I wonder how many of my friends who look at the left coast have become fathers? Luckily for me, I was also upgraded to fatherhood last August.
I know that being a parent is natural for most people, but there is nothing natural about how we raise our children. We grow up from an era where we are imprisoned by many ideas, many educational methods are biased, and many of the ideas we think we are used to and don't realize will deeply affect our children's future, so how we do it becomes very important. I would like to recommend you to read "A Letter to Parents" by Mr. Kai-Fu Lee, and you can make notes by the way.
After writing four letters to Chinese students, many of them asked me, "Mr. Kaifu, why don't you write a letter to our parents? As a father, you can share your philosophy and experience in educating your children."
As a father who is passionate about education, I do have a lot of experience in educating my children. But I have been a little hesitant about this letter because I am not an expert in this field. After much encouragement from several people, I gradually realized the importance of writing this letter. I asked them, "If I were to write a letter to your parents, what would you want me to say?" They said.
"Tell our parents: we're grown up and can really take care of ourselves. Just let us make our own way, even if it means hitting a nail on the head."
"Tell my parents: you expect so much from me, and I always fall short and feel sorry for you. I want you guys to accept an ordinary me. When you see that I've done my best, can you encourage me?"
"Tell our parents: I don't want to be a reading machine, I want to find my own interests and I want you to support and understand me."
"Tell our parents: I really want to be friends with you guys so badly, but I don't know how to ask."
After hearing so many passionate and hopeful words, I lifted my pen. I wanted to write what I really thought about homeschooling, I wanted to share my ideas about education, and I wanted to help bridge the gap between parents and children who are usually so distant from each other. Actually, this matter of educating children is not very difficult, we just need to grasp this most basic principle.
Raise a child who is sensible and sensible, good at learning, independent and independent, confident and positive, happy and sensual; and then become friends with him in everything.
Parents and friends of China, I hope to have a sincere and in-depth communication with you. You may be more experienced than me in educating children, and you have many better methods. I am not asking you to approve of the methods and ideas I have talked about in this letter, but I hope you know that your children have a lot of things they want to tell you from the bottom of their hearts. If you have time, it would be a good idea for you to talk to your children face to face. If this letter can let some parents know what their children are hiding in their hearts, and if it can help parents and children communicate and understand each other, and even become "friends" who talk about everything, then the purpose of this letter will also be achieved.
I. Raising sensible and reasonable children
The Chinese always regard "obedience" as a prerequisite for a good child. But I hope our children will not just be obedient children, but become sensible and sensible children. An obedient child may just blindly follow others without knowing why he or she is doing what he or she is doing. Reasonable children are good at analyzing the reason behind everything, they will obey their parents 100% when what they say makes sense, and they will actively discuss and communicate with their parents when what they say is not completely correct - these are good children who respect their parents and stick to their principles.
While I believe in the superiority of inspirational education, I also believe in the need for strict discipline. Children need inspiration as well as discipline and rules to thrive. They need to develop self-confidence as well as learn to be self-reflective.
With regard to "rules," I have come up with four rules.
Set the rules, but first make clear the rationale associated with the rules and not blindly demand obedience from the child.
(a) The child has complete freedom within the limits of the rules.
Breaking the rules will result in the child being punished with a pre-specified punishment.
The fewer rules, the better, so as to be effective as inspiration.
In addition, parents should try to seize every "opportunity to teach" - the little things that can come up at any time in life to teach and help their children - to teach them. Education. However, more positive examples should be used in education and less negative examples should be used. For example, if you want to teach your child to "stand up and greet your elders when you see them," then you must do it every time. As a parent, you must set a good example. If you are very strict with your child, but you do not do it first, you will not be able to win your child's respect and conviction.
Especially in the area of character building, parents must lead by example. For example, when it comes to educating children about honesty and integrity and developing their independent personalities and ideas, a parent's personal performance will have a direct impact on the child's behavior and growth. So, in addition to using role models or stories (and not preaching!) In addition to teaching their children, parents must always remind themselves not to do things that are contrary to the behaviors they are advocating.
In the area of character building, some parents themselves are confused about their choice of values. For example, in terms of how to deal with issues such as honesty and justice, parents themselves may not be particularly firm on them because there are quite a few contradictions and negative examples in real life. If such ideas are passed on to their children, it will be difficult for them to have correct and firm values, and when they go out into society, they will easily feel lost and confused in the face of reality. Therefore, I think it is necessary to remind Chinese parents to take a longer view when educating their children. China has entered the international arena, and we need to use international thinking and values to judge the phenomena in our lives, not to be distracted by negative examples, not to do negative things, and not to indoctrinate our children with negative thoughts.
Good parents can create a relaxed environment for their children to grow up in, they only give advice and help when their children encounter confusion, they are better at guiding their children and communicating with them rather than imposing certain expectations or values on them.
Raise children who are good learners.
In today's "teaching to the test" learning environment, it is difficult for us to completely ignore our children's academic performance. However, children face a lot of pressure in such an environment. We need to be more understanding and not always put unrealistic goals on them, and don't have the idea that "what they haven't achieved themselves, they must achieve on their children, regardless of whether they are willing or not, or whether they are talented or not. Too high a goal or unreasonable expectations will only put too much pressure on the child and make them feel guilty for feeling sorry for their parents. Therefore, parents should not put too much emphasis on their children's academic performance, as long as they are doing their best; they do not always have to ask their children to be number one, as long as they are improving today compared to yesterday. In fact, for children, laying a good foundation and really mastering learning methods are far more important than academic performance.
Parents should try to rationalize their expectations as much as possible. You can ask your child to do a little better each time than the last so that they can slowly improve. If you see unreasonable or unrealistic goals, your child may give up early on.
Parents should try to turn their expectations of their child into suggestions. This does not mean, of course, that the child should be allowed to go off on his own or that he should give up his right to fulfill his parental restraint, but rather that he should try to guide the child properly.
Parents should not compare their own children to others. This will only foster a one-sided competitive mentality in the child and will be a considerable obstacle to the teamwork they will have to engage in as they enter society.
It is also said to the child that when learning, don't just focus on the dead knowledge in the book. In my book, Be the Best You Can Be, I explain four realms of learning.
Realm I. Familiarity: learning under the guidance of the teacher, mastering the content of the textbook and knowing the answers to questions.
Realm 2. the ability to think, to learn, and to know what is right and wrong.
Realm 3. no teacher: having mastered the methods of self-study and self-study, one can learn on one's own initiative without a tutor.
The fourth realm is the integration of knowledge and understanding: the knowledge learned can be flexibly applied to life and work practice, know how to do and behave.
As a parent, I hope we can take every opportunity to help our children improve their learning and help them move from rote memorization to mastery of the subject.
Parents should encourage their children to go to the library and the internet to learn and gain knowledge. Nowadays, the Internet is an ocean of knowledge, including the best interactive tools for learning English, all the courses at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and student support communities such as "Kaifu Student Network", which are very helpful for children's growth. Of course, there are also many negative temptations on the Internet, so it is best for parents to always tell their children the right way to learn on the Internet.
Parents should encourage their children to study for the sake of studying, not just for grades. For example, once when my daughter took a test, there was a question that she thought she got half right, but it was judged all wrong. At the time, I asked her to ask the teacher, but she didn't want to go because the teacher would not give her extra credit. I took the opportunity to tell her that the purpose of asking the teacher was to learn and discuss with her the correct way to solve the problem, not to get extra credit because the score wasn't that important.
Parents should encourage their children to work on their own, encourage them to solve real-world problems with the knowledge they have just acquired, and let them know that learning is useful, not to get high marks. You may all remember how boring it was to memorize historical eras or math formulas while studying! If you don't use what you've learned, you'll have to return it to the teacher as soon as you've memorized it. I suggest that parents and friends do some "hands-on learning" with their children without interfering with their children's learning. For example, when my child was learning about exponential concepts, we asked her to calculate the interest rate on a bank passbook. When she saw that the interest rate accumulated exponentially from year to year and eventually became a fortune, her understanding of exponential was no longer limited to books. When she studied U.S. history, I asked her to do a lively assignment: to recreate a piece of American history using computer animation and our "lively" voiceover. There's an adage that says, "What I hear I forget, what I see I remember, and what I do I really understand." This is a really effective quote when it comes to teaching your children.
In fact, the most important thing is to inspire your child to take active responsibility for his or her own learning. As my children were growing up, I would work with teachers to help them set their own learning goals and take spontaneous responsibility for their own learning. When my eldest daughter was in middle school, every six months the school would ask students to set a learning goal, and after six months they would measure whether they had met it. In the past, my daughter was shy and didn't understand or dare to ask questions in class. So she set a goal with my help: to ask questions in class every day, to clarify the questions she didn't understand, and to measure whether she did it or not at the end of class every day. Later, she was able to achieve this goal every day, but she noticed that she didn't like to participate in the discussion in class except for asking questions. So when she set her next goal, she asked herself to participate in at least one discussion every day.
Third, develop a child who is autonomous and independent
In China, parents care for their children very deeply and are afraid that their children will be hurt. So they are more protective of their children, but they don't dare to let go and let them experience growth on their own. This approach can make children very dependent. Some parents like to help their children design their own life plans, but this usually makes them lose sight of their real interests and hobbies, and lose their right to make their own choices.
The twenty-first century will be the century of "self-determination". The famous management scientist Peter Druker (Peter Druker) pointed out: because the information age has replaced the industrial age, the world is in equal, borderless competition and decentralized, free management mode, "future historians will say that the most important thing in this century is not the innovation of technology or networks, but a major change in the human condition. In this century, people will have more choices, and they will have to actively manage themselves."
In fact, no matter how dependent children are on their parents, when they enter college or society, they must decide for themselves their own careers, their own teachers, their own bosses, their own companies, decide whether to start their own business or work in a company, whether to study engineering or commerce... They are faced with choices every day, and what they need most is to Independence, responsibility, the ability to make choices and judgments. A child who grows up memorizing knowledge, passively obeying others, or waiting for others to make decisions for him will not be taken seriously, if not fail, when he enters society. Your child has to survive, compete and succeed in such a society. Therefore, he must have the ability to make his own choices.
Once, the founders of Google, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, were interviewed by the TV media. The reporter asked them which school you should attribute your success to. At the time, they didn't answer Stanford University or the University of Michigan, they answered - Montessori Elementary School, because that elementary school's free-flowing learning style and educational philosophy of no negative input provided a good foundation for their independence. Under the influence of the Montessori educational environment, they learned to "take charge of their own affairs and solve their own problems". It is such a positive educational approach to give them the courage to try, positive autonomy, self-driven behavior and habits, for them to bring the world's attention to success.
So, how do you develop your child's ability to make their own choices? I propose here five "dos" and five "don'ts".
Teach your children to "think for themselves". From an early age, let your children take care of their own affairs. Make sure they understand that no one should try to pass the buck and let someone else pre-plan or clean up after them. Make sure they learn from their failures and don't do everything for your child. You can help your child analyze the process of failure to help them be better self-reflective, and you can tell them what you would do to improve their judgment.
It is important to leave the choice to your child and let him or her be the master of the situation. Although you are quite sure what to do, you should give your child a choice so that he can learn to decide independently. He will learn much more from his own mistakes than he will from your proper guidance. Let your child know that there are some things that parents can offer advice on, but the final decision is yours; and, as you grow up, these things will become more and more common. I remember when I was 5 years old, my parents wanted me to go to kindergarten, but I wanted to go to elementary school, so they gave me the choice: "If you can get in, I'll let you." I will remember this for the rest of my life because it was the first time I knew that a 5 year old actually had a choice. I especially cherished that choice, so I studied hard and actually got into the school I wanted to go to.
You have to train your children to be responsible. More guidance, less criticism. In the past, I used to do everything for my son, but later I realized that this actually cultivated the habit of irresponsibility in him. But I later found out that this has actually cultivated irresponsible habits in him," said Taiwanese author Lawrence Liu.