See a very interesting experiment:

In July this year, Science magazine published a research result of Hu team from Qiushi Advanced Research Institute of Zhejiang University and Neuroscience Research Center of Medical College, pointing out that there is a neural loop in the brain, which mediates the "winner effect".

Simply put, this winner effect means that the previous victory experience will make the subsequent victory easier.

In fact, on 20 1 1, Hu's team published an interesting paper on "drill pipe testing" in Science magazine.

In the experiment, the researchers let two mice enter from both ends of a narrow glass tube to see who can push each other away. At first, the strong mouse always wins. However, researchers began to stimulate "loser" mice to enhance the strength of synapses (the basic structural unit of connection and communication between brain cells) in the prefrontal brain region. As a result, the inferior rat was like eating a "Hercules pill", forcing the superior rat out of the glass tube like a god and successfully attacking.

Winner effect is a biological term, which can be summarized as follows: when an animal competes with a stronger competitor after defeating some weaker opponents, its chances of winning will be much greater than that of directly facing a stronger enemy. The scientific team said that this "winner effect" is related to the pathway in the brain that projects from the dorsal raphe thalamus to the prefrontal cortex nerve. When the intensity of synaptic links in this loop increases, the "winner effect" can be mediated. That is to say, after winning six times, the brains of inferior mice have undergone qualitative changes, and the strength of synaptic connections has increased significantly, thus effectively helping them to maintain their dominant position without the help of external stimuli from scientists.

02

In a word, experiments tell us that successful experience in the past will lead animals to win the next competition by changing their physiological structure. There is a similar winner effect in psychology. "Successful experience reshapes the brain" and "the phenomenon that previous winning and losing experiences affect the success or failure of subsequent competitions" shown in the experiment of mice may also be used as a reference and become the biological explanation of "winner effect" in psychology.

Of course, the conclusion of laboratory research can't be fully applied to our parenting, but in my opinion, it can also give us some enlightenment. For example, in recent months, I have consciously conducted some experiments and found that this principle is reflected in children's education and is equally applicable. Parents can provide a little help by nudging their children, just as scientists stimulate mice, and they can help the children who were originally backward to achieve counterattack-for example, my family is six or six.

Liu Liu has a good friend named Jessica Hester Hsuan. He is a little boy. His mother raised him to play puzzles since he was a child, so when he came to my house as a guest, he always dragged Liu Liu to play puzzles faster than anyone else. However, after the first time, Liu Liu couldn't beat him. After playing several times, he said to me, "Mom, I don't like playing puzzles." Many times, children don't like it so much, but are afraid of facing failure and losing. She is like that relatively weak mouse. If her parents don't intervene, she may always be in a weak position in the pipeline of the puzzle.

So, I bought her a graded puzzle, a first-class sparring, to dispel her fear of puzzles a little. As a more powerful mouse in her eyes, she beat me again and again and gradually built up confidence. Of course, I won't deliberately lose to her with the same difficulty as her. I took 168, 88 more than her, and she really lost, and she really won happily. After beating me many times, she is not afraid to meet Jessica Hester Hsuan. When two people get a brand-new puzzle competition with the same difficulty, she can also win.

When parents are frustrated, they can give a proper nudge to help their children experience the pleasure and satisfaction of completing a thing, which will help them to establish a positive psychological hint of "I can do it", thus promoting their confidence and ability to accomplish it independently. Then spread to the overall self-confidence and challenge to improve the ability to complete new things, which also reflects the "winner effect."

Of course, in the jigsaw puzzle experiment, Jessica Hester Hsuan, who is stronger than her, may not be particularly strong, so after I effectively guided her and gave her a psychological hint that she could, she won. What I want to say is that in the next few decades, in various complicated environments, she will never win every time. There are people outside, and there must be people she can't win in her life. But if we can't win, should we give up intervention? I won't! Even if you can't win, let her know that she has made progress and growth through guidance. If she works hard, she will be stronger than before. Continue to feel that growing up can bring a lot of confidence to her children.

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Why do I think it is important for parents to guide their children when they are young?

I have to admit that the primary school in China is the first competitive environment that children have to face directly, because there is a performance assessment. I will try to guide her not to compare with others. Others are not stronger mice, but better herself. If she didn't do well in the school exam at first, she wouldn't do the problem. She will habitually feel that she can't do it, and it will be more difficult to change later than to build confidence before failure.

If Liu Liu is a child who doesn't care about winning or losing, I won't interfere with her. Parents who love their children will say that life is good and happiness is good. But she won the puzzle. She'll be happy. When she breaks through 88 films for the first time, she will proudly ask me to visit the children. Therefore, I hope she can continue to feel happy after overcoming difficulties. So when I start school, I will try my best to put her in a state where it is easier to get good grades. I will try my best to help her better prepare for Chinese, math and English. Because I definitely don't want to be the weakest mouse when I enter primary school in June, which may be the mood that all mothers can understand.

When the child adapts to school life and develops good study habits, and she is full of confidence in overcoming learning difficulties and challenging herself stronger, parents can let go appropriately.

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Theoretically, no matter what children's initial conditions are, they can be helped to overcome psychological barriers and move towards a virtuous circle of continuous success through acquired means.

However, in reality, what we often feel is that we can't change, can't do, can't poison chicken soup.

Many reasons are because expectations are too high.

For example, some parents only compare their children with other people's children, and always feel that their children can't do anything, and then lose confidence in their children. Under that kind of emotional transmission, it is difficult for children to cross the obstacles to success.

I think there are two main points about the details of properly pushing children out of depression and completing the counterattack.

1. Teaching students in accordance with their aptitude

For example, when I was six or six years old, I seldom played puzzles. When I helped her build up confidence, I used the simplest one. Then with her mastery of the method, the difficulty increased a little, and the whole process was very suitable for her own level. Another example is to take her to play poker and learn addition. At first, she also picked out the small numbers whose results were within ten, and then gradually increased the difficulty to less than twenty.

Therefore, the first point of guidance should be to help children feel the little joy of success within their ability according to their own characteristics and interests.

2. This is a positive attitude.

In fact, in the process of educating children, we must overcome the impatience of parents. When the children's progress is not so fast, parents should first enjoy the process of progress.

After nudging the child to do a good job, it is very important to amplify this sense of joy and let the child fully feel the increase in self-confidence and interest brought by "small success".

In short, children will always encounter setbacks in various attempts. Some educational ideas are to let them find their own laws, overcome difficulties and grow up in setbacks. The "winner effect" tells us that children who fall behind for a period of time can also counterattack by appropriately pushing them out of depression.

Author Introduction: Liu Ma Rollo, from a civil servant to a part-time mother, is a more realistic scientific parenting mother. Master of Child Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, focusing on infant scientific feeding and children's education.