How to cultivate good habits in children from an early age?

90% of people’s daily behavior is governed by habits. Steve Jobs said this: “In the first 30 years of your life, you develop habits. In the last 30 years of your life, your habits determine You.\” In fact, many habits in life are formed in childhood, especially between the ages of 3 and 10, which is a critical period for the development of character, behavior and habits. Parents know the importance of habits, but it is difficult to help their children develop good habits. In today\’s article, we share three tips that can effectively help children develop long-term good habits. We hope to inspire everyone. Tip 1: The environment is the soil for good habits. Adhering to good habits is not as simple as just relying on willpower. The influence of the environment has always been underestimated. Sociologist David Halpern once mentioned such a story in a book: Children\’s emotional intelligence training + explosive learning ability + the power of good habits + thinking ability training series of parenting courses If there are a lot of leaflets scattered on the ground , then people are 8 times more likely to throw flyers on the ground than if the ground is clean. In fact, many people don\’t like or approve of littering, but when others around them do it, they will choose to follow the crowd. A \”clean floor\” is a good environment, which provides a seemingly inconspicuous but actually very effective psychological resistance to the emergence of bad habits. It is also very instructive to look at this example in family education: children don’t like to tidy up, and things on the table are often messy and disorderly. We try to ensure that the family environment is neat and clean, so that children are “embarrassed” to destroy it. When children are addicted to mobile phones, we help distract them and take them to play with other things so that they can’t think of mobile phones; children are greedy for snacks, so try not to see snacks everywhere at home, put them away, and increase the number of snacks. It will be more difficult for children to eat snacks and their snacking behavior will be effectively reduced… For these bad habits, we can create resistance through the environment to make it difficult for bad habits to develop. An important concept was proposed in \”The Psychology of Habits\”: friction. The greater the friction, the greater the resistance. To get rid of bad habits, we need to create an environment for children to increase the friction of habits. As for good habits, we can also help create them through the environment, making it easier to implement them. We all know that students’ learning results in dormitories and at home are far less effective than in study rooms and libraries. This is the impact of the environment on children\’s behavior. A bad environment makes it increasingly difficult for children with good habits to persist, while a good environment allows children with bad habits to reflect and change and start taking action. There was a child who did not like to drink water before and would not think of drinking water until he was thirsty. Later, his mother prepared several large-capacity water bottles and placed them in the corners of the house where the child spends most of his time. The amount of water the child drank It increased. It is much easier to change the situation than the child. In the same way, if we want our children to read a few more pages, we should put books within reach as widely as possible… to ensure that when children want to read, they can easily pick up a book. If you want your child to concentrate on studying, try to give him a quiet area without too many clutter., try to keep toys, snacks, electronic products and other things that can easily distract children out of sight. All in all, whatever habits you want your child to develop, you can help him by changing the environment, removing obstacles in the environment, and allowing the child\’s words, deeds, and conduct to be initially nurtured in the environment. Tip 2: Good habits need to start simple and easy. A Chinese teacher once told a story: When he first became the third-grade teacher, he especially wanted to help students develop the habit of writing diaries, but this was difficult for many children. It\’s hard to keep going. He thought of a way and told the children: There is no limit to the number of words in the diary, even one sentence is enough. When the children heard this, they were extremely happy. After all, this request was so simple that they could easily adhere to it with almost no effort. As time goes by, some children find that one sentence is not enough to express their day, and they start to write longer and longer. The most important thing is that they do not feel that this is a task assigned by the teacher, which is full of pain and resistance. Surprisingly, even in fourth grade, there are still many children who insist on keeping diaries. Friend, this story reminds me of the experience of Stephen Gass, author of \”Small Habits\”. Stephen planned to exercise for 30 minutes every day. Like most people, he was motivated at first, but he persisted for two weeks and gave up due to various reasons. For this reason, he changed his mind: reduce the intensity of the challenge. From the original \”exercise for 30 minutes every day\” to \”complete one push-up every day\”, this thing may not sound meaningful, but the feeling of easily succeeding and maintaining success made Stephen persevere. He used this kind of ultra-simple challenge to lure himself. After completing one, he would do another one, and slowly exceed the target until it became inertia. He wrote in the book: \”The first step forward is always the most important.\” Therefore, when we start to cultivate children\’s habits, we should also make the first step simple and easy. For children, the most effective way to motivate children to persist in doing something for a long time is the inner sense of accomplishment, and some ultra-small, ultra-simple steps can best stimulate children\’s sense of accomplishment. The reason why some children have difficulty developing good habits is because they are afraid of difficulties from the beginning. In order to make their children fall in love with reading, many parents buy many books for their children from the beginning, even \”big\” classics. The children cannot read them at all, and their reading interest is extinguished by the parents before it even sprouts. The correct approach is: At the beginning, we should not expect children to read a book completely in a short time, but start with picture books, from simple to difficult, from easy to deep, and the difficulty is gradually increased. Some classics can be read from 1 book a day. Chapters, pages start. Another example is housework. It is difficult for children to do well at first, so start with things that can be done easily, such as returning things to their original places. After returning home, hang up coats in time, put shoes back in the shoe cabinet, and read books. Put it back on the bookshelf immediately… To develop good habits, you need a good start. Break the plan into small goals. As long as the child achieves it, parents can use encouragement to strengthen this behavior, and the child\’s sense of accomplishment will increase bit by bit. . Good habits are built over time and slowly. It is not advisable to set goals that are too big or too difficult at the beginning. Tip 3: Let your children experience good habitsBenefits If you ask everyone, what are the learning habits you most want your children to develop? Then when you go home from school and take the initiative to do your homework, you will definitely be on the list. There is a photo that has been widely circulated in parent groups: It is dark at night, under the street lamp, a little girl puts her schoolbag on the ground as a writing desk, squatting and doing her homework with concentration. It turned out that the little girl was waiting for her mother at the school gate. Thinking she still had some time, she simply started writing her homework on the ground. This makes many parents envious: \”They are really other people\’s children!\” When asked about her educational experience, the little girl\’s mother explained: \”Since the children were in elementary school, we have emphasized to them that they should finish their homework carefully and they can play. Over time, children will also find that if they finish their homework early every day, they will have more time to do the things they like. After the third grade, consciously doing homework has become her most basic study habit. Let’s take a look at what some impatient parents do: as soon as their children get out of school, their parents will follow them, urging and yelling. The more their children linger, the harder the parents will push them. Gradually, the child subconsciously equates doing homework after school with pain. When he feels that doing homework is painful, he will become more and more resistant. In fact, we don’t need to always wave a stick when we want our children to do something. Instead, we should clarify the positive consequences of things with them and use purposeful instructions to mobilize their enthusiasm. Let children realize that good habits do not restrict freedom, but create freedom. For example, if you want your child to get up on time, you can say: \”Baby, if you get up now, you can eat your favorite wontons at the corner of the street!\” For example, if you want your child to go out without delaying, you can say : \”If we put on our shoes and go out now, we won\’t have to wait in long lines at the amusement park, and we can play with bumper cars for a while longer!\” This kind of expression is much better than direct threats and urgings. It can make children realize: within the specified time It turns out there are so many benefits to getting things done. In addition to this, there is another \”benefit\” of art that parents appreciate. For example, housework, it is generally difficult for children to feel any pleasure from this kind of work. A parent once posted a photo on Moments of her son, who was in the third grade of junior high school, making breakfast for her. His son, who was not usually in the habit of doing housework, made a sandwich for his mother on a whim, which moved her mother for a long time. This circle of friends was seen by his son and turned into a \”disguised encouragement\”. When he saw his mother so happy, he realized the value and significance of serving his family, and he made breakfast more often. Psychological \”rewards\” are very useful to children. Therefore, when a child\’s behavior is approaching good habits, we must provide timely encouragement to strengthen the child\’s correct behavior, such as \”This time I did it without my mother reminding me!\”, \”The toys are neatly packed away\”, \” This time you did much better than last time!” The more positive feedback a child receives after doing something, the more it will reinforce the behavior. After talking about so many methods, I would like to remind everyone that developing good habits does not happen overnight. There is no \”crash course\”. We can only pay close attention to and guide our children while they are young and have strong plasticity, and urge them to persist. Only in the future can we be nourished by good habits.