Many parents have lived to old age without understanding one thing:
Whether it is academic study, or skills such as piano, dance, roller skating , if a person wants to learn and achieve success, there is a spiral process. There will inevitably be bottleneck periods or plateau periods one after another. This even includes playing games.
When encountering a bottleneck period, the most important thing for children to do is to repeat, repeat, and repeat. In this repetitive process, look for subtle improvements and perfections until quantitative changes accumulate into qualitative changes, break through the bottleneck period, and usher in a new era. The new rising period repeats this cycle until you become a master.
In the process of breaking through the bottleneck period, this kind of constant repetition does not appear to be smart, or in other words, it has little to do with whether one is smart or not.
Those who praise their children as "smart" from an early age create the impression that I pass the knowledge and skills taught by the teacher in just one try; when others are busy playing mobile phones and games for a long time, I get the hang of it. Will play.
The self-confidence of "I am smart" that children have built up in these aspects is actually very vulnerable, and may even harm them.
Because of this false self-confidence, once they encounter the bottleneck period mentioned above, they will feel very frustrated and feel that they cannot do it again because they are not smart enough.
To escape this frustration, their only options are to avoid practicing over and over again, or to give up on the skill altogether. As a result, they lost the possibility of crossing the bottleneck period.
Therefore, the so-called intelligence of these children is only reflected in the level of being able to learn quickly, but no matter what they are dealing with, their ability only stays at a low level of intelligence, and it is difficult to cross the bottleneck and reach a higher level.
I know a very good piano teacher who has tutored countless children. She said that every time she meets a child who learns quickly at the beginning, she will be a little worried, because based on past experience, children who learn quickly at the beginning tend to It is easy to give up halfway, but it is rare to be able to persist in studying for 2 years.
The principle is what I discussed above. The way these parents praise their children is wrong. They always praise them for "learning quickly" without understanding that what is more important than learning quickly is repetition and repetition - as a teacher, she , it is difficult to really instill this truth into parents. If parents do not enlighten the teacher, there is nothing they can do. This is something she feels very regretful about.
Among the children who learned piano from her, there was one who started learning piano at the age of 3 and studied for 5 years. His congenital conditions were not very good, and he even learned slower than others. But the idea that parents instill in their children is - it doesn't matter if you learn slowly. Others can learn it 10 times, so let's learn it 100 times.
Today’s children are only 8 years old. In order to break through a particularly difficult piece of music, they will spontaneously sit in front of the piano for three or four hours and play it hundreds of times.
Establishing such a habit is not a happy thing at the beginning, not for parents, nor for children. But after the baptism of time, parents help their children find a sense of accomplishment by breaking through bottlenecks for the first, second, and third time. This sense of accomplishment brings more happiness than the "sense of complacency" obtained over and over again. Much more, much deeper.
The reason why this sense of accomplishment gained through hard work and overcoming difficulties is important is because it will become a child’s life experience. When they encounter difficult problems in the future, they will have the courage to find solutions instead of avoiding them. .
I have communicated with many people who have achieved success in some aspects. Almost all of them will remember the proud experience of encountering difficulties in their lives and achieving breakthroughs through difficult efforts - This kind of self-esteem is achieved through hard work and breaking through the bottleneck period. If you have experienced a major success once in your life, you will not be so afraid and at a loss when encountering difficulties in the future, and it is often easier to achieve breakthroughs.
And the sooner you establish this successful experience in life, the better. A small breakthrough in childhood is enough to become an inspiring experience that will ignite bigger breakthroughs in the future.
This is what people often say, success requires the accumulation of experience.
Those who are praised for being smart just because they "learn quickly" and fail to make progress will probably never experience such a sense of accomplishment in their lifetime.
It is precisely because of this that although this child, who is just 8 years old this year, is not the most intelligent among children, his future life achievements will definitely not be too bad.
And those so-called "smart" children missed the opportunity to establish this kind of motivational experience because of wrong praise from their parents when they were young. It will become more and more difficult to establish this kind of motivation experience when they grow up.
Therefore, I have always suggested that you should not easily praise your children, "You are so smart", but praise them for not being afraid of difficulties and being willing to find breakthroughs over and over again. If you insist on praising your child for being smart, don't praise him for knowing how to learn it once, but praise him for repeating it ten times without making a mistake.
[Reply to comments] 1. Regarding talent and the things we cannot change, I have discussed it in another article: Wang Defeng: Jack Ma’s sharing of successful learning experience everywhere is actually the arrogance of “taking the merits of heaven for his own”. In fact, what this article is about What is discussed is only what we can change through accumulation, besides the six points in the link.
2. "Children who learn quickly, after understanding the existence of the bottleneck period, why can't they persevere?"
- Do you think those parents who only praise their children for being "smart" know that the bottleneck period exists? Most likely, they know this in junior high school and high school, but when it comes to children’s education, they still can’t help their children break through the bottleneck period. What’s the problem?
What I want to say is that it is not enough to know the bottleneck period. You also need to work hard to break through the bottleneck area once, twice, or three times in order to accumulate experience and sense of accomplishment. For most children, they can rely on themselves when they are very young. It is very difficult to get through this level. It requires guidance and supervision from teachers, especially parents, and many parents do not have such abilities.
3. "Bottleneck period? He is just not smart enough or talented enough. Mozart was already able to perform on stage at the age of six. Where do you think his bottleneck period is? Wei Shen is already a Peking University teacher. You say his bottleneck period is again. Where?"
- Logically speaking, no matter how smart or talented a child is, they will always encounter a bottleneck period, but their bottleneck point is just higher than yours.
4. "If you know it once, you are smart. If you can't persist, you don't have perseverance. They are two different things."
- This article does not deny that people who know it once will be smart. It just wants to make it clear to parents: Don't praise your children's "smartness". Don't let your children just stay at this level.
