【4】2020.05 The Self-Driven Child 阅读随感2

◆ CHAPTER TEN: Exercising the Brain and Body

▪ Most kids aren’t taught empowering mental strategies, like planning ahead and visualizing goals, talking back to negative thoughts, or thinking of what you will do if what you want doesn’t come through. This chapter lays out some of the strategies for success that we psychologists and educators rely on most in our work with children and in our own lives. We’ve drawn on the work of influential writers on the psychology of success such as Stephen Covey and Brian Tracy, as well as neuroscientists like Adele Diamond and Daniel Siegel. You may have heard of and may even use some of these techniques yourself. What you probably don’t know is that they are just as effective for kids.

(一些大脑练习方法Exercise #1: Set clear goals. Exercise#2: Pay attention to what your brain is telling you. Exercise #3: Practice Plan B thinking. Exercise #4: Talk to yourself with compassion. Exercise #5: Practice reframing problems.)◆ Testing Stinks... Usually

▪ Among the very first standardized tests was the Binet-Simon Scale, created by the French educator Alfred Binet. He designed his test not to assess intelligence but as a way to identify children who needed more help. The way the test was used to separate people into categories worried him.

(这一整章讲标准化考试的坏处，首先是起源。)

▪ In his book The Mismeasure of Man, evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould pointed out that simply assigning a number to something doesn’t mean we’ve measured it. Or, to borrow the old adage, “Not everything that can be measured matters, and not everything that matters can be measured.” Our obsession with metrics has led to the testing-industrial complex—a multibillion-dollar business that’s only getting bigger.1

(“不是所有能被测量的东西都重要，也不是所有重要的东西都能被测量。”)

▪ It’s really common for kids (especially girls) who are hardworking and eager to fly under the radar.

(第一次见这个表达 He tried to stay under the radar [=unnoticed] as he went about his business.)◆ N.U.T.S.

▪ One of our favorite neuroscientists, Sonia Lupien, uses an acronym to explain the things that make life stressful: Novelty, Unpredictability, Threat to the ego, Sense of control (or lack thereof) .

(用NUTS分析标准化考试带给人的压力)

▪ That hadn’t happened to him before; he knew his pacing pretty well, and usually finished well ahead of time. He looked around the room at the other students taking the test, and they were all deer-in-the-headlights frozen.

(表达deer-in-the-headlights 手无足措，监考员计算错时间，冷静主动提出check the time,“It’s just that I’ve taken the test before and this time seemed really quick. Would you mind checking again?”)

▪ So what if you change the whole dynamic? What if when your mom or dad says they think you should do something, you reply, “Thanks for telling me, Mom.” Or, “That’s a good point.” When your parents feel validated, they are much more likely to pat themselves on the back and say, “You’re welcome, dear” and go back to doing whatever it is that adults do when they aren’t telling their kids what to do. The point is, blowing them off doesn’t work. So try validating them instead. If this is hard to do (because you don’t feel or believe it), you can say, “That’s a good point,” and in your head think, “for a crazy person” or “Thanks for telling me [though I’ll never believe you are right].”

(哈哈哈very good idea，但其实就有点passive aggressive)

▪ In the week before the test, think of yourself as a marathoner. Runners don’t train too hard the week before a race—rather, they taper. They go to great lengths to take care of themselves. Sleep. Exercise. Do a little review so you feel on top of the material, but don’t push it. You’re reminding yourself of what you already know. Do some mental contrasting; think about how you’ll handle it if something goes wrong. Pick a playlist of songs to get you pumped and in predator mode. Put negative or stressful influences (even if they’re your parents) on the sidelines. The night before the test, watch a sitcom or funny movie. Laughter is a great way to relieve stress and open up your thinking. And it’s much easier to get a good night’s sleep after laughing and relaxing than it is after studying. Now get going. #yougotthis!

(看着看着以为自己要高考了。考前要放松)◆ Parents: Chill out!

▪ Ned’s colleague had one student who was dead set against taking a practice test. Her parents enrolled her anyway.

(表达 (set against)firmly opposed to • 坚决反对的 »last night you were dead set against the idea. 昨晚你极力反对那想法。)

▪ We know this is tough. You want the best for your kid, and sometimes it feels that if he would just focus more, or if you could just inch him a little bit closer to his goal, he’d get there. It hurts you to see him struggle or fail at anything; you want to protect him and make his path forward as easy as possible. Remember, we’re parents, too. We get it. But you’re in it with your kids for the long haul, and part of being a parent is standing on the sidelines sometimes so that they can return to you for a hug and pep talk before going back out there. That’s where it’s most important for you to stand. So stand tall, don’t forget to cheer, and at the end of the day, remind them that you care much more about them than any stupid test score.

(父母在考试面前的角色)◆ What to Do Tonight

▪ Familiarize yourself with the more than 850 test-optional colleges and universities at www.fairtest.org. Knowing that plenty of great colleges don’t require standardized tests for admission can afford your son or daughter all sorts of Plan B options for college.

(入学资格不包括标准化考试的学校 www.fairtest.org)◆ Do They Go or Do They Gap? (How to Tell if They’re Ready)

▪ Some questions to ask when determining your child’s college readiness include:

(上大学前几个灵魂拷问，年龄到了就要上大学，所以其实是上大学前确保你的孩子已经满足这些条件 Does your child accept responsibility for his own life? Does your kid have adequate self-understanding? Does your kid have enough self-regulation to run his life? Does your kid have adequate self-motivation for school? Can your kid manage day-to-day living independently? Does your kid have healthy ways to manage or relieve stress? Is your kid burned out? Does your child have the academic skills to do college-level work? If your student needs academic support, will he ask for it and use it? Does your child have the social competence to manage a complex social environment?)◆ What to Do if Your Kid Isn’t Ready

▪ Jason Sarouhan, vice president of the Center for Interim Programs, says there are five categories of students who benefit from taking a gap year: The worker, with high test scores and a high grade point average. To our minds, this is the student like Elaine who’s been on a treadmill for four years and is burned out. The meaning seeker, generally with high test scores and a lower GPA. These are kids who are very smart, but don’t apply themselves unless they see a compelling reason to do so; they want meaning behind their actions.

(适合gap的人①)

▪ The pragmatist, who wants to attend college with a clearer focus. J. D. Vance, the author of Hillbilly Elegy, is a good example of this. His childhood was unstructured and full of upheaval, and he just could not see taking out the loans to attend college when he wasn’t sure he was ready. He chose to enlist in the military first. The struggler, whose high school experience has been clouded by learning differences. For most kids with ADHD, it makes sense to buy some time for their brains to develop a bit more, to set them up for success when they start college.

(适合gap的人②)

▪ The floater, who isn’t fully engaged with life and may be on the immature side. This is the kid who’s been carried 26.1 miles of the marathon. He’s just not ready to go over the finish line—he hasn’t earned it himself yet.21

(适合gap的人③)◆ It’s Your Call, but My Investment

▪ Let’s say that your child is dead set on college, but you have misgivings. If he has a full scholarship or is paying his own tuition, it’s his call. But if you are providing some financial support for the college years, it’s reasonable for you to identify yourself as a stakeholder. You might say, “Go to college if you like. But if you want me to make an investment in your education, I need to see certain criteria met before I feel comfortable.” This is a perfectly reasonable position. Kids who aren’t ready for college often lack the self-awareness to know it. Many of these kids insist that they will get it together when college starts, but they aren’t really making informed decisions. You can help them gather the information by simply asking them to prove to you that they’re ready.

(it's your call, but my investment. 说的很对)◆ CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Alternate Routes

▪ A Stressed Teen Manifesto

Do you know how stressful it is to work so hard in everything and know that there are always other people who are better, that you can never be the best? And, when you have parents who are super smart and super successful, and they went to Harvard and are successful attorneys and you’re wondering how you will ever be successful and be able to afford a house and have a family? And you’re thinking, “My parents are smart and I go to a great school, so why can’t I do the same thing they do?” And, “I wonder if I’ll be able to get into a good college, even one that isn’t nearly as good as where they went or as good as what they expect of me.”

(好真实，一个青少年的压力自述)

▪ Ned paused for a moment to take in all the messages this young man had internalized, like:

People who don’t go to college aren’t smart.

Learning is only for some people.

I’m not as good as other people.

(几个错误需要纠正的观念)

▪ One of the major challenges keeping young people from developing a healthy sense of control is their narrow and distorted views of the adult world and what it takes to be successful and have a satisfying life, which we’ve discussed earlier in the book. These views foster fear and competition. They affect high-achieving kids, for whom a rigid view of the path to success creates unnecessary stress, anxiety, and mental health problems, and low-achieving kids, many of whom conclude at a young age that they will never be successful, so why try at all. Many of these young people engage in one of the most debilitating forms of self-talk, telling themselves, “I have to do X, Y, and Z, but I can’t,” or, “I have to do X, Y, and Z, but I hate it.”

(压力源归根到底是对成人世界、成功的定义、令人满意的生活的想法的狭隘且不正确的想法。)◆ The Real Reality

▪ Each time he closed his Prairie Home Companion series, radio host Garrison Keillor said the following: “Well, that’s the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.” His gentle humor is right on point. We all want to believe that our child is above average, and ignore the simple fact that every parent thinks so and we can’t all be right.

(我是个平凡人，我的孩子也是平凡人，不要有太高期望。)

▪ Where—or if—you go to college does not set the path for your life. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg are probably the most famous college dropouts. Many others went to “just fine” schools and went on to do extremely well, like Google cofounder Sergey Brin, who went to the University of Maryland. The last two dozen Americans to win the Nobel Prize in Medicine got their undergraduate degrees at places like Harvard and Brown, sure, but also from DePauw, Holy Cross, and Gettysburg College.2 The recently retired president of Princeton University went to Denison University, a small liberal arts school in Ohio.

(上了一般大学依然很出色的人的例子，马一下，以后灌鸡汤用得着。)

▪ Following your passion is more energizing than doing what you feel you have to do.

(热情才是第一生产力)

▪ There are currently over 3,500 occupations through which Americans make a living, many of which do not require a college degree.

(3500种职业，并不都要大学学历。很一般的一个事实吧，但是突然有个画面感，熙熙攘攘，不停歇，让我松一口气，我们大多数人都是平凡人，又让我感慨，为谁辛苦为谁忙。自己过得快乐是最要紧的。)◆ The Virtues of Diversity

▪ As developmental psychologist Howard Gardner pointed out, there are many different forms of intelligence: it can be musical-rhythmic, visual-spatial, verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic.3 In other words, you can be a poor student and a brilliant dancer (or vice versa). You can be average in most things but exceptional at reading others’ emotions. The key is in finding your strength.

(找到自己擅长的)

▪ The problem we see—in high school in particular—is that kids are led to believe that in order to be successful they need to be superior at everything, from English to science to foreign languages. It’s all too easy to look around and find others who are better at most anything. Making it your goal to be “the best” means constantly comparing yourself to others. It could motivate you, but more often it will be demotivating. Part of growing up is knowing when to let go, and choosing what not to pursue.

(我们都以为我们需要样样出色才是真的出色，不断比较让人大受打击。“Part of growing up is knowing when to let go, and choosing what not to pursue.”)

▪ Bill frequently tells the older children and adolescents he is testing, “I hope I find things you suck at—because successful people are good at some things and not so good at others, but wisely make a living doing something they’re good at.” (With younger kids he simply says, “I hope I find something you’re not very good at.”) Put another way, you are unlikely to find the path to success by building on your weakest skills and working to become merely adequate.

(拥有短板是正常的，找到长板以此为生。)

▪ When kids tell their parents, “I’m not as smart as Eric,” or “I’m not as smart as most of the kids in my math class,” many parents will try to reassure their kids by saying, “Yes, you are. You’re just as smart as they are.” Bill takes a different approach. He tells kids that you only have to be smart enough to do something interesting in this world—which they are. He also tells them that he’s grateful for all the people in his field who are smarter than he is. They’re the ones who make up the theories and tests that allow him to make a living by helping people.

(话术"ta确实比你优秀，但是....”)◆ Breaking the Mass Psychosis

▪ In the name of undermining the mass psychosis, and because anecdotes are often more powerful than statistics, we will use the rest of this chapter to tell some of our favorite stories of happy, successful people who have gotten there via unconventional means. Bill himself took an alternate route to neuropsychology, so we’ll start with him.

(仅仅只是告诉孩子一些人的故事，也能降低他们的压力，因为这样他们会知道通向成功不只有一条路。)◆ Bill

▪ I suffered from anxiety, a lack of self-confidence, and probably overuse of caffeine, and I was more gifted at avoiding assignments than anything else. I went for twenty weeks without turning in a single paper. (I tell the serious underachievers I see, “Top that!”)

(666了，Bill博士也曾不交作业)

▪ I realized within six months of leaving Berkeley that flunking out was the best thing that could have happened to me. So often, when it feels like everything is going wrong, things are just being reorganized in helpful ways that we could never anticipate.

(真好)◆ Brian

▪ When he was sixteen, Brian was doing poorly in school, hated it, and spent no time attempting to learn or develop his academic skills. His parents did not feel comfortable letting him drop out, so they ultimately sent him to boarding school in New England. The staff there wasn’t much better at setting limits, and Brian ran away to Florida with his girlfriend. In Florida, he and his girlfriend worked at minimum-wage jobs. Eventually, the appeal of freedom waned. The drudgery of menial work caught up with him, and Brian asked his parents if they would fund classes at a community college in Florida, which they agreed to do. After gaining a number of credits there, Brian applied to Evergreen College in Olympia, Washington, where he graduated with a degree in education. Brian later earned a master’s degree in education, and he is currently a master educator in the District of Columbia public schools.

(Brian的故事，各种表达，自由的吸引力消逝，还出现了社区大学。早点想清楚，还是最好的。)◆ Ben

▪ His parents, a clinical psychologist and an oncology nurse, supported him in taking an alternate route and exploring an art-focused secondary school.

(父母鼓励走一条替代路线（到底怎样翻译比较好），父母的顾问角色很重要啊supported him in taking an alternate route and exploring an art-focused secondary school)

▪ Ben and his brother both followed their passions and were so successful that they’re now making far more money than either of their parents. As their dad says, “What I have learned from this is, if you see a spark in your kids, pour gasoline on it.”

(父母引导很重要“If you see a spark in your kids, pour gasoline on it.”)◆ Melody

▪ Melody feels the freedom her parents gave her was invaluable, as was their belief that there was not just one narrow path to a good life. “They let me know, ‘These aren’t permanent decisions. You can decide not to go to fifth grade, and if halfway through you decide you want to go, you can go. That’s fine. You’re not putting yourself on a path that can’t be reversed. You’re not making a decision that’s going to make or break your entire life. You can always course correct.’”

(道路不止一条。)◆ “But...”: Questions About Alternate Routes (回答问题环节我还蛮爱看的)

▪ “But people who take more standard routes earn so much more money.” It’s true that people who are bright and have the discipline to get them through four years of college are likely to do well. But they would be bright and disciplined whether they graduated from college or not. Who can say whether it was their schooling that made them so? Actor, TV host, and provocateur Mike Rowe started a foundation committed to challenging the idea that success is only available to those with four-year degrees. On the foundation’s Web site, Profoundly Disconnected, he makes the argument in three simple bullets: A trillion dollars in student loans. Record high unemployment. Three million good jobs that no one seems to want.

(但是走标准路的人挣更多钱呢？个人能力问题。学历不是唯一。)

▪ That said, there are many advantages to having a college degree (and advanced degrees). We want kids to go to college and graduate if they can. But what we really don’t want to do is discourage the many kids who can’t make it through college. We don’t want them to believe that means they can’t have a good life.

(没学历雇主甚至不会看你的简历？①劳动力市场会变的。②技术本身更重要。③所谓替代路线也很好是对考不上大学的人说的，考得上自然好。)◆ On Money, Career, and Happiness

▪ It’s not within our area of expertise to wax on about how money and success are not one and the same. However, we do think it helps kids to know that, although income and self-reported happiness are highly correlated, the correlation is much stronger at very low levels of income than at high levels—and that after a fairly low level of financial comfort, there is no correlation between increased income and greater happiness.5 It’s not that we want to discourage kids from making money. It’s just that we want kids to make thoughtful decisions about their lives based on what’s important to them.

(这一章也是标题就让我想认真看了。收入和幸福感确实有关联，但收入越高关系越小。也就是说，不能划等号。想清楚自己要什么，不要简单追求高收入。)

▪ Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work, by Matthew B. Crawford. A reflection by a motorcycle repair shop owner with a PhD in political philosophy about the value of the trades and working with your hands.

The Dirty Life: A Memoir of Farming, Food, and Love, by Kristin Kimball. Kristin was a Harvard-educated New York journalist who left that world behind to run a farm with her husband. She acknowledges, “I was forced to confront my own prejudice. I had come to the farm with the unarticulated belief that concrete things were for dumb people and abstract things were for smart people.”

The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, by Ken Robinson. Ken is a visionary education consultant who argues that the place where natural talent and personal passion converge is where the magic of life and work happens.

(推荐了一些书，alternative routes替代路线也很不错的一些故事。)

▪ In the end, the best way you can help your child maintain a sense of control and guide him (as a nonanxious consultant) into a satisfying life is to teach him to ask himself two questions: What do I truly love to do? And what can I do better than most people? It can be that simple.

(最后的最后，一个父母的角色，不焦虑的顾问身份。两个教孩子问自己的问题：我真正爱的是什么？我优于大部分人的是什么？（兴趣和能力）It can be that simple. 真是说难不难，说简单又一点都不简单，不然不会写出一本书来讲。)◆ What to Do Tonight

▪ Make a list with your child of all the different jobs you can possibly think of together. Not jobs either one of you would necessarily be interested in—just jobs that someone is doing. What might those people like about their jobs? What might they be good at?

(真有意思。写一下能想到的职业，思考这些人可能喜欢这份职业什么地方)

▪ Be open about the surprises or disappointments you encountered on your own path, or that your parents or grandparents did, and how you pivoted. Ned’s great-grandfather made and lost a fortune in the stock market, and went from the biggest house in town to a small apartment and back again. Knowing that even successful people have ups and downs helped give Ned perspective, as did understanding that resilience was a family tradition.

(弹性、韧性很重要resilience was a family tradition. )

▪ Encourage your child to find a mentor, someone whose life they admire and who can help guide them. Kids will often be more open to guidance from someone who is not their parent.

(给孩子找一个导师)◆ ONWARD

▪ BILL ONCE WORKED with a child whose mother was a humorist. Sitting in Bill’s office one day, she remarked, “A lot of what we call raising children should really be referred to as lowering parents.” It’s a clever way to acknowledge that what we recommend isn’t easy. In fact, much is plain hard. It takes courage to trust a child to make decisions, to trust in a child’s brain development, to ignore the pressures that cause us to protect our kids from themselves, or to be overly involved in their lives. It takes courage to face our fears about the future. It also takes humility to accept that we don’t often know what’s in our kids’ best interest. It takes a change in mindset to focus on ourselves—our own emotions and attitudes—as an extremely important element of our child-rearing.

(做老师也许也是这样，不够信任学生，互相都非常大压力，也许我也要先做到不焦虑，才能教得更好。之前和我姐我弟谈起教育，我弟说对小学老师印象很不好，他已经是学习比较好的了，也有这样的感受，班上其他同学肯定更甚。所以说老师教了什么学生会忘，但老师是个怎样的人，学生可以记一辈子。佛不是借口，是目标，要真正做到成绩上的佛，才能更注重他们的成长。学校的压力来到我肩上，我就不要再往学生身上压了。)

▪ As has often been said, people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. Think of how you want to make your child feel. Loved. Trusted. Supported. Capable. And above all else, let that be your guide.

(刚写完上面的批注，就看到这句话。As has often been said, people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.)

◆ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (致谢的几十种说法，马一下🌝 came to fruition with the help of，who were remarkably generous with their time and took great care in considering our ideas， are forever grateful for the encouragement and support of，insightfully challenged our thinking and nudged us through times when we felt stuck，It is hard for us to imagine a more enjoyable process than working with Jenna.，Bringing the ideas of even one thinker to the page is not for the faint of heart, and two is surely more than twice the challenge.，We remain amazed by， We’re also grateful to， We also want to thank，without whose deep thinking and Herculean efforts we wouldn’t have made it off the starting line， A word of thanks goes as well to，We are also deeply grateful to，We received invaluable insights from，A special thanks to our dear friend and eminent scientist，He also wants to extend thanks to his dear friend for his unwavering encouragement as we worked on this project，Thanks also to，Lastly, we extend our enormous thanks to all the children and parents with whom we have worked over the many years.)

▪ This book came to fruition with the help of many talented people who were remarkably generous with their time and took great care in considering our ideas.

To begin with, we are forever grateful for the encouragement and support of our brilliant agent, Howard Yoon, and his wonderful colleague Dara Kaye. Howard and Dara insightfully challenged our thinking and nudged us through times when we felt stuck. They also connected us to our partner in scribe, Jenna Free. It is hard for us to imagine a more enjoyable process than working with Jenna. Bringing the ideas of even one thinker to the page is not for the faint of heart, and two is surely more than twice the challenge. We remain amazed by—and are deeply grateful for—how cheerfully and nimbly Jenna helped to bring together the ideas and stories you hold in your hands.

We’re also grateful to Howard for sending our proposal to Joy de Menil, our enormously talented editor at Viking. In our first meeting, Joy asked questions that caused us to clarify our ideas in a way that none of the several other editors with whom we’d met had. We are in awe of her ability to demand the most of each sentence and of the work in its entirety, and her editing of the manuscript made this a much, much better book. Joy’s assistant, Haley Swanson, was invaluable in helping us tackle all the ancillary but equally crucial tasks involved in putting together a book. We’re grateful as well to Jane Cavolina for the close-eyed copyediting, one of the critical and unheralded roles in bringing a book to print, and to the highly talented Anne Harris, who made the process of revising the text and compiling the references for our notes infinitely easier.

We also want to thank Emily Warner Eskelsen, with whom we worked in the earliest stages of creating this book, without whose deep thinking and Herculean efforts we wouldn’t have made it off the starting line, and Kellie Maxwell Bartlett for her help in shaping some of the ideas in Chapter Eight. A word of thanks goes as well to John Fair, a remarkably talented recent graduate of the Siena School who, by the time this book comes to market, will be a freshman at the Savannah College of Art and Design. John created the brain images in Chapter One.

We are also deeply grateful to the scientists and other professionals who allowed us to interview them for this book. We received invaluable insights from Edward Deci, Joshua Aronson, Bruce Marlowe, Daphne Bavelier, Amy Arnsten, and Adele Diamond, and benefited greatly from Monica Adler Werner’s thoughts about motivation in kids with autism. A special thanks to our dear friend and eminent scientist Sheila Ohlsson Walker, whose careful reading of an early draft of the manuscript helped us get the science of stress right. We also greatly appreciate the wonderful folks from the Parent Encouragement Program, particularly Patti Cancellier and Kathy Hedge, whose ideas about the promotion of autonomy and suggestions for handling challenging behavior were invaluable.

Bill would like to thank his wife, Starr, for her 24/7 support, and his children, Jora and Elliott, two wonderful self-driven children who are now terrific adults. He also wants to extend thanks to his dear friend, the psychiatrist, scientist, and author Dr. Norman Rosenthal, for his unwavering encouragement as we worked on this project. Thanks, too, to Bob Roth, the executive director of the David Lynch Foundation (DLF) and to Mario Orgotti of DLF’s Center for Leadership Performance, who have been a continual source of support over the years.

Ned wishes to thank his colleagues at PrepMatters, from whom he has learned so much about helping students; his parents for teaching him, in their own very different ways; his twin brother, Steve, for sticking with him through thick and thin; his beloved children, Katie and Matthew, who have taught him so much and been willing to listen to his attempts to do the same; and most of all his wife, Vanessa, for, well, everything. Thanks also to Chrissellene Petropoulos and Brent Toleman, his surrogate parents, for years of wise counsel and support, and to Dr. Kathleen O’Connor for always, always helping him.

Lastly, we extend our enormous thanks to all the children and parents with whom we have worked over the many years. We are grateful to all of you who have trusted us to work with your children, and to you kids, who have taught us so much of what we know. Many people were kind enough to share with us their stories of gap years and alternative routes. There are so many paths to success, and we deeply thank those of you who were willing to share your struggles and breakthroughs, to inspire others to forge their own paths.

END