Dr. Li believes to Chinese parents: cultivating happy and emotional children

Dr. Lee Kai-Fu, vice president of Google worldwide and President of China, has been keen on the Education Industry in China. He wrote four consecutive emails for Chinese college students to share his experiences in learning and life, it is widely used for reading among college students. Today, Dr. Li Kaifu posted his own letter to Chinese parents through Sina technology, sharing his ideas and experiences in educating children. The full text is as follows:

After writing four letters to Chinese students, many students asked me: "Kaifu, why didn't you write a letter to our parents? As a father, you can share your ideas and experiences in educating your children ."

As a father keen on education, I do have many ideas about educating children. However, I have been hesitant about this letter because I am not an expert in this field. With the encouragement of many colleagues, I asked them, "What do you want me to say if I write such a letter ?" They said:

"Tell our parents: When we grow up, we can really take care of ourselves. Let's try it on our own ."

"Tell my parents: You have high expectations for me, and I am sorry for you. I hope you can accept an ordinary me. Can you encourage me to do my best ?"

"Tell our parents: I don't want to be a machine for reading. I want to find my own interests and hope my parents can support it ."

"Tell our parents: I really want to become friends with my parents, but I don't know how to start ."

After hearing so many feelings and expectations, I wrote a pen and began to write my views on these things and my thoughts on education. My philosophy is: how to cultivate a rational, successful learning, independent, confident, positive, happy and emotional child, and then become friends with him.

Chinese parents: the most important thing is not how much you recognize my ideas, but that you want to know what your children have in mind. If this letter can encourage some parents to ask their children, communicate and understand each other, or even become "friends", then the purpose of writing this letter will be achieved.

Cultivate Rational children

The Chinese always regard "Obedient" as a child's advantage. But I want my children not to be obedient, and I want them to be reasonable children. Obedient children may be blind, but do not understand the truth. Reasonable children will be obedient when you are justified. Isn't that what we want?

Although I believe in Heuristic education, I also believe that children need discipline and rules. Children's growth requires inspiration and discipline. Children need to cultivate self-confidence and learn self-reflection.

I have four rules: (1) set rules, but first clarify the rules, rather than blindly obeying them. (2) within the rules, the child has full freedom. (3) If the child violates the rules, the child will be punished. (4) the fewer the rules, the better.

In addition, we seize every opportunity for "opportunity education", but use more positive examples and less negative examples. If you want to teach your children to "stand up and say hello to elders", you must do it each time. When you are a parent, you must set an example. If you want your child to be strict, but do not do it first, you cannot win the child's conviction.

Especially in terms of personality building, parents must set an example. For example, Integrity Education and Cultivation of independent personality and thoughts directly affect the performance of these parents. So in addition to examples or stories (do not preach !) To teach the children, but also remind themselves not to do negative practices.

In terms of personality building, some parents are confused. For example, integrity and justice, because persistence in real life often results in losses, and many students gradually give up on these issues after going to the society. Therefore, I think it is important to remind Chinese parents that they should keep their eyes on the long term. China is already on the international stage, and they must use international ways of thinking and value to judge the phenomena in their lives, do not do negative things, or instill negative thoughts into children.

Parents can give their children a loose growth environment, but give advice when they are confused, guide them more, and communicate with them, rather than imposing a desire on them.

Cultivate children who have successfully learned

In today's learning environment, it is difficult for us to care about our academic performance. However, children are under great pressure in this environment. We should try to be considerate of them. Do not want your child to be too ambitious, or be sure to fulfill the ideals that you do not have. whether the child is willing or unwilling, or has talent or not. Too high, unreasonable expectations will only put too much pressure on the children, and I am sorry for the guilt of my parents. Do not take the score too seriously, as long as you do your best. You don't have to take the test first. You only need to make progress today. A good foundation and a true understanding of why is far more important than the score.

Try to rationalize your expectations. You can ask him to do better slowly than now, so that he can make progress slowly. If you see unreasonable or impossible goals, the child may give up.

Turn your requirements on the child into suggestions for the child. Of course, this is not to say that we should allow the children to intrude on their own and not to fulfill the appropriate constraints, but to guide them as far as possible.

Try not to compare children with others. This will cultivate children's competitive psychology and impede the team cooperation that will be needed in the future.

Do not focus only on the dead knowledge in books. In my book "Be the best of yourself", I have explained four learning realms:

Realm 1,Practice makes perfect: Learn under the guidance of a teacher, master the content of the textbook, and know the answer to the question;

Realm 2,I have the ability to think, master the learning methods, and be able to draw inferences from each other;

Realm 3,Lack of teachers: you have mastered the methods of self-learning and self-learning, and can take the initiative to learn without teacher counseling;

Realm 4,Integration: You can flexibly apply the learned knowledge to your life and work practices, and understand how to do things and behave.

As a parent, I hope that you can seize every opportunity to help your children improve their learning realm, from the last to the full.

Encourage children to go to libraries and networks to learn and acquire knowledge. Although the network is huge and profound, there are the best interactive tools for learning English, all courses at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and student mutual assistance at the "Kaifu student network ".CommunityBut there are also many negative temptations, so it is best for parents to help their children learn online.

Encourage your children to learn, not just for scores. For example, when my daughter took an exam, she thought she was half right but was totally wrong. I asked her to ask the teacher, but he said the teacher would not give her extra points. I will use this opportunity to explain to her that the purpose of asking the teacher is to learn, not to add points.

Encourage your child to do it by yourself, instead of having a good test score. Encourage him to use the learned knowledge immediately and let him know that learning this knowledge is useful to his own life, instead of learning for high scores. You should remember how boring it is to memorize historical times and mathematical formulas! If we didn't use it, we would have returned the things we had left before to the teacher. I suggest you do some "practical" learning with your children without affecting your studies. For example, when my child learns the concept of index, we will take her bank passbook and accumulate compound interest in a year. How rich will she be in the future! When my child was learning about American history, I taught her a vivid assignment. I used computer animations and our "vivid" dubbing to reproduce a piece of American history. There is a saying: "What I hear will be forgotten. What I see can be remembered. What I have done can be truly understood ." This is what it means.

The most important thing is to inspire children to take the initiative to take responsibility for their own learning. I will work with the teacher to help the children set their own learning goals and automatically take responsibility for their own learning. When my eldest daughter goes to middle school, every six months, she asks the students to set a learning goal. After six months, the students are determined whether they have achieved the goal. In the past, my daughter was shy, but she didn't understand some questions, but she didn't ask any questions. Therefore, he has set a goal. He must ask questions every day in class and know whether he has done so. Later, she achieved this goal, but she did not participate in the discussion except asking questions. At the next goal, she decided to raise her hand at least once a day to participate in the discussion.

Develop independent children

In China, parents' care for their children is especially deep, for fear that their children may suffer some harm. Therefore, they protect their children more. Do not open your hands. This results in a high degree of dependency on the child. Some parents also help their children design their life plans, but this usually causes many people to ignore their true interests and choices.

However, the 21st century will be the century of "independent choice. Peter druker, a well-known management scientist, pointed out that because the information age replaces the industrial age, the endless competition in the world, and the free administration of power, "the future historian will say, the most important thing in this century is not technological or network innovation, but a major change in the status of human existence. In this century, people will have more choices and they must actively manage themselves ." After entering the society, the children must decide their own industry, their teachers, their bosses, their own companies, start their own businesses, join the company, learn from work or study business ,... Every day is a choice. Children need independence, accountability, selection, and judgment. If a child grows up, he will only recite his knowledge, be obedient and passive, and wait for others to help him make decisions or do things. Then, even if he enters the society, he will not be bullied or paid attention. Your children must survive, compete, and succeed in such a society. Therefore, he must learn the ability to choose independently.

When Google's founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page were visited on television, the reporter asked which school should their success be attributed, they did not answer either Stanford or Michigan, but answered that "Montessori Primary School" is free to learn without any negative input. In the Montessori education environment, they learned to "do what they do, take responsibility for themselves, and solve what they do." This kind of positive education gives them the habit of encouraging and trying, being autonomous, and self-driving, this leads to their success.

How can we cultivate independent and independent choice capabilities? I will propose five "yes" and five "no" below ":

You need to teach your children the habit of "finding a solution on their own. From an early age, let the children solve their own affairs and let them understand that no one wants to shirk their responsibilities and let others clean up the mess for them. Let them learn from failures and do not want to help their children. It can help you analyze your own data and tell you what you will do to help increase your children's judgment.

You must give your choice to the child so that the child can become the master of the child. Although you are sure how to do this, you should give your child a chance to learn and decide independently. He learns more from his mistakes than from your correct guidance. Let the children know that their parents provide advice, but the final decision lies in you. As you grow up, these things will become more and more. I remember that when I was 5 years old, my parents asked me to go to kindergarten, but I wanted to go to primary school. So they gave me the option: "When you get an exam, let you read ." I remember this for my whole life, because at that time I understood that a 5-year-old had a choice. I really cherish this option, so I did my best to study independently.

Cultivate children's responsibility. More guidance and less criticism. Liu said: "In the past, I had arranged everything for my son, but later I found that this actually cultivated his habit of being irresponsible. In addition, the excessive arrangement of parents also makes the children rude and do not know how to cherish ." Do not instruct your children in any way. It is best to communicate and agree in all aspects (for example, "Your responsibility is to clean your room", rather than "Your room is messy "). When the child does not do so, let him understand the importance of his responsibility.

To cultivate children's curiosity, do not teach them anything. Let him try it on his own. It doesn't matter if he fails.

Trust your child. Trust is more responsible than punishment. Tong Xin is well-known in charge of Microsoft's Asia Research Institute. After he made a mistake at school, his mother did not even blame him. "This has passed ." She looked at her son's frightened eyes with a gentle tone: "You used to be a good child, and you will be a good child in the future ." "That night, my mother gave me the best gift," said Tong Xin. I have never been used ."

Do not use too many rules to restrict your child's freedom. Let your child do what he likes to do and let him have a place to play. If you have any concerns, use the "make a decision together" method to induce him: for example, if a child is fond of playing a computer, do not say "not allowed to play" and tell him that if your score is good enough, or you can finish your homework, but you can play for at least two hours a week. Turn every "negative" into "opportunity", and transfer autonomy from you to your children. In this way, not only can the children develop their independent abilities, but also they will work harder to do things that must be done for their own interests.

Do not punish failure. It can punish laziness, dependency, escape, and irresponsible behaviors, but do not punish failure. Failure is a learning process that makes people progress. punishing failure may impair the motivation created by children, encourage your child to grow up and be strong in failures.

Don't preach: if the child believes in your preaching, he may lose his judgment. If the child does not believe in preaching, he may be rebellious or do not trust you.

Do not replace everything in your life and let the children do it on their own. In addition to developing independent capabilities, you can also increase your sense of responsibility and self-confidence.

Do not intervene in the child's affairs too much, deprive the child of his or her right to choose, and feel that the path for the child is the most direct to success. The child only has to obey. Don't say "no" in everything. Give your child a chance.

Develop confident and positive children

Self-confidence is the "magnifier" of children's potential ". "A confident person always has a smooth career, and a person without confidence may never step into the threshold of his career," fan depete said ."

It is difficult for children who have grown up with high expectations to be confident only when they criticize an environment without praise. Relatively speaking, an environment of positive praise and positive feedback will inspire children's confidence. When I first came to the United States, I was "a mathematical genius" because of my ability to back up mathematical formulas ". Although I know in my heart that I am not a mathematical genius, I just moved out the old things that are hard to remember, but the power of self-confidence is endless, I started to work hard on English and mathematics, driven by my self-confidence, and really won the championship in the Jeonju mathematical competition.

Give positive feedback to the child. Let him know that you have noticed everything he has done. My little daughter often tells me "I am stupid", but she is not stupid at all, but a malicious classmate is hurt. As a result, I gradually cultivate her self-confidence. I thought her diary was well written, so I praised her and encouraged her to write more. After writing her interest, she wrote an "autobiography" on her own and showed it everywhere. She also posted it to my personal background on my website. (At this time, I think she should be modest !)

Self-confidence needs to be developed gradually, so you can help your children make a long-term measurable plan. As I mentioned earlier, my daughter spoke. I set a measurable and practical goal with her: she raises her hand once a day and will be rewarded if she persists for a month. Then, we gradually increase the number of hands raised. One year later, the teacher noticed that she was confident enough to speak in class.

First, you must first believe that your child is competent. I have performed a test on 18 students in American primary schools, so that teachers can first think that a child has the "best future" (although the child is random ). Teachers often give positive comments to children who believe their children are outstanding. As a result, his self-confidence was inspired, so that the 18 students were better than they expected. Therefore, if you want your child to be confident, you must first trust his abilities.

If you want to cultivate a confident child, you 'd better pay attention to every sentence and word you use. Make more positive comments: "I believe what you have done", "I have confidence in you", and "you have done really well "... Carnegie card mentioned this example in his interpersonal communication course... If we want to change a child's inattentive reading attitude, we may say this: "John, we are so proud of you that you have made progress in this semester. 'But' It would be better if you work harder on algebra ." In this example, John may feel very happy before hearing ". Immediately, he will doubt the credibility of this approval. For him, this approval is only a well-designed lead to criticize his failure. If credibility is misinterpreted, we may not be able to achieve our goal of changing his learning attitude. It is not difficult to solve this problem. Just change "but" to "and" to achieve our goal: "We are so proud of you, John. You have made progress in this semester, in addition, as long as you continue to work hard next semester, your algebra performance will be excellent."

Cultivate happy and emotional children

A student asked me, "Do you want to train your child into my successor ?" I am very surprised by this problem. My answer is: "I only want my children to be happy and realize their potential ."

Everyone is different. You need to find your own interests and make full use of your potential to become "the best self-sufficiency ". "Don't trust the success formula, because we are wild plants, not garden plants," said Tang meijie, who entered Harvard. Each person's unique advantage is the source of self-confidence ." Help your child discover his unique advantages!

A person's happiness is quite related to whether he can do anything he is interested in. According to a 20-year follow-up study of 1500 business school students in the United States, it is found that those who pursue interests and discover their potential are not only happier, but also more likely to be favored by wealth and fame, because they are engaged in things they really like, they are more motivated and passionate to make things perfect-even if they cannot get wealth and fame from it, they will also be happy and happy for life.

As a parent, we encourage our children to spend more time on their interests. For example, if my eldest daughter is fond of reading novels, we will show her an interesting but educational book every week. She has read thousands of books over the years, in addition, she always relies on full marks in English. My second daughter liked writing and drawing. We taught her how to use a computer to write things he liked to write, and then add pictures and photos into a book, print them into beautiful color versions, and send them to friends and friends.

For a class that is not interested in children, we only need to make the best effort to prepare and study, and there is no special requirement on the score.

Many parents ask their children to learn piano and practice dancing. I think it is good to have some hobbies that can help develop children in an all-round way, but it should be appropriate. Some of them are hard to learn, so I will use the three chapters of "Give your children a choice" and "Give them a choice. When both of my children expressed interest in music, we told them that they tried their best to learn for three months. If they did their best after three months, they can decide whether to learn more. As a result, they are not interested in music, but they are interested in painting and drama. So I asked them to develop towards their interests.

More opportunities for children to get along with others. "Only 15% of a person's career success depends on his professional skills, and 85% depend on interpersonal and social skills," said Dale Carnegie ." Children who don't get along with each other from an early age are hard to succeed or be happy when they grow up.

Do not suppress your child's emotions. In addition to Joy and joy, anger and sorrow are also normal responses. Give children the opportunity to share their feelings. If a child cries, you will yell at him indiscriminately: "Don't cry! Then I cried and got my punishment !" On the surface, the child will become obedient, and his heart is actually hiding more fear-he is afraid that he will cry and lose his parents' love and be punished. When the growing experience appears repeatedly to suppress or deny your own emotions, you may be able to teach an obedient child, but unfortunately, it is also a child who lacks self-confidence and cannot understand others' emotions. Therefore, accept everything in the world-positive, negative, born, dead, crying or smiling. Because these experiences share the same advantages of our lives as children, and will not benefit from this one-sided approach of education that emphasizes competition, because in the course of learning, as a proud child, they were praised everywhere, which easily gave them extraordinary superiority, and therefore ignored interpersonal and team-Partner training.

Be a Child friend

If you ask my child, "where do you like your father most ?" They will say, "It's funny or even crazy. It's like a friend of mine who wants to talk to him a lot ."

Although I learned my father many times, he was not very close to me when he was still alive. After his death, I can only understand his thoughts or people from my mother and sister-in-law. I think this is a common parent-child relationship in China. Because of this regret, I tried my best to spend time with my children, and I tried my best to be a father who could talk to them.

In your mind, your children may never grow up, but many children are willing to consider themselves as adults at the age of 15 or earlier, at this time, parents can use adult conversations to discuss issues with their children, instead of being completely "parents. For example, ideal, motivation for learning, play, professionalism, human affairs, love, dating, and family problems.

In this regard, I have four suggestions:

(1) join your child and even talk nonsense with him. Do not set up a shelf to be an Elder who is "tall. My child is willing to go to bed after listening to my "Hu Chen" story every day.

(2) do not put your words in your stomach, and I hope he will do the same. Make a good listener.

(3) Let the child know how important he is to you, tell him how much you love him, and generously share your time with him, but do not "Be responsive" to material matters ".

(4) take some time to understand those popular things. I will take some time to understand whether it is a singer, a young idol, or a new computer game. In this way, we can give you more topics, and tell your children that you "care ". It also makes you feel younger!

Talk to a child as a friend. You can tell him what you have experienced every day, or ask him what he has experienced every day. If he tells him what he has done, don't talk, don't get angry, and listen more or less. When he thinks there is no "penalty threat" to chat with you, he will not talk about anything. At the beginning, if he dared not talk about it, he would not be angry with him.

If you want to be a friend of a child, you only need to learn his language, rather than asking him to learn your language. If you do not learn new knowledge, do not touch new ideas, lack of knowledge, or have outdated ideas, you cannot understand what your children think. Parents should try to touch as many popular things as possible. For example, popular ideas, popular costumes, popular technologies, and popular music can reduce the generation gap and create channels for mutual trust and communication.

Chinese parents: they spend more time with their children. No matter how busy they are, they must play with their children and talk about each other equally. Don't think that the children are sent to school. Everything is a teacher's business. When they go home, they urge them to do their homework. When a child does something he does not expect, do not get angry immediately. First listen to the child's reasons.

Summary

This is my favorite poem, which describes my educational philosophy. Share the following with Chinese parents:

What do you give your child?

By Dorothy law Nolte

Criticize children who are growing up and blame others.

Children who grow up in hostility like to quarrel.

Children who grow up in fear are often worried.

The child who grew up in ridicule is shy.

Children who grow up in suspicion are easy to envy.

The child who grows up in shame is conscious and guilty.

Encourage children who grow up with confidence.

Children who grow up in tolerance can endure.

Praise the children who are growing up and learn how to be grateful.

Recognize children who grow up and love themselves.

Sharing the generosity of growing children.

Children who grow up in good faith can understand the truth.

A child who grows up in justice is very righteous.

Respect the children who grow up and know how to respect them.

A child who grows up in trust not only trusts others but also trusts himself.

A child who grows up in a friendly manner not only loves him but also loves himself.

Chinese young people's parents: we have a great responsibility. Young people in China today:

... Very good, but very confused.

... Very intelligent, but not confident enough.

... It is the first generation that can grow in a safe society and complete education over the years.

... Born in a world where information is flushed, they must become elites integrating Chinese and western cultures.

... We were lucky to have been born in the Age of choice, but the age did not teach them the wisdom of choice.

Of course, the most important thing is that Chinese youth are our backbone, our favorite, and everything we have. This reason is enough for us to encourage each other to become "the best parent I can do ".