Tell your children: “Being able to lose” is more important than winning

My daughter Xinxin, who has just entered the kindergarten class, keeps coming home with one word coming out of her mouth recently – \”first place\”! I have never said this word to her. It must have something to do with her kindergarten life. I couldn\’t help \”gossip\”: \”Xinxin, what did you do to get first place in the class? English?\” \”No…\” \”What about shooting ball?\” I thought of her recent \”hard practice\” at home. . \”No, Mom.\” Her voice was obviously softer. Suddenly, her eyes lit up and she spoke faster with excitement: \”Mom, I drink water first! I drink it every time, and I finish it first!\” As she said, she also Demonstrate it. Oh, it\’s really not easy. My girl, I feel sorry for you for half a second… Xinxin\’s father heard it from the side and came over to hug her: \”Baby, you don\’t have to be the first to drink water. Just drink as much as you can. Don\’t choke.\” It\’s on fire!\” But Xinxin didn\’t feel her father\’s love at all, so she didn\’t listen and went to play. After some time passed, I found that I was becoming more and more obsessed with the concept of \”number one\”. Not just her, but also the children in the same kindergarten. We arranged to go out to play together, and several children would argue over why they should be \”the first to wash their hands\”, \”the first to choose donuts\”, \”the first to order\”… and they would get red-faced and lose their temper. Xinxin is even more domineering at home. For example, in order to be the first to go up the stairs, she stipulated that her father and I would wait below until she finished climbing the stairs before we could go up. When playing the game of police catching a thief, she designated me as the thief and stipulated that I should \”stay where I am.\” \”, waiting for her to catch him alive. Such \”unreasonable\” things are simply too numerous to enumerate. In traditional kindergartens, in order to encourage children to perform better and better, teachers often use methods such as \”setting an example\” and \”evaluating first place\”, which I can understand. It is undeniable that the general environment is like this. You still have to rank in school! Many parents also think there is nothing wrong with it, and they even often \”motivate\” their children in this way on weekdays. They believe that since children will inevitably be involved in competition when they grow up, it is better to cultivate children\’s sense of competition early to improve their abilities in this area. But is encouraging “competition” really necessary? In the short term, this seems to be what everyone must face when growing up. But what about when we extend the timeline? Children’s book mother Rei Mikawa discussed this issue very clearly in her article “At a class reunion 20 years after graduation, I discovered 5 rules that determine success or failure in life.” By analyzing the development path of her classmates 20 years later, she discovered that the factors that really determine the outcome of life are not the competitive grades and studies at that time, but strong curiosity, harmonious interpersonal relationships, and beautiful and noble character. This conclusion she drew from real life experience was also expressed by psychologist Li Xue. She gave the example of Apple\’s success, which is not the result of winning the competition with Nokia, but the result of Jobs following his heart and creating his favorite mobile phone. Going back to the issue of children\’s education, not only is it unnecessary to encourage competition among children, but over-emphasis on \”competition\” is also extremely harmful. First of all, the major premise is wrong. When encouraging competition, the most important thing between people is ignored.Basic \”individual differences\” cannot find the shining point of the individual, but the whole group is running towards the goal of a single social standard. Secondly, the big standard of \”achievement\” is not entirely reliable. Everyone\’s niche and timing of success are different. What about the legendary \”other people\’s children\”? Will they be the beneficiaries of \”competition\”? In fact, this is not the case. They can obviously challenge themselves with the spirit of \”faster, higher, stronger\”, but their imagination is often limited by our reference points, and they become narrow-minded and complacent, unable to become a high-level figure like \”Jobs\” . There really is no absolute \”winner\” in this competition. So, in such an atmosphere, how can we intelligently guide children to avoid the harm of competition while improving their strength? Details determine success or failure, let’s start with communication! 1 Iterative update of the classic sentence pattern to version 1.0 that we are familiar with: \”Look how fast people eat!\” \”How well they write their homework!\” \”Why aren\’t people afraid?\” \”Why are others so #%@#￥ %@…\” This type of statement can easily cause children to ignore the matter itself and use others as the standard for comparison. It can also cause children to feel inferior, jealous or dismissive. Correct 2.0 upgraded version: \”Today you finished all the food and you were not picky about food, which is great. But I think it\’s a bit slow. I\’ll try it tomorrow. Can you finish the food in less than 40 minutes?\” \”It\’s for homework today. I studied for 2 hours and got 4 questions wrong, which is a big improvement compared to yesterday. Tomorrow we will see if we can shorten the time and make fewer mistakes?\” In short, it is to evaluate things correctly and make mistakes correctly. Not to people. From this, children will clearly know the direction of improvement, making it easier to focus on the things themselves, constantly challenging themselves, and becoming more confident. 2 small details to promote children\’s thinking upgrade. First, take a look at the commonly used version 1.0: \”You scored 100 points in this exam, you are awesome!\” \”You completed such a difficult puzzle, so smart!\” \”You won the third place in this Go competition. First place, I know you have talent!\” And the 2.0 version is like this: \”This time the results are good, it can be seen that this is the result of your recent efforts!\” \”Such a difficult puzzle has been completed, mom found that you are very good He is good at finding patterns and has a good grasp of the order of the puzzles!\” \”You won first place in this Go competition. It seems that half an hour of practice every day is very effective.\” Those of you who are careful may have discovered that version 1.0 places too much emphasis on results. , children will care very much about \”winning or losing\”. They will be arrogant when they win, cannot accept it when they lose, and have no sense of normalcy. Moreover, because children are often praised for being \”smart and talented\”, it is easy for children to form a \”fixed mindset\”. The 2.0 version guides children to learn from the process, encourages children\’s efforts, habits and persistence, and helps children develop a \”growth mindset.\” Research by Carol Dweck, a professor at Stanford University, shows that compared to a \”fixed mindset\”, children with a \”growth mindset\” are \”ability incrementalists\”. They are more able to have fun in the process, have resilience, and value themselves more. Whether you learned something from it, not whether you passed the test. Above areThere are some basic principles for parents to guide their children to pursue their own progress without overly caring about \”winning or losing.\” If a child is already particularly obsessed with \”winning or losing\”, as shown at the beginning of the article, how should we guide the child to view it correctly? The answer: play games with your kids. Dr. Cohen, the author of \”Game Power\”, mentioned that one of the important meanings of games between adults and children is that we can let children win. With us, children can feel confident and get rid of the feeling of powerlessness. In fact, Wentou’s heart has already given a solution. how to say? Xinxin invited me to play a game of climbing the stairs with her, and at the same time she made an \”unequal treaty\” – I had to wait for her to go up before I went up. This is exactly the signal for children to heal themselves in the virtual world of games. Yes, children will not take the initiative to tell you: I feel stupid and can never win against others. Games are children’s language. Understanding this, I took advantage of the situation. According to the rules of my heart, I exaggeratedly acted out the sadness and unwillingness of a \”loser\”. After playing this game repeatedly for nearly a month, Xinxin was initially amused by my reaction, and then began to comfort me, \”This is just a game\” and \”It doesn\’t matter if you lose, try your best next time!\” I knew she was no longer there. Obsessed. Sure enough, after a while, she no longer asked to play such games, and rarely said \”I want to be the first\” anymore. Of course, there is another type of children with the exact opposite situation: they are the \”constantly victorious generals\” among their peers, but they cannot accept any small failure. For such children, we can play games related to \”winning and losing\” with them to reduce their concern about winning and losing. For example, we can play the game of \”tossing a coin\”. If the coin comes up heads, it means \”win\”, and if the coin comes up heads, it means \”lose\”. The point of the game is for both parties to exaggerate their emotions after winning or losing. For example, the winning party can do a \”victory dance\” while proudly shouting, \”I am the best coin tosser in the world!\” while the losing party can show chest-beating and disbelief. In such a situation where winning and losing can switch quickly, focusing on emotions is like a mirror, allowing children to see themselves with an unbalanced mentality and leaving them room to think. As parents, on the one hand, we want to cultivate our children\’s abilities and hope that they will have more choices, more dignity, and more dignity in the future; on the other hand, in the face of the social tide, we hope that they will always be kind, know how to cooperate, and Be altruistic and tolerant, rather than becoming an exquisite egoist, because we know that this is the source of happiness in life, and it is also the key to winning the marathon of life.