When it comes to children’s education, learning-oriented parents are all trying to do this well!

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The other day, I saw a news report:Hang zhou, a hospital’s cardiology department admitted a 35-year-old young woman who was so frustrated by her child’s procrastination while supervising homework that herblood pressure soared to 240. Last year, the same department also admitted a man in his thirties who suffered from acute myocardial infarction due to supervising homework.

While sympathizing with the “hardships of parents everywhere,” I was reminded of another set of data:

Among people with depression,50% are students.77% and 69% of student patients are prone to depression ininterpersonal and family relationships.63% of student patients feel strict/control, neglect/lack of care, and conflict/domestic violence at home.

(Data from the “2022 National Depression Blue Book”)

On one side are anxious parents, and on the other side are depressed children. An article in the 2023 “Sanlian Life Weekly” said, “After more than a month of school starting, the child psychiatry department of Peking University Sixth Hospital is already overwhelmed.”

Reports of children’s aversion to school and truancy are also visibly increasing. Among these children, there are so-called “underachievers,” as well as everyone’s “top students.”

Some children refuse to go to school for a long period, while others take “days off” from time to time. Some children skip school to play games on their phones, while others would rather stay at home and daydream than go to school.

It can be said that each child’s situation is different. But most of them have expressed similar feelings –“Life is ‘boring’.”

“Can you talk to the child?” Parents invariably ask me this question. Almost everyone thinks that the “problem” lies with the child.

But as parents, what can we do?

It’s the “relationship” that’s the problem

As a BCBA( Board Certified Behavior Analyst), from the latest developments in behavioral theory – Relational Frame Theory, it’s not so much that a person “has a problem”, but rather that their relationship with the surrounding environment has a problem.

Undoubtedly, studying is tough! As some children say online:“If there is such a job, you have to arrive at work at 6 a.m., finish at 5 p.m., but have to work overtime until 11 p.m., sometimes you can only rest two days a month, the intensity of work far exceeds 996, and it has to last for 12 years..”

Children are indeed not easy! However, they complain, and generally, it’s just verbal complaining. The real aversion to school and specific escape behaviors are not just because of how hard studying is. The real reason should be his relationship with the surrounding environment(family, teachers, classmates)has a problem.

Let’s imagine the following scene:

“Your nine bosses take turns nagging in your ear every day – why is your work efficiency so low, why is your performance always not up to par, are you stupid or something, you can only sweep the streets and go to the assembly line in the future,if you don’t improve your performance, your life is over!”

“You go to this class every month there will be an assessment, sometimes even every week there is an assessment,every three years there is a major elimination.”

“When you get home, you are also criticized by your family, and you are watched all the time not allowed to have any slacking behavior…”

Do you feel suffocated?

When children say “life is meaningless,” there may be an element of avoiding pressure, but it can also indicate –they do not receive enough “positive support” and “effective communication” in their lives.

The systemic requirements of schools may be difficult to change, and understanding and acceptance from family and loved ones are even more important at such times.

In the 2024 stand-up comedy stage, there was a person who shouted “passion” and won the championship title with an absolute advantage King of Comedy – Fu Hang. With a total college entrance examination score of 245, he could only go to a general college; after graduation, he has worked as a front desk receptionist, a lobby security guard, a customer service operator, a foreign language tour guide, and has also played in a band. Fu Hang’s past path may be what many parents are frantic about “hating iron not becoming steel.”However, in Fu Hang’s father’s view, this piece of iron does not need to become steel.

Before the third grade of elementary school, Fu Hang’s parents also “chicken” the child, Chinese, martial arts, English, trumpet… They signed up for a lot of classes. Dad asked him, “What do you want to do when you grow up?” Fu Hang said, “I want to make pancakes.”

If it were another parent, they might have entered the “nagging” mode or the “angry” mode at this point. But Fu Hang’s father said something that made Fu Hang remember deeply, “From today on, our family will enter a happy world in an instant. The only secret to entering the happy world is that parents deeply realize that the child is not the right material.”

“The child is not the right material,”Looks like a “negative” evaluation, but this “negative” is not used to undermine the child, but precisely to release the child and make him happy.

Because “not the right material,” parents do not have high expectations for you, and you don’t have to feel guilty.This is not only tolerance for the child but also a release for the parents themselves.

When Fu Hang, in his thirties, won the “Comedy King Monologue Season” championship, everyone asked him why he could have such a passionate and optimistic attitude. Fu Hang said he was grateful to his parents. Another important thing his father said to him was, “Never listen to your father, you should boldly do things your father has never done, and your father will always support you.”

Undoubtedly, it is the father’s unconditional respect, trust, and acceptance that has protected Fu Hang’s vigorous vitality and creativity.

In recent years, the topic of “Why are my parents so disappointing” has been enduring. But to be honest, being a parent is not easy either. Sometimes, we may not even realize that we are also those invisible verbal abusers:

At the age of 8, I brought back a test paper with 95 points waiting for praise, and the first thing my parents asked was “Where did the 5 points you lost go?”

At the age of 35, I said to my 8-year-old child, “Where did the 5 points you lost go…”

A mother who came for consultation said that at that moment, she suddenly felt that she had also become “the appearance of parents”.

“From daily eating, dressing, to interest choices, and ways of making friends, they can always find something unsatisfactory.” She suddenly understood why she was always prone to mental exhaustion and unconsciously replicated some of her parents’ behaviors.

In East Asian culture, an individual’s self-identity is constructed through relationships with others. At the beginning of life, children usually get to know themselves from their parents’ feedback. When they become parents, they may unconsciously continue to pass on their experiences in their original families, as well as those mixed emotions and cognitions, to their own children. Indeed, the impact of this intergenerational transmission is hard to detect.

Intergenerational transmission: refers to the subtle influence of family parenting patterns on children’s future interpersonal interaction patterns and quality, marital relationships, child-rearing methods, worldview, and values.

Back to the question – “As parents, what can we do?”

Self-awareness, blocking negative transmission.We need to first become aware of habitual reactions and thinking, and then adjust our behavior to start blocking the intergenerational transmission of negativity. Otherwise, our children, when they grow up, are still very likely to treat their own children in the same way.The essence of parent-child relationships is also interpersonal relationships.The well-known American interpersonal communication teacher Barbara Pachter said in her book “Positive Communication”:

“People especially need to learn how to express themselves effectively in difficult situations, and they need to learn how to communicate positively with others, rather than just complaining or taking some negative and irrational actions.”

How to become an interesting parent, learn positive communication, and change one’s inherent habits is by no means easy, but it is worth the effort.

Shaping, gradually approaching success

When we encounter difficulties, we all long for understanding and help, and children are no exception. They are not unwilling to learn, but they encounter difficulties on the road of learning and lack support. Perhaps it can be said that there are only children who do not want to “learn,” not children who do not want to be excellent.

Let’s take a look at those children who wait to be seen.

For example, children troubled by depressive emotions. Depressive emotions not only affect emotional states but may also cause damage to cognitive functions. A related study points out that children and adolescents with depressive disorders have varying degrees of damage to cognitive functions such as executive functions, attention, learning and memory, and information processing speed.

For example, children with learning difficulties. According to WHO data, 5%-15% of children worldwide are affected by learning difficulties. Domestic statistics show that 13% to 17% of school-age children have learning difficulties. There are about 150 million children aged 5-12 in our country, which means one in six is affected, and the number of children with learning difficulties reaches about 30 million.

Broadly defined learning difficulties refer to low academic performance caused by various reasons, including:

🔎Neurodevelopmental disorders, such as attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder, psychomotor developmental delay, developmental learning disabilities (reading disabilities, writing disabilities, calculation disabilities);

🔎Emotional problems, behavioral problems, perceptual defects, and unfavorable cultural educational factors leading to poor learning.

Narrowly defined learning difficulties specifically refer to poor academic performance caused by neurodevelopmental disorders (brain development disorders).

For example, children who have not kept up with the learning progress for various other reasons(such as study habits, peer relationships, etc.).

They all need specific and effective support. If they cannot get help for a long time, “learned helplessness” behavior will appear – no matter what they do, they are always unqualified and unsatisfactory, so it’s better to “give up”?

Here, I would like to share an important principle from ABA(Applied Behavior Analysis):Shaping.

Shaping refers to the process of reinforcing a series of approximations to the target behavior, gradually leading to the emergence of the target behavior.

Put simply, we need to help children set reasonable short-term goals, which is very important.

A reasonable short-term goal

For example, many parents hope that their children can have enough concentration for a certain length of time, such as 45 minutes(one class).

But if this child, for various reasons, can only concentrate for 10 minutes. What should we do? Then we set the initial standard at 10 minutes or 11 minutes!

If we always use the final goal(for example, 45 minutes) as the standard to demand the child, then the child will undoubtedly experience failure after failure. The parents’ mental state changes often go through the following process: at first, they get angry, thinking the child is not trying hard enough! Gradually, they feel wronged, complaining why God sent such a stupid/bad child, what did they do wrong? In the end, they feel desperate, thinking this child is not suitable for studying, let him go.

Anyway, in the end, the child is the one who gets hurt.

The child’s current reality

We need to first understand the child’s current reality. For example, some parents complain to me that their child’s concentration is very poor! But when I ask them if they know how long the child can concentrate, no one can give a clear data.Judging children by subjective feelings as the standard is very terrible.

Only by setting goals that children can achieve through effort, based on reality, does it make sense. Children need to accumulate a sense of achievement and control by conquering one small goal after another, and they will also be more confident.

Shaping does not need to be in one step. Real growth is not about competing with others, but constantly surpassing yesterday’s self.

In fact, as parents, if we want to change our inherent behavioral habits, we also need to follow the principle of shaping, as long as we make a little progress every day compared to before is enough!

“Value” is more important than “goal”

Many people also mention a word when describing the problem of children’s aversion to school,“intrinsic motivation”.

An old movie from 20 years ago – “The Chorus” is related to this.

After World War II, on the edge of a city in France, there is a foster home called “Pond Bottom”(boarding school). The children sent here are the ones that teachers and parents think are the “hopeless” ones. The children know in their hearts that they have been given up, so their violence becomes even more desperate.

Music teacher Mathieu brought a miraculous transformation to these students who were considered trash. In addition to “seeing” and “accepting,” he did something very important: looking for the source of children’s vitality – internal motivation.

Because he found that the children actually have their own dreams. Some want to be firefighters, some want to be cowboys, some want to be Napoleon’s generals…

These lovely dreams make him feel relieved. He wants to release the children’s beautiful hopes for the future. In fact, every child at the bottom of their heart longs to be excellent, want to be a better person.

Even the children we are in contact with now, who say they “hate studying” and refuse to go to school, are the same in their souls. Being tired of studying and losing motivation is just because they can’t find the value of learning for the time being. But this does not mean that parents need to repeatedly emphasize the “benefits” of learning and the “harms” of not studying. This may backfire!

We may imagine two children taking a car to the zoo, which takes 1 hour. One child is completely goal-oriented, just wanting to get to the zoo as soon as possible. All the way, he sits on the edge of his seat, restless and anxious, complaining every few minutes: “Are we there yet? I’m so tired! How much further?” , which is a frustrating journey for him and a nuisance for his mother.

The other child has the same goal: to get to the zoo as soon as possible. But at the same time, he pays more attention to these values: curiosity, exploration, and having fun. So he looks out the window at the passing vehicles,notices the grass and trees along the road, listens to the music playing in the car, and closes his eyes to experience the feeling of the wind blowing on his cheeks.

Both children arrived at the zoo and had a great time there. They both felt great, and they both achieved their goal. However, compared with the first child, the second child also gained a fulfilling and wonderful journey.

Let’s make an assumption: If the car breaks down halfway and the children can’t get to the zoo, whose journey is more meaningful? Which child is more likely to be happy?

A life focused on values is always more satisfying than a life focused on goals. If your goals are consistent with your values, then you will have more motivation to pursue them.

Dear parents, do you understand what to do?

Review Expert Chen Yao

Distinct Psychologist Master of Psychology, University of Nottingham, UK

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