldn't understand.
Looking back now, I feel that the only thing I did right was not to blame her or criticize her for it. I thought, if the child likes to draw, let's draw, and no one in our family will come anyway. Later, I thought, she likes painting so much, why don't you enroll her in a painting class in the Children's Palace. But after signing up for the painting class of the Children's Palace, she stopped going after 3 classes.
At that time, the children were small, and the adults had to accompany them. She was painting in it, and I was lying on the window watching how the teacher taught. At that time, the teacher asked the children to take out their notebooks, draw a five-pointed star in this child's notebook, draw a circle on the child's notebook, and draw a square on the other child's notebook...... Then ask everyone to color the shapes with crayons, not borders. My daughter applied it in a few minutes, unevenly, all over the outside of the frame, and then showed it to the teacher.
The teacher said, "What are you drawing?" Didn't I tell you you weren't allowed to paint this box? You also paint unevenly on the inside, so you have to paint the inside carefully and evenly. ”
My daughter was upset, she thought she was the first to finish the drawing, but the teacher didn't praise her.
She returned to her seat, still upset, and wrote a 100 on paper with a red crayon. The teacher came over and said, "Who asked you to rate yourself 100 points?" You are not allowed to rate yourself, and you still want to get 100 points if you draw like this. ”
I was just watching from the outside, and I thought, "Forget it, I can't let my daughter learn to draw." She doesn't plan to be a painter in the future, so why does she have to apply evenly? Then I'll take her home, and she'll draw whatever she wants.
After that, she never took any art classes again, and she painted whatever she liked. By the time she was a sophomore in high school, her grades weren't very good, and it was difficult to get into a 985 college, so I decided to send her to a Japanese anime school to learn anime. Universities in Japan are open at the end of March and the beginning of April, which means that she has nothing to do for half a year, so I helped her find an anime company for an internship.
I think this internship has had a great impact on her, firstly, it has made her think differently about her career, and secondly, it has made her feel the atmosphere of the workplace. People in the company may think that she is a high school student at first and will take care of her, but after a long time, no one cares about her and only treats her as an ordinary employee. The handling of the relationship between superiors and subordinates in the company, the process of doing things, and the relationship between colleagues are all new experiences for her.
This internship also led to another discovery for her. At the beginning of her joining the company, she mainly did chores, and when people painted, she would draw a line and paint a color. But gradually, everyone found that her way of painting was different from others, because she was not formally trained, she was a wild man. Everyone thought it was very strange, so they called everyone else to come and see: "Look at her way of drawing." ”
As soon as everyone saw that this painting method was very good, it was much more concise and convenient than their original drawing method, and they began to let my daughter draw characters. Over time, she started working on her own projects, and eventually she completed all the character designs for both sets of cards on her own.
My daughter is absolutely confident professionally, and I think it's amazing when I look back on it, I never actually helped her with drawing, and the only contribution I made was to never stop her. Actually, I still oppose her engaging in this industry, after all, painting is too hard.
I once said to her, "You like anime, and now we send you to Japan to learn anime, but I want you to do a little easier work." But if you insist on doing it, I will definitely support you. ”
Perhaps because of this, my daughter has expressed to others more than once that she is lucky to meet parents like us, because she has seen that many parents of her classmates have acted to stifle their children's talents.
In fact, parents need to be deeply aware that there is no way we can take ultimate responsibility for their lives.
Many of us will interfere in our children's marriages and career choices, but when our children encounter difficulties, it is the children themselves who bear the consequences, not us adults. If we can't afford to do the consequences for them, why do we have to make decisions for them?
So I think parents should live their own lives better, and live their own lives well, which is the greatest support for their children.
Today's children live in both the real three-dimensional space and the virtual two-dimensional space, and their sense of accomplishment comes from school and completely from the virtual space. If they can find a sense of accomplishment in the virtual space, it will undoubtedly be a great thing to enjoy. Unfortunately, many parents habitually confiscate their computers and confiscate their keyboards.
If the child can't find a sense of accomplishment anywhere, it's more troublesome.
Their generation is completely different from ours, the Internet is their survival characteristic, survival mode, that is their world. Parents have taken that world away, and it will be difficult for them to survive in the future.
Since my daughter was in elementary school, she has been free to surf the Internet, and when she comes back from school, as long as she finishes her homework, she can play games online without restrictions. I would also secretly buy her game cards, and her mother didn't even know about it. At that time, I only had one consideration, that is, I felt that when she entered the adult world in the future, these were her basic ways of survival, and not allowing her to play games and watch anime online might hurt her interpersonal relationships.
When other children watch anime and discuss the plot with their classmates the next morning, your child is standing stupidly on the side, and the next time they chat, they won't bring your child, and your child doesn't even have a point to talk about.
The way of life of our generation is very simple, as long as we learn well, we will have everything. As long as you are admitted to a good university, you will have a good job, a good job will have a good life, and then you will have a house, a car, etc. But in a world where academic performance alone is not the way to solve all problems, this generation now lives in a world where academic performance alone can solve all problems. Every generation has its own way of living, and we want to help our children and let them live in their own time.
Author: Hu Zhenzhen. From Reader Magazine, Issue 10, 2024. Those shining days, there are "Readers" to witness with you.