Watching My Son Grow - From Fuzhou Primary School to Harvard University

Author: Song Wenlin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-10-01
Features:
Questioning the Phrase "Don't Let Your Child Fall Behind at the Starting Line"
A widely popular saying in society is "Don't let your child fall behind at the starting line." The so-called "starting line" refers to early childhood education; the so-called "losing" means that what other children of the same age can do, your child cannot, or even if they can, they are not as good as others. In reality, these are all misconceptions born from parents' competitive and comparative mindset, fearing that their child's learning starting point will be lower than others after entering school. As a result, they desperately push for advanced education and training for preschoolers, overlooking the objective factors that children's development is gradual and that each child has a different maturation period and interests.
Some parents force their young children to learn the piano, painting, English, and more too early and excessively, without caring whether the subjects are genuinely interesting or suitable for them. They leave the children with little time to rest, hoping to mold them into all-around, extraordinary geniuses overnight. However, parents rarely consider or take into account whether this approach is beneficial to the child's healthy growth, how they feel physically and mentally, or whether they can endure it. As parents, we strongly doubt and reject this idea and practice. Forcing children to train prematurely and artificially can impose a physiological and psychological burden on them, even affecting their future interest in learning and potentially leading to rebellious behavior. This practice of "forcing intellectual precocity" ignores the development of other aspects. As we all know, high intelligence does not guarantee high success. On the contrary, children with average intelligence can greatly increase their chances of success through the cultivation of non-intellectual factors—such as ambition, perseverance, diligence, healthy personalities, confidence, honesty, and more. Their potential for success can far exceed that of highly intelligent children who lack other qualities and character traits.
If your child is truly a genius, there is no need to force them to learn this or that. Let them live and study like ordinary children, and it will become clear how much talent they possess. By carefully observing in which areas their talent lies and guiding them accordingly, you can achieve twice the result with half the effort.
When Wei'er was young, we never had overly high expectations for him, and we never forced him to learn things that he was not interested in during his spare time. When he first started elementary school, we lived in a dormitory building provided by our workplace. I remember in the building where we lived, children from all floors and neighboring households were learning the electronic piano (at that time, economic conditions were limited, and pianos were not yet widely available). Every evening and on weekends, the sounds of piano playing would rise and fall continuously, and after hearing them, we couldn't help but feel tempted to encourage our son to learn the piano. However, every time we mentioned it, he would shake his little head vigorously, saying he didn't like it.
Once, a piano teacher passed by our house on their way to teach piano next door and happened to see Wei'er's hands. His fingers were long, and the teacher thought he had excellent natural talent, believing it would be a waste not to learn the piano. So, we were tempted again and borrowed an electronic piano, hoping Wei'er would give it a try. But when he saw the piano, he started crying, saying he didn't want to learn and hated it.