What novels are there to educate people about life?

How Kai-Fu Lee educates his children "How Celebrities Educate Children"

1. Cultivate children's enthusiasm

I have two daughters, sixteen years old The eldest daughter Li Dening is good at literature and poetry, and the 12-year-old younger daughter Li Deting is confident, lively and good at creation. They are all my pride. What I often tell them is that to be my daughter, you don’t have to be good, but you have to be positive. I don’t think it’s a good thing if a child is just good and obedient.

There are many principles that need to be valued in raising children, but if I could only pick one thing that is most important, I would say it is to cultivate motivation in your children. With positivity, other qualities such as reason, happiness, self-confidence, etc. can be mastered naturally.

The main reason is that today’s world is different. Children who are passive, just obedient, or afraid of punishment will often feel very confused and overwhelmed when they enter society, and will habitually They need others to tell them what to do; but when a child is motivated, whether it is studying, practicing how to find a job, finding interests, and other things, he can arrange it by himself. When you are motivated, you can Designed.

Although we parents want to take care of our children for a lifetime, it is very important to cultivate their ability to be active and independent. Of course, this does not mean that you should let your child be independent when he is three years old. When children still can't distinguish right from wrong, parents still need to provide guidance, but parents must learn to let go slowly and let their children make their own decisions.

Many parents hope that their children will be well-behaved. To be well-behaved means to be obedient, and to be obedient means to do whatever is asked of you. From this point of view, I don’t want my children to be too well-behaved. On the contrary, I hope They have the ability to think independently. Being the most well-behaved child is definitely not my goal in raising children. But if being good means being considerate and polite, I think these are pretty good.

They don’t listen to us because they know that they have the right to discuss some things with us. Chinese people always regard "obedience" as a child's advantage. But I want my children not to just be obedient children, I want them to be reasonable children. Obedient children may just follow the instructions blindly, but may not understand the truth. Reasonable children will obey you when you are reasonable. Isn’t that what we want?

2. The older the child, the fewer the rules.

Although I believe in heuristic education, I also believe that children need discipline and rules. I have four laws about "rules":

First, set the rules, but first make the principles of the rules clear, and not blindly obey them;

Second, keep the children within the rules There is complete freedom;

3. Children who violate the rules will be punished as agreed;

4. The fewer the rules, the better, so as to serve as an inspiration.

If you don’t tell him the reason, your child will not remember that something you said is right or wrong just because it is right or wrong. If you set rules without explaining why, on the one hand, children will not be able to learn self-discipline; on the other hand, children will position their parents as dictators, leaving no room for accommodation. If you set a rule that he cannot accept, he will either think you are not good, or he will be rebellious and want to do something.

If you set these rules as rigidly as a prison, if the child violates them, I will punish them, and the child will become heteronomous rather than self-disciplined. Yes, heteronomic rules will make children passive, and only those with self-discipline can become proactive.

I think the younger the children, the more they need these so-called rules, but as the children grow up, parents may have to learn to trust their children. Violations should be punished, but rules should be as few as possible, and the older the children are, the more they need as few as possible.

How many rules do our family have? Actually I can't think of too many rules, probably no more than three or four things.

For example, if they go out, we will set a time and hope that they can come back before then; they are not allowed to chat with strangers on the computer or the Internet; we also pay attention to politeness, especially when meeting elders, we must stand up; and there is responsibility. Responsibilities include cleaning your room and taking your bowl to the kitchen after eating. These are probably things we would ask for.

For very serious things like drinking, taking drugs, and hitting others, I don’t think there is any need to set rules. It is very clear that you cannot do it. They also understand that this is not something that can be done, so we don’t have to repeat it.

But in addition, we will not punish them immediately because they violate the rules. Punishing them if they forget once in a while is too harsh. Therefore, the premise must be made clear. After breaking the rules, you should be reminded first. It may be that after multiple reminders are useless, punishment will be considered.

In fact, children don’t just follow the rules when they learn from their parents. They will watch what you do, not what you say. Every time your child does something bad, you will yell at her or even say unpleasant words. Of course they will think that this is how they are and that is how they should speak when they are angry. Slowly, they will be immersed in it and learn these bad habits. Therefore, parents should pay attention to setting an example.

3. Create an environment where there is no need to punish children

Our parents are both open-minded and strict in our discipline, but I have been naughty since I was a child, because I am the youngest son and I also receive special love from my mother. , never punished me for my naughty little mistakes, but once, after I boasted to my elders that I always got perfect marks in exams, "I didn't even get 99 points", in order to stop me from being arrogant, he punished me. When I didn't get a perfect score on a test, he didn't hesitate to beat me up with family methods. I remember this incident particularly deeply.

After I became a father, I felt that any punishment should be avoided as much as possible. I would rather give her no chance to make a mistake than have her make a mistake, be caught... and then be punished.

However, there will still be penalties. When my oldest daughter was younger, maybe six or seven, she was talking to strangers on the computer. We made an agreement with her at that time that if you talk to strangers on the Internet or go to some bad websites, and you are discovered by us, you may...for example, you may not use the computer for two days. This was when they were younger, but now they don’t care so much (laughs).

Every time a child breaks the rules and is punished, it is actually a blow to her soul. If a child breaks the rules, there may be a reason. Maybe she had a lucky mentality; maybe she thought she could do it as long as she didn't get caught; maybe she said, if I don't agree with the rules you set, I will rebel. No matter what the reason is, whether the child succeeds or fails in breaking the rule, is caught or not caught, it will be a negative blow to her.

So what do we care about? Rather create an environment where she has no chance to make mistakes. For example, we will put the computer in the family room, right in the middle of the kitchen, dining room, and living room. Every day, my wife and I will always have someone walking around in these three places. This isn't spying on her, and we don't walk up to her to see what she's doing, but she knows we're there with her.

4. Stop when you are angry. Punishment when angry will cause great harm.

It is not a matter of following rules, but also a matter of mutual understanding. If she has a bad temper and yells at us, we will consider whether it is due to puberty hormones and will not use violence to deal with violence.

If she has done something bad, she must tell her, but it is the same as quarreling with adults. When you are angry, it will not make sense to reason with a rebellious teenager. If you lose your temper, even if you beat him or scold him, it will probably be of no use. It's better to call it a day, ignore him then, and wait for the two parties to calm down before trying to reason with each other.

Sometimes I have a bad temper, and I also hope that the other party can stop it. If two people with bad tempers debate together, it will not end well.

Raising children is the same as getting along with others. Whether I am facing colleagues in the company, or my wife, brother, sister, etc., whenever one party starts to lose their temper and is irrational, the other party must To learn to stop, this is a more useful method that I have gradually learned over the course of my life.

Yes, I admit that I have spanked children. They were probably beaten once each when they were under ten years old. In the past few times, when I was relatively irrational, whether I was too cruel to my children or hit them, I regretted it afterwards. It's not that they did nothing wrong and shouldn't be punished, but they feel that this will have a negative impact on the relationship between father and daughter and on their growth process.

Physical pain can heal quickly, but if you hurt her heart and you are so rude to her, she will think, "Do you not love me anymore?" Or the parent-child relationship. It will become a bit estranged, "You are my friend, how can you hit me?" It makes them feel helpless; or parents will feel, "Why am I such a person?" These situations will cause me, Or the regrets of other (same situation) parents. At this time, you should make a decision not to do anything in the future.

5. Three percent of the time I want to discipline, and 97% of the time I want to be the child’s friend

In fact, when I think about my children, I spend at most 30% Ninety-seven percent of the time, they have nothing to do with discipline and punishment. I think our main job as parents is to understand our children, be their friends, encourage them, help them, give them ideas, be their advisors, and understand what the children are thinking. If discipline is regarded as the main means or purpose of parents for their children, in the essence of being a parent, it is doomed to fail.

For example, my eldest daughter likes to write some love novels and poems, and then I will find ways to help her revise and publish them. I will encourage her to tell her which ones are good. Are you kidding me, are you telling your own story in this article?

My younger daughter is more naughty. She likes to take some funny photos. I will also record some funny music with her, shoot some videos, and write some autobiographies. She is too young to know how to do it. I do all the typing for her...

My youngest daughter often told me "I am so stupid" when she was little. In fact, she is not stupid at all. She was just slandered by malicious classmates, so I slowly cultivated her. I saw that she wrote well in her diary, so I praised her and encouraged her to write more. After she expressed her interest, she actually wrote an "Autobiography" by herself, which was shown to people everywhere and even put it in my In the "Personal Background" section of the website. (laughing)

My eldest daughter used to be shy and would not ask questions even if she didn’t understand them. I set a measurable and practical goal with her: she raises her hand once a day, and if she persists for a month, she will be rewarded. Then, we slowly increase the number of times we raise our hands. So she set a goal. She must ask questions every day in class, ask questions she doesn't understand, and measure whether she has achieved it every day after class. Later, she achieved this goal, but other than asking questions, she did not participate in discussions in class. The next goal she set was to raise her hand to participate in a discussion at least once a day. After a year, the teacher noticed that she was confident enough to speak in class.

6. The first step to be your child’s friend is without the threat of punishment

My two daughters like to go shopping, and I have cultivated the habit of going shopping myself. They like young Taiwanese singers. , I’ll listen too! Whether it's a pop star, a teen idol, a new computer game, I spend some time getting to know it. If you want to be your child's friend, you must learn his language, and they will not learn yours. If you don't learn new knowledge, you won't understand what today's children are thinking.

Treat your child as a friend and talk to him. You can tell him what you go through every day, or you can ask him what he goes through every day. If he tells you that you have done something you "shouldn't do", don't lecture, don't get angry, listen more and talk less. When he feels that there is no "threat of punishment" for talking to you, he will talk about anything. At the beginning, if he is a little afraid to talk, promise him not to be angry with him.

In fact, the definition of parents being their children’s friends is to talk to them about everything. You want him to say everything to you, but the premise is that he has enough trust in you. "After you say it, you can't scold me, you can't criticize me, you can't think that I'm bad or bad." At most, you can just listen. Talk to me, or help to enlighten me, instead of punishing you as soon as you hear it.

I learned a lot from my father and mother in my behavior, but when my father was alive, he was not very close to me. After his death, I could only understand his thoughts or person through my mother, brothers and sisters. I think this is a common father-son relationship in China. I feel that my father is a great person, but I didn’t have the opportunity to get to know him better. Because of this regret, I try my best to spend time with my children, and try my best to be a father who can talk to them about what’s on my mind. I hope that when my child grows up, no matter whether she is successful or my education is successful, I always hope that my child can treat me as a friend.