Chapter 10 3. Satisfying the "Law of Need" for Children's Growth

Now to talk about practice.As mentioned earlier, when children ask for something, we must first judge whether they really need it, and then decide whether to give it to them or not.At the same time, any of their actions should not be to carry out your orders, but out of their own needs. In children's vocabulary, the words "obedience" and "command" should not exist. Correspondingly, "responsibility" and "obligation" should also be eliminated, and replaced by "strength", "restriction", "weakness" and "Need" a few words.

At an age that is not yet rational, children do not have the concept of spiritual existence and social relations in their minds. In normal communication with children, we should avoid mentioning words related to them, lest children give these words some subjective, The meaning of the mistake makes it difficult to correct it later. Locke has a very important and very fashionable point of view, "educate children with reason".Granted, rationality is important, but I disagree with him.I found that those children raised by rational education methods are either stupid or stupid. Among all the faculties of the human body, reason is restricted by other faculties, so it develops the latest and slowest. Even so, some people insist on using it to promote the development of other faculties!

It is generally believed that rationality is a very important quality, and a rational person must be a well-educated person, so people are very happy to use rationality in the education of children. Rationality is originally the result of education, but it is regarded as a means of education by those people. This is simply putting the cart before the horse.If children can cooperate with rational education, why should they be educated? When carrying out moral education to children, no matter what has been or what is about to happen, it is almost inseparable from the following dialogue mode.

Teacher: You shouldn't do that. Child: why? Teacher: Because that is wrong. Child: No!What's wrong! Teacher: You shouldn't do that. Child: I did something I was not allowed to do, is that wrong? Teacher: You made a mistake and you have to be punished. Child: Then I will do it secretly. Teacher: Someone will be watching you secretly. Child: Then I will hide and do it. Teacher: I will have someone question you. Child: Then I will lie. Teacher: Lying is wrong. Child: Why not? Teacher: Because lying is bad. ... The conversation goes on and on endlessly.Stop doing this now!This method of education is of no use at all, and the children simply ignore you.Children don't have the ability to distinguish right from wrong, good from evil, let alone understand your principles.

It is the natural order that children should live like children before they become adults.If we insist on violating the natural order and using various artificial methods to ripen the immature fruits, no matter how beautiful they are, they will taste sour and will rot soon. We can only train young and mature doctoral students, and those children who should be innocent and lovely have become senile under our hands. The way children understand things, think about problems and perceive the outside world is different from that of adults. There is nothing more stupid than replacing their way with our way.If my student is five feet tall at the age of 10, I will be very pleased. I don't care whether he has judgment or not.

If you try to use persuasion as a means of convincing a child that he must obey, it is almost impossible.Because in what you call persuasion, there is a certain amount of violence and threats or fawning and promises. Therefore, even if a child appears to be persuaded by an adult, it does not mean that the persuasion is effective.The child may say yes because he is afraid of being forced to say yes, or because he is attracted by the temptation of the moment. Children are very smart and can quickly understand the benefits of obedience and the disadvantages of resistance.However, because the adult's request is often contrary to the child's wishes, it is very painful for the child to fulfill the adult's request.

As a result, the child begins to obey and obey, superficially obeying, but actually still doing things according to his own wishes. If he is accidentally discovered, he will immediately admit his mistake, so as to avoid greater punishment. Few people really understand that "obedience" is a difficult concept for children, and they don't understand why. However, because the child is afraid of suffering or is eager to be forgiven or you repeatedly force, the child has no choice but to obey.You think that you have persuaded the child, but it is actually a manifestation of the child's fear and boredom.

In fact, judgment is of no use to a child except to limit the development of his physical powers.Caring about children's physical strength and paying attention to adults' judgment is the natural behavior. Students of different ages should adopt different treatment methods.First of all, you have to correct his position and fix him in that position, and don't let him attempt to surpass that position.In this way, he can experience for himself the most important lessons of intelligence before he even has the concept of it. Never give orders to him. No matter what you ask him to do, you must not take the form of orders, and you must not even let him feel that there is an order in your words.However, you have to let him know that he is weak and you are strong, so he has to live according to your arrangement.

You have to let him know as soon as possible that everyone is burdened with the shackles that nature has given, and no one can shake them off.You also want to let him know that this bondage comes from the original state of things and is not artificially imposed on him.You also want to let him know that it is not the authority of others that limits his behavior, but his own physical strength. For those things that he shouldn't do, you don't step forward to stop them, and don't explain to him or reason with him, you just need to be on guard quietly. If you are going to give something to him, then he wants it as soon as he asks for it, you give it to him immediately, don't wait for him to beg you or ask him to agree to your conditions before giving it to him.

When you agree to him, you have to smile, and when you reject him, you have to be righteous, and you must not waver.Once the word "no" is said, the word will have absolute weight, just like a copper wall, and when he hits it five or six times, he won't try to hit it again. The worst form of parenting is to let a child swing between his will and yours, and you two argue over whose will he should obey.In my opinion, it is a hundred times better to let children call the shots than to let you call the shots. This phenomenon is very strange. Ever since we began to consciously train our children, we have always educated them with the most terrible desires, the most stimulating and most corrupting desires, such as fame, jealousy, suspicion, greed, cowardice and vanity. For those children who are not fully developed physically and mentally, the results of this can be imagined.

Before they have independent judgment, every time you instill such thoughts in them, they will take a step towards the abyss of crime. And yet those foolish teachers have the audacity to say they're teaching people to be good, and say with all seriousness, "That's the real man." Yes, that's the man you make. You have tried various methods to educate your children, but the only effective one has been ignored by you, and that is limited freedom. Don't lecture your students with nasty words, but allow them to learn from what they've been through.Also don't punish your students in a harsh way, because they don't know where they are wrong.And don't ask them to apologize to you because they didn't mean to offend you. They have not yet formed the concept of right and wrong, good and evil, so every wrong thing they do is not knowingly committing it. You cannot judge their actions by moral standards, let alone punish or reprimand them for what they do. for. If you want to restrain your child with shackles, you can only make the child more active; the stronger your restraint, the stronger the child's resistance, so as to compensate yourself. We know that if two elementary school students living in the city are sent to the countryside, they may cause more trouble than the children in the whole village. In the same way, if you let a city kid and a country kid stay in the same room, before the country kid does anything, the city kid will probably have made the room smoky. Why is this?I think this is because for urban children, there are too few opportunities for freedom, so they destroy so unscrupulously, while for rural children, they have always lived in freedom, so they have no freedom for a while. What a touch. Even so, because the country boy is often praised or restrained by others, his state of freedom is still far from the state of freedom I hoped for. We should follow the first impulses of human nature, for it is an irrefutable fact that there is no evil in the human mind.Any evil desire invades the human heart at a certain time and place during the process of growth. Self-love, also known as selfishness in a broad sense, is a desire unique to human nature.This selfishness is essential both to itself and to us. Since selfishness is a neutral concept and does not necessarily involve other people, its consequences depend entirely on how we use it and the relationships in which we use it. Before reason arises, selfishness is not governed and guided, but this is irrelevant. What is important is that whatever a child does is not motivated by others looking at him or listening to him. In other words, a child cannot act or change his behavior because of other people's eyes or evaluations. Everything he does should be based on his own natural needs.In this way, there is no need to worry about him doing evil things. But that doesn't mean he won't hurt himself or cause trouble for others, or break precious things.He is likely to do a lot of "bad things", but I don't think these "bad things" can explain his bad qualities. The criterion for judging whether something is good or bad is to look at the subjective motivation of the actor, and there is no malice in the child's motivation.Once such a motive appears in him, it is likely to be out of control, and his nature is destroyed, even to the point of no cure. Some things are not bad from a rational point of view, but they are different from a greedy point of view.When letting kids play, keep fragile or valuable items out of their reach.The child's bedroom should be furnished as little as possible, the furniture must be simple and strong, mirrors, crockery, and everything else that is not suitable for children to touch should be as few as possible. None of this mattered to Emile's room.Because he lives in the country, the room he lives in is no different from that of an ordinary countryman.Also, he spends more time playing outside, so there's no need to put too much thought into the decoration of his room. As careful as you are, there is still a chance that your child may break something and cause confusion.But you have no reason to beat and scold him, because this is caused by your own negligence.You can't let him hear a word of reproach, or let him feel that his actions hurt you. You have to act as nonchalant as if the thing broke naturally.In short, in this case, silence is better than any verbiage.