My parents and several relatives are teachers. When I was a child, I had a strong learning atmosphere at home. If I don't do well in an exam, my parents and relatives will take turns preaching, so I have studied hard since I was a child and got good grades. After high school, my rebellious period came, and I became extremely tired of learning. My grades once slipped to the middle and lower reaches. If my family hadn't changed much in my senior year, I finally pulled myself together, otherwise I might not be admitted to college. When I was admitted to the university, no one restrained me. I completely let myself go. After four years in college, I hardly attended several classes seriously, and I was almost dropped out of school many times because of my poor grades. So heteronomy is like a beautiful soap bubble, just to see when it will burst.
The basis of self-discipline is the recognition of self-worth.
A small toy of 2 yuan, broken, broken, lost, no one will care, but an iphone worth 8,000 yuan, we will take good care of it. So are children. A child persecuted by his parents all day will feel that he is a disappointed child, a failed child and a useless child. Such children are more likely to slide into the abyss of self-abandonment. Only when you feel that you are precious, that your life is beautiful, that you know how to respect yourself and love your children, can you have the energy to fight against humanity and overcome inertia. Self-discipline is anti-human, and people who can self-discipline must have strong self-esteem. Many parents don't like to hear it, but that's the truth. Long-term persecution will inevitably hurt self-esteem.
The core of self-discipline is to delay satisfaction and take responsibility.
Delayed gratification refers to a choice orientation that is willing to give up immediate gratification for more valuable long-term results. Delayed satisfaction means not coveting temporary comfort, suffering first and then sweet, and rearranging the order of happiness and pain. For children, it is only after finishing homework that they can play. To do this, children need to face the consequences of not doing homework, so as to assume the responsibility of doing homework. Some parents are too involved in their children's study and homework, so my mother will urge me to do my homework anyway, and my mother will check it for me anyway, so I will play for a while first. If one day there is no adult to urge, it is conceivable that children will definitely play until they sleep. If learning is the responsibility of adults, not children, then self-discipline is out of reach
There are two children in our family, who are now in grade five, aged 1 1. I think their self-discipline is very good. Let's talk about several aspects.
1。 Let's go to class I watched their online class during the epidemic, and both children were very serious and dedicated. We adults go in and out of the room, which doesn't affect them at all. They can't see us at all.
2。 Homework. We adults have paid little attention to their homework since childhood, except for giving them some composition guidance and suggestions in the third grade. Up to now, we can say that we have almost completely ignored them, without urging, companionship, inspection and care. Sometimes homework needs parents' signature, so we sign it.
3。 Reading. On holidays and weekends, we ask them to read for 2 hours every day, including Chinese 1 hour and English 1 hour. I estimate that they have an 80% chance of doing it. Sometimes I am happy to read. I can read 300 thousand words a day, and it shouldn't be a problem to reach 20 million words a year later.
4。 Screen time. You can play games or brush Tik Tok or watch TV for 2 hours every day on holidays and weekends. They basically don't work overtime.
In the last year or two, we seldom supervise and spot check the above projects, and basically rely on their self-discipline.
How can we cultivate children's self-discipline?
Let's talk about the premise first. Our family advocates "happy education", so the environment we give children is extremely relaxed. The principle of our family is to let children make decisions, and 90% of the big and small things in life are decided by children. So how can two highly "spoiled" children be self-disciplined? Isn't this an intuitive contradiction? Please refer to the following articles for detailed educational concepts:
Educational concept of not winning at the starting line 2: Let children be masters of their own affairs-Wandering Stars
One: A high degree of "doting" can produce a high degree of self-esteem.
They are confident from childhood to the first grade of primary school. At that time, several schoolmasters in the class were too strong, with average grades, a little guilty and felt that they were not strong enough. At that time, we did some ideological work to the effect that you played football so well, danced ballet so well and painted so well. Why? It's because you spend a lot of time practicing. The more you practice, the better you will be. If you can also spend a lot of time studying math and English, then you can become better. Before the first grade, we didn't spend time learning these things. Do you know why? That's because we think going out to play is more important, football is more important, and painting is more important, so it's just a matter of choice. Now I'm in grade one, and it's not the same as before. At this stage, learning is more important, so as long as you spend more time on English mathematics, you will soon catch up.
Later, they did catch up slowly. We helped them to establish a growth-oriented thinking and found their self-confidence by the way. After that, they are very demanding of themselves.
This kind of "doting" is not what we often say. It is to let them grow up in love and freedom, let them be their own masters, and grow up under sufficient sunshine and rain.
Based on a happy childhood, children will love life, look forward to the future, and have high demands on themselves.
Only by loving life and yourself can we have high demands on ourselves, which is the source of motivation and the basis of self-discipline.
Two: Clear responsibilities
Only the goal recognized by children is the real goal, and it can become the internal motivation of children's self-discipline.
Without the recognition of the goal, there can be no self-driven will and no self-discipline.
Before the first grade, we often convey similar ideas intentionally or unintentionally, not preaching, but expressing values in a quiet way: dad's job is to make money, mom's job is to take care of you, your job is to grow and learn, and everyone needs a job. People without jobs are incomplete and boring. We will even give some concrete examples. Look at your XX relatives. Is it not good for him to work like that?
The second layer of values is a demonstration by example: Dad works hard to make more money for his family, and Mom works hard to take care of you and take you to various places to play, so you should work hard and learn more skills at school in the future. Each of us should do our job well, which is everyone's responsibility.
After school, children rarely have questions about why they want to go to school. It is their own goal and their responsibility to go to school well and get good grades. After all, each of us should do our job well. Does this need to be questioned? Isn't this a matter of course?
This is what Adler said: the subject is separated, and everyone is responsible for his own subject and does his own thing well.
Determining the scope of one's own subject and assuming one's own responsibilities is the second step of self-discipline.
Three: cultivate self-discipline only in key matters.
The essence of self-discipline is anti-humanity. Tough confrontation with human beings requires great willpower, and human willpower is limited, unreliable and unsustainable. Every new year, we will secretly make a vow that I will achieve the goal of XX in the coming year. However, in a few days, no matter how determined we are, we should be lazy or lazy, and we should delay or delay. In recent years, there is a very popular concept called "perseverance", but recently more and more scientists believe that perseverance is indeed a good quality, but it has little to do with success. The reason is that doing things you don't want to do with perseverance will consume a lot of willpower, and the supplement and recovery of willpower is limited, so even if your perseverance is higher than the average person, it will still be exhausted soon.
So our approach is to let children get enough freedom in most things in life, and only ask for these four things: class, homework, reading and screen time. We follow Occam's razor rule: if it is not necessary, don't add entities, just ask for the minimum, and other aspects, including outdoor sports that we think are important, are not required.
I want to point this out because many parents will make many demands on their children intentionally or unintentionally, and all the demands are consuming their brains. When children's willpower is exhausted, they will instinctively resist and refuse any request. For example, after a day's class, children will do homework for 2 hours at home, then go to a training class to learn 1 hour olympiad and practice piano for 2 hours. At this time, parents will also ask their children to review new words, preview English, read for 30 minutes and practice 30 math problems. The later, the child's mental energy is completely exhausted, it is difficult to concentrate, the efficiency will become very low, and people will feel very painful. So the baby doesn't break down? Under this intensity, it is a miracle that children persist in not being tired of the world for several years. How do they self-discipline?
Einstein worked tirelessly in scientific research and worked hard all his life, but his life was sloppy. Jobs and Zuckerberg started a successful business, but they only wore the same suit for many years. No one can be energetic enough to pursue perfection in everything.
Self-discipline is necessary only in important matters, which is the premise of self-discipline.
Four: clear rules and form habits.
From about 2 years old, we began to make clear family rules. All the rules should be fully discussed with the children and confirmed by both parties. Or Occam's razor. We have few rules. When I was a child, there were only about five rules, which we would write on paper and stick on the wall of the living room:
1。 You can only eat it at the dinner table, and you can't serve it after you get off the table.
2。 Don't touch the socket on the wall.
3。 Don't spend more than 30 minutes on the screen every day.
4。 Everyone can choose two picture books to show their parents every day.
5。 You can only buy one toy at most every time you go out.
Most things outside the rules are unrestricted. In fact, only in this way can we ensure that things within the rules can be well implemented. For example, don't touch the socket. If you allow your children to rebel at home and make them messy at home, you just ask them not to touch the socket, and they will 100% do it. As long as he also recognizes this rule, the child is not disgusted with this rule at all, and even proud to abide by it.
Based on the rules, slowly cultivate their habits.
Self-discipline is anti-human, and it is impossible to fight with willpower for a long time. The only feasible way is to cultivate things that need self-discipline into habits step by step.
Take screen time as an example. After grade one, I am worried that they are still thinking about games at school. We changed the rules to: no screen time from Monday to Thursday, 2 hours from Friday to Sunday, and holidays are the same as weekends. At first, this rule was mixed. At one stage, my son was addicted to playing games and my daughter was addicted to Tik Tok, so she often worked overtime. So we added another rule, if overtime, it will be deducted from the later time. Then I did a random check. One summer vacation, my son worked a lot of overtime, and my mother directly confiscated the IPAD for a week, which was the most severe punishment. In order to protect their self-esteem, we generally don't criticize them, just act according to the rules and deduct them if there is any change. We don't check every day. We usually check it every once in a while. As long as it's not out of line, we'll turn a blind eye, because in the end, the responsibility for obeying the rules will still fall on them, not on our supervision. Now I secretly checked several times this semester, and they are all well controlled.
Only when self-discipline becomes their long-term habit, self-discipline is low-pain and can be maintained for a long time.
To sum up, get rid of the myth of "bitterness" and correctly understand the quality of self-discipline. Only through long-term persistence and efforts can we reach the other side of self-discipline. Forcing can't solve any long-term problems, and simply letting nature take its course has a high probability of failure.