What are the problems in family education in China?

First, the first question: separation of childbirth and rearing-future punishment.

I want to start with a concrete example.

One of my nephews, born in 1982, worked and got married in Beijing after graduating from college. The child has just celebrated his first birthday and will soon be taken back to his hometown in Shanxi by his grandmother. The reason is that their house is very small, and several people have been squeezed into a narrow space for a long time, and their psychological pressure is relatively large; In addition, it is also a problem that the child's grandfather is alone in his hometown and has been neglected for a long time. As a couple born in 1980s, they have realized that it is not advisable to entrust their children to the elderly for a long time. However, due to reality, they had to compromise. The family finally agreed that grandma would take the children back to their hometown and live in Beijing every other month, so that they could run alternately. Although grandma works hard, she can ensure that children can see their parents half the time every day. Generally speaking, it should be said that this is a relatively "kill two birds with one stone" approach.

This example is very representative. I have met many parents in my life and work in recent years. Generally speaking, I think the confusion or problems faced by parents at present are mainly manifested in several aspects. How to solve the problem of separation from children should be the first confusion they encounter.

At this point, it should be said that the feelings of the post-80s are stronger than those of the post-70s. I think this change is a good phenomenon. Young parents are increasingly aware of the importance of getting along with their children, and no longer simply separate "birth" from "upbringing". In this regard, I think the post-80s generation as a whole has reached a higher level than the post-70s generation. This may be because parents are more and more aware of learning. From the quality and level of parents, each generation is stronger than the next.

A few days ago, I read the media reports about the "labor shortage" in various places. A few years ago, migrant workers couldn't find jobs in cities, and now urban enterprises can't recruit workers. The media analyzed several reasons, one of which was that the post-80s generation became parents one after another. They saw the large-scale problem of left-behind children in rural areas and were unwilling to let their children become left-behind children. They have clearly realized that it is not cost-effective to go out and earn more money now, but they have lost the opportunity to accompany their children and delayed their education.

Many post-70 s parents have begun to taste the "bad consequences" brought by their "left-behind children in rural areas" and "foster children in cities". With them as a warning, the younger generation of parents have consciously avoided being separated from their children. But now the whole social life is still fast-paced and fiercely competitive, and the social competition pressure faced by the post-80 s is no less than that of the post-70 s. Therefore, as parents, they have more conflicts in their hearts on the issue of separation. How to fully accompany their children and take care of their own work has become their dilemma.

An American psychologist once did a famous psychological experiment with macaques. He isolated some young macaques from their mothers and installed two "fake mothers" in the cage of the young monkeys. A mother is made of hard steel wire, but there is a bottle on her chest. The other mother was wrapped in soft flannel, but there was no milk. According to the common sense that "having milk is a mother", the little monkey should be closer to the "mother" with milk. That was not the case. Only when the little monkey is hungry will he get close to his mother made of steel wire. As soon as he finished drinking milk, he went back to his mother Flannel. This detail shows us the instinctive yearning and fear of infants, and their attachment and demand for warmth even exceeds food. This experiment is not over yet. As adults, these macaques basically show various psychological obstacles. After the experimenters put them together with other breast-fed macaques who grew up normally in their mothers' arms, these macaques who did not get normal maternal love from childhood could not integrate into the collective life normally, and most of them were indifferent, unable to mate or refused to mate. The experimenters got these traumatized female monkeys pregnant by artificial means. After the baby monkey was born, these female monkeys were cruel to the baby monkey, and some even killed their own children. There are 94% genetic similarities between macaques and humans, which reflects the initial emotional state of human beings. This experiment shows that warm arms, loving eyes, gentle words and skin care are indispensable things for the normal growth of intelligent life.

Nature is of profound significance to the design of human beings. Let's think about it. Why can men's fertility be maintained to 60, 70 or even 80 years old, while women's fertility can only be maintained to about 50 years old? This design is to ensure that after the child is born, his mother has enough rest of her life to raise him. The child who lost his father lost the integrity of the world, and the child who lost his mother lost the whole world. There is a saying in China that "an official's father would rather die than a beggar's mother", which is a helpless but reasonable choice summed up by countless people. We can prove this through textual research in reality. Many children who lack maternal love for various reasons will have psychological problems of one kind or another when they grow up. Dad can't replace mom, let alone grandparents!

What I want to explain through the above words is that in the process of raising the next generation, we should try our best to get rid of the technical way of thinking and return to nature. We often say "scientific parenting", and returning to nature is the biggest scientific law.

There is also a situation in which some parents send their children to "full-care" kindergartens early because of conditions or concepts, and only see their children once a week; In recent years, many rural areas are engaged in "merging schools", merging kindergartens, merging primary schools and merging middle schools, which makes many young children have to live in boarding early. All these situations will lead to some problems in continuing education. It must be said that these "merger" behaviors are anti-educational science and do not respect individual children. They are only based on administrative judgment, not on educational considerations, nor on respect for children. Letting a child leave home prematurely and throwing him into the collective life will lead to the damage of the child's early emotional development. No matter how good the stove is, it can't turn a rough bowl into a beautiful plate, and no matter how good the school education is, it can't make up for what is missing in early mental development.

Taking getting along with children as a part of "early education" has become an educational consciousness generally recognized by the younger generation of parents. Therefore, when raising children conflicts with their careers, many parents make painful and rational choices. For example, some mothers gave up the opportunity to go abroad to study for a doctorate or work in order to accompany their young children to grow up; Some mothers would rather give up high-paying positions or jobs in order to prolong lactation. This is a new value orientation in family education.

This is a positive message. Having this positive consciousness does not mean having the conditions. There are indeed many young parents who are worried that they can't get along with their children. Mothers can't get along with their children. For example, women in the workplace often take on as much work as men, and the role of mother requires her to have more opportunities to get along with children. This is the first dilemma faced by young parents, and it is also a social problem that should be paid attention to.

Second, the second question: competitive anxiety-has become a common way of thinking.

The second dilemma, or major problem, that parents are facing now is competition anxiety.

Young parents nowadays generally have a sense of anxiety. These anxieties can be said to be similar. For example, from a big perspective, can I provide children with good living conditions and a good education? Do I have the ability to cultivate a socially competitive child? This will involve a lot of specific confusion, others go to prenatal education classes, I can't? Other people's children start early education classes in four months. Should I eat? What should early education do? Am I right? How to choose a good kindergarten, how to choose a famous primary school, how to choose a good middle school, how to help children win the college entrance examination, and how to let them find a good job. ...

Both the post-70s and post-80s grew up in the competition, and now they still survive in the competition. We must admit that most of them have no sense of economic security at present, and at the same time have a strong motivation to succeed. Therefore, the sense of competition has been strengthened into their nature, and this "nature" will definitely be transferred to his education of children. "Leading children to work hard" has become their subconscious mentality of raising the next generation. But after all, most people are subject to various conditions, and they often feel overwhelmed in the competition, which will cause people's inner anxiety.

It should be said that this is a social problem. This sense of competition sprouted from parents born after 50' s and 60' s, and broke out in parents born after 70' s in a large area. At present, there is no downward trend. Parents born after 80s will still face these pressures for a long time to come, and these pressures cannot be solved by themselves.

Social psychology research believes that competition is one of the important sources of frustration. Because in any competition, there are always a few winners, and the losers whose goals are blocked encounter pain and frustration. And pain and frustration often cause hostility. The philosopher Nietzsche also said: "Competition produces dissatisfaction with oneself. Anyone who is dissatisfied with himself is always ready to take revenge. "

Parents' inner sense of competition, the competitive environment implemented by the school and the competitive culture advocated by the society are all roaring like mountain torrents, bringing parents and children together, and few people can get out in time and stand on the shore and watch calmly.

Life is not completely without competition. We don't deny that competition brings people a sense of accomplishment and can promote social progress. But from the perspective of education, competition must grasp two dimensions, one is psychological and the other is age. The former says "moderate" competition is good, not "losing"; The latter said that it is not suitable for people of any age to compete, and there should be no competition in the lives of the elderly and children. Because they are vulnerable groups, there is little energy in their bodies, and competition consumes energy, which will accelerate the withering for the elderly and affect the normal growth of children. The problem of competition among the elderly is not a problem now; The problem of children's competitiveness is very prominent. Parents project their competitive psychology and pressure on their children, and children enter the stadium from kindergarten. If you want to take a culture class, you must start to have homework, be obedient and be better than anyone else. In primary and secondary schools, exam-based and various evaluations almost control school life-there are too many anti-child psychology and anti-education incidents!

People mistakenly believe that all competitions can promote children's progress, but the fact is that most competitions are harmful to most children. Only a few people make a profit. When competitive anxiety becomes a common way of thinking, it brings not only anxiety and accompanying harm to adults, but also lifelong powerlessness, inferiority complex and psychological imbalance to children, which is fundamental and thorough.

Third, the third question: "parental power"-the most concealed but sharpest knife.

What I want to say most is the third confusion. It is often ignored or misunderstood, so it has never attracted everyone's attention. But from my research in recent years, this is precisely the most urgent and influential issue, that is, the issue of "parental rights".

At this point, I think it is necessary to separate the post-70 s and post-80 s generations. The difference is that the post-1970s generation plays the role of a strong parent, while the post-80s generation is still the target of "bullying" even when they grow up to be parents because of their status as an only child and their children are still young.

Born in the 1970s around the end of the Cultural Revolution, their adolescence was a period of rapid social transformation in China, and their market awareness stood out and quickly became the way of thinking of a generation. At the same time, their education level is higher than their predecessors. They are confident that they have the ability to educate their children well, but the scientific and democratic consciousness in education has not been popularized. Therefore, many people in this generation will demand children with the thinking characteristics of commercial society, show strict requirements for children, or treat children with technical thinking. For example, sending children to boarding schools requires them to do well in exams, and all aspects strictly require them to receive militarized "obedience" training. Parents' opinions are always right ... in short, they are strong in life. The typical performance of parents' strength is the deprivation of their children's free will, which directly leads to their cowardice, rebellion, lack of ambition and so on.

Over the years, people have talked about the common problems of children now, saying that children are spoiled. In fact, this is a wrong induction. This false inducement has been deeply rooted in people's hearts for a long time, so that parents can't find the crux of the problem for a long time. What's worse, they keep moving forward. For example, some people think that because they love children too much, they are more strict with them and even beat and scold them in order not to get used to them. Of course, the consequences of this can be imagined, that is, children are even more unhappy. In fact, as long as it is normal love, no matter how much love you give your child, you will not spoil the child, because without love, there will be no healthy growth. If some "love" can make children worse, it is definitely not "love", but "over-regulation" in the coat of love. For example, from eating to attending extracurricular classes or choosing a major, parents want their children to follow their own ideas; Obedience is still the core aesthetic psychology of our children's education. People say that there is something wrong with the "April 21" family structure, yes, there is something wrong, but the problem here is not that children are spoiled too much, but that there is too little freedom. One person said, six adults take care of a child, plus an uncompromising strong parent, how many ropes must be tied to the child. How can a child tied with too many ropes become a happy, healthy and promising child? !

The word "freedom" has not become common sense in our education, and the public still has too many misunderstandings about it. Whenever I talk about giving children freedom on different occasions, I will always be questioned. The skeptics will always interpret freedom as "laissez-faire" or "lawlessness", which shows how naive our understanding of freedom is. Freedom and respect are two sides of the same coin. When the whole society is talking about "respecting children" but there is a blind spot in the concept of "freedom", respect actually becomes an empty talk. Therefore, I think that young parents should enlighten their minds and re-evaluate the value of freedom in education. Knowing how valuable people's free will is in education will set off a "de-power movement" in parents' minds, which is not only the progress of parents, but also the progress of education and culture in the whole society.

Parents born after 1980s, based on the above-mentioned differences in the times, have a stronger sense of learning. And because their children are still young, the issue of power has not been highlighted in this generation of parents. But they have to face the strength of their parents. Because most of this generation are only children, most of their parents are educated after 50. In recent years, after their children are born, their parents are still young and strong. These "old people" in their prime raised only one child when they were young. They not only accumulated some experience in caring for children, but also did not have enough addiction to caring for children. They are in good health. Therefore, after their grandson was born, they almost did not hesitate to rely entirely on themselves. Grandparents have become the leading role in raising children, and parents born after 1980s have become supporting roles. The children take care of everything except breast-feeding their mother. In addition to working hours during the day, even children sleep with grandparents at night. They stick to the old habits of the past in their educational thoughts, and even go too far, refusing to learn new ideas and knowledge and not listening to other people's opinions. In this way, in the process of raising children, the two generations will continue to have contradictions. Many young people are in a dilemma. They need the help of their parents to take care of their children, but they can't stop their parents from giving their children a destructive education. This is a typical problem that many post-80s parents encounter.