Transcription
[Music] Hello everyone. Today, I'm here to share my opinion that parents should listen to their kids first. I will tell you a story of a monkey prison experiment. Scientists caught a monkey from the wild and put it into a cage made of barbed wire, which is really strong. In the beginning, the monkey tried to escape, but this hurt it every time when it bumped into the edge of the frame. Finally, the monkey stayed in the middle and didn't try to escape anymore. The scientists then changed the barbed wire cage to an easy-to-break cage with a similar appearance, but the monkey still stayed in the middle and never tried to break the frame anymore. Sometimes I feel just like this monkey.
Now I will share a story of mine. It's Christmas. I finished all my homework and wanted to go out to play with my friends. I asked my mom, "Mom, can I please go out?" She said no. I wanted to please her, so I washed dishes and made breakfast. I asked again, but they disagreed. So then I fed my cat, cleaned my room, I even slept early, but still no. So finally, I had to agree to do extra homework as they wished. I spent three hours doing this until 6 p.m. It's time for dinner. My dad said, "Let's go out to eat." After dinner, I missed my friend so much; I just wanted to sit on the couch and WeChat my friends, but my parents had different plans. They took me to see a show about science, which I'm not very interested in. After all of that, it's bedtime and it's the end of my day.
After all of that, I feel like all my ideas will be rejected. My parents—this is a typical kind of parent who always says no. The "always no" parents will make kids passive. Passive kids let their parents do everything for them because they think their parents will not let them do anything they want and will try very hard just to let their parents agree with one simple thing. But actually, executing a function—yeah, for sure—is the right way to learn. EF is an important concept in child psychology. It's the way to achieve goals, including letting kids plan by themselves, make decisions by themselves, use knowledge well, and remove unwanted thoughts, feelings, and actions, then shift from one task to another. Parents should encourage kids to program executed functioning; it's the only way how kids learn. For example, parents should let kids learn from their own failures. When a parent tells a kid that opening the fire is dangerous, even if the kid says, "Yes, I understand," kids will still try and get hurt until they know what the parents mean. So even if the parents tell kids that doing this or that is wrong, the kid will still need to learn from their own failures.
Those who don't let their kids learn from their own failures, who clear obstacles and make sure there's only one path for their kids—the way to success—are called snowplow parents. Do you know what a snow plow is? A snow plow is a huge machine that goes out and removes snow. This information is from the American College Health Association. This study is about two hundred ninety-seven college students who have snowplow parents. Snowplow parents are parents who fix kids' problems when they are small, but actually they create bigger problems when the kids grow. Let's see the result of their parenting: 84.3% of students felt overwhelmed, 60.5% felt very sad, 57% felt very lonely, 51.3% experienced anxiety, and a percentage even attempted suicide.
Here's my suggestion for future parents: If you can discuss your suggestions with us, not just disagree, it will be a lot better. As a kid, we should discuss with our parents our own opinions about why we want to do this and how we will achieve our goals. Parents, we need you when we're feeling down, what we feel, and when we're in trouble. We want your encouragement to help us conquer difficulties by ourselves. Please trust us. If you do something more than just suggest your idea, our life will be a lot more difficult because your decision might not be the same as ours. Sometimes being different is an advantage, and having a strong personality is not a bad thing. Kids have their own lives; why not just give us a chance? [Applause]