Personality Education for Children

Author: Adler
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: If a child spends a long time learning to walk, as long as he learns to walk normally, he will not develop a that affects his later life. However, we know that a psychologically normal child is always strongly influenced by physical disabilities. He feels that his situation is unfortunate and may even develop a pessimistic attitude toward life, which in turn affects his future actions, even if the physical defects he previously had have long since disappeared with the passage of time. Many children who have had rickets will still show traces of this disease even after recovery: bowlegs or clumsiness, bronchitis, head deformities, curved spines, swollen knees, joint weakness, poor posture, and so on. The sense of failure formed during their illness and the pessimistic attitude toward life that stemmed from this failure would persist even after recovery. Watching their peers move with ease and skill, these children feel a sense of inferiority. They undervalue themselves, either completely losing confidence in themselves and rarely making an effort to improve, or desperately chasing after luckier peers despite their physical limitations. Clearly, they lack the capacity to accurately assess their situation. A child's development is neither determined by innate talent nor by objective circumstances; rather, it is the child's own perception of the external reality and his relationship with it that determines his development. This is an important fact. A child's innate potential and abilities do not dominate, nor is our evaluation and perception of the child from an adult perspective important. What matters is that we view the child's situation from his perspective and understand them based on their mistaken judgments. We should not expect children to behave without errors or to act according to the healthy rationality of adults, but rather recognize that children make mistakes when trying to understand their own situation. Indeed, we should remember that if children did not make mistakes, not only would child education be impossible, but it would also be unnecessary. If a child's mistakes were predetermined, we could neither educate him nor improve him. If we believe that a child's personality is innate, we cannot and should not engage in the work of educating children. As the saying goes, a healthy soul dwells in a healthy body. This may not always be the case. A healthy soul can also dwell in a flawed body, as long as the child can overcome his physical defects and bravely face life. On the other hand, a healthy body can also have an unhealthy soul, if the child experiences a series of misfortunes and thus forms a wrong understanding of his own abilities. Any setback will make him believe that he is incapable. This is because he is particularly sensitive to difficulties and views any obstacle as proof of his lack of strength and perseverance. Some children also have language impairments in addition to motor difficulties. Children often learn to speak and walk at the same time. However, there is no connection between speaking ability and walking ability; they depend on the child's education and family environment. Some children who should not have speech difficulties develop them because their families neglected to help them. There is no doubt that children who are neither deaf nor have defective speech organs will learn to speak by a certain age. However, in some cases, especially when vision is highly developed, children may experience delayed speech. In other cases, for example, if parents are overly indulgent and always speak for their children before they have a chance to express themselves, this can also hinder their attempts to communicate. Such children take a long time to learn to speak, and we once even thought they were deaf. Once these children learn to speak, they enjoy speaking and often become eloquent speakers or even orators. Clara Schumann, the wife of composer Robert Schumann, could not speak until she was four years old and could only say very little by the time she was eight. She was a strange, particularly introverted child who liked to spend her time in the kitchen. We can infer that no one paid attention to her. Her father believed, "It is strange that this so obvious mental discoordination marks the beginning of her exceptionally harmonious life." Clara Schumann's case is an example of overcompensation. P67-P69