Parenting] Character Education: Three Rules for Kids to Learn

Character education is closely related to behavioral development. In other words, children who have good character skills by the age of six are more mentally mature and will learn more efficiently when they reach school age. Many behavioral and brain science studies have suggested that there are three important rules for young children that must be developed early: the ability to wait patiently, to share things, and to learn to take turns. These are the ability to wait patiently, to share things and to take turns. These are also skills that medical professionals will certainly look for when evaluating a child's social development.

Learning to Wait - Helping Your Child Control Impulses

Research on children's behavioral development has found that children who are able to control their impulses, and who don't move towards temptation at the first sign of trouble, will have higher achievement when they grow up. This is related to the development of the frontal lobe of the brain, which manages impulses. The more mature the frontal lobe is, the better the child's ability to judge, think, and observe, which helps the child to develop good behaviors, so the ability to control impulses must be learned. Therefore, parents can help their children develop impulse control by letting them wait in a timely manner and by not always satisfying them at the first opportunity.

Practice Sharing - Training in Thinking and Judgmental Skills

People live in groups. As children gradually enter group life, their socialization skills will focus on the sharing of things around them. It is normal for children before the age of one to have a hard time separating from their own food or toys. However, as the child grows up, it is not difficult for parents to realize that the child will try to win the favor and appreciation of the adults around him/her through "one for you, one for me, one for him/her ......". Children also gradually want to share with others and engage in common activities together. For example, children between the ages of one and a half and two years old will want to eat together, play with toys together, etc. These seem to be the most basic forms of sharing. These seemingly basic forms of sharing are in fact symptoms of a child's maturity and gradual departure from self-centeredness. Relatively speaking, the process of sharing involves thinking, judging others' inner thoughts, and lowering the desires of the heart. Children who can share are much more popular than those who can't, and this directly affects their sense of accomplishment and their motivation to interact with others.

Learning to Rotate - Training Observation

Wheeling is another important group function development. When children have the ability to take turns during play, they must observe others and see if it is my turn. Therefore, rotation is a highly observant activity and a form of shared attention training (you do something, then I do something). Children who take the initiative to take turns before school age have better learning behaviors and better social and emotional control during the school years, so taking turns must be trained early in the toddler years.

Excerpted from Parent-Children World Writings│Wang Hongzhe (Specialist in Child Development Medicine) What should we teach our youngest children about character?