[Teacher Zhang talks about education]Education and life experience before the age of 25 determines the general trend of your life development!

Chinese pioneer columnist Mr. Zhang (Zhang Yunteng)

Parents no longer need to envy “other people’s children”. Pay attention to the eight things mentioned in this article. Your children can still walk out of their own and unique Yangguan Avenue. 25 is not a clear time line, it roughly refers to the age when you graduate from a university.

20Generations, a critical period of growth and development in life!

From the beginning of conception to the end of life, humans continue to grow and develop in all aspects of physiological, psychological, cognitive and social development throughout their lives. This is the research scope of “Human Development”. “Human Developmentists” at Boston University and the University of Michigan in the United States examined the memoirs written by many well-known successful people in their later years and found that most of the events that had the deepest and most extensive impact on their lives occurred between the ages of 20 and 29. This 10 years are called the “20 generations” in life. It is a critical period for most people to grow and develop in their lives.

Young people in the 20th generation should not think that they still have plenty of time to try, explore and squander. What they have done and what they have not done in these 10 years may have a profound impact on the next few years or their entire lives.

Human developmentists believe that the 20th generation is a critical transition period for “teenagers” to enter the “adult life”. Things that have not developed during this period are very low in the future. The 20th generation is also a sensitive period, during which something is easy to develop. Many studies have pointed out that 80% of important events that humans can affect their lives occur before the age of 35.

Move today’s time forward for twenty or thirty years or more. At that time, the 20 generations, their future life will be much clearer than the 20 generations today. Relatively speaking, today’s 20 generations have received a higher education and enjoyed a richer life, but only a few people find jobs immediately after graduating from college. Even if they find one, they often change jobs because they are not satisfied or incompetent. Many generations in their 20s or 30s are not as serious and stable as traditional in terms of love and marriage, and even hold rejection or fear; even when they get married, they may postpone or refuse to have children.

Some people say that today the 40s have worked hard, the 30s have refused to work overtime, and the 20s have refused to work. Sigmund Freud, a psychoanalytic guru, said: “Love and work, work and love,… life is nothing more than these two things.” Today, many people have problems in love and work, and their lives are “stuck”, and this phenomenon seems to be global.

Today’s 20 generation young people not only have to face external economic difficulties, but also have to fall into trouble at their inner psychological level due to the impact of social upheaval, technological innovation, diverse values ​​and utilitarian ideas. This world has become more stringent to young people, with external and internal factors hitting each other, resulting in the 10 years of the 20 generation, the years of youth are not as beautiful and smooth as imagined.

Around the age of 25, it is the time when many people transition from their studies to their careers. They were originally supposed to experience the sincere love in the workplace or the world, but their lives were stuck. The problems often lie in the two things: “comprehensive quality” and “opportunities”. If a person has excellent comprehensive qualities, the arrival of good opportunities will be a natural thing. Education and life experience before the age of 25 are the key to cultivating comprehensive qualities. Therefore, the life of the 20 generation is stuck, and the problem lies here.

These four things are the basic skills to cultivate excellent comprehensive qualities!

How to cultivate excellent comprehensive qualities? That is the slow and meticulous work that children have to start. Based on more than 20 years of experience in educational consulting and the parenting experience of being a father of four children, I suggest that parents and friends must pay attention to the following eight things.

First, cultivate good life routines and disciplines in children from an early age, and encourage children to participate in safe family responsibilities or family labor.Life routines and discipline contain opportunities for good upbringing, and it also helps to cultivate children’s “self-care ability” in life. Children regard completing certain housework as their responsibility, and after entering school age, they naturally regard “study hard” as their job due to their empathy. The 3-year-old child has completed family affairs that are as capable as he does and is not dangerous. He may regard these small family affairs as a game and can also gain joy from the “sense of accomplishment”! After finishing, don’t forget to say thank you to the little kid. It’s weird if the child never does housework but is diligent in going out to volunteer!

Second, develop the interest and habit of reading since childhood.Mr. Sun Yunxiao, an education expert, said: “Developing the habit of reading is equivalent to installing an engine of growth in the heart of children. People who like to read will never be lonely for the rest of their lives, and those who don’t like to read will never be at a loss for the rest of their lives.” Reading is the basis of all learning! Research points out that people who love reading will have the desire to read when they “need to have a companion” or “need to get rid of loneliness”. Reading can relieve a person’s anxiety and relax. What a warm and wonderful time for parents and children to read together on holidays or holidays. By reading preferences, children can also reduce the risk of becoming addicted to mobile phones or computers. Accompanying children to the library and bookstore to enjoy the strong sense of bookishness will help encourage children to love books and read, and realize that “life is wonderful because of reading”!

Third, cultivate children’s “learning enthusiasm” from an early age.What is the child’s personality, interests, qualifications and environment? Do parents have good parenting philosophy? Are children in a “happy learning” situation? These are the key factors that create enthusiasm for learning. Among them, the most important source of “happy learning” is “interest”, which is a concept that many parents ignore. One of the most complimentary studies in “Positive Psychology” is: “You must be happy to succeed, but you cannot be happy if you succeed!” “Happy learning” can be regarded as a catalyst for “learning enthusiasm”!

Fourth, don’t let your children become out-of-control addicts of electronic products such as mobile phones and computers!Once a child is addicted to online games and social websites, it will not only affect his study, life routine, interpersonal relationships and health, but may also lead to a major change in temperament. A truly smart child treats mobile phones and computers as tools to obtain immediate messages and solve problems. An addicted child will inevitably waste his studies and the gap between “quality” and “competitiveness” will widen. How to prevent mobile phones and computers from becoming stumbling blocks and the main evils in education? This is the top priority for all parents!

These four abilities can further improve the overall quality!

Fifth, cultivate children’s excellent communication skills from an early age.A company leader said: “The talent I am looking for must dare to face my eyes, discuss, deal with me, and coordinate with me.” In fact, leadership ability, leadership temperament, interpersonal relationships, teamwork, problem-solving, business ability to deal with customers, etc., requires good communication skills. Outstanding reading and writing, persuasive oral expression skills (including interviews, public speeches, debates), appropriate appearance and body language (including clothing and etiquette) are all elements of creating communication skills, and it also points out that communication skills require accumulated training and are difficult to achieve quickly. Co-written by Stanford University professor Peter Meyers and writer and radio show host Shann NixAs We Speak: How To Make Your Point And Have It StickThe title of the Chinese translation is “Success is all “sayed”! 》, which can be regarded as a guide book for studying communication skills.

Sixth, cultivate children’s “self-management ability” from an early age.Children should move towards independence and independence in their lives. They should have the ability to live and survive in the future, especially in the workplace. Children should learn to handle their own learning and life trivialities with a responsible attitude from an early age. “Self-management ability” is a very comprehensive trait; there are EQ people, including emotional management, facing setbacks, resisting temptations, delaying enjoyment, etc.; there are focus managers in learning; there are managers who are time, how to use time most efficiently; there are financial management ability and personal items custodians, and the use of children’s pocket money can be the beginning of learning financial management throughout their lives; there are health and safety managers, including avoiding staying up late, personal safety and other matters.

Foreign teachers often praise children with strong self-management ability with Very Organized, which means more appropriate than “very organized”. When children learn “self-management” from an early age, they do need parents, brothers or teachers to tutor from the side, but if parents do everything, their children’s learning and growth opportunities will be lost bit by bit. The “giant baby” who lacks self-management ability is closely related to the parenting style. Please note that letting go is the best prescription for children to grow up!

Seventh, cultivate children’s “choice ability” from an early age.In daily life, shopping, making friends, choosing courses, choosing schools, choosing majors, etc., life is a series of choices. With the diversification and complexity of information and technology, choices seem to be becoming more and more difficult, and every choice may have an impact on life. If children are encouraged to learn and try to make their own decisions from an early age, they can learn how to pursue their own happy life. Parents who are too authoritarian, always worried about their children, and often make decisions for their children, have a worry-free choice in their future life! “Change, start with choice!” This is not only an advertising slogan, but it does contain some philosophy.

Eighth, cultivate children’s ability to “critical thinking” from an early age.The primary condition for many large enterprises when soliciting advanced talents is that the applicant “must be able to ask the right questions”, and “asking questions” is enough to show a person’s way of thinking and level. The president of Harvard in the 1990s said: “The half-life of many effective messages has become shorter, and humanities only last 10 years, and science and engineering have been shortened to 2 or 3 years.” This is an era of rapid and huge “information flow”. Only by having the ability to “critical thinking” can you quickly pick out useful and correct and effective information to solve problems or increase the output value of the company. Therefore, the ability of “critical thinking” is definitely a requirement for core competitiveness in the workplace today and in the future, and it is also an indicator of “problem-solving ability”. In fact, I personally prefer to call this ability by “recognitive thinking”.

Tony Wagner, host of Harvard’s Change Leadership Group, said: “Critical thinking must be cultivated as early as when children are already able to do abstract thinking. If children have been fixed in a level of thinking for ten years, and have grown up until they are in college before starting to teach them to think differently, it is really difficult to teach.” Many children who were top students in those days performed mediocrely after entering the workplace and even their lives were stuck. The problem often lies in the ability to “critical thinking”.

Parents must pay attention to the above eight things when their children are young, and should practice lifelong learning and play the role of a high-quality partner for their children’s growth, so that their children’s life will not be stuck. The ability to resist stress and frustration in the above sixth item is particularly critical because it can save a person from falling into a state of collapse and maintain “resilience”. In short, what really makes children successful is the “growth of parents”!

[ThisarticleisthelatestrevisedversionoriginallypublishedintheJapanesecolumnonJune22022】

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Author introduction:

Teacher Zhang (Zhang Yunteng)

Graduated from the Department of Biology, Taiwan Normal University. I have been moving to New Zealand for 27 years, written the education column of this newspaper for 14 years, and hosted the AM936 radio program “Excellence is Teached” for 16 years. Teacher Zhang continues to pay attention to the general trend of global education and has conducted in-depth research on students’ learning and growth, study abroad and other issues. In 2001, the “Auckland Education Center” was founded, covering after-school tutoring, educational consultation, study abroad applications, etc. Many students have successfully entered prestigious universities such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Oxford, and Cambridge. Many students stood out in the fiercest medical school admission competition in New Zealand and Australia. Teacher Zhang has published books such as “The Lively Education in New Zealand” and “The Lotus Bo Guang”, and is also the original contributor of the neuro and endocrine physiology entries in the “Zhang’s Psychological Dictionary”.

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