How to educate children to be smarter? Einstein’s five-word answer is unexpected

I just came back from a vacation in Sanya and didn’t have time to share my family travel tips, so today I’m sorting out the interesting reading notes. When I was reading the book \”Stories Know What to Do\” by Susan Perrault, the Australian Storyteller, I was very impressed by a story quoted in the opening chapter. A mother brought her 9-year-old son, who was somewhat of a child prodigy, to Einstein and asked how she could help her child learn mathematics better. Unexpectedly, Einstein said: ‘Tell him a story’. The mother insisted on asking questions about math, but Einstein said: \”If you want him to be smart, tell him stories; if you want him to be wise, tell him more stories.\” Einstein on stories and The perspective of imagination refreshed Susan Perot\’s understanding and allowed her to begin to connect stories, imagination, and education. Then, during her decades of educational career, she has been dedicated to researching the creation of children\’s healing stories and published a series of story-related books. For example, the \”Stories Know What to Do\” series and the picture book \”Stories Always Have Magic\”. I grew up loving listening to and reading stories, and I have always felt that the meaning of stories is “interesting”. But after reading these books by Susan Perot, I discovered that some of the stories turned out to be particularly \”useful.\” Today I will share with you the \”useful\” aspects of stories and how to tell them casually. 1. Stories help us lead our children’s growth in endless ways. When a child has behavioral problems such as hitting, lying, stealing, etc., if we say to him directly: \”You hit, the other children don\’t like you, so what do you want…\” This kind of preaching is very important to the child. The effect is often mediocre. But what about telling a story to our children? Maybe a magical change will happen. Just like \”The Crab with Bare Teeth\”: A crab always grabs people, and everyone doesn\’t like it. Some people suggested cutting off its pincers; some suggested sticking its pincers with glue… Later, the turtle suggested making a glove out of seaweed. Give it away and it won\’t catch anyone. The crab happily accepted this \”gift\”. Later, the glove broke and it learned not to catch people. Stories like this are as warm as water, allowing children to use the metaphor of imagination to generate motivation to change their own behavior. Generally speaking, Dingdang is a relatively \”teachable\” child. Generally speaking, if he has any \”out of line\” behavior, I will tell him and he will listen. But there are also times when oil and salt are not enough. At this time, the story can come into play. A few days ago, Mr. Liu suddenly caused him to lose control and cry. No matter how I explain it, I have no intention of stopping. I had an idea and remembered the story \”The Adventures of Onion\” that he had read, and asked him: \”Onion stepped on Lemon King, and Lemon King became angry, right?\” Ding Dong nodded. I continued: \”Then Lemon King Are you going to put Onion in jail? Dingdang immediately replied: \”Well, put Onion in jail.\” \”Then he miraculously stopped crying. He kept paying attention to (supervising) Mr. Liu (onion head) who was sitting on the sofa (in jail). After a while, I asked tentatively: \”Can onion head take a shower now? \”\”Can. \”Mr. Liu was successfully \”rescued\”. In this story, Dingdang starts from a sense of order.The helpless child who was destroyed was transformed into a lemon king who could be punished, and his emotions quickly changed. The reason why a good story is readily accepted by children and becomes a unique spiritual experience for them is because it respects their feelings and changes them in a surprising and secret way. 2. How to \”tailor-make\” self-created healing stories for children? Maybe it has something to do with my career. I have always been exposed to children’s books, and I was once engaged in script writing. So I not only like to read stories, but I also like to create my own stories and tell them to my children. The advantage of creating my own stories is that they can be used anytime, anywhere. Speaking of which, I think it can not only solve many parenting problems, but also be of great help to children\’s imagination and creativity. So how do you become a story mom? First learn to create your own stories, and today I will share some of the knowledge I learned from this set of books. Generally speaking, the framework of a story includes three parts: solution, plot, and metaphor. 1) As the name suggests, the solution is a \”method\” designed to address a certain behavioral problem of the child. ① Generally speaking, the solution is to replace bad behaviors with better behaviors. For example, in the story \”The Elephant\’s Trunk\”, which is aimed at children who like to hit others, the elephant first runs rampant all day long and is aggressive. Later, Grandma Elephant connected her trunk and tail with other elephants and rescued it from falling under the waterfall, finally changing its bad habits. Turning a \”weapon that hurts people\” into a \”weapon that saves people\” is a good solution. 2) Metaphor Metaphor makes an imaginative transformation of things that ordinary children cannot understand. Whether a story can be accepted by children, metaphor is crucial. For example, one time Dingdang refused to eat, so I told him a story to guide him. \”Now there is a bacterial army wreaking havoc in baby Tinkerbell\’s body, but Superman has arrived to destroy them. But Superman only has a gun, not bullets! Mommy now has to give the bullet to Tinkerbell, and Tinkerbell helps eat it into his stomach. Here, leave it to Uncle Superman! Then Uncle Superman can defeat the bacteria!\” Dingdang immediately started to eat in cooperation. In this story, turning rice into bullets is a metaphor. Metaphors are easy for children to understand and accept. Because imaginative imagination is children\’s daily life; imaginative metaphors are exactly what children think, making them feel more intimate. How to find metaphors? ① Look for similar animals/objects based on the child’s behavioral problems; for example, a child who loves to hit others can be metaphorized as an elephant, crab, etc.; ② You can also look for metaphors from the things the child likes, such as dinosaurs, cars, and diggers that Ding Dong likes. Machine etc. I replaced the \”hero\” of the story I told him with these. 3) Plot Plot is the tension of the story, just like archery. The more tension there is, the easier it is for the arrow (solution) to shoot into the listener\’s heart. For young children, only simple events and minimal tension are required. For example, if you want your children to be more diligent, you can make up a story about a lazy pig who becomes diligent. For example, if you want your child to be more independent, you can make up a story like \”The mother kangaroo accidentally fell asleep while carrying the baby kangaroo on her back, and the baby kangaroo found food on its own.\”. For older children, the plot of the story can be more complex and tortuous, which can make the child\’s character more flexible and cultivate the child\’s tolerance for frustration. For example, fairy tales such as \”Cinderella\” and \”Snow White\” generally have rich plots. Metaphors, solutions, and plots form the basic framework of a story. As long as you master these three points, you can deconstruct some classic fairy tales and folk tales anytime and anywhere to adapt suitable stories. 3. Some healing stories that can be \”copied\”. Susan Perot\’s book lists hundreds of stories, some of which may not necessarily apply to our lives. I have modified some more interesting stories that are suitable for children\’s common behaviors for your reference. 1. For children who like to hit others, what can you say? \”The Elephant\’s Trunk\” \”use force to hurt\” is transformed into \”use force to help\”. There is an elephant named Tambo who always likes to beat others with his trunk. , brothers and sisters stay far away from it. Grandma Elephant often reminds her: \”Use your trunk to help others, not to hurt others.\” But Tambo never listened. One day, Grandma Elephant took the elephants to find water. They passed the waterfall slowly and walked along the cliff. Tambo was busy shaking others with his nose, and accidentally fell into the deep pool at the bottom of the waterfall. It was frightened and kept twitching with its nose, but the rocks were too slippery for it to stand up. At this time, Grandma Elephant and her other elephant brothers connected end to end (the tail and trunk were connected) and pulled Tambo out of the deep pool. From that day on, Tambo stopped hitting people with his nose as before. It began to use its nose to do many things, such as pulling down wild fruits from high branches to eat, moving away large logs blocking the tree, and spraying water on its back with its nose to cool it. 2. For rude children, you can say \”Thank you Princess\” In a beautiful remote village, there lived a beautiful princess called Princess \”Thank You\”. She lives a happy life because there is always someone in this world who can say \”thank you\”. Every time someone said \”Thank you,\” her eyes grew brighter, her hair grew darker, and her cheeks took on a rosy glow. But slowly, the little princess became pale and tired, and she became ill. The little princess\’s mother decided to go out and see why no one said \”thank you\” now? She went to many people\’s homes, and all she heard were words like \”Put my shoes on, peel my apples for me, I want a drink of water.\” Few people said \”Thank you.\” She came to the home of a little boy who was asking his mother to do this and that, but never said thank you. So she invited the little boy to travel to their village. The little boy was very happy. He played happily in the beautiful village. The rippling creek and the cheerful calls of the birds made him feel very happy. When he walked to a house, he saw a sick girl, with a sad look on her tired face. He asked curiously: \”Who is she?\” The little princess\’s mother told him that it was the \”Thank you\” princess. Because few people say \”Thank you\” now, she became sick and became more and more serious. The little boy went home worried. After returning home, heStart saying \”thank you\” to his parents. No matter what his parents have done for him, he will always say \”thank you\” to them. At night, the little boy had a dream. He dreamed that the princess \”Thank you\” was playing happily, with bright eyes, red cheeks, and black hair. She was extremely beautiful. 3. For children who long for friends, what can you say? \”Cloud Boy\” From finding to being accepted, Cloud Boy has been living happily alone in the sky, until one day, his house of clouds floated close to the earth. He saw the children on the ground, playing happily on the grass. So, Yunduo boy decided to go to the world below to live and play with the children. Every day, he roams with the cloud house in the vast sky, floating over the forest, along the river, over the mountains… He has traveled to every place in the world. He wants to find a friend who can play with him and take care of him… But where can he find such a friend? When we wake up in the morning, we put a doll next to the child\’s bed so that he can quickly establish a connection with the doll. In telling this story, I changed the cloud boy into a dinosaur. Clank quickly forms a bond with the dinosaur just when he\’s longing for a friend. This will also help him build friendships with other children in the future.