Author: Creative Team·Little Tomato
Every parent hopes that their children will achieve academic success, and I am no exception.
As his son Xiaoyu entered junior high school, his grades have been hovering at the bottom of the class.
Every time I see the mediocre or even unsightly scores on his transcript, I can't help but go crazy.
Moreover, he has a serious lack of interest in learning. He goes home every day and rushes to finish his homework as if he has completed the task, and then becomes addicted to video games.
During that time, I was extremely anxious and tried various methods, from severe discipline to gentle persuasion, but to no avail.
I even signed him up for several after-school tutoring classes online.
At first, my son could still pretend to attend class and study. Later, he fell asleep on the table during online classes, let alone doing homework on time.
is really exhausting.
Until one day, I accidentally read a book about adolescent psychology in the library, and the concept of "intrinsic drive" was mentioned in the book.
I just realized:
Regardless of talent or family environment, if you really want to push a child to keep working hard and keep making progress, you still need to awaken their strong inner drive.
Therefore, if you want your son to change, you must find a way to ignite the spark within him.
So, after a series of careful planning, I started my "routine" journey.
Pretend to be stupid and show weakness
Stimulate children’s sense of accomplishment
Education blogger @Aliu once talked about his mother’s routine.
When he was in the third or fourth grade of elementary school, he always made mistakes in calculation questions, especially calculations involving 7 and 8. He would make mistakes every time he encountered one.
The more mistakes he makes, the less he wants to practice, and his head hurts when he sees the numbers.
So, my mother prepared two pieces of paper and wrote exactly the same questions on them. The two of them did it at the same time, and they corrected each other after they finished.
As a result, mom always makes mistakes, but he gets more things right than mom, and he wins every time. After
won a few times, he felt particularly accomplished. Later, when doing the questions, he gradually set higher requirements for himself and got more and more answers correct.
In fact, learning itself is very boring and difficult, and it is difficult to gain the joy of success in a short period of time.
Why are games so attractive? It’s because when we play games, we pass levels one after another. By passing the levels, we can get the joy of success and a full sense of accomplishment.
No one likes to be abused by nature. If you want your child to fall in love with learning, you must first let him experience the sense of accomplishment in learning.
After figuring this out, I decided to join forces with my teammates to pretend to be stupid.
I knew that my son had a good foundation in mathematics, so I asked my teammates to find a relatively simple question to ask him:
"Son, dad wants to take the postgraduate entrance examination recently, and has forgotten a lot of previous knowledge. Can you help dad?"
son At first I was very proud, "You don't know how to solve such a simple question?"
We always put on a humble attitude, listened carefully and took notes, and asked our son questions from time to time.
As the questions we gave him became more and more difficult, my son often had to think about them for several days, and even asked the teacher to explain them to us.
During this process, my son became more and more enthusiastic when talking, and gradually began to have higher requirements for himself. He often studied math problems alone in the room.
Seeing that the time was ripe, we slowly began to ask him for knowledge in other subjects.
Just like this, with our deliberate "cultivation", my son's desire to explore is overwhelming, and he is like a "little teacher" at home.
reminds me of what an educator said. The best way to stimulate a child's inner drive is to let him become a primary school teacher.
This sense of achievement of "I am better than my parents" is the best motivation to improve children's confidence and enthusiasm for learning.
Appropriate rewards
Keep your children motivated
Tiger mother Yu Jinguo, who sent her two children to Harvard one after another, mentioned when talking about her youngest son:
This child has made people worry-free since he was a child. Every time he is asked to practice piano, He always showed resistance, either acting like a fool to waste time, or not practicing at all;
For this reason, Yu Jinguo made a rule with him:
"Practice on time, and then you can watch his favorite animation when it's over;
Play around and don't practice at all." , Don’t even think about watching animations this week;
If you practice well, you can increase the time you spend watching animations.”
This trick really worked, and my son’s piano practice became more and more efficient.
Every child is born with the desire for pleasure, especially during the learning process. It is very normal for children to be afraid of difficulties and want to escape.
Before children develop the habit of conscious learning, parents need to give them some push.
However, if parents' methods are too coercive, it is easy for children to become rebellious and difficult to last;
At this time, parents can use appropriate reward mechanisms to make learning more attractive and stimulate children's enthusiasm for learning.
My son used to hate memorizing texts. At that time, he really liked playing King of Kings, so I made a table and posted it on the wall. The bottom layer of
is bronze. Every time you memorize a text, you will accumulate a star. Every 5 stars will increase to a level. Every time you increase the level, you can open a surprise blind box that I prepared. The
blind box contains "take him to a movie", "go eat his favorite barbecue", "give him a favorite dress" and so on.
If he can be promoted to the strongest king, I will take him to see the concert of JJ Lin that I miss so much.
As expected, my son suddenly became interested. Every day after school, he would proactively ask me to memorize the text without having to rush him. He was very motivated.
Later, he gradually mastered the skills and experience of memorizing the text. He memorized the text faster and faster, and it was not as strenuous as at the beginning. It became a habit every day.
When parents let their children feel the joy of learning and gradually develop a habit, it is the process of the child's conversion from external drive to internal drive.
Be a lazy mother
Give your children full freedom
Before, because I was anxious about Xiaoyu’s studies, I couldn’t help but supervise him and urge him.
And I have to "knock" him from time to time:
"Have you finished your homework today? Hurry up!"
"The midterm exam is coming soon, take the time to review!"
"Chinese is a shortcoming, you have to spend more time. Thoughts."
Xiaoyu would be very impatient every time, "I know, you don't need to tell me!" Then he had no enthusiasm for learning.
Later, I saw a case shared by Yang Jie, a child educator.
When a boy first entered the first grade, his mother watched him do his homework every day.
The boy feels irritable. When doing homework, he always fumbles here and there. He will not move unless his mother urges him.
After a long time, he even ignored his mother's urging and ran away to play on his own.
He always puts off the homework that should not take long to complete until very late.
The mother was so angry that she could only beat him, but the child became more and more rebellious and confronted her every time.
If his mother hits him once, he will hit his mother twice.
Even the mother and son would often confront each other all night, and the last stroke of the child's homework would not be touched.
Teacher Yin Jianli said: "In education, if you want a child to reject something, force him to do so."
Children have no internal drive, and their parents often accompany them, using words to urge and criticize, which deprives children of their sense of autonomy. .
Studying and writing homework are things that children need to complete independently. Therefore, I decided to be a lazy mother from now on and return the initiative and control of learning to my son.
I found my son and told him that I would no longer watch him study. In the future, as long as he could complete his homework on time, he could arrange his own time.
After he successfully reached the strongest king, I canceled this reward system.
My son said nervously: "Mom, then won't I have any rewards in the future?"
I shook my head: "No, if you want to go out to eat, mom can take you to eat. Whatever you like, mom can do it too." Buy it for you;
You can already manage yourself very well, so Mom thinks you don’t need these things anymore, and Mom can give you the power to study."
My son nodded, and sure enough, he didn’t let me down. Complete homework on time every day.
When children have sufficient autonomy in learning, they will voluntarily devote themselves to learning and have continuous enthusiasm and motivation for learning.
Find his points of interest
Ignite his passion for learning
Psychological counselor Chen Yu said one thing:
She knew a girl who was in the second grade of junior high school. She didn't have much tutoring, but she was very interested in biology.
So girls spend time watching a lot of BBC documentaries, some of them three or four times.
The girl also likes to read autopsy reports, and will discuss with her how to look through the body spots to see when the person died, whether he died prone or lying down.
Therefore, she was extremely looking forward to the biology class in the third grade of junior high school because she would have the opportunity to dissect a crucian carp.
When she talked about this, I felt very vivid. This is the so-called motivation to learn.
However, many parents deprive their children of their interests, curiosity about the world, and exploration of self-worth because of "academic first".
Therefore, I think we can help children find their own value and inner motivation by exploring their interests.
For example, through observation, I found that Xiaoyu usually likes to play basketball. He is very interested in the data of NBA players. He often looks up information and watches games in his spare time.
So, I found a basketball statistics book about mathematics, which introduced in detail how to use statistical methods to analyze and predict the results of basketball games.
I put this book on Xiaoyu's desk and attached a note, writing: "Son, this math book contains a lot of interesting basketball statistical knowledge, you will definitely like it!"
Sure enough, When Xiaoyu saw this book, his eyes suddenly lit up. He opened the pages excitedly and started reading.
He even began to take the initiative to learn mathematics, hoping to better understand various data in basketball games.
When a child's interest is fully stimulated, learning becomes no longer boring, and the change from "I want to learn" becomes "I want to learn."
Just like that, three months have passed.
’s son began to actively read and think actively, and even actively participated in discussions on various subjects at school.
His grades improved naturally. More importantly, his passion for knowledge was completely ignited and he began to learn spontaneously.
In this way, we have experienced a magnificent transformation from ordinary to extraordinary.
Now, looking back on those three months of journey, I have to say that every step was full of challenges and rewards.
I also want to tell all parents: Children's internal drive is not born with it, it needs to be cultivated with love and wisdom.
Don’t rush for success. Give your children time and space so that they can find their own passion and direction through exploration.
I hope that every child can be full of enthusiasm, be born towards the sun, and be self-motivated without waiting.
