Parents’ anxiety has nowhere to escape

Many parents may have had the same feeling as me: ever since their children started school, the most nervous person is not the children, but the parents themselves. What parents usually fear most is no longer the phone call from the leader, but the roll call of the teacher in the class group; mothers no longer ask where to go to play on the weekend, but which extracurricular tutoring class is the best; fathers no longer meet Talk about work and career, but analyze the pros and cons of housing in school districts together...

Anxiety spreads rapidly among parents like an infectious disease, and expectant fathers and mothers are not immune. It is no longer strange for parents to prepare a room in a school district, grab a spot in an early childhood education class, and qualify for kindergarten before the baby is born.

Many educational institutions have seized on the pain points of parents and made a big fuss about it, further catalyzing parents' anxiety. Regardless of whether the course is suitable for their children, as long as it is linked to the "child's future", parents are willing to pay for it, fearing that their children will lose at the "starting line".

Sometimes I feel as if I am trapped by an invisible cloth bag, so suffocated that I can’t breathe, but I can only let an invisible big hand push me forward in a daze. Walk.

In recent years, there has been much discussion in society about the causes of parents’ anxiety. Many education experts have put forward their own views and opinions on this issue. However, not only have they not solved the problem of parents’ anxiety, but they have sometimes aggravated it. Their nervousness. As an ordinary mother, I would like to share my views on this issue.

1. Parents’ anxiety is an inevitable and normal response in the context of continuous social development

No one can escape the torrent of social development. In this torrent, if If you don't push forward with all your strength, you will be swallowed by the waves of the times and eventually be beaten to death on the reef. Almost everyone is in a state of anxiety, especially parents, because not only do we have to prevent ourselves from drowning, but we also pull on our children, hoping to push them to the top of the wave. Even if our children cannot ride the waves, we do not want them to fall behind the times.

The development of society requires higher-level talents, which undoubtedly places higher demands on education, parents and children. My most direct experience is that I feel obviously struggling when tutoring my children in their homework. The saying "Parents with Ph.D.s can no longer tutor children in fifth grade" circulating on the Internet is definitely not a joke, but a story that is happening in real life. Both the difficulty and standard of children's homework are much higher than when we were children, and the constant updating of knowledge is also one of the reasons why parents have headaches about their children's homework.

Take the writing requirements as an example. When we were in elementary school, the teachers were not particularly strict about writing requirements. The concepts of "paper score" and "impression score" were only mentioned by the teacher when we entered junior high school and high school. . Nowadays, since large-scale important examinations are generally graded by machines, the neatness of the writing on the paper will directly affect the accuracy of machine evaluation. Therefore, out of a responsible attitude toward students, teachers and schools have raised the importance of neat writing to an unprecedented level, and have started with first-grade primary school students to strive to develop the habit of neat writing from an early age. Parents of students without writing skills will undoubtedly feel anxious when faced with the current high demands on writing.

In this rapidly changing era, uncertainty about the future of their children will inevitably lead to parents’ anxiety, which is inevitable and reasonable. From another perspective, parents’ anxiety stems from their love and responsibility for their children. As long as parents’ love for their children remains unchanged, parents’ anxiety because of their children will never disappear. Not just now, but in any historical period. The famous "Meng Mu's Three Moves" is the best explanation of this kind of psychology of parents.

2. The uneven distribution of educational resources has led to intensified competition among parents for high-quality educational resources.

The uneven distribution of educational resources is an indisputable status quo, and high-quality educational resources are even more scarce. resource. Children's future depends on education, so parents are bound to compete for educational resources, especially high-quality educational resources. In the era of "pay for knowledge", whoever has strong funds can occupy more resources. "To fight for children is to fight for parents." The competition among parents in the field of education extends to other fields, and the pressure increases sharply.

The "nearby enrollment" policy not only failed to alleviate parents' competition for high-quality educational resources, but also gave rise to "school district housing", which raised the housing prices around key schools. The frequent occurrence of "sky-high-priced school district housing" has made Parents complained endlessly. In the end, families that lack competitive capital have no choice but to withdraw from the competition, and most of the high-quality educational resources are occupied by relatively wealthy and well-off families. This explains to a certain extent why the top scorers in the college entrance examination in recent years are mostly from well-off families.

"College Entrance Examination Immigration" is actually a disguised form of competition for educational resources. In recent years, "immigrated" areas have successively introduced restrictive policies to ensure local "education equity." Some candidates have been deprived of education qualifications as a result, but this does not prevent some parents from sending their children to areas with more advantageous educational resources. With the transfer actions between districts and cities, many parents around me are still using various channels and means to move their or their children's household registrations to surrounding counties and cities with better teaching quality, so as to make early plans for their children's enrollment and further education in the future.

Parents’ pursuit and competition for high-quality educational resources has in turn raised the threshold for obtaining high-quality resources. Not to mention the various conditions and requirements set for children and parents when enrolling students in private kindergartens or schools, even public schools with relatively low admission requirements have parents overwhelmed by limited enrollment quotas. It is nothing new for parents to get up at three or four o'clock in the morning and line up in front of the school just so that their children can go to a good school.

As the saying goes: "When people go to higher places, water flows to lower places." The concentration of educational resources in areas with developed economies and obvious educational advantages is a natural law and does not depend on personal will. The introduction of some policies is equivalent to strengthening the uneven distribution of resources, making families at a competitive disadvantage feel unable to cope with their needs, and therefore more anxious.

3. The more “burden reduction” there is, the more anxious you become

I especially remember that during the Two Sessions last year, the Minister of Education caused an uproar in the online world because of his remarks about reducing burdens in an interview. The official WeChat account of the Ministry of Education Beau turned off comments at one point. The original intention of the Minister of Education is to give children a happy childhood, and advocates that parents should have scientific educational concepts, believing that "if the baby is unhappy, the consequences will be serious." But parents don't seem to buy it.

It is not difficult for parents with a little insight to find that years of "burden reduction" not only does not make the baby happy, but also makes the burden on the baby and the parents heavier. There is less homework in school, but the pressure to enter higher education still exists. Due to the need for talent selection, the difficulty of exams is also increasing year by year. When what their children learn in school cannot meet their needs for further studies, parents can only turn to extracurricular education institutions for help. Children’s spare time is occupied by various tutoring classes, and parents are exhausted between various tutoring classes. In the end, no one is happy. . This year’s global outbreak of the novel coronavirus pneumonia has not only made our people see the absurdity of Western countries’ “anti-intellectual and anti-science” policies, but has also made parents reflect on the shortcomings of so-called “happy education.”

Advocating burden reduction under such circumstances is of course more like a "conspiracy" in the eyes of most parents. Some even suspect that this is a signal that the "rising channel" is about to close. In September this year, a piece of news that "nearly 800 first-year high school students in Huaihua, Hunan Province were forcibly transferred to vocational high schools" spread throughout parents' circles of friends, making them even more suspicious. No parent wants to see their child’s life being characterized before it even begins. Every responsible parent strives to send their children to a higher level before the "upward passage" is closed.

In the face of the great river of the times, individuals are as small as a drop of water in the river. We cannot decide the direction of the river, we can only follow the trend. Since anxiety comes from parents’ love for their children, parents should take it calmly, calm down, and try their best to distinguish the complicated information to avoid unnecessary waste of money and energy; in the midst of panic, don’t forget to stop and ask their children. After all, the future belongs to the child, and we are just guides.