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The book shared today is "Children's Character"
Peng Kaiping, Dean and Director of the Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University, and co-chair of the Happiness Science Laboratory (H Lab) of Tsinghua University. International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA) and International Positive Education Alliance (IPEN) China Directors, have been selected for many years as the "List of Chinese Highly Cited Scholars". He has been tenured in psychology and East Asian studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and has served as director of the major of social and personality psychology at the University of California, and a member of the American Psychology Association's Scientific Leadership Committee. His popular science works "My Heart Can See: The Surging Blessing" and "Living a Blooming Life" are deeply loved by psychology practitioners and readers.
Yan Wei, Stanford University Postdoctoral fellow, Tsinghua University-Peking University-Peking University-California Berkeley Joint Training Ph.D. in Psychology. He has served as deputy director of the Learning Center of the Happiness Science and Technology Laboratory of Tsinghua University until now. Research directions include positive psychology, educational psychology, and social psychology.
How can children help their inner advantages? How to stimulate the driving force for children to learn independently? How to help children calmly deal with future opportunities and challenges? The key is to cultivate children's character advantages! Professor Peng Kaiping, director of the Department of Psychology at Tsinghua University, summarized the research results of the past 30 years to help you light up your child’s emotional strength, stress resistance, , self-efficacy, , and self-efficacy, , and help your child achieve a happy life.
01, Active Education View
The author mentioned at the beginning of the book that the author received a call from a teacher at a university's psychology center late at night, saying that a student attempted to commit suicide. The head teacher found the author's name and phone number in the student's notebook, so he decided to contact the author to see if the author could provide some help to the student.
After the author hung up the phone, he immediately went to see the student. The author "asked him what was wrong and he had to go to the point of suicide. The child said that he had always wanted to be a good child, listened to his mother and studied hard, and now he was finally admitted to a key university. However, he did not like the major that his mother asked him to study. He always wanted to study philosophy or psychology, but people around him felt that it was difficult to find a job after studying liberal arts. His mother hoped that he could study science, so he was obedient and chose a major that he didn't like at all, but everyone felt very "high-end". However, during the learning process, he became more and more depressed and more disappointed. In the end, he really couldn't stand it anymore and no longer wanted to do what he didn't like. He wanted to forever get rid of the so-called "ideal" imposed on himself by external forces."
You see, many times our educational methods are actually problematic. Teacher Peng Kaiping said that psychology actually has a role, which is to give people a kind of hope, a light, and aid, so that those who are wandering and struggling in the dark know that someone can help them.
When we talk to them and communicate with them, we can actually give them an inner positive force to explore the positive force in children and help them design some behavioral norms. This will stimulate children's enthusiasm and allow children to face problems optimistically and solve problems.
Therefore, the author said that loving children actually requires considering the problem from the perspective of children. We should change the educational method, which is the active education mentioned by the author in the book.
. Active education
What is active education? The author’s original words are: “Positive education is to provide positive and positive education to children by paying attention to the kind nature in people’s hearts, the positive energy of human society, and the spirituality, understanding, kindness and virtue we have together.” What is the relationship between
Active education and positive psychology ? "Positive psychologists believe that everyone has seeds of goodness and kindness, and what they study and explore is how to discover and cultivate these beautiful qualities, and ultimately let everyone live a happy and meaningful life."
"In short, a happy and meaningful life is the result of positive education, and the job of a positive psychologist is to use scientific methods to find out what is the reason for obtaining this result, and how to use scientific methods to "cultivate" these "reasons" to make them truly bear fruit."
Therefore, the author mentioned in the book that we should cultivate children's 7 excellent character advantages, including: "emotional strength, resistance, self-efficacy, self-control, talent advantages, concentration, and kindness. We will discuss these 7 qualities later. Now let's understand what positive psychology is.
2, positive psychology
The author said, "To understand what positive education is, the first thing is to understand what positive psychology is. "
Let's first look at a short story:
" There were two people walking in the desert, and they were both lost, and they drank the water they carried with them. Both of them may lose their lives due to thirst at any time. At this time, the first person found a bottle in a sand pit with half a bottle of water inside. He was very excited and carefully put the half bottle of water into his arms. He took it out and licked the bottle when he was really thirsty. Relying on this half bottle of water, he walked out of the desert.
The second man also found half a bottle of water in a ruin in the desert. He was very disappointed and frustrated: "How can such a little water allow me to get out of the desert?" He was so angry that he cursed the man who had drunk half a bottle of water, why couldn't he drink a few sips and leave more water for himself. Resentment and despair made him almost lose the strength to get out of the desert, and the ending can be imagined. "
is also half a bottle of water. Different people have different perspectives on the problem, and the results will also be different, which fully reflects individual differences. One person is positive in looking at the problem, while the other person is negative in looking at the problem, so their final results may be very different.
" Positive or negative attitudes will truly affect our quality of life and quality of life. This influence will not only affect the present, but also affect our lives for a long time. "Many scientific experiments in psychology have provided a lot of evidence for this: positive people are healthier, live longer, have better studies, and have higher incomes; positive family relationships are more harmonious, and children have higher success rates. Correspondingly, people who have been in a negative state for a long time are likely to have trouble. "
and have a positive mentality. When we encounter difficulties, even if we fall many times, we still have the will, the courage, the ability to get up and forge ahead. This ability to constantly overcome difficulties and challenges, pain and hardships requires us to help our children to cultivate.
" Positive education is an educational concept and practice based on the scientific theory of positive psychology. "So, we need to help children develop positive qualities and stimulate their enthusiasm with scientific methods. Only in this way can children not solve problems in negative ways when they encounter difficulties. Avoid suicide like the one we mentioned at the beginning.
02. Cultivate children's excellent character advantages
We mentioned earlier that we want to cultivate children's seven major character advantages, so what should we do specifically? Let’s talk about it separately.
, Emotional power
First of all, we must cultivate children's emotional power and guide children to manage their emotions. We generally believe that emotions are a spontaneous, passive reaction that is not controlled by one's own control. But now we find that emotions are actually a reflection of rationality, and to some extent the two are inseparable. The author believes that emotions are actually a kind of intelligence, and this ability can be exercised.
Because emotions can be changed through our own active consciousness, efforts, including our cognition. So how should we manage our emotions and control our emotions? The author mentioned a lot of suggestions in the book.
First, the emotional regulation method is to take deep breaths. When people are anxious and angry, they have a habit, that they will exhale very quickly and severely, so there is a word called "qihuhuhu". On the other hand, if we want to control our emotions, we have to take a few breaths of cold air, which is actually helpful to ourselves.
Second, smell the fragrance and the fragrance can quickly soothe our emotions, helping to relieve and regulate emotions. Of course, you can also communicate, communicate, talk, talk, exercise, and meditation, which can all be helpful to your emotions.
3, writing. Including writing diaries and writing poems. So Goethe (German dramatist , poet) wanted to commit suicide, so he wrote a book called "The Troubles of the Young Werther". As he wrote, his thoughts of committing suicide disappeared.
Psychologists found that children begin to have self-control ability at about five years old and begin to consciously control their behavior. Therefore, from the age of five, parents should conduct such emotional education, emotional intelligence and education. EQ education is conducted at about the age of nine in the United States. The author believes that emotional regulation training can be carried out from the age of five.
Many parents are largely scolding or beating their children when they cry. However, the author believes that it is actually difficult to cultivate children's correct habits by relying solely on behavior. In fact, from the age of five, we can encourage children more and let them choose what kind of actions they want to do.
When he is rolling around, the first thing he needs to guide him is to relieve his emotions. We can embrace him, divert his attention, and prevent him from having an attack. If you punish him when he has an attack, it will only make his behavior more extreme, more self-centered, and even rebellious.
The second step is to actively enlighten him and let him imagine himself: if he doesn’t think so or do this, what kind of results will be.
The third step is to divert his attention and guide him to pay attention to some positive aspects, read books, listen to music, run, and do what he likes to do. Because when we pay attention to those negative, unpleasant, painful experiences, it is understandable that some crying, making noise, and screaming behaviors occur. It is difficult to teach children less than five years old to control their emotions. You can only let them divert and sublimate their emotions.
That is to say, before the child is five years old, we must find ways to relieve the child's emotions, and parents must be calm, because the child is still young and he cannot change even if he hits him. But after the age of 5, we can deliberately train his emotional control ability. Telling children a lot of big truths too early will make children more anxious. He would think, "Mom is saying that I am wrong, but I don't know what is wrong."
2, stress resistance
"Temperature resistance is an individual's ability to adapt well when facing life adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats and other major life pressures. It is a ability to recover from difficulties. Children with strong stress resistance can usually have strong social support and emotional connections with adults other than their parents and those who care about them." Training a child's stress resistance requires step by step, from small to big, from weak to strong.
"Psychology believes that stress resistance is a person's innate immunity , and the younger the age, the stronger the stress resistance." As parents, if they want to allow their children to make mistakes, they must allow their children to try, and there must be a gradual process from easy to difficult.
And the exercise of stress resistance should be chosen by the children themselves, not designed by their parents. This is actually quite important, because if a child does not have the right to make his own choices and is arranged by his parents to exercise his resistance, he will develop resistance, anxiety, incomprehension, anger and other emotions. Therefore, it is particularly important to let children choose what kind of challenges to accept through communication and communication.
World Resistance Research Center proposes three steps to cultivate children's stress resistance. The first is to cultivate their awareness of "I have", that is, "I have support", "I have love", "I have help", and "I have trust". This is actually quite important. Children are prone to stress resistance in a loving environment. If he doesn't trust the adults and always suspects that the adults will maliciously hurt him, then he will basically be unable to have resistance.
second, cultivate his positive consciousness of "I am". This "I am" refers to positive self-awareness, which means being able to realize some of your own strengths and strengths. We might as well do a simple exercise, which is to talk about "What are the unique things I have" and "What hobbies I have are particularly meaningful".
3, cultivate his "I can" awareness. There is a master who studies self-efficacy, called Bandula (American psychologist). He started doing research in the 1970s and found that if both adults and children believe that they have the ability to do what they want, such a self-expectation will also be of great help to cultivate children's resistance. So the education of "I have", "I am" and "I can", these three "I" are particularly helpful in cultivating stress resistance.
And if you want to improve your child's stress resistance, "you must help your child stay away from fixed thinking and cultivate their growth thinking." The author has a few suggestions:
First of all, encourage, praise, describe, and criticize children more. It is to praise children for "some acquired characteristics that can be changed, such as hard work and care, so that children can understand that although talent is good, acquired efforts can not only solve problems, but also develop their own skills and talents. At the same time, parents should also convey this value to their children through words and deeds: success is about personal growth, and we should use our talents to contribute to society, rather than to prove that we are smarter than others; encourage children to transform into "work hard homes", so that they are more likely to become winners in life."
Secondly, encourage children to face failure optimistically, " Look at the child’s accidental failure with an open mind. “For example, if the child fails to do well in the exam, you can guide the child to think: “What are my shortcomings and what do I need to do to make up for these shortcomings.” ”
3. Self-efficacy
”In the psychological sense, self-efficacy refers to the individual’s expectations and judgment of whether he is capable of completing a certain task in a specific situation. “So how can we cultivate children’s awareness of “I can do it”? Many mothers will say to their children, "Baby, you are awesome" and "Baby, you are awesome", but this is not very effective in cultivating self-efficacy. The author mentioned 3 methods in the book.
First, it is to constantly accumulate your own successful experience. You have accomplished many small things. If you accumulate these small things, you can find success. This is why it is very important for parents to keep a growth diary for their children.
second, role model. The neighbor's child was admitted to Tsinghua and Peking University , which was motivating for himself; the masters we interacted with were motivating for us. The power of role models is endless because these can give us a sense of self-efficacy.
3, take positive actions. In the process of tens of millions of years of evolution, human beings have developed a particularly important protection mechanism, which is that actions produce positive forces. If done well, they will easily produce positive forces and their sense of self-efficacy will be improved. So you must have something you do well and love to do, which will be of great help to yourself.
Bandura also proposed that self-efficacy means having a healthy physical and mental state. It means being in good health, having strength, sleeping well, and speaking smoothly. All these signs of health actually have a positive sense of self-efficacy for yourself.
4, self-control
There is an experiment called marshmallow. This experiment is: put a piece of marshmallow in front of 32 children aged 3-5, and told him, I'm going out now. If you can resist eating this marshmallow, I'll give you two more marshmallows when I come back in 15 minutes. The experimental results found that less than one-third of the children could tolerate it. Most children ate the marshmallow after 5 minutes.
Not only children, but also adults. This experiment did not end, but lasted for about ten or twenty years because these people were following the children's subsequent performance. The result was that those children who could resist eating marshmallows were much better than other children in their academic performance, and their abilities were much higher after work, and their career achievements were much higher.
Our will is a very weak thing when facing choices. Therefore, we need to use scientific methods to improve our self-control. So how to cultivate self-control? The author mentioned several methods in the book.
first, do things you don’t want to do, do not do well, and do not do well. For example, practice writing with your left hand; eat slowly with chopsticks. In short, it is to let the child slowly do what he doesn’t want to do, so that he can adapt continuously.
second, mindful meditation.
3, cultivate children's positive emotions. For example, letting him do happy things, listen to music, sing, dance, rest, and eat, all these things you can't imagine can improve his self-control.
5, Talent Advantages
Explore children's talent advantages and stimulate children's inner potential. "Parents' education for their children is not simply instilling knowledge in books, but to expand the boundaries of their children's hearts, expand their comprehensive cognition, arouse their curiosity and exploration of the world, and to discover, explore and realize themselves.
In fact, children have talent advantages, that is, the construction, processing and operation methods of each of our brains are actually different, so "born my talents must be useful", the key is that you have to find what your talent advantages are.
Then how can you discover the talent of your children? First, explore and observe the children with love; secondly, create opportunities for observation. Take your children out for a walk more, have a wide range of knowledge, and experience different life scenes, and it is easier to discover the talent of your children.
6, Focus
"A child with strong concentration can not only exert his potential well in various situations, do things the best, but also be more positive and optimistic when facing difficulties. I believe that with his concentration and perseverance, we can overcome difficulties."
The characteristic of a person's brain is that he is bored with the old and tired of the new. It is difficult for him to focus on one thing for a long time and will definitely divert his interest. Therefore, if you want to cultivate your child's concentration, providing excessive choices will actually reduce his concentration. Only when there are not many resources and few choices will his concentration improve.
First, you must cultivate your ability to choose and be able to focus your goals and desires on a few meaningful little things, so that you can improve your concentration.
second, ensure the rest of the brain. We find that when people are tired, their concentration will decrease, while when they are excited, healthy and positive, their concentration will increase. Therefore, it is actually very important to ensure sufficient rest in the brain.
Psychologists have found that the way human brain rests is not only sleep. We always think that sleeping is only rest, but in fact, transfer and substitution are also rest. If a certain part of the neural network is particularly active, then other neural networks will get a rest. When you activate other neural networks, you can rest the neural network that has been used too much. Therefore, in order to improve their attention, many smart people have to do different things alternately.
"The so-called alternating learning means that children learn different subjects in a period of time during the learning process, rather than just holding one subject for a long time "chewing". "Scientific research has found that the human brain has different divisions of labor left and right brain, the left brain focuses on logic and abstract thinking, while the right brain focuses on image thinking. For example, mathematics, physics and other subjects mainly use the left brain, and Chinese, English and other subjects mainly use the right brain."
"Children learn a course for a long time, and their brains are prone to fatigue and sleepiness, and they will also produce psychologically If you force your child to continue learning at this time, the effect will be greatly reduced. At this time, what children need is to learn alternately and change to another subject to study. In this way, their brains will enter a state of excitement again and their attention will not be distracted by brain fatigue. "
7, kind
7, psychologists made a new discovery in the 1970s. We were influenced by social Darwinism , and mistakenly believed that "success in the world" was right. But now, scientists have discovered that what we rely on to defeat animals is not our power. We are not as fast as them, we are not as strong as them, and we are not as good as them in all these competitive abilities. But why can humans destroy those wild beasts? Because humans will cooperate.
So scientists have discovered that cooperation is the third mechanism of human evolution - the first is natural selection, survival of the fittest; the second is selection of the opposite sex, survival of the beautiful; the third is social cooperation, survival of human beings.
In a sense, it is because of the mutual benefit of humans that they destroyed tigers, leopards, , lions, and jackals and . We can't fight them alone. What is the secret to us overcoming them? It is us who work together, and the premise of cooperation is human kindness.
This view was proposed by Robert Tworth, a famous psychologist at Harvard University . He said: It is not because we are kind to us, we help others; but because after we help others, we become kinder and kinder. In other words, human beings can reach the present not by hostility, attack, or competition, but by mutual help. So how should we cultivate children’s kindness?
First, start with helping the people around you.For example, help parents take care of younger brothers and sisters and cultivate a helpful character. "When children help their parents do things, parents must show recognition of their children's value. Only in this way can children learn to leave love and gratitude to the people they are closest to, rather than leaving them all to strangers."
Second, encourage children to give emotional support to others. "For example, when you see your friends being sad, you can ask your child to comfort him; when grandparents celebrate their birthday, ask the child to draw a picture for grandparents and wish them a happy birthday."
3, parents are good examples of behavior. "Parents must first become caring, moral and responsible people, set a good example for their children to demonstrate behavior and let their children imitate them." "For example, when we hope that their children can help others, we take the lead in actively participating in some volunteer activities in schools and communities. In this process, we can assign some tasks appropriately to children, or let them be small helpers. This will increase the child's sense of value, make children feel that they are useful, and at the same time, we can get more opportunities to think about what others think and worry about what others are anxious about." In the last chapter of
, the author also introduced us to how to enhance the power of the child as king. The author calls it the "ACE+" theory, including "three aspects of content." "
A refers to Aesthetic, that is, the aesthetic sense, that is, the ability to see things that others cannot see, understand things that others cannot understand, and appreciate nature, The truth, goodness and beauty of society and people. "
"C refers to Creative, that is, creativity, that is, being able to analyze problems, solve problems, create new concepts and new things, imagine the future, and plan the future. "
" and "+" represents other human character advantages based on "ACE" Supplements of momentum and virtue, such as humanity, justice, humility, prudence, gratitude, etc., are all "flowers". "
" What positive psychology advocates is that children should strive to gain "ACE ability", that is, "the power of the king". This is the seed of people's development, maturity, and success, and it is also the ultimate weapon to improve their competitive advantages in the future. "
