As long as parents learn to “see” their children, they will grow faster than you can imagine | 只要父母学会“看见”孩子，成长速度将超你想象
Credits: This text is from a Xiaohongshu video from Pang Ho titled: As long as parents learn to “see” their children, they will grow faster than you can imagine | 只要父母学会“看见”孩子，成长速度将超你想象 https://www.xiaohongshu.com/discovery/item/686515bd000000000d024d5a?xsec_token=ABNluXTEUMsg3KTY_ZRf5z6VtWm8uB2XJum_ixzHoH3C0%3D
SUMMARY
Parents should focus on a child's feelings and efforts rather than just their academic scores. It illustrates this with an anecdote where a mother calmly acknowledges her daughter's 7/100 test score, allowing the child to express frustration and then self-identify ways to improve, which led to a 98.5/100 score later. The key takeaway is to accept a child's emotions, respect their ownership of their achievements, and support their self-set goals and happiness, not just the outcome, to foster resilience. Overreacting to bad grades or over-praising good ones communicates that parental love is tied to scores, not the child themselves.
KEY POINTS
- Emotional Validation Over Scores: When a child brings home a poor test score (7/100), parents should first acknowledge the child's feelings rather than reacting to the score itself. The mother in the example responded with "Thank you for telling Mom, Mom knows," validating the child's ownership of the experience.
- Respecting Boundaries: Test scores belong to the child, not the parent. Parents don't have the right to demand to see scores or evaluate them. This respect for boundaries helps children develop ownership of their learning.
- Acknowledging Natural Competitive Spirit: Children naturally compare themselves with peers and feel frustrated when they don't do well. Rather than adding pressure, parents should recognize these feelings and provide emotional support.
- Accepting Negative Emotions: Allowing children to express sadness, frustration, and disappointment about poor performance is crucial. Suppressing these emotions can lead to emotional disorders, while accepting them builds real resilience.
- Guiding Self-Reflection: After emotional validation, parents can guide children to identify their own solutions. In the example, the daughter naturally identified what she needed to do to improve ("Pay more attention in class, do my homework better").
- Praising Effort, Not Outcomes: When children succeed, parents should praise the effort and goal achievement, not the score itself. The father brought a gift because his daughter achieved her goal, not because of the 98.5 score.
- Scores as Information, Not Judgment: Test scores merely indicate what has been learned and what needs more work. They don't define a child's worth or predict their future success.
- The Power of Seeing Happiness: The story from "Fly Me to the Saitama" illustrates how seeing a child's happiness during the learning process (rather than just their progress) can be a powerful motivator.
- Emotion First, Problem Second: The fundamental principle for parents is to always handle emotions first before addressing the problem. This approach alone can transform parent-child relationships and foster resilience.
- Parental Self-Reflection: Before trying to cultivate resilience in children, parents should examine whether they possess this quality themselves. Parents who can't remain calm in the face of poor performance can't effectively teach resilience.
English Video Transcript
A parent asked me how to cultivate children's resilience, and I asked: Do you have it yourself? My daughter was in first grade when she took her first midterm exam and scored 7 points in Chinese. She brought the test paper home to her mother. How would most mothers react? They would immediately start putting on a show, right? "It's over, it's over, it's really over. Scoring 7 points in first grade, how can this be? Will it be 67 points in second grade? 47 points in fourth grade? Will she ever get into college? What if she can't get into college? Won't her life be ruined?" So they start panicking. "How did this happen? How could you only get 7 points? What's going on?" Don't you realize that before the child even gets a score, or fails to get one, you're more anxious than they are, more in pain, more desperate. And you still want to cultivate their resilience? Are you kidding me? You can't even stay calm yourself, right? So this is when everyone is tested. What should be the first response? "Mom, my test paper." Mom takes it, sees 7 points, and says, "Great, excellent." Forget it. Or some might say, "Mom, what do you mean? Are you going to abandon me?" Because the child herself doesn't believe it. How can you praise me when I did so poorly?
So do you know how her mother responded? "Okay, thank you for telling Mom, Mom knows." Don't underestimate this sentence; it contains so much meaning. First, "Thank you for telling Mom." What does this mean? If this learning is your business, then who does this score belong to? Yours. Since it's yours, do you have the right not to tell me? Yes. Look, when your money is yours, and I want to borrow money from you, if you don't lend it to me, shouldn't I respect that? When did our society become like this? It's as if borrowing has become a matter of course. So think about it, that score belongs to the child. What right do you have to demand that they must show it to you?
My daughter asked herself, "Mom, do you think I did well?" How should I answer? Whether she did well or not, you have no right to evaluate. Always remember, it's not about whether you can or not. This is called boundaries. The mother was very wise. She said, "Whether Mom thinks it's good or not isn't important. What you think is more important." You need to know that children think for themselves. When you were little, didn't you compare with your friends? "Hey, that leaf, can you reach it?" "I can reach it, you can't." "I can reach it, you can't." When you reached it, what would you say? "You're impressive, right?" And when test papers were handed out in childhood, after looking at your own score, what was your first reaction? Wasn't it like this? If your deskmate did well, what would they do? "What did you get?" If they didn't do well, they wouldn't show you. What does this mean? We are born with a competitive spirit. Do you need to compare your child with others? When they do well, they're the first to be unhappy. But unfortunately, when they get home, no one sees their frustration, no one sees their sadness. Instead, they have to comfort you. Isn't that right? "Mom, I'm sorry, I didn't do well." "Hmm, do better next time." Then answer me: who is the mother and who is the child? So mothers need to see their child's feelings.
When we say "I feel I didn't do well," the mother said, "So you feel very sad and frustrated, right?" Yes. Mothers need to accept their child's feelings and let their children bravely express their feelings. Do you know how many people jump from buildings for just one reason? What reason? Emotional disorders, not daring to express emotions. "What's there to be sad about? What's there to be frustrated about? Be stronger." This may seem like encouragement, but you're giving them emotional disorders. Because you don't allow them to have emotions, you don't allow them to be sad, you don't allow them to be frustrated. This isn't giving strength. Real strength is in the mother's words: "Mom knows, come here, let Mom hug you for a while. It's okay to feel frustrated. If you want to cry, cry for a while. Mom will stay with you." All of this is being accepted.
After crying for a while, the mother asked her, "Do you feel better now? You don't think this score is good, so what score would be good?" 92 points. I don't know why 92 points; I guess maybe her desk-mate got 91. "Hmm, so let's think about what we can do next to make the next exam closer to our goal of 92 points?" Then my daughter started saying, "Pay more attention in class, do my homework better." Did you notice that everything she said was what you wanted to tell her? It all came from her own mouth. Then I said, "Wow, so we can actually do so many things. So not doing well is to let us know what we can do next, right?" "Right." With so many things we can do, what can we do now? "I'll go do my homework." "Okay, go ahead." This is called efficient communication. Later, on the final exam, she scored 98.5 in Chinese and came home very happy: "Mom, 98.5 points!" How to respond? Oh no, here comes the trap again. How to respond? "Great, wow, excellent!" Stop, that won't do. Always remember that praising your child because they did well and criticizing them because they didn't are the same thing. The belief and value you're conveying to your child is: It's the score I love, not you. Do you understand? Be careful, because you don't see the person, there's no person in your eyes.
Let me give you an example. There's a movie called "Fly Me to the Saitama," a true story from Japan. The girl was messing around in middle school, wearing heavy makeup, weird clothes, smoking, drinking, and partying every day. Even her father thought she was hopeless. Later, by chance, she met a cram school teacher who made her feel warm. Under the teacher's encouragement, she decided to take the college entrance exam, and her target was actually Keio University in Japan, equivalent to something like Zhejiang University in China, a similar status. No one believed it. "You? You want to get into Keio University? Are you kidding me?" Anyway, she took off her makeup, put on her school uniform, and started studying. But after a while, she was still far from Keio University and felt very frustrated, wanting to give up. She told her teacher, "Teacher, I want to give up. I don't think I can do it at all." The teacher didn't speak, took out an envelope, and handed it to her: "It's okay, you decide. Please give this envelope to your mother." What was inside? It was the tuition fee her mother had just paid over. I just want to tell you, do you know what your mother said when she paid the tuition? She said this was money she earned from working part-time during this period because she wanted to support her daughter in attending cram school. And do you know why your mother wants to support you in cram school? It's not because your mother saw your progress, nor because your mother saw your changes, but because your mother said: "During this period when you were studying, it was the happiest time your mother had seen you." Wow, this girl immediately burst into tears, and later she really got into Keio University.
So what should mothers really see? When the child doesn't do well, what does the mother see? It's the frustration, the sadness. So when the child does well, you need to see their happiness, not the score. So: "Mom, 98.5 points!" "Wow, Mom knows, thank you for telling Mom. Mom sees you're happy, and Mom is very happy too." Then what? When my daughter came home, I brought her a gift because her mother had told me about this. Then my daughter asked, "Dad, why did you bring me a gift? Is it because I scored 98.5 points?" No, I don't care about that score at all. Dad brought you a gift has nothing to do with this 98.5 points. Scores prove nothing. Scores are just to tell us what we've learned and where we still need to learn more. "Then why did you bring me a gift?" Dad brought you a gift because you set a goal for yourself last time, and you worked hard to achieve it. That's the key point, do you understand? It's that simple. So not doing well doesn't mean anything, don't make it too sacred. Always focus on your child's feelings; it will affect them for their entire life. Handle emotions first, then handle the situation; that's one thing enough for you to learn for a lifetime. Once you've learned it, where else would you need to learn?
Original Video Transcript
有家長問我怎麼培養小孩子抗挫折能力，我說你有嗎？我女兒小學一年級，第一次期中考試，語文考了7分。回到家卷子拿給媽媽，一般的媽媽會怎麼做？馬上就自己開始演戲了，對不對？完蛋了，完蛋了，完蛋了完蛋了，一年級就7分，這還得了？二年級不是67分？四年級不是47分？那以後還考得上大學嗎？那考不上大學怎麼辦？一輩子不就廢了嗎？於是這個開始慌了，啊，怎麼考？怎麼才7幾分？怎麼回事？你沒發現他成績沒考一個分數，不考沒考，你比他還要焦慮，你比他還要痛苦，你比他還要絕望，你還培養他的抗挫能力，你是在逗我嗎？你自己都穩穩不住，對不對？所以這個時候考驗大家來了。第一句話怎麼回答？媽，我的卷子。媽媽拿過來一看，7分，好了，好真棒。拉倒吧。還有說：「媽媽你什麼意思？你是不是不要我了？」因為他自己都不相信嘛，你說考得這麼爛，你還好意思肯定不行。所以你知道他媽媽是怎麼回答他的嗎？好的，謝謝你告訴媽媽，媽媽知道了。你不要小看這句話，這句話裡面可包含了好多內容哦。第一，謝謝你告訴媽媽。什麼意思？如果這個學習是你的事，那請問這個分數是誰的？是你的。那既然是你的，你有沒有權利不告訴我？有。老，你的錢是誰的？那我找你借錢的時候，你不借給我，我
是不是應該尊重？我們這個社會什麼時候變成這個鬼樣子了？喲，什麼人找你借錢都不借，還好朋友呢，是不是這樣？嗯，就就好像借變成理所應當了。所以你想一下，那個那個分數是孩子的。你有什麼權利要求他必須給你看了？那我女兒自己問了：「媽媽你覺得我考得好不好？」就是怎麼說？考得好考得不好，你沒有權力評價，永遠記住，不是可否，這叫界限。媽媽很有智慧，媽媽說：「媽媽覺得好不好不重要，你自己覺得好不好比較重要。」你要知道你的孩子是想的。你小時候會不會跟小夥伴自己去做對比？哎，我們小男生，對，那個樹葉你摸得到嗎？哼，我摸得到，你摸不到。我摸得到，你摸不到。我摸到了，怎麼說？算你厲害是不是啊？然後小時候卷子發下來，看了自己的分數之後，第一反應是什麼？是不是這樣？如果同桌考得好，他會怎麼樣？「你多少？」如果考得不好就不給你看了。什麼意思？我們生來就有競爭意識的，用得著你拿你的孩子跟別人去做對比嗎？考好了他第一個難過，可是很遺憾，回到家之後沒有人看見我的沮喪，沒有人看見我的難過，反過來還要我去安慰他。難道不是嗎？媽媽對不起，沒考。嗯，我下次考好一點。那你回答我誰是媽媽？誰是兒子？所以媽媽要看到孩子的感受。我們說我覺得到考得不好，
媽媽說：「所以感到很難過很沮喪，對嗎？」嗯，媽媽要接納孩子的感受，要讓孩子勇敢地表達感受。你知道多少從樓上跳下去的人，就一個原因嗎老？什麼原因？情緒障礙，不敢表達情緒。有什麼好沮喪，有什麼好難過的？堅強一點，看上去再鼓勵他，你給他知道數情緒障礙了。因為你不允許他有情緒，你不允許他難過，你不允許他沮喪。這不是給力量，真正的給力量是媽媽的這句話：「媽媽知道了，來吧，媽媽抱一會，感到沮喪過可以的，想哭就哭一會，媽媽陪著你。」全部都是被進來的。好，哭了一會之後，媽媽就問他：「現在心情好點沒有啊？你覺得這個分數不好，那你覺得多少分才是好的嗎？」92分，也不知道為什麼92分，我猜可能是同桌考了91分。嗯，所以我們來想一想接下來可以做些什麼？來讓下一次的考試更加接近我們92分的這個目標呢？然後女兒就開始說：「上課認真一點，作業我做好一點。」你有沒有發現他說的這些東西全是你想給他說的，全部變成他自己說出來。然後說：「哇，原來我們還可以做這麼多的事情啊，原來沒考是為了讓我們知道接下來可以做些什麼，對嗎？」對。這麼多可以做的事情，我們現在可以做的事情是什麼呀？我去寫作業啊，好吧，快去吧。這叫高效溝通。後來期末考試語文考了98.5分，回來很開
心：「媽媽98.5分！」來怎麼回答？老學，我完蛋，又來陷阱了。怎麼回答？「真棒，哇，好棒啊！」打住要不得。永遠記住，因為孩子考好而誇他和因為他沒有考好而批評他是一回事。你給孩子傳遞的信念價值觀是：你愛的是分數，不是我。理解了嗎？一定要小心，我因為你沒有看到人，你眼裡是沒有人的。我舉個例子吧，有一部電影叫《墊底辣妹》，日本的真實的故事。那個女孩子在中學鬼混，化濃妝，奇裝異服，天天抽煙找抱抱堂喝酒。爸爸都覺得他廢了。後來一個偶然的機會，他遇到了一個補習班老師，讓他覺得很溫暖，他就在老師的鼓勵之下決定要參加考大學，他的目標居然是日本慶應大學，相當於中國的什麼浙江大學，類似於這樣的地位。沒有人相信的，就你，你還考慶應大學？你再逗我吧。好，不管，把妝卸掉，穿回校服開始學習。但一段時間之後，曾經老師上去，離那個慶應大學還遠得很，就很沮喪，就想放棄。他就跟他老師說：「老師我想放棄，我覺得我根本做不到。」老師沒有說話，拿出一個信封，交他的手上：「可以的，你決定就好，這個信封請你轉交給你的媽媽。」裡面是什麼呢？是媽媽剛交過來的學費。只是我想告訴你，你的媽媽交學費過來的時候說了什麼嗎？他說這是他這段時間出去打零工賺的錢，因為他想支持他的女兒來補習。而你
的媽媽為什麼要支持你補習，你知道嗎？不是因為你的媽媽看到了你的進步，也不是因為你的媽媽看到了你的變化，而是因為你的媽媽說：「你在學習的這一段時間是你媽媽看到你最快樂的一段時間。」哇，這個女生嘩等下就淚流滿面了，後來真的考上了慶應大學。所以媽媽到底要看什麼？孩子沒考好的時候，媽媽看到的是什麼？是沮喪，是難過。所以孩子考好的時候呢，你要看到他的開心，而不是分數。所以：「媽媽98.5分！」哇：「媽媽知道了，謝謝寶貝告訴媽媽，媽媽看到你開心了，媽媽也好好開心。」然後呢，我就給我女兒回家的時候帶了一份禮物，因為媽媽跟我說了這個事情。然後我女兒就問：「爸爸為什麼給我帶禮物？是不是因為我考了98.5分呢？」不是，我眼裡才沒有那個分數呢。爸爸給你帶禮物跟這個98.5分沒有任何的關係，分數什麼也證明不了。數指示來告訴我們，我們哪裡學會了，哪裡還需要再學一學。那：「你為什麼給我帶禮物呀？」爸爸給你帶禮物是因為你上一次給自己設定的目標，你努力去達成了。這才是重點，理解了嗎？就這麼簡單。所以沒考好不代表任何事情，不要把他想像了太過的神聖。永遠關注孩子的感受，被孩子一生的影響都很大。先處理心情，再處理事情，就是一件事夠你學一輩子了。學會了，哪裡還需要再學一學。那：「你為什麼給我帶禮物呀？」爸爸給你帶禮物是因為你上一次給自己設定的目標，你努力去達成了。這才是重點，理解了嗎？就這麼簡單。所以沒考好不代表任何事情，不要把他想像了太過的神聖。永遠關注孩子的感受，被孩子一生的影響都很大。先處理心情，再處理事情，就是一件事夠你學一輩子了。
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