Friend's Guide: "We must stop defining success by a child's achievements at age 18. This kind of thinking will destroy a child's ability to succeed in their twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties." The author of today's article is Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg, professor of pediatrics a

Friend's Guide

"We must stop defining success by the achievements of children at the age of eighteen. This kind of thinking will destroy the ability of children to succeed in their twenties, thirties, forties and fifties."

Author of today's article Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg is Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine who specializes in adolescent behavior and mental health.

His speech was very popular. After reading, you will find that most of our parents' "anxiety" is unnecessary and unhelpful.

This article is reprinted from the WeChat public account: New Reading and Writing , author: Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg, the opinions of the article belong to the author, for your reference

Don’t define success by your child’s 18-year-old achievements

We often make a mistake: we look Looking at the child in front of me, thinking how successful he is?

Parents who do this tend to pay too much attention to two things: happiness or grades.

If you only focus on the child's immediate happiness and have no requirements for the child, then such happiness will be short-lived and fleeting; if you only care about the child's performance, you will only see the child's achievements, not the child himself.

So, besides happiness and achievements, what should we focus on?

We should not look at the children in front of us, but imagine the children growing up to be 35 years old . If parents start to consider what qualities are needed for the success of 35-year-old adults, the education of their children will be much easier, and parents will also understand better how to Choose a different education method.

We should prepare our children for their future development and success, and cultivate people who have the potential to succeed at the age of 35, 40, and 50. By taking the long view, we gain a new perspective on our understanding of successful childhoods and adolescence.

What kind of person is successful and happy at the age of 35, 40 or 50? It's not about what you have, it's about who you are.

In the secular understanding, successful adults often have the following characteristics:

• Resilience (Resilience)
• Can listen to constructive criticism, have a lifelong studious spirit
• Have social intelligence (Social Intelligence) and emotional intelligence (Emotional Intelligence), Know how to lead and collaborate
• Be creative and innovative
• Grit
• Hard work
• Be kind, compassionate and loving, care about others
• Sense of value and purpose

If we put our lives into perspective Think of it as a sprint, we Will do everything possible to rush to the finish line without planning for the future. Once we fall, we lose. In such a competition, we cannot afford any failure.

But if we regard life as a marathon, then our goals should be longer-term. Only if people around can cooperate and encourage each other can we go further. If you hit a wall and fall, you get up and keep running, looking for a better way.

For this reason, we really cannot define success by the achievements of children at the age of eighteen, and give children too high expectations - such as letting children enter universities such as Ivy League. This kind of thinking will destroy children in their The ability to succeed in your twenties, thirties, forties and fifties.

If we think that every exam, every activity, and every moment may affect a child's life, then we will become a tiger in the child's life, and the child and parents will live in this kind of tension and anxiety every day. .

What expectations should we have for our children?

What expectations should we have for our children? Is it grades, performance, prestigious schools, or awards?

It is right to have high requirements...

Children will grow up because of their parents' expectations and will often make great efforts for them. But it must be emphasized clearly here that high requirements do not refer to external achievements, not straight A's, nor awards and sports honors, but consideration, respect, honesty, kindness, responsibility, etc. These parents hope that their children will have of good character.

The definition of high requirements is that parents can know what kind of person their children are, and parents expect their children to show their good nature and excellent qualities. The focus of is not on their external achievements, but on the expectation that they will have high overall quality in all aspects of their internal qualities as a person.

Corresponding to this problem, we have to mention perfectionism.

However, perfectionism is not good...

Because perfectionists will:

• Low self-esteem
• Afraid of getting a B, afraid of imperfections
• Afraid of disappointing parents
• Lack of creativity
• Afraid of criticism and suggestions

Perfectionism can make children feel Low self-esteem stifles children's creativity. Children like are afraid of "B+" grades, afraid of failure, and afraid of not meeting their parents' requirements. Such children tend to avoid uncertainty and thus do not consider innovation. If this continues, children will be afraid of trying new things, afraid of innovation, and afraid of everything unknown. People who are truly successful will feel that they are very lucky to have the opportunity to do what they do. Compared with the two, this will be a great misfortune.

What needs more attention is that if parents are afraid that their children will fail now, then the children will often fail even more miserably when they grow up, because the children did not learn how to face failure correctly when they were young.

So, what expectations should parents have?

Let’s make a list of goals:

• Parents’ short-term goals: Cultivate children’s eagerness to learn.
• The medium-term goal of parents: is to find a direction that matches their children's interests and promote a love for learning. It's not or Ivy , but the direction that children really love and the passion to work hard for.
• Parent’s long-term goal: Raise a healthy adult.

If you respect your child's independence, your child will get closer to you. If you say to your child, I want you to become independent, I want you to be free, but independence and freedom require your efforts to win. If you say this, the child will have a great self-image, feel that he is in control of his own behavior, and know that you support his independence. The child will spend his entire life with his parents as an independent self.

Sometimes children behave ruthlessly and pretend not to love their parents. This is because they love us and are hurt. Knowing this, we can survive difficult times.

Control the children and the children will stay away from you . Give a child independence, and the child will spread its wings, fly everywhere, and land back in its parent's nest, and the child will return many times throughout its life. Loving your children as people, not for their achievements, is the greatest strength you can give your children in life.

As a parent, there are limits. Children sometimes drive parents crazy. At this time, parents need to remind themselves and ask themselves to love their children as people, and give themselves time to reflect on who they are, what their beautiful nature and qualities are, and the things and beautiful intimacy that their children have done that have moved you. Time...

If you define "success" as going to Harvard , then you will turn the process of your child's growth into the process of making a resume for applying to prestigious schools.

If you define success as who your children will be at thirty-five, who your grandchildren will be, their success, their security, their happiness, their creativity, then I believe we It’s talking about good topics, topics that get to the core.

The suicide rate among Asian college students is growing rapidly, with Asian girls having the highest suicide rate in college. Perfectionism seems to be high in Asians, and it can lead to low self-esteem.

I don't wish any child to suffer like this. I am very excited and honored to be invited to give this speech, because you will spread my educational ideas and tell everyone what true success is, so that you can save lives.

Understanding your child

How to understand who your child is requires changing how you view productive time with your child. If parents mistakenly believe that productive time with their children is about figuring out how to maximize their children's achievements, such as grades and awards, then they will never understand who their children really are.

The most productive times for parents and their children are dinner, hugging and intimacy with their children, and daily conversations and chats with their children to understand what their children are thinking. This is the most effective parent-child time, which will stimulate the child's internal drive and achieve better results.

On the contrary, focusing on children's short-term achievements may excite them for a while, but they will soon lose their enthusiasm and motivation. Parents need to let their children discover themselves, clarify their thoughts, and encourage them to contribute their own strength to the society and the world, so as to cultivate a successful child.

The best gift you can give your children is to take care of yourself. When you take care of yourself, you model by example how to live a resilient person, a happy, life-loving person, a caring person, a strong person with meaning in life.

If all our lives are centered on children, we will make the lives of adults in their forties and fifties look eclipsed, lacking interest and pursuit, and children will not be full of longing and hope for their future.

Thank you all very much!