This article is not a movement against Zhang Yide's father, let alone a "bloodthirsty steamed bread". Like all mothers in the world, I am deeply saddened and sorry for the unfortunate death of Yide.
Anyone who chooses to leave this world voluntarily has very complicated reasons. We can't simply infer that "Zhang Yide's suicide" was caused by his father's educational model. The reason why I want to write some words is just some feelings and reflections on this matter as a mother who once briefly fell into "narcissism in parenting" and has now been losing ground.
The reason why this incident has brought such high attention is that in this era, the survival and development of individuals are facing unprecedented pressure, and the whole society has also paid unprecedented attention to children's education. "Chicken baby" has become the norm for parents. There are no chickens, only chickens.
For the sake of children's Excellence and success, parents lost their hair, hurt their hearts, distorted their personality, and fell in love with their children in daily anxiety. Almost every family has a history of blood and tears on the way to raising children.
In this context, tragedies occur from time to time: some people have been depressed since junior high school and have been admitted to the hospital for treatment. Some people have committed suicide because of unbearable parents or academic pressure, and even some extreme cases of killing their mothers and fathers have appeared.
Although Zhang Yide grew up in a single-parent family, she was surrounded by gentle fatherly love since she was a child, and achieved remarkable results over most of her peers. Because of his unique and effective parenting model, Dad Zhang once became the "Internet celebrity dad" in Guangzhou Mama Circle, which was deeply appreciated by many fans.
However, Zhang Yide, a brilliant sunshine, committed suicide shortly after being admitted to Emory University in the United States. The perfect fatherly love, which was a smash hit on the Internet, was finally faced with such a tragedy. Shocked people could not help but ask: Why? How on earth should we love children?
Zhang's father's love for his son is really great: as deep as a mountain and as thin as running water. Its core ideas are in line with the modern scientific concept of parenting, such as unconditional love and respect for children, and attaching importance to the son's hands-on ability, sports ability and independent survival ability.
His parenting style has a strong personal style and creativity, such as selling the house in the city and taking his son to the countryside to experience farming and pastoral life; Over the past ten years, nearly ten thousand dishes have been created, and their shapes (animals, landscapes, letters, etc.). ) Every day is different; When children are young, they are required to communicate only in English, pictures or words to cultivate their English ability and writing ability; When my son/kloc-was 0/8 years old, he established the "Yide Museum", which collected all kinds of objects and awards from small to large, and the comprehensiveness of the collection was staggering.
What Dad Zhang has done for his son is touching, and he has indeed cultivated excellent children who are satisfactory in all aspects. But at the same time, his parenting behavior also exposed the suspicion of obsessive-compulsive disorder, narcissism and arrogance (seemingly free parenting, deep control in his bones).
In his own interviews and articles, he said that he respects all the choices of children. He is not as strong as other parents on the surface. Their parent-child relationship looks beautiful, warm, relaxed, harmonious, intelligent and interesting. But under all kinds of beautiful appearances, his "sense of design" can't be concealed.
In other words, how to eat, how to live, how to study, how to speak and how to live, he has carried out extremely in-depth design and implementation, and also implemented all-round deep companionship and interaction. His design is thoughtful and ingenious. He put his wisdom and creativity into the great cause of "parenting"-he became the only "career" after his father resigned.
Before his son's accident, he was intoxicated with the achievements of his educational practice, the pursuit of fans and the aura of his son's success. In many of his articles, he did not hesitate to praise his son: handsome sunshine, pride among elites, proud talent, intoxicating (playing piano music) and shocking father. ...
Yes, "company" and "encouragement" are the self-cultivation of modern parents. However, we often change from "companionship" to "health" and from "encouragement" to "excessive praise" carelessly. There are too many in-depth discussions on "Parent-child Life", so I won't elaborate on it in this article. But for "excessive praise", I especially want to quote the words in the book "The Awakening of Home" to share with you:
If children instinctively feel how much their parents value their achievements and realize that it means more to their parents-even more than to themselves-they will internalize this concept and turn it into a sense of anxiety. We should not enjoy or celebrate children's achievements more than they enjoy and celebrate themselves. If we value grades more than children, then we send them a message that we regard their grades as our own.
Let's talk about Zhang Dad's feat of cooking non-repetitive dishes for his son every day for ten years. His original intention is that "the creation of every scenic dish comes from the life growth story harvested that day, and every dish has profound knowledge to develop and guide the direction, which is naturally his diary of growth and learning that day."
Dad Zhang attaches too much importance to entertainment, exposing children's growth trajectory on the Internet for many years, and excessively tying normal life with education and guidance for children.
Although the results show that this unique educational model has achieved satisfactory results, from his amazing actions for ten years, is there any trace of obsessive-compulsive disorder behind it? Do you feel narcissistic? Have you turned parenting into a seemingly profound but deliberate performance art in the pursuit of fans?
I don't have the strength to refute Zhang's behavior, but I think he is too focused on being a perfect father, but for children, 60% parents are enough. When the water is full, it overflows and the monthly surplus is gone. Children don't need our whole body and mind, all financial resources or resources. In the process of children's growth, we should give them time and space to "leave blank"
Miss Chen, a netizen in Zhihu, commented that the first sentence is "the essence of an immersed chicken baby: take the child's road and leave the child with no way to go". This sentence is a bit scary to read, but it does uncover the narcissistic trap of many parents. Many times, the beauty that we adults experience seems to be beneficial to the growth of children, but it may not really be what children need.
Although Zhang Dad's greed and excessive efforts in education and the unusual road to success designed for his children may not be the direct cause of Zhang's depression, even if he is still alive, Zhang Dad's alternative and exaggerated education model may not be worthy of admiration and imitation.
Finally, talk about the so-called "uniqueness". From Zhang's behavior, we can see that he is a very individual, thoughtful and creative person. If his talents are used in a real career, he should be able to achieve something and enjoy a wonderful life. However, he sprinkled all his wisdom and creativity on every corner of the parenting road, trying to build an "excellent child", but he didn't know that doing so might also lead to a "distorted child".
I remember that at the end of a parenting debate in which Zipper said three star mothers participated, Li Dan talked about one of the suggestions given to parents in The Mystery of Education: Don't give children strange names. Li paid a special visit to Euler on his birthday, because Euler's eldest son was named "the so-called martial arts". Strange names like this can only satisfy some vanity or complex of parents, and have almost no positive significance for children, but may cause trouble to children.
Because in childhood, most children don't have enough wisdom to face their own "uniqueness". This is why Zhang Yide feels "inferiority complex" and "helplessness" when he recalls his childhood in the countryside and the rural life that his father deliberately created for himself when he grew up.
We don't know whether Zhang Yide has enough time and suitable opportunities to digest his inner fears and negative emotions.
My father's more than ten years of parenting experience is more like a large-scale creative show of his own. Sydney once wrote in an article: children can't love life for you. If you want to experience something, you can create it yourself directly, without imagining any relationship through anyone (including children).
In addition to giving and paying attention to our love for children, there is a more important lesson of "separation" to learn. Separation is not only the separation of space and spirit, parents should also understand that education is not only technology and art, but also a metaphysics. It doesn't mean that the better we do and the more we give, the better and happier our children will be.
In an online article, I was deeply impressed by a sentence about Zhang Yide's mother.
He said that he failed the SAT once and was very depressed. His mother drove to pick him up and told him while driving: "When you get old, you will eventually find that you are as ordinary, as forgetful, as ordinary and as plain as others. Don't feel special anymore, just simply do what others say. "
Perhaps, Zhang Dad made the education that should be simple and natural too complicated and deliberate. Education doesn't need too many fancy tricks. Parents should give up their paranoia and delusion in a timely and appropriate manner, stay away from the trap of narcissism, relax the pursuit of perfection and perfection, let their children go by themselves and live their own lives first.