What is most important in educating children?

A year has passed since my son almost committed suicide, and I can finally say these things calmly. I graduated from a prestigious university and pride myself on my ability to educate children, so I put extra effort into educating my son. My son is also very up to date. He has been the legendary \”other people\’s child\” since he was a child, and I have the capital to show off. He is well-behaved and sensible, not very talkative, but his academic performance is very good and he ranks first in the school every year. But this state only lasted until he was 14 years old. That night during self-study, the class teacher called me, \”Come to school quickly, your son is going to jump off the building…\” When I heard this, blood rushed to my forehead, and I rushed straight to school without changing my pajamas. When I arrived, my son had already been rescued. I wanted to step forward to comfort him, but when my son saw me, he stared at me with a cold look that I had never seen before. The look in my son\’s eyes made me shudder, and the head teacher came over and told me, \”Your son may be suffering from depression. It\’s best to take him to see a doctor.\” Later, I took my son to see a psychiatrist, and he was diagnosed with depression. Depression. I asked the doctor, \”How is it possible? My son is doing well in everything, so how could he suffer from depression?\” The doctor had obviously heard many such questions, and just asked me to tell him how I had educated my children since childhood. That year, my son was 4 years old. He had just entered kindergarten, and before he could speak eloquently, I began to have high hopes for him. In order for him to successfully enter a prestigious school in the future, I signed up for a children\’s English extracurricular class with a tuition of more than 10,000 yuan without blinking an eye. Of course, optical English is not enough in my opinion. I went on to arrange painting classes, calligraphy classes, Go classes, and a series of other courses that I thought were valuable for my son, which filled up all my time outside of kindergarten. At first, my son was reluctant. He would cry every day when he went to the interest class, shouting: \”I don\’t want to go, I don\’t like it.\” Of course, how could I let him get his wish and educate his son with a stick? It stopped making noise instantly. After doing this a lot, my son naturally stopped crying and went to various cram schools step by step according to my plan every day. I was very proud at the time and lamented that he knew how to restrain his nature at a young age and was able to endure hardships. That year, my son was 7 years old. I used all my connections, gave gifts and treated guests, and finally got my son into the best elementary school in the district. But I am still not satisfied, because the subjects in primary school are gradually increasing and the questions are becoming more difficult. My son rarely gets full marks in the exam. How can this be done? In order to give my son a sense of crisis, I often compared him with my neighbor Lei Lei. \”Look at Lei Lei, he has never missed a word in dictation. When can you do this…\” \”Look at Lei Lei, he has already passed level 3 in piano. Let\’s look at what you play…\” \”It\’s not as good as cultural classes. Even if he goes to school, he can\’t run no matter how hard he runs. If only Lei Lei were my son…\” It\’s not that my son is really that bad, I just want him to be better. But as a result, my son became increasingly bored and often stayed in his room without going out. Sometimes he likes to be alone when I take him out; when Lei Lei came to play at home, my son couldn\’t hold back a sentence for a long time. At this time, I couldn\’t help scolding: \”I don\’t expect you to study better than others. Look at Lei Lei when he comes to play at home. Auntie\’s voice is so sweet and generous. This isCan\’t do it either? Your parents taught you this in vain. The son said weakly: \”Lei Lei is very strong in all aspects. I don\’t want to play with him.\” I was very angry after hearing this, but patiently guided him: \”Then you should study hard and strive to surpass him. He is so powerful, but your grades are so poor, you are not worthy of being someone\’s friend.\” \”My son obviously listened to it. He works even harder after school every day. He often does the papers at night until after 11 o\’clock. Sometimes he even gives himself \”overtime\” if he can\’t get 100 points. Seeing his son working so hard, he understands it at a young age. Pursuing perfection, as a mother, I was filled with joy. That year, my son was 11 years old. CCTV recommended over 500 high-scoring excellent documentaries. The child watched the Pattern Explosion and became addicted to self-discipline. This year he was in fifth grade. For a whole year, I was better than He was nervous and held on to his grades even more tightly. I knew my son was very tired, but there was nothing I could do about it. If you want to go to a good middle school, you must have an excellent \”junior to junior high school\” resume. Therefore, in addition to the necessary schoolwork, I also hired a one-on-one tutor for him, helped him write speeches to improve his ranking in competitions, gave gifts to teachers to ask them to take more care of him, and analyzed all the ways to advance to key middle schools… I consider myself a qualified mother. , \”working hard\” for his children to enter a prestigious school. And I just asked him when he was third in the class: \”Who is first in grade?\” What\’s your rank in grade? \”But I also hope that he can make progress, and I don\’t let him go out to endure hardships and hardships. For his study, I didn\’t even have a good night\’s sleep for a year, and it was not easy for me. That year, my son was 12 years old. This It was a long summer vacation after the sixth grade, and my son finally entered the city\’s key middle school. The study in junior high school will be more intense, so this summer vacation must not be wasted. It is a good opportunity to overtake in corners. In order to better supervise my son\’s study , I even gave up my job and took two months off to concentrate on being my son’s “full-time caregiver.” For two full months, I made a strict summer vacation plan for my son, including physical exercise, subject study, and talent cultivation. Arrangements were made for my son when he landed. Every morning, I used an electric car to personally take my son to the high-priced \”junior class for primary school to junior high school\” to study in advance. At noon, I was afraid of delaying time, so I prepared lunch and sent it to the cram school for the child to eat. After that, I used the lunch break to memorize 50 English words; at six o\’clock in the evening, I hurriedly took my son back for dinner. After all, I had two special classes scheduled for the evening, which I had to attend every day. What I did Everything was not in vain. My son ranked first in his grade in the first monthly exam in the first grade of junior high school. I was overjoyed and felt that what I had done was not in vain. I simply quit my job and devoted myself to being my son\’s \”housekeeper\”. My daily task was I watched him study and made various study plans for him. That year, my son was 14 years old. During that time, my son was a little strange. He would lock the door as soon as he came home. But I didn’t care until I saw my son’s midterm exam. After the ranking dropped by more than 10 places, I vaguely felt that things were not simple. During dinner, I wanted to talk to my son about this exam. As soon as I asked him to sit down, he suddenly yelled at me, pushed the table down, and even I hit my head against the wall. Seeing my son like this, I was frightened and hugged him quickly.Thinking of him pushing me away and muttering: \”It\’s all your fault, it\’s all because of you. I\’ve had enough of these breathless days, what\’s the point of living like this?\” I frowned and looked at my son. After a long vent, I thought he was feeling bad because he failed in the exam, so he said: \”It\’s okay, it doesn\’t matter if he failed in the exam once or twice, as long as…\” Before I could finish my words, my son, who was about to calm down, suddenly broke away from me and said, He rushed into his room. When I saw my son in such a state, I thought about going to his school to ask, but I didn\’t expect that before I took the initiative to go, my son\’s school called me the next day saying that he was going to jump off the building. After hearing everything, the psychiatrist sighed and said: \”Your son is a good boy, but you are not a qualified mother.\” Seeing that I was still confused, he continued: \”The child has been suffering from your excessive expectations for a long time. He forces himself to meet your requirements, but your requirements are getting more and more strict. At first, he can still meet your requirements, but after a long time, he can\’t persist!\” \”On the other hand, once he can\’t Realizing this high-pressure expectation will lead to increased self-blame, guilt, and pressure, and finally fall into self-denial and negative emotions that cannot be extricated.\” \”Now that he has finally exploded and cannot bear it anymore, as a parent, how are you going to deal with it? ?” The doctor’s words gave me a blow: It turns out that I have been destroying my child unknowingly. After that day, I deeply reflected on myself. If the child is not healthy physically and mentally, what is the use of having high scores? After learning from the pain, I consulted a doctor, and with his help, I began to try to change. The first step is to apologize to the child and let go of the strict requirements on the son. In the past, my son would not put the bowl in the right place when eating, there would be typos in the homework, and points would be deducted in the exam… I would be blamed for any of them. After I went home after seeing the doctor that day, I solemnly apologized to my son: \”I\’m sorry, son, you are excellent and great, but your mother is too harsh on you. Mom and dad love you very much, the whole you, not you with good grades. I hope you can forgive mom.\” The son cried after hearing this. He said that he always felt useless and thought that his parents would only love him if he got good grades. \”Mom, I know you and Dad have paid a lot for me, but every day from morning to night you only interfere with my study. It seems that if I almost study, you will leave. Sometimes I wish I had never been born.\” What my son said , makes me feel guilty. After that day, I prepared a diary filled with my son’s good qualities. Every time I wanted to criticize my son, I would take it out and look at it first. Instead of focusing on his minor flaws, I tried to praise my son every day. When my son makes a mistake, I try not to criticize him and give him time and opportunity to correct. When I did this, I noticed that my son smiled significantly more at home and his interactions with me gradually increased. The second step is to turn your attention from your child\’s study to life. Zhou Guoping, a parent who is not a chicken kid, once said: Every child is different. What you can do is to love this difference and understand this difference. Let this difference become value. After that, I began to try to understand my son, let go of my obsession with his grades, and focus more on his life. Except for the necessary schoolwork, I left the rest of the time to him to arrange by himself, including clothes.Food, housing, transportation, social life… In this process, I always remind myself: my son is not my accessory, I believe he can do a good job. After doing this, the children gained a little more confidence and vitality. After having their own opinions and thoughts, they no longer hesitated to speak out. The third step is to deal with my anxiety first, and then solve the child\’s problem. After being reminded by the psychiatrist, I found that I was extremely anxious about my son\’s education: if my son\’s grades dropped slightly, I would yell and scream for him. I made up lessons and passed on this anxiety to my children; when my son didn’t do anything right, I took the matter seriously and even attacked him personally. This is not a good way to raise children. As Orison Madden said: \”At no time should a person be a slave to his own emotions. No matter how bad the situation is, you should strive to dominate your environment and save yourself from the darkness.\” Therefore, With the help of a psychiatrist, I learned a rule for managing emotions: when encountering a problem, deal with the emotion first and then solve the problem. After that, every time I encountered something related to my son, I would make a list of emotions for myself, write down my mood at that time, and feel the changes. Slowly, when facing my son, I became more and more able to stabilize my emotions and no longer contradicted him at every turn. Instead, I learned to \”shut your mouth and listen with your ears\” so that my son could feel my patience and love for him. At the same time, I also taught this method to my son and guided him to manage his emotions. Now a year has passed, and my son has recovered more than half, but when I wrote this article, I still burst into tears and kept asking myself: What is our original intention of having children? What kind of child do we want to raise? Is academic performance really the only value in a child’s life? Once upon a time, I might have been very sure that the best would survive and the losers would be eliminated. But now, I realize that throughout our lives, our greatest wish as parents is that our children will be sunny and mentally healthy, rather than ranking first. mutual encouragement.