How to cultivate children’s consciousness and initiative

Watching the show \”After School\”, you can feel the helplessness of a mother through the screen. The girl Yinuo is usually lively and active, but when she starts writing homework, she becomes \”lazy\” and makes her mother worried: a page of oral arithmetic problems that can be completed in 5 minutes, she lies on the table in a daze with a pen, and it lasts for an hour or two. After scoring 70 points on the exam, it is difficult to understand why my deskmate still cried when he scored 98 points on the exam. Her younger brother cheered her up and told her, \”If you do well, you will surpass all the children,\” and the teacher will like her. She was unmoved and asked three questions from her soul: \”Why should I work hard?\” \”Why should I surpass them?\” \”Why should the teacher like me?\” This indifferent attitude towards learning almost made my mother angry. She really didn\’t understand why she could be so Buddhist. However, similar scenarios abound. Whether it is weekends or holidays, if you supervise your children, you will work harder. If you don\’t supervise your children, they will start acting like monsters. I always have to write my homework very late and play for a while, which is very inefficient. According to the teacher’s feedback after class, children often get distracted in class and do not listen carefully. They often fail class tests, let alone the big test. I thought about sending him to a cram school to strengthen his learning, but no matter how wonderful and profound the teacher\’s lectures were, if the child didn\’t review after class, no expensive teacher could help him. Saint-Exupéry, author of The Little Prince, said: “If you want people to build a ship, don’t hire people to collect wood, don’t give orders, don’t assign tasks, but stimulate their desire for the ocean. \”This is true for children as well. If a child\’s growth cannot be sustained only by external forces, no matter how high others support him, it will be useless if he does not want to change. If you want your child to be proactive and know how to manage and arrange himself, the most important thing is to awaken his inner motivation. Only spontaneous internal drive can truly enable him to continuously improve and make progress. Reduce the pressure and yelling to let the children experience more \”peak moments\”. In \”Super Parenting Teacher\”, there is a boy named Bai Chen who will have a \”mother-child war\” with his mother every time he does homework. His mother felt that he was procrastinating and would always go to the bedroom every half hour to see how he was writing. When she saw that the handwriting was not good, she would erase it without saying a word, and kept scolding him: \”What he wrote was not a handwriting at all.\” Is this the way homework should be?\” \”Whose children are like you?\” If you don\’t write, you will be scolded, and if you do, you will be scolded. This makes Bai Chen extremely heartbroken, and he can only simply and rudely tell his mother \” Roar” out. After his mother left, he wrote out his homework one stroke at a time. In fact, what affects Bai Chen\’s motivation is not laziness, but the lack of quiet and free space at home where he can focus and enjoy the joy of learning. Hungarian mathematician Polya Gyorgi proposed a \”Polya jar\” model. At the beginning, there is a white ball and a black ball in the jar. If you reach out and touch the black ball, you can put it back and put another black ball in. The next time you touch the ball, the probability of getting the black ball will be reduced from the original 50%. increased to 66%. If the black ball represents a child\’s rock bottom moment, then unpleasant memories filled with beatings, yelling, and even suppression will make it easier for the child to face a new rock bottom moment. If you want to stimulate his growth motivation and reduce the probability of the child touching the black ball, the most important thing is to increase the child\’s \”peak moment\”. in which he is immersed in a certain kind of concentrationWhen in this state, don’t disturb or put pressure on him, let him enjoy the happy emotional experience. The reason why many top academics have an endless inner drive to learn and explore is simply because their parents never create tension for them when they do what they like. Instead, they are allowed to have their own hobbies and independent free space, so as to awaken their motivation and drive themselves little by little. A must-read parenting book for parents recommends how to talk to children so they are willing to learn pdf. The secret to \”addiction\” in learning lies in instant feedback. Do you know why most children with insufficient internal drive are addicted to games? This has to do with the design principles of the game. Every time a level is played, the game will give the child instant feedback: if the level is successfully passed, there will be a reward; even if the level is not passed, the child will be given a chance to play again. In this process of constantly obtaining feedback, children will naturally become more enthusiastic and \”addicted\” as they play. The famous \”Skinner\’s reinforcement experiment\” also illustrates this point well. American psychologist Skinner placed mice in a special device box. As long as the mice press the metal plate, they can get food. After several operations, the mouse understood this rule well. As long as it wanted food, it would actively press the metal plate. Experts point out that the mice do this because they have immediate feedback and generate strong motivation under positive reinforcement rewards. Compared with games, children\’s learning has a \”lag effect\”. It is not possible to get feedback after learning a knowledge point or doing an exercise once. Sometimes even after studying for a period of time, children cannot see the results, so they choose to compromise and give up. If they want their children to like learning and have enough inner energy, parents can cleverly use \”instant feedback\” and use rewards to make their children \”addicted\”. \”Intimate sister\” Lu Qin never hesitates to praise her son. No matter what his son does, she always praises him as \”too good\” and \”it\’s different if he has a son or not.\” When her son poured tea for her, even if the tea was cold, she would drink it in one gulp and praise, \”It\’s great. I\’m thirsty. The hot spot will be better.\”; When her son learned to cook, even if he didn\’t do it well, she would Everyone immediately expressed that it was delicious. In this way, my son is very good at learning anything and can do everything. The more positive information is transmitted and the more timely it is, the more children can have a happy mood and be full of good expectations for the next study. The act of motivating a child makes him believe \”I can really do it.\” When my son was in fifth grade, he was elected by his teacher to be the host of the class meeting. When I heard about it at the time, my first reaction was \”Can you do it? I have never done anything like this.\” That simple sentence instantly dimmed the light in my son\’s eyes. When the teacher confirmed again, the son chose to refuse, saying that he did not know how to do it. It wasn’t until he was unconfident and submissive in doing things many times that I realized the problem: placing too much emphasis on the results without considering the process, which destroyed the child’s initiative. There is a \”self-fulfilling prophecy\” in psychology: people will always act in accordance with their own prophecies unconsciously, and eventually the prophecies will come true. When a child is influenced by the outside world and thinks that he \”can\’t\” or \”can\’t do it\”, his probability of taking the initiative will be greatly reduced, and the result will be really bad. If the feedback a child gets from his parents is \”I can do it\”, then his evaluation of himself will also positively guide him to keep working hard and achieve success.Gain greater motivation for growth. After realizing this, my husband and I decided to change the way we express ourselves to our son, fundamentally making him realize that he can do better. Once the whole family went on a trip together, and my husband, who was always used to making itinerary arrangements, specifically asked his son \”where he wanted to go\” and \”which hotel to book.\” At first, my son would just say he didn’t know and was very resistant. But my husband and I gave some guidance: In this season, which city is more suitable for travel, and whether it is better to stay in a hotel close to the scenic spot or the airport… We also encouraged my son to search for keywords online and try to compare plans. In the end, my son actually made a simple version of the guide. Although it was immature, the result was good. For this reason, I helped him review the plan and told him that the process of conceiving the plan is more important than writing the plan. If the process is correct, the result will generally not be bad. Inspiring children to work hard will allow them to see their own progress and growth. As long as he realizes that he can do it and has one or two successful experiences, he will gradually improve himself in the positive self-fulfilling prophecy. Strengthen the child\’s sense of honor and change his behavioral motivation. Teacher He Shengjun, an expert in behavioral design, shared the experience of a son \”finding\” his inner drive. In the past, my son was lazy when I asked him to write a composition. Every Sunday night, after finishing other homework, the composition was left unfinished. In order to help my son learn to write essays, my family bought him a large number of essay reference books, and sometimes inspired him by the side, but to no avail. By chance, Teacher He helped him post a short essay that he had finally compiled to an online social platform and posted it to his circle of friends. The article that night was well received and the reading volume soared. My son fully felt this \”moment of glory\”. Soon after, my son published several articles one after another. He did not need anyone to push him, and he started writing compositions spontaneously. For this reason, Teacher He pointed out that if you want to help children transform \”external motivation\” into \”internal motivation\” in the learning scene, you can create a sense of honor for the child and use this strong emotion to trigger the child\’s internal motivation. And this is also related to the \”Hawson effect\”. Professor Mayo, a psychologist from Harvard University, once conducted an experiment at the Huosen factory, and unexpectedly discovered that the female workers in the factory found themselves \”attentioned\”, so they began to work harder and prove themselves with actions. It can be seen that this sense of honor of \”being noticed\” has the most direct positive guiding effect on improving children. If a child who is trying to grow up can find a sense of presence and belonging in the eyes of his parents and teachers, he will change a hundred or a thousand times. If possible, post the certificates your child has received in a conspicuous place to encourage him and affirm his progress with practical actions; carefully record the praise and achievements he has received in his studies to encourage him to make progress step by step; even when he is doing On other things that are inconspicuous but important to him, magnify them appropriately so that he can try to show his best side. A child\’s sense of honor will subtly change his every move and awaken the inner strength of his life. Allow children to do \”useless work\” and give him the right to choose. Do you remember the girl in \”The Young Man\” whose father tore away 56 novels? I love literature and started writing novels in the third grade of elementary school, writing more than 300,000 words. But her father was dissatisfied that she was seriously partial to science and was not good at science.Her performance was unsatisfactory, and she claimed that \”writing novels wastes time\” and destroyed all the words she wrote one stroke at a time. On the surface, the father is correcting her not to do \”useless work\”. However, overly utilitarian differentiation of what the child does will not make the child better, but will only make it worse. Doing so will, to a large extent, make the child feel unable to do what he likes, deprive him of his right to choose, and attack his sense of autonomy. American psychologist Bandura proposed the concept of \”self-efficacy\” and interpreted it in children: If a child can use one of his abilities or skills to do things and has a sense of competence and achievement, then he will His sense of self-efficacy will give him enough confidence and drive to complete more difficult things. In other words, if the girl\’s father can allow her to continue writing novels, accept her hobby, and let her choose to study literature or science. Perhaps the self-efficacy a girl has when writing novels can help her better face the difficulties and challenges in learning mathematics and learn mathematics well at the right time. A child who cannot decide what to do or how to do it will have difficulty in being motivated to do other things, and it is even less likely that he will have a sense of self-efficacy and truly transfer his enthusiasm to difficult learning. Allow children to enjoy things that they are truly interested in and like, even if they seem \”useless\”, but this initiative and enthusiasm will build a solid bridge for children to fall in love with learning. Writer Mei Shiying has met countless parents who are worried about their children\’s lack of drive, and has also witnessed countless successful cases. In her opinion, helping children at critical moments and creating opportunities for children to believe in their own abilities can make children truly believe that they have the power to make themselves better. The whole process is called spiritual rise. The same goes for the ignition of drive. The child\’s sense of autonomy (I am), connection (I have it), and competence (I can) are the prerequisites, and parents\’ unconditional love is the key. Give your child a warm, tolerant, supportive, understanding, and encouraging growth environment to meet his underlying needs. Only in this way can children do what they like freely, confidently and consciously, and complete their own life tasks.