How to raise children who are afraid of difficulties and dare not try

In life, we will find that many children have such characteristics: they are unwilling to think too much when learning, and want to give up when encountering difficulties; they are unwilling to try new things, have no interest in anything, and do not want to do it; if it is right or wrong to do it, If there is a task that cannot be done, I will put it off and be reluctant to start. These phenomena often point to the same problem in children\’s hearts – fear of difficulties. Because of the fear of difficulties, I feel that all difficulties are extremely huge; because of the fear of difficulties, I am afraid that I will fail if I don’t do it well, so I don’t dare to try, and I don’t want to start. Fear of difficulties is a stumbling block that prevents children from effective learning and progress. Children have this kind of emotion, to a large extent, it is related to the lack of room for trial and error during their growth. Only by making mistakes can you learn something. Thorndike, an American psychologist and founder of the educational psychology system, once conducted a famous \”hungry cat experiment.\” He first locked a hungry kitten in a special cage, and placed a small fish outside the cage. Download the children\’s mp3 version of the most comprehensive reading of the disciple\’s rules in history. If a kitten wants to escape from the cage and eat small fish, there are three ways to open the door, namely door bolts, grabbing ropes and buttons. The kitten can open the door by touching any mechanism. . After observation, when the cat was put into the box for the first time, it struggled desperately, accidentally touched the pedal mechanism, and escaped from the cage; when it was put into the cage for the second time, it kept trying and accidentally touched the mechanism and escaped. out. Subsequently, as the kitten was put into the cage many times, Thorndike found that the kitten made fewer and fewer ineffective attempts and opened the cage faster and faster. When it was put into the cage for the last time, it did not go through any The extra struggle directly triggered the mechanism to open the cage door. Thorndike drew the cat\’s learning process curve based on this experiment, and came up with the famous \”trial-and-error\” theory through the cat\’s continuous trial learning behavior. Thorndike believes that although human learning methods are more complex, they are essentially the same. It requires continuous mistakes and attempts to finally learn something. Every time a child tries, he is practicing successfully. But imagine, if we are cat owners and see that our kitten has tried for a long time without opening the cage, it is easy to want to help it and open it directly for it. cage. If we do this, the follow-up is likely to be like this: Phase 1: The owner is very happy, because opening the cage is a very simple operation for humans. But as the owner needs help every time, the owner gradually becomes tired, and when he is busy, he really can\’t spare the time to open the door for the kitten. Stage 2: After many times of help, the owner expects the kitten to learn to open the cage on its own. But the kitten has not gone through the intermediate exploration, and has become accustomed to being helped and provided with food every time it calls. When no one helps this time, he becomes overwhelmed in the cage or starts to run rampant. The third stage: the expectant owner, faced with a dependent kitten who cannot learn to open the door by himself, the owner\’s anxiety and temper begin to rise sharply. Stage 4: The owner begins to guide the kitten to put its paws on the mechanism. But the kitten didn\’t understand what this meant and was unwilling to try. It either meowed at its owner or huddled in a corner of the cage. The owner couldn\’t help scolding the kitten, why is it so stupid……Does this scene look familiar? When we are raising children, we occasionally have such a mental journey. When the child was young, we were worried that he would not be able to do well. As soon as the child asked for help, we immediately went to help him. Or in order to save time, we also directly do the activities such as dressing the children, packing school bags, tying shoelaces, etc. When children grow up and we want them to be independent, we find that they are unwilling to do it because they have no experience of trying on their own and don’t know how to start. When children start school, their grades are not ideal and they have no motivation, we start to worry. , but forget that children have just started to get familiar with learning and may not understand the concepts and procedures of exams… Accidentally, our focus is on the results, but we ignore that the results are composed of countless processes. Children who have tried and made countless mistakes have formed a correct understanding of mistakes in their hearts, although they have not yet succeeded. They will learn that trial and error can help them eliminate useless options and ultimately lead to success. However, if parents always pay attention to their children\’s mistakes and are eager to correct their children\’s behavior without waiting for the children to explore more possibilities, the children will feel a lot of frustration in their attempts. There is a high probability that when children grow up, they will be more willing to focus on results and tend to choose \”how to avoid mistakes.\” They will choose easy tasks to complete to avoid failed results. By treating mistakes as a process of practice, children will come to the understanding that \”efforts can change the results.\” They will also have more control over the process of trying their own hands, have a positive attitude towards their abilities, and grow up. In the end, they are more willing to challenge difficult problems and believe that enough exploration can achieve the goal. Therefore, parents should give their children more space to do things on their own, and look at the areas where their children have not done well with a relaxed eye. This is how we help children who are already afraid of difficulties. If the child himself lacks exploration experience and has already developed a fear of difficulties, how should we guide him? Split the task and learn to reduce the dimensionality of the task. Many difficulties are that it seems very huge at first glance, but it is not difficult to break down each step. What we have to do is to help our children break down problems when they face them. Then, start with small steps. The key to splitting is to use less \”big words\” and give children more understandable and specific instructions. For example, instead of \”packing your things and getting ready to go out,\” you might say \”put your stationery and water glass in your bag first, and then put on your clothes.\” When faced with a learning task, for example, if there are 10 new words to be memorized, aim to memorize one first. If you want your children to review the question carefully, tell them to read the question twice and mark the key words with a pen the second time. Help children prepare and stretch their psychological comfort zone. When children have fears, parents often think that they can just push them forward and let their children cross this hurdle. But if the task is too difficult for the child, giving it a push won\’t do much to encourage it. Thorndike also proposed three laws of learning based on the theory of trial and error. The first of these is called the law of preparation, which means that children must be prepared before starting to learn in order to feel satisfied when learning. In this regardMy understanding is that children must be prepared subjectively and objectively. For example, if a child does not dare to slide down the slide alone, the parents will first pull him down slowly to feel it. When the child feels that sliding down the slide is not so difficult psychologically, the child can then be allowed to further try to slide down by himself. Adjust the difficulty of the task from the child\’s perspective. Sometimes, parents have a psychological blind spot when looking at the task. They think that from their own perspective, this is a very simple task, but the child still can\’t complete it in a long time. I am eager to guide and correct. There was once a parent of a 4-year-old boy. Seeing that other children of the same age loved playing puzzles, he bought a set for his own child. Unexpectedly, the child stopped working after a few pieces and was unwilling to continue no matter how guided. Even when he got older and saw his parents bring similar toys, he would turn around and leave, determined not to play. In this case, the puzzle is obviously too difficult for her child and the child cannot complete it. She can use other toys or simpler puzzles to make the transition. When children are able to complete complex puzzles, they will naturally be willing to try them. Review successful experiences more often and encourage your children with facts. When a child already has a serious fear of difficulties, some of his past failures may have left a deep imprint on his heart. Therefore, when the child makes a mistake again, we should not say more. When your child succeeds, try summarizing it with your child and say, \”Look, can\’t this be done?\” You don’t have to be a perfect parent, just show weakness to your children. In addition, if adults always act omnipotent in front of children, children will also be particularly afraid of failure. When a child encounters some difficult problems and we need to study and look up information to solve them, we can openly tell the child, \”I don\’t understand this very well, let\’s study it together.\” Then, we can guide the child to follow us. Delve into it together and eventually let him find the solution on his own, and the child will also get a lot of encouragement from it. At the end of the writing, evolutionary psychologists Haselton and Leto once said: \”Human beings adapt to the world by making constant mistakes. Not allowing children to try and make mistakes means murdering the vitality of the child.\” When the child encounters it again When you have been thinking about a difficult problem for a long time, or you have not found the correct route after doing it over and over again, as long as the child is in a good mood and does not ask for help, don\’t rush forward to correct it. That is because the child is practicing successfully~