A story told by a psychiatrist at BYU

Last week, I met with Raul, the former psychiatrist at BYU who coined the term "hollow heart disease".

He told a lot of stories about unhappy, rich parents and hollow children.

After listening to this, I suddenly had some new ideas about education, and my mentality as a mother was elevated.

It turns out that the learning of being a parent is not learned, but enlightened.

Perception

Dr. Raul consulted a high school student who climbed to the top of the school building twice when he was a sophomore and was saved twice.

This is a true story.

Both parents were college professors, but the kid didn't want to live, and the family was very anxious to come to counseling.

After sitting down the family began to quarrel, saying everyone is not saying, the quarrel is a quite CCTV problem.

What does it mean to be happy.

In the eyes of ththeseaparen'swhat is happiness?

The couis are 60 after the town does home, from the northern countryside a problem to do a doctoral degree, stay in Beijing's universities as a teacher.

In their eyes, well-fed and well-clothed, life is happy.

The child was anxious when he heard it.

He said, "No wonder you guys keep saying that I am in bliss and don't know it.

I have never felt the misfortune of not having enough to eat and wear, so how can I think that not having enough to eat and wear is happiness?

He felt that happiness is being able to be respected by his parents as an equal in conversation.

When his parents heard this, they also got anxious, how come we are not equal and not respectful? How is it not democratic? Everything let you make your own decisions, everything let you make your own choices ......

The child retorted, yes, you are everything will let me speak, listen to me and let me make decisions. But you guys will prove my decisions wrong.

The proof that a child's choice is wrong is not always a big issue like going to school, but some of the little details of life.

A mom said earlier that she doesn't understand what kids want nowadays, and when asked, it's all random, and when chosen, they don't like it.

For example, let's say dinner.

After school, they have to learn the piano, and in the middle of the road, mother and daughter have to fix dinner.

When the mother asked what to eat, the child said whatever she wanted. The mother thought, "I want to be democratic, you have to choose what you like.

The child said, "McDonald's". Mom says, "It's junk food.

The child says, "What about boiled fish? Mom says, "This is too greasy.

The child says, "How about meatloaf? Mom says there are no vegetables and the nutrition is not balanced.

The child did not say anything.

The mother continued to ask, "What do you want to eat? The child didn't even look at it and threw out a sentence, "Whatever.

The mother thought, "How can you be such a kid? I asked you, and you said whatever!

At this moment, the child's heart is completely lying flat, anyway, what to choose is your reasoning, not whatever I a child can still do?

Aware of democracy, but unable to implement it at the operational level, this is "fake democratic parenting".

Dr. Raul said that he had intervened in a case of attempted suicide and found that the child had no reason to commit suicide.

The family was happy, the parents were harmonious, and the child was doing well in school. The child himself didn't know why he was going to die.

After a long period of counseling, it was discovered that one important reason was that the parents never knocked on the door when they entered the child's room.

The child thus concluded that they do not respect me and can decide everything about me at will.

Dr. Raul said that when discussing this with the child's parents, their first reaction was one of confusion.

Why do I have to knock when I go into my own house?

We're not used to knocking, and it's our parents who are more uncomfortable with knocking than we are.

Because of the limited family environment, I did not have my independent room in the year I graduated from college, sleeping in a narrow living room with a single bed 80 cm wide, with a toilet overhead and a kitchen at my feet.

Isolated from the outside world only a closet, even a bed curtain is not.

How can there be privacy? Not even a door.

The most annoying thing was that my neighbor's aunt came to the door before I got up in the morning, walking past my bed and shouting my mother's name.

Our children are of the Internet generation, and with all the cultural influences and a stronger sense of personal independence, they may see this as a sign of "whether or not I have any value in my existence.

Many children will say, "I have never lived, never lived for myself in all these years.

For them, it is not a matter of giving up on life easily.

Because it wasn't mine in the first place.

The Challenge

We often use the experiences of our youth to measure the children of today, but times have changed and children can still be the same children as we were.

One blogger said that his child refused to go to school.

He asked the child what the reason was, but the child said he wasn't sure, but he was just bored with school.

The junior child said his parents were too innocent and simple-minded.

The parents were not convinced, how can we be simple-minded, at least they are all Ph.D. directors.

Professor Raul said that he had contacted so many teenagers and felt that our generation was living a simple life.

The reason is very simple, that is, during adolescence, our values are particularly single: five words, four beauties, three loves, learning from Lei Feng's good example.

We do not have a conflict of values, very firm in our life values, what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is bad.

But our children are faced with an Internet world that knows Plato, Socrates, and nihilism.

An elementary school student talking to me about Heidegger about philosophy already has a head start, they are more precocious than us, but their values are also more confused. Without good guidance and education, it's easy for this generation to get caught up in a conflict of values.

Parents with high expectations can also pull up the seedlings.

On New Year's Eve last year, a colleague called Professor Xu, very anxious, and said, "Can you come to my home for crisis intervention? Something is going to happen to the child!

The child was in serious conflict with his father and wanted to leave home, and if he didn't, he would commit suicide.

Professor Raul asked what was going on.

The child's father, a professor at Peking University, grabbed the microphone and said, "You must think that I am too demanding of my child, but in fact, I have no requirements for him, and I admit that I have been lying flat.

A father who is lying flat, what else to be angry about?

He said, "You have to have a bottom line, my son has no bottom line.

What did his son do that had no bottom line? Did he do drugs or gamble? Neither.

He then went on to talk about his bottom line.

I'm an adult. What's the bottom line for adults? I have to go to work, right? I don't like to go to work either, but if I don't go to work, who will support my family? So going to work is the bottom line for me.

As a student, is the bottom line that you have to do your homework? Last semester I left my kids alone and raided them, and they didn't turn in their homework 120 times a semester.

Children do not write homework, touching the bottom line as a father, the two generations quarreled.

Professor Raul said, his daughter is the child's classmate, he went to find out the truth, and found that the reason is that the school homework is too much, 11 or 12 o'clock can not finish, girls can only cry while writing, boys will resist, half do not turn in homework.

He said you know how difficult it is for children's homework now?

The professors at Peking University and Tsinghua University are at their wits' end with science homework, and can barely do a little history, language, and English.

History is difficult, the topic di rerecentlyrom the twenty-four history of a paragraph, the ancient text can not be read, and the topic can not be done.

This generation of children faces such academic challenges. The average vocabulary in junior high school is more than 3,000, but when we go to university, the level 4 requirement is only 3,000.

A friend who is a study abroad student told me that a mother approached him and said she was not very satisfied with her child's TOEFL score and hoped that next time she could improve it by 10 points and apply to a better school.

My friend didn't say anything but advised her to take a TOEFL test to experience it.

This mom listened to her advice and took the test, and didn't say a word when she came back from the test.

Because she understood one thing.

She realized one thing: if she said one word about her score, her child would have two lines of tears in the real test.

Evaluation criteria

Professor Raul coined a new word "hollow disease", 40% of the proportion of Peking University, so he thought that only the children of prestigious schools will be like this, and later did a national assessment of 100 college students, more than 8000 secondary school students, found that "hollow disease" and The depression, which is not treated with medication, is widespread.

Even international schools are not the safe havens parents think they are.

There was a child from the South whose parents were bankers and who lived a very wealthy life, with no shortage of anything.

He was in an international school for high school, not a dude, studying super hard.

From the beginning of middle school to high school, study time is getting longer and longer, eleven o'clock, twelve o'clock, one o'clock, two o'clock ...... the second semester of sophomore year, has come to almost boiling to three or four o'clock.

He began to self-harm, the emergence of the desire to commit suicide.

Dr. Raul warned him and his parents to rush to the hospital and had to go for treatment to save his life first.

As a result, the child was discharged after two days in the hospital.

The doctor asked why he was discharged.

He said that the final exams were coming up.

He is the first in the international school, the examination is his persona, must keep this persona, otherwise, he is nothing.,

He studied hard and diligently every day just for the sake of the persona.

The exam must not be missed, so he was discharged.

After he was discharged, Dr. Xu told his parents that they must watch over him and that he was definitely in danger now.

After two weeks, the mother of this child called and said that the child had ended his life with the chemistry he had learned.

Learning is to scratch the knowledge point exam, exam first is for the persona, brush up the score is for promotion; do research to send articles just to get the diploma, whalore the mystery of science, lead the great development of human beings, are no more than the graduation grasp to find a secure job bowl.

This is the logic that parents have instilled in them for more than a decade.

What is the purpose of studying? It is to find a good job. What does a good job look like? More money, less work, and clos, er to home.

Because the social evaluation standard that their parents received is also very single: success, is to have money and status.

Qingbei's children graduated, and choose the stand em isbestowtasow-risk success program.

Landing on Mars to explore the universe, most have never thought and are not interested, in human pride and what do I have to do with it?

stargazing, notis meal, and more often than not, it is not a meal. The high-caliber physics students at the vines have all graduated in finance, and the Chinese kids at Harper's are scrambling to return to China as agents once they graduate.

A search of the Little Red Book, Harvard students Qingbei brothers vying for beauty, are trying hard to be netizens, from then on life can lie flat.

This is already considered a social success, and a pair of Ivy League graduates earning a salary of 2800 ...... is considered well-paid and decent, isn't it?

Many times, parents think that the child to onroad they think success, letting him repeat his life, achieving academic and career succeandrand n a lot of money to buy a big house is the success and happiness of life.

But the main confusion of children nowadays is why do they have to go to such .ol?

The only reason to go to school is to get into a good university. The only reason to get into a good university is to get a good job.

So what if you earn more money? Parents have saved three or four suites, but also to go to a large factory to do social animal 996, exhausted.

Such a life I want? I don't want it, and I don't want children, because I don't want them to repeat this bad life.

The previous generation is lost in the material things that will make the children's values lost.

The single evaluation standard of society has pushed the issue of human fertility and parenting to the end of the road.

Awakening

After listening to Professor Raul's story, I had some new thoughts.

For example, the most important thing that should be addressed in education today is the issue of curiosity.

Children must first have a le, pursuit, and desire for the world before they have the motivation to work hard and the self-drive to learn.

Many people think that self-drive is cultivated, which is not true, self-drive is found.

What you like is not afraid of suffering.

Whether it's catching bugs or playing ball, playing with mud, or knitting, flower ropes, many children are as enthralled, even giving up watching cartoons and playing games.

These things are more important than what score you get.

The idea is not new, it's been said before.

Some people are anxious when they hear it and think it's just standing around talking about it, the grades are down, the pressure to get into school is high, and the teachers are blowing up your phone.

I am also anxious.

I even used to define myself as an intermittent chicken child parent - usually loose, when the test to find Huanggang, 53 papers to serial brush.

I can't help it, the teacher can drive parents crazy if they don't pass the 5-minute speed calculation.

But the brush test high score, the final promotion 666, stepped on the shit luck into the Peking University and so what?

Forty percent of Peking University bully hollow disease, are not sure what else they can do after they get into a prestigious school.

My mother-in-law listened and was not very convinced.

She taught me that you still need to give some pressure to bring up children, a pressure to achieve results.

Like she is so old to learn things are super hard, singing enrolled in the class of teachers. One teacher takes the main class and the other teacher corrects the homework.

She said, "I am working so hard, why can't my child work harder?

I asked her just one question: If you were learning English instead of singing, would you still be actively looking for classes with two teachers?

My mother-in-law was honest and lovely and shook her head repeatedly, that must not be the case!

So, self-drive is not something you can cultivate. Doing what you like, children will also be tireless.

Once I visited a school and the principal said that children are now so burdened with schoolwork that they are bored to death doing homework every day. But one child learned tennis after school and practiced every day.

Once at 8pm8 the principal saw him coming out of the court and asked him if he was tired.

He took a deep breath and said he was really tired. The principal said, "Why don't you give up when you're tired? He said it was because he likes it.

So, the most important technique for parents is not to force their children to achieve but to be able to think differently, to try to understand their children and shelter them from the wind and rain (especially from the pressure of school), to create a space for curiosity.

If your child is extremely resistant to math, maybe you can force yourself to learn it first?

And .odon't blindly believe that if you choose private, you get space and if you choose public, you're desperate. Because the space is given by parents, when the parents of the top can find the gap, where you can find the light through.

Recently a mother was very distressed, wanting to transfer from a public cattle school to an international school, saying that the public teachers are too chicken-blooded, and not in line with their educational philosophy.

I asked how child I askooded. She said the .eacher forced herself to keep an eye on homework and exams by phone every day.

The child is fine, theerselfbut can not top, anxiety to the limit. She thought the solution is transferred to another school, a good school.

But which school has no problems? What kind of education can satisfy everyone? In the end, the only thing that cured her was to think for herself.

For her, she had to figure out what was the most important thing for her children. A healthy body and mind, a love of life, and the ability to support themselves. On top of this goal, it's not hard to choose.

Someone must ask, what about learning? Shouldn't we just ignore it? Yes, we do. Parents choose the school for their children to create an environment and lay a good foundation.

But still, we have to believe that children love to learn, and they will learn wherever they are sent. The child is a Puhua, he writes homework is the fee mom, chicken also chicken can not move, might as well let themselves go a horse.

The point

We are raising children who belong to the future, so parents need to have a vthesion to see that the challenges the next generation will face are no longer material, but come from within.

The question they have to solve is: when the world is reconstructed and they are facing the unknown alone, can they still keep their naked hearts and find a way out of happiness?

A friend sighed and said that it wasn't so hard for us back then.

I said, "Times are different, parents are no longer easy