Take edamame as an example. He was crazy about cars when he was one or two years old.
When I was one year old, I looked down from my balcony and pointed to the signs of Audi's four circles: wipe, wipe, wipe, wipe (in fact, he tried to imitate the pronunciation of our circle, but he couldn't say it). In the parking lot, you have to squat and watch the car; Go out to travel, don't go to the scenic spot to see the sea, but look at the car; Wherever we go, we just stare at the car and we can't move. ...
By the time he was over four years old, he began to be fascinated by dinosaurs. One day, in a picture book, he came into contact with dinosaurs, an animal with huge body and small forelimbs like deformities, and asked me with interest, "Mom, what is this?"
I replied, "This is a dinosaur!"
He immediately begged me to take him to see more dinosaurs. I know that time was the beginning of his love affair with dinosaurs.
Every child will have crazy infatuation moments, but how to fully expand their interests is actually what many mothers want to know.
The correct way is: children's interest is just an entrance, behind which is the door to explore the new world. While acquiring new knowledge, children develop the spirit of questioning, thinking ability, rich imagination and even imaginative games.
In fact, many mothers can't do this, and I have witnessed many mothers doing wrong.
Their main mistake is to take interest as the entrance to cultivate cognition and memory, instead of using interest to cultivate soft power such as thinking habits.
Once I took my children to visit the Museum of Ancient Animals with my neighbor's mother (taking children with my neighbors is my favorite "* * *" mode). With the company of children, adults can take care of each other, which is much easier than taking care of the baby alone.
Neighbor mother pointed to the huge dinosaur model and said to the child:
"What's that name? Yes, Parasaurolophus. "
"What should I do? Yes, Tyrannosaurus Rex. "
"How many years ago did dinosaurs go extinct? Yes, it was 65 million years ago. "
"Why did dinosaurs become extinct? Look, an asteroid hit the earth. "
Walking out of the Museum of Paleontology, the neighbor's mother sent a circle of friends with a big smile: "Today, my son has gained a lot of new knowledge. He knows the names of many dinosaurs and remembers the age when dinosaurs became extinct. "
I once observed an expensive "early foreign language class". A white foreign teacher from the United States or New Zealand sat across the table, and seven or eight two-or three-year-old children sat at the other end, holding high-end and ultra-expensive English books that were said to be "British and American original textbooks".
The white foreign teacher looked: apples, bananas ... ...
Parents expressed their approval and felt that the tuition fee was not paid in vain. But if you observe the child's expression, he has no light in his eyes when he explores independently, only fatigue and boredom.
Again, how can I promote children's interest?
Every interest of a child is an entrance to support him to explore a deeper world.
While wandering in the river of interests, he exercised cognitive development and causality.
Dinosaurs are not an end in themselves, and his interest is also very shifted. He just uses this bridge to explore more worlds.
Therefore, I have nothing to do.
This is because I know exactly what a mother should do.
Mother is not the master of children's interests. He sailed by himself, and he decided what kind of dinosaurs to explore, so I wouldn't interfere.
But I want to provide him with an ocean, so that his interests have a broad roaming soil.
The first step I have to do is to help him prepare a rich and prosperous environment. The child's mind is absorptive, and he will automatically absorb everything in the environment.
Therefore, I often take him to the natural history museum, the paleontology museum and various dinosaur exhibition halls, where he can enjoy and feel.
Worried that the dinosaur picture book he bought was not comprehensive enough, he took him to the library to get in touch with various versions of dinosaur paintings and humorous dinosaur story books with various text lengths.
As long as edamame likes it, I will take him.
The second step I did was to make a scaffold. Between his current cognitive level and his advanced thinking ability, I put forward exploratory questions and encouraged him to think: Why? What should I do?
Instead of just memorizing fixed conclusions that have been written in books.
Here's a conversation between me and edamame at the Paleontological Museum:
Edamame: Mom, why are all the dinosaurs dead? We'll never see them again?
Me: This is because a long time ago, there was a change on the earth that no one expected: the weather became very cold and dinosaurs felt very cold.
Edamame: Then why did it become like this?
Me: Because the earth was hit by another ball, volcanoes erupted, landslides, tsunamis and clouds covered the sun.
Edamame: (silent for a moment): Are all the other animals dead?
Me: I don't remember this either, but we can go back and check. I seem to remember that reptiles smaller than dinosaurs, such as lizards, have not become extinct.
Edamame: Huh? Then why did they survive?
Me: What do you think?
Edamame: (thinking for a moment) I think it's probably because they are small and easy to drill holes, but the holes are not cold. (guesses and assumptions in STEM)
Me: (I'm surprised that edamame can think of this degree) What do you think will happen when reptiles get into holes?
Edamame: They grow up slowly. ...
Enlightening thinking, asking all open-ended questions, no one knows where the final outcome will be, and no one knows what conclusions the child will draw. Every step is brand-new, curious and requires thinking ability.
And memory thinking, all the goals point to a fixed answer: what was the name of the dinosaur, when was it born, what plants it ate, and which continent it lived in. ...
The world is constantly changing, and no one knows what it will be like next year or ten years later. Only by staying open and flexible can we better adapt to this world. And children's learning style is just open and flexible. They learn by exploring.
Children are natural explorers, and their brains are designed for exploration. When children grow up, they will also experience this change from exploratory learning mode to exploitative learning mode. On the other hand, parents play a great role in assisting this change.
Finally, remind all mothers.
Many mothers will complain: "His interests are so vague that he won't be interested for months."
This is normal. According to the statistics of scientists, children's interests are extremely changeable, which can only last for 6 months to 3 years.
Therefore, when the child's interest slowly disappears and moves to another one, don't worry, let alone force it. You should encourage your child to transfer the thinking ability and questioning level formed in the last interest to the next interest.