[Parenting] Parents who are dumbfounded by their children are the most successful.

Obradovi, a professor at Stanford University's School of Education, conducted a study in March, finding more than a hundred parents and letting them watch their children play for several hours, then analyzing what these parents were doing from these large amounts of video, second by second. This detailed study led to some amazing discoveries.

It's best not to interrupt the child.

According to the scholar, although modern parents tend to encourage their children, they still look for opportunities to educate them. She cited the example of a mother who watched her child play for 13 seconds, paused for five seconds to think, then suddenly interrupted what the child was doing and then spent 35 seconds trying to "educate" the child on a particular matter.

Experiments have shown that parents who interrupt their children like this often have children with poorer concentration and self-control, which is definitely not a good parenting method.

So, what is the better parenting method? According to the theories of this study, it is clear that the most successful parents are those who let their children play while they sit around and do nothing.

This is a concept that is quite ahead of its time. Before this, even European and American parents would intervene to control their children, but open-minded European and American parents have already begun to think that they should let their children, who do not know anything, to "lead themselves", with their parents accompanying them without opening their mouths, interrupting, teaching, or fidgeting at all.

Sermons are better than companionship.

Recently, I had the chance to attend a positive parenting course designed by the Family Support Center of the University of Queensland in Australia, and I realized that not only Eastern parents, but also parents all over the world have the same problem - younger children are always on their cell phones, older children are always arguing to go out to play with their classmates, and children of all ages are always arguing to their parents to buy them something.

How can parents correct these things? How can I say "NO" without hurting my child's self-esteem and in an effective way?

It turns out that the best way is "no correction". The so-called "no correction" doesn't mean that we don't do anything at all, but that when the child makes a request, the parents must treat it as their own idea and then work with the child to solve the problem.

Sometimes parents make decisions that surprise their children; sometimes they put the brakes on and don't budge. But if it's not a bad thing, there's no need to correct it. Parenting is not a subtle philosophy, it's all created by us, the parents, and it's an endless source of worry.

Thus, I have solved a worry that I have had for years. Twenty years ago, I interviewed eighteen doctoral students from Ivy League schools in order to collect eighteen different parenting styles for a book on studying abroad at Ivy League schools.

What I didn't realize was that all I heard was, "My parents let me go since I was a kid," "My family didn't care," and "I read novels freely when I was a kid." ..... Strange, how can this be possible? It's a complete reversal of the traditional notion that the parents of these prestigious students should demand a lot, or at least put some intangible pressure on them, right? Apparently not.

When I was a child, my parents were at work and didn't have time to care about me, and I was never monitored or corrected by my parents for what I did.

When my parents and I spend time together, what do they do? They would talk to me about work stories, and maybe as a kid I was just an after-work outlet for the adults, but those stories gave me some "motivation" - and to think, all I got out of my happy childhood was motivation, never correction!

At this point, my kid is screaming that he wants to play Switch games again, so maybe he will come to me for more time to watch movies and more pocket money to buy stationery. ..... I thought about giving my kid a stern lecture, but on second thought, I'd rather not.

Mandarin Daily 5/24 Family Edition