Proper Internet Usage
Social development has now made it impossible to completely isolate children from the internet. Regarding the matter of the internet, parents should adopt the method of Yu the Great controlling the flood: instead of blocking, they should guide their children to properly utilize the internet, thereby giving them more choices in learning methods.
Parent-Child Focus:
After bringing home his report card, Hui Zi was severely scolded by his father. The grades in all subjects on the report card had significantly dropped compared to the previous exam. When asked for reasons, Hui Zi couldn't explain.
When Hui Zi's teacher was asked, the teacher said, "Hui Zi was originally a good student in the class with consistently good grades, but recently he often seems distracted during class. According to classmates, he is addicted to online games."
Only then did Hui Zi's father realize why his son would lock himself in his room right after school – he thought his son was studying, but it turned out he was playing online games! Thinking about this, Hui Zi's father became very angry. He had bought the computer to help Hui Zi study, but now it not only failed to promote his studies but also hindered them. In anger, Hui Zi's father wanted to immediately remove the computer from Hui Zi's room and never let him use it again. After returning home, Hui Zi's father gradually calmed down. After careful consideration, he believed that unilaterally confiscating the computer and discs while Hui Zi was not at home might not be the best solution and could even lead to friction between father and son. Is there a better way?
Parents worldwide are almost all racking their brains to prevent their children from becoming addicted to the internet. Hui Zi's father thought that the most important thing first was to fully understand the child's enthusiasm for the internet. Especially for Chinese children, most of whom are only children, they have fewer opportunities to play games with peers after returning home. With the heavy academic pressure, they indeed need an opportunity and place to relax. Using the computer to browse the internet or play games naturally becomes the most convenient and cost-effective choice. Parents can only address the issue of internet addiction scientifically by understanding their children’s needs, guiding them appropriately, and standardizing their behavior, thus gaining their cooperation.
When Hui Zi's father shared his thoughts with Hui Zi, Hui Zi immediately showed a rare smile. Seizing this opportunity, his father reminded Hui Zi: "Anything has two sides. The internet is also like this, a double-edged sword. If used well, it is a good helper; if used poorly, it is a killer. If you can control these two situations, I agree with your internet usage." Hui Zi gladly accepted his father's conditions, which were strictly controlling the timing and duration of internet usage and surfing the web with purpose. Since then, Hui Zi gained a proper understanding of the internet, gradually broke free from his game addiction, and his academic performance returned to the top of the class.
Five Skills to Cultivate:
I once said: "Letting children surf the internet freely without any guidance is harmful and offers no benefits!" I've seen too many examples like this: many of my students have affected their academic performance due to their obsession with the internet, and some have even gone astray. Therefore, I advocate actively intervening and correctly guiding children's internet usage.
In fact, compared to its drawbacks, the internet still offers more advantages. As long as it is used wisely, both parents and children can benefit. Whenever I see parents who panic at the mention of the internet, I always tell them: "Don't view the internet as a ferocious beast. Please go online together with your children!"
■ Strictly Control Internet Time
Middle and primary school students have poor self-control and are easily addicted to the internet. Therefore, once you decide to go online, you should strive to enhance your self-control and control your internet time. Besides needing strong self-discipline, the key is to have a strict plan for daily study and life, including when to go online, what should be done, and what shouldn't be done. With perseverance, strict planning, and forming habits, you can become the master of the network, essentially the master of your spirit.
■ Learn to Use Search Engines
The second step in guiding children to know the internet is teaching them how to search, which is the most basic application of the internet. Currently, the most powerful search engines are mainly Baidu and Google. Parents should let their children understand the advantages of these two search engines and use them proficiently.
■ Let Children Use the Internet as a Learning Method
Many children spend a lot of time on the internet because they don't have clear and positive goals when going online, doing everything blindly. Going online should primarily be regarded as a learning method. Before each internet session, there should be a clear learning goal: creating web pages, looking up information, sending and receiving emails...
■ Grasp Internet Security Rules
Parents should tell their children not to display identifiable information online (including home address, school name, home phone number, password, parents' occupation, etc.), not to send their own photos online, and not to meet netizens alone. If encountering offensive, attacking, obscene, threatening, violent messages or information that makes them uncomfortable, they should not reply or argue but ignore it.
■ Establish a Parent-Child Blog Together with Your Child
Parents and children can establish their own blog together, encouraging children to write articles on the blog, encouraging them to read blogs of peers and successful people. On one hand, it can exercise the child's writing skills and provide a space to release emotions; on the other hand, it can set learning role models for the child. Parents must not randomly question the content of the child's writing, giving them full freedom.
Homework 6: Diligently Summarize - Summaries Are More Important Than Processes
For children, being good at summarizing and generalizing is a very important learning skill. However, in school, children mostly receive rote education, often swallowing knowledge theories whole without digesting them. It's not just about summarizing and generalizing; they may not even be able to clearly outline the knowledge structure.
Parent-Child Focus:
Wang Wei is a hardworking student, but his academic performance has never improved. The main reason lies in his inability to summarize effectively – where he went wrong, where he succeeded, how to improve efficiency, and where inefficiency occurs. He has never summarized these experiences and gains. As a result, every time he stumbles on a particular problem, he falls again on the same problem next time, showing no progress.
Wang Wei's father knew the child worked hard but lacked appropriate learning methods. Wang Wei's father wanted to help him improve his learning methods. Smiling, he said to Wang Wei, "If you encounter any problems in your studies, tell dad, maybe I can help you." Sighing, Wang Wei said, "I don't know what's wrong. I've tried my best to study, but my grades never improve." Saying this, Wang Wei's eyes reddened, and his voice choked up! "What? A man shedding tears?" Wang Wei's father continued, "Your efforts, we all see. Everyone knows you've tried. As for the grades not improving, that's not the most important thing. Effort is good, isn't it? But if you still hope to improve your grades, Dad has a relatively simple method. Do you want to hear it or not?" Hearing this, Wang Wei looked up at his father and nodded happily and firmly.
This is what the father said: "Dad's method is frequent summarization. This is how Dad did it back then: establish a summary book for each subject. The content of this summary book is divided into three parts. The first part is the difficult and wrong questions section. First, record the questions you got wrong in the book and note where you went wrong, then write the correct solution process below, striving not to make the same mistake when encountering similar questions in the future. Then, record the questions you couldn't solve, noting where your thinking was blocked. After recording this part, review all the wrong and unsolved questions periodically to see if you're making similar mistakes, thus summarizing experience lessons.
"The second part is phase summaries. Every month, do a small summary, mainly to see what you've gained and lost in that month, what points were done well, and what points were not done well, etc. This allows reflection on the learning process of each month.
"The third part is semester summaries. Summarize the learning experience and gains of an entire semester. When a semester is about to end, look back at how you spent it, where you improved, where you regressed, and what learning methods you mastered."
Finally, the father said, "If you can systematically summarize well, I believe you will achieve results beyond your imagination."
Since then, Wang Wei followed his father's advice and created a summary book, frequently summarizing his gains and losses, and his grades quickly ranked among the top few in the class.
Four Methods to Cultivate Skills:
Summarization is an important learning method. Without summarizing experiences and lessons, progress cannot be achieved. Many parents in their work rely on the "summarization" method to continuously innovate and advance. Letting children frequently summarize their gains and losses can similarly allow children to clearly understand which aspects they did right, which aspects they did wrong, which aspects they did well, and which aspects they didn't do well, greatly benefiting the child's growth.
■ Review the Past
Let the child replay their past week or month in their mind like a movie, finding times when they performed well and times when they didn't, and record the reasons for both good and bad performances.
■ Establish a Study Summary Book
Help the child establish a study summary book. Let them summarize their experiences and lessons on it. For example, write down why certain questions couldn't be solved and why others were solved incorrectly, specifying the reasons. Parents should also tell the child that establishing a summary book is not just about building it but using it by reviewing the summarized experiences and lessons during the learning process to avoid repeating the same mistakes.
■ Learn to Organize Study Materials
Teach the child to properly preserve relevant textbooks, especially Chinese, math, physics, and chemistry books. During class, pay attention to marking key knowledge emphasized by the teacher in the book. When doing practice books, select typical example questions reflecting key knowledge based on the teacher's comments. After exams, emphasize post-exam analysis and teach the child to create a "wrong question book". Select representative wrong questions and categorize them, along with regular classroom notebooks and supplementary questions carefully prepared by teachers for students. All of these require the child to consciously and attentively collect and store them for future review and emphasis before exams.
■ Parents Should Set an Example for Their Children
Parents who require their children to summarize should first set an example. Parents should also summarize their lives and work and show it to their children, guiding them on how to do it and letting the children feel a sense of equality in the family. If parents themselves are unwilling to summarize, how can they require their children to do so?