Arkady Raikin. Children need to be treated softer, children need to be forgiven.
download video
It is interesting to compare the Western and Asian (for example, Chinese) traditions of education: they are seriously different.
Western parents are not fanatical in the matter of raising children, raising children is not in the first place for them, and most importantly, they are convinced that children do not owe anything to their parents. “Children don’t choose their parents. Parents themselves give them life, and therefore are obliged to help them. But children don’t owe anything to their parents, they will only owe their children.”
Asian parents are obsessed with their children and are ready to do anything for them. Chinese parents spend about 10 times more time during the day on learning activities with their children than Western parents. However, in exchange for this, Chinese mothers are convinced that their children owe them almost everything. “Parents are the ones who gave you life. Parents are those who have dedicated their lives to you. Parents for a child are sacred, and no matter how much children do for their parents, they will never pay them back in full. It is the duty of the child to obey his parents and make them proud of his achievements.”
Western parents want to bring up in the child a free personality with independent interests. They believe that children have the right to make their own choices, respect the choices of children and consider it undesirable to impose on them what they do not want. Asian parents know what their children need and purposefully guide their children towards those goals. The Chinese believe that the best protection for children is to prepare for a harsh future, to realize their strengths and to equip them with skills, habits and self-respect that no one can take away.
A Chinese mom will never let her daughters go to sleepovers (why?), won’t let them make friends (early!), won’t let them participate in school plays (that’s a prank) and complain about not being allowed to participate in school plays (that’s more what?!). The Chinese mother herself will decide what electives her daughter or son needs and forbid them any activities that distract children from what they now need to do. It is clear that the child will not have TV shows and VKontakte chatter …
The Asian tradition of education is education in strictness, where there is accustoming to discipline and everything that does not serve the goals of education is prohibited. The Western tradition of education is to support the child’s own choices and create a favorable environment for the possibility of his self-development.
A normal Western mother is considered very strict if she lets her play computer games for no more than an hour or forces her child to play music for half an hour a day. The Chinese mother would ban computer games completely and only take music lessons seriously if they last two to three hours daily.
The Asian education system is a regime of maximum loads. Western — respect for the child.
In one study of 50 American mothers and 48 Chinese immigrant mothers, about 70% of Western mothers said that “it’s not good to demand academic excellence from their children” and that “parents should try to make learning enjoyable.” Chinese mothers, in contrast, said that their children should be «the best students» and that «success in learning reflects the right upbringing». And if a child is not given education, this is the mistake of parents who “do not do their job.”
Western parents are very concerned about the self-esteem of their children and worry about what their child may experience, because the psyche of children, in their opinion, is very fragile. In the tradition of Western education, it is considered obligatory to understand and support children in their difficulties, to take care not to overload children, to be attentive and careful so as not to cause them psychological trauma with negative and all the more harsh assessments. Asian parents, on the contrary, mean strength in their children, not fragility, and are ready to demand the highest results from their children, expressing their assessments of success and failure as frankly as possible.
Western parents can only ask that the child try to do «the best he can.» The Eastern mother will say: «You are lazy, all your classmates have passed you.» If a child brings home an A-minus on a test, a Western parent is more likely to praise them. An Asian mother in such a situation will be horrified and ask what happened.
Even if Western parents express disapproval to the child for poor study, they will try to make sure that the child does not feel discomfort; they won’t call him «fool» or «lazy». Between themselves, Western parents will worry that the child is not studying very well, explaining that he may not like this subject, or maybe the lesson schedule is unsuccessful, or in general the whole school is bad. If the child’s grades do not improve, Western parents may go to complain to the headmaster about the wrong program or an unqualified teacher.
Asian parents behave differently. If an Asian child comes home with a B, this will be taken as a force majeure, after which the mother will take dozens or even hundreds of tasks in this subject and will do them with the child until the child gets an A. Asian parents believe that the best motivation for a child is his real success, and the desire to do something comes after the fact that the child begins to do any business with high quality. In order for the child to have motivation, they do not praise him for nothing, but require the child to learn how to do the right thing properly. They proceed from the fact that the child begins to like what he has learned to do perfectly!
How are we going to sum it up?
Here it should be taken into account that Western education was not always like this: modern Western education, namely education in the style of modern humanism, is a fairly recent invention, which has become widespread only since the 60s of the twentieth century. References to the fact that Europe is ahead of Asia, therefore European pedagogy is stronger — do not work: Europe was ahead of Asia as long as it raised children differently. And today, do you know? — Asia is starting to overtake Europe more and more confidently: not because Asia has changed, but because Europe has become different …
I will not hide, my sympathies are on the side of Chinese mothers. I am convinced that the Western tradition of upbringing has made too big a tilt towards “saving”, towards “creating life and spiritual comfort”, towards non-judgmental and omniscient, forgetting about the need to prepare a child for life, the need to educate discipline, educate volitional qualities, skills keep the tension and overcome difficulties. Talking about the vulnerability of the psyche of children is nonsense, people, in principle, can do much more than they think about themselves: the experience of sports achievements provides many extremely convincing illustrations of this. In addition, when a child essentially becomes the head of the family, telling his parents what he likes and what makes him uncomfortable now, nothing good will come of such a child in the future.
At the same time, I do not consider it possible to yell at children (and Chinese mothers allow themselves to do this), insults and obscenities are generally forbidden for me (in Chinese families they look at it easier), and, most importantly, I believe in the reasonableness of my children, more precisely in their ability to develop their minds. And for this, you need to talk with children, talk seriously — and negotiate with them, teaching them to turn on their heads and use their own minds.
It seems that a combination of Western and Asian style would be ideal. How might it look? Let’s try to draw such a picture …
The direction of the life of the family, as well as the direction of the development of the child, should be set by the father: strict, but attentive. Dad and mom consulted, took into account the characteristics of the child and his inclinations, then the father says what will happen, and his word is law. At the same time, the current atmosphere of the family is set by a warm and caring mother, balancing the rigidity of the father, adding an understanding of love to the requirements of discipline. Also the school. The main school must be strict and the requirements must be taken seriously, as at Eton and other British schools. However, having completed all the lessons (of course, excellently), the child can run to electives that he chooses, and let there be an atmosphere of freedom and warmth.
Reasonable discipline is necessary and obligatory. The main thesis: everything that makes sense is possible. And what you want, but rather meaningless — let it be banned.
Playing a small supporting role in the school theater is a waste of time, but if your children are in the school theater in the first roles in beautiful plays, this is wonderful. Partying as a way of life is not a thing, but going to a party once every few months is rather useful, it is an important experience for a teenager. Going to see a cult movie four times is stupid, but watching it once is fine so as not to be a complete black sheep in the classroom. Similarly, sports: the fact that sports are obligatory is not discussed, and which sport specifically is decided by parents together with their children.
Another thing is that it is so demanding to educate only from childhood. If an ordinary Western child, brought up in a greenhouse environment and a habit of entertainment, were suddenly to articulate all these harsh demands, the result would be only an atomic war and nothing good. It is more correct to explain to children the new direction of family life and then proceed gradually, but methodically.
There is no need to feel sorry for children: you need to believe in your children and love them, rejoicing in their successes and making more and more demands on them over and over again.
Video from Yana Shchastya: interview with professor of psychology N.I. Kozlov
Topics of conversation: What kind of woman do you need to be in order to successfully marry? How many times do men get married? Why are there so few normal men? Childfree. Parenting. What is love? A story that couldn’t be better. Paying for the opportunity to be close to a beautiful woman.