父母做的那些貌似正確的事

父母做的那些貌似正確的事

It would be easy, on first glance, to dismiss Madeline Levine’s “Teach Your Children Well” as yet another new arrival in a long line of books that have urged us, in the past decade or so, to push back and just say no to the pressures of perfectionistic, high-performance parenting. But to give in to first impressions would be a mistake.

乍一看，你很可能會(huì)把瑪?shù)铝?middot;萊文(Madeline Levine)的新書(shū)《教好你的孩子》(Teach Your Children Well)丟到一邊。你會(huì)以為它又是一本不認(rèn)同高標(biāo)準(zhǔn)、嚴(yán)要求、追求完美的教育方式的書(shū)。最近十年，傳輸這樣理念的書(shū)還真不少。但是第一印象往往是不靠譜的。

For Levine’s latest book is, in fact, a cri de coeur from a clinician on the front lines of the battle between our better natures — parents’ deep and true love and concern for their kids — and our culture’s worst competitive and materialistic influences, all of which she sees played out, day after day, in her private psychology practice in affluent Marin County, Calif. Levine works with teenagers who are depleted, angry and sad as they compete for admission to a handful of big-name colleges, and with parents who can’t steady or guide them, so lost are they in the pursuit of goals that have drained their lives of pleasure, contentment and connection. “Our current version of success is a failure,” she writes. It’s a damning, and altogether accurate, clinical diagnosis.

萊文的新書(shū)實(shí)際上是一位臨床心理醫(yī)生衷心的懇求。在富裕的加利福尼亞州馬林縣， 在萊文的心理診療工作中，她每天都處在沖突的第一線。沖突的一方是人類天性中美好的一面——父母對(duì)孩子深切而誠(chéng)摯的愛(ài)與關(guān)懷，另一方是社會(huì)文化最惡劣的影響——鼓勵(lì)競(jìng)爭(zhēng)、追求物質(zhì)，日復(fù)一日越發(fā)糟糕。萊文的診療對(duì)象是十幾歲的孩子和他們的父母。孩子因?yàn)橐既肽菐姿６械狡v、憤怒和悲傷;父母呢，既穩(wěn)定不了孩子的心神，也給不出指導(dǎo)意見(jiàn)。他們迷失在對(duì)目標(biāo)的追求中，生活毫無(wú)樂(lè)趣，得不到滿足感，失去情感聯(lián)系。“我們現(xiàn)在對(duì)成功的定義本身就是失敗的，”她在書(shū)中寫(xiě)道。這該死的結(jié)論卻恰恰是來(lái)自準(zhǔn)確的臨床診斷。

Levine’s previous book, “The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids,” opened with the image of a “bright, personable, highly pressured” 15-year-old girl with wealthy parents, who seemed, on the surface, to have it all. But a glimpse at her forearm revealed that she had also carved the word “empty” into her flesh with a razor. Teenagers like this, and adoring if preoccupied adults like her parents, haunt the pages of “Teach Your Children Well.”

萊文的上一本書(shū)名叫《特權(quán)的代價(jià)：父母的壓力和優(yōu)越的物質(zhì)條件如何造就了一代孤獨(dú)而不快樂(lè)的孩子》(The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids)。書(shū)的開(kāi)頭提到一個(gè)15歲的女孩，她“聰明、美麗，但是壓力很大”，父母很富有。表面上看，她要什么有什么。但是瞟一眼她的小臂，你會(huì)看到她用剃刀在肉里刻了一個(gè)詞：空虛?！督毯媚愕暮⒆印防锶沁@樣的青少年，以及對(duì)他們過(guò)度寵愛(ài)和關(guān)心的父母?jìng)儭?/p>

One academically talented girl in Levine’s care is knocked off her feet by self-loathing and grief after she’s rejected from a particularly desirable college. She “lies in bed for days,” Levine writes. “She will not get up, and when I visit her at home, all she can say through her streaming tears is: ‘It was all for nothing. I’m a complete failure.’ ”

萊文碰到過(guò)一個(gè)成績(jī)優(yōu)異的女孩，在被她特別鐘意的大學(xué)拒絕后，自責(zé)又悲傷，不能自已。她“在床上躺了好多天，”萊文寫(xiě)道：“她不想起床。我去她家看望她的時(shí)候，她不住地流淚，就說(shuō)了一句話：‘什么都完了。我徹底失敗了。’”

Other kids cheat, take drugs, drink, shut down or, worse still, keep up their tightrope act of parent-pleasing, Ivy-­aiming high achievement while quietly, invisibly dying inside. “The cost of this relentless drive to perform at unrealistically high levels is a generation of kids who resemble nothing so much as trauma victims,” Levine writes. “They become preoccupied with events that have passed — obsessing endlessly on a possible wrong answer or a missed opportunity. They are anxious and depressed and often self-medicate with drugs or alcohol. Sleep is difficult and they walk around in a fog of exhaustion. Other kids simply fold their cards and refuse to play.”

還有些孩子撒謊、吸毒、酗酒、輟學(xué);更糟糕的是，有些孩子繃緊了神經(jīng)，想考入常青藤盟校，以取悅父母，但內(nèi)心已經(jīng)無(wú)聲地枯萎了。“無(wú)情地逼著孩子去追求不現(xiàn)實(shí)的目標(biāo)，使這一代孩子遭受了巨大的心理創(chuàng)傷，”萊文寫(xiě)道：“他們?yōu)橐呀?jīng)過(guò)去的事情憂心忡忡——為可能答錯(cuò)了一道題或者失去了一個(gè)機(jī)會(huì)而糾結(jié)不已。他們焦慮、低落，經(jīng)常用毒品或酒精來(lái)自我療傷。他們睡不好覺(jué)，累得精疲力竭還硬撐著。還有些孩子干脆就自暴自棄了。”

Levine has spent 30 years with these unhappy children, as a therapist and a mother of three sons who attended high-pressure schools. And now, it would seem, she’s had it. She’s had it with schools that worship at the altar of high achievement but do everything they can to undermine children’s growth and well-being: eliminating recess; assigning mind-deadening amounts of homework; and ranking, measuring and valuing kids by narrowly focused test scores, while cutting out other areas of creative education in which large numbers of students who don’t necessarily test well might find success and thrive. And she’s had it with parents who profess to want nothing more than “happiness” for their children (“Kids laugh when I tell them that their parents don’t mention money as a measure of success; they think I’ve been snowed,” she divulges) while neglecting the aspects of family life that build enthusiasm and contentment, and overemphasizing values and activities that can actually do harm.

在過(guò)去的30年里，身為理療師的萊文都在跟這些不快樂(lè)的孩子們打交道。她自己的三個(gè)兒子就讀的學(xué)校壓力也很大?，F(xiàn)在她已經(jīng)受夠了。她受夠了學(xué)校只看重考試成績(jī)，想盡一切辦法，妨礙孩子們幸福成長(zhǎng)：取消課間休息;布置大量耗費(fèi)腦力的作業(yè);僅根據(jù)考試分?jǐn)?shù)來(lái)排名次和評(píng)價(jià)學(xué)生，縮減創(chuàng)造性教育的其他方面(很多考試成績(jī)不好的孩子，在這些方面也許很擅長(zhǎng)并能有所作為)。她也受夠了家長(zhǎng)們自我標(biāo)榜說(shuō)，除了想讓孩子“幸福”別無(wú)所求(“當(dāng)我告訴孩子們他們的父母不把錢(qián)作為衡量成功的一個(gè)標(biāo)準(zhǔn)時(shí)，孩子們大笑，認(rèn)為我被愚弄了，”她透露說(shuō))，卻忽視家庭生活中能帶來(lái)熱情和滿足感的那些方面，過(guò)分重視那些實(shí)際上會(huì)帶來(lái)危害的價(jià)值觀和活動(dòng)。

These are parents who run themselves ragged with work and hyper-parenting, presenting an “eviscerated vision of the successful life” that their children are then programmed to imitate. They’re parents who are physically hyper-present but somehow psychologically M.I.A.: so caught up in the script that runs through their heads about how to “do right” by their children that they can’t see when the excesses of keeping up, bulking up, getting a leg up and generally running scared send the whole enterprise of ostensible care and nurturing right off the rails.

這些家長(zhǎng)們自己因?yàn)楣ぷ骱?ldquo;過(guò)度養(yǎng)育”而忙碌不堪，還提出了一種“貌似成功、實(shí)則舍本逐末的人生模式”，讓孩子們照著模仿。表面上看，孩子需要的時(shí)候，這些父母都在身旁，但是在心理上他們卻缺席了：他們被頭腦中設(shè)定好的“做正確的事”的劇本纏住了，卻沒(méi)有意識(shí)到，一味激勵(lì)孩子處處要?jiǎng)偃艘换I、時(shí)時(shí)要小心謹(jǐn)慎，看似是對(duì)孩子的關(guān)愛(ài)，其實(shí)是拔苗助長(zhǎng)，誤入歧途。

This message — that, essentially, every­thing today’s parents think they’re doing right is actually wrong — is the most noteworthy take-away from the first two-thirds or so of this book, which otherwise spends a bit too much time consolidating and restating (without, unfortunately, adequate footnotes or in-text credits) a great deal of previously published wisdom on the dangers of ­winner-take-all parenting.

這個(gè)觀點(diǎn)——其核心內(nèi)容就是，現(xiàn)在的父母所做的每一件自認(rèn)為正確的事，實(shí)際上都是錯(cuò)誤的——是本書(shū)前大半截最值得注意的觀點(diǎn)。其余部分花了太多篇幅強(qiáng)調(diào)和重述“勝者為王”的教育理念的危害——這個(gè)觀點(diǎn)很多之前的出版物已經(jīng)提到過(guò)了(可惜本書(shū)在腳注和文中都沒(méi)有充分說(shuō)明出處)。

Levine has good, if familiar, lessons for parents about the virtues of teaching empathy; encouraging the development of an authentic self; and making time for dreaming, creating and unstructured outdoor play. But she really comes into her own — and will, if widely read, make an indelible mark on our parenting culture — when she moves beyond child development to concentrate instead on parent development, exploring why we do the misguided things we do, and asking how we might (as we must) change ourselves and behave differently.

萊文舉了一些很好的(也有些常見(jiàn)的)例子，告訴家長(zhǎng)以下行為是大有益處的：教育孩子具有同情心，鼓勵(lì)孩子塑造真實(shí)的自己，騰出時(shí)間去夢(mèng)想、去創(chuàng)造、在室外無(wú)拘無(wú)束地玩耍。但是，本書(shū)的獨(dú)到之處，在于它不僅講述了怎樣培養(yǎng)孩子，更進(jìn)一步講述了怎樣培養(yǎng)家長(zhǎng)：探究了為什么我們會(huì)做出誤導(dǎo)孩子的事，怎樣才能(因?yàn)槲覀儽仨?改變自己，走上正途。如果這本書(shū)被廣泛閱讀的話，這些創(chuàng)見(jiàn)將為養(yǎng)育方法的改變起到極大作用。

Here, her insights are fresh. “When apples were sprayed with a chemical at my local supermarket, middle-aged moms turned out, picket signs and all, to protest the possible risk to their children’s health,” Levine reflects. “Yet I’ve seen no similar demonstrations about an educational system that has far more research documenting its own toxicity. We have bought into this system not because we are bad people or are unconcerned about our children’s well-being, but because we have been convinced that any other point of view will put our children at even greater risk.”

在這一點(diǎn)上，她的見(jiàn)解很新穎。“如果當(dāng)?shù)爻匈u的蘋(píng)果噴了農(nóng)藥，中年媽媽們會(huì)扯出示威標(biāo)語(yǔ)，抗議這可能給孩子健康帶來(lái)的危害，”萊文反思道。“但是我卻沒(méi)有看到任何類似的針對(duì)教育系統(tǒng)的抗議，很多調(diào)查證明教育系統(tǒng)的危害更大。我們已經(jīng)接受了這個(gè)系統(tǒng)，不是因?yàn)槲覀兪菈娜?，或者不關(guān)心孩子的幸福，而是因?yàn)槲覀円詾槿魏纹渌^點(diǎn)都會(huì)使孩子陷入更大的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)。”

With vastly increasing numbers of children now showing stress-related symptoms, it’s more urgent than ever, Levine argues, that parents learn new ways to express their love and concern, trading their fears of failure for faith in their children’s innate strengths, and prioritizing the joys and challenges of life in the present over anxious visions of an uncertain future. “There comes a point in parenting,” she writes, “where we must decide whether to maintain the status quo or, armed with new information, choose a different course. There is little question that our children are living in a world that is not simply oblivious to their needs, but is actually damaging them.”

萊文認(rèn)為，現(xiàn)在越來(lái)越多的孩子因壓力過(guò)大而出現(xiàn)病癥，所以現(xiàn)在比以往任何時(shí)候都更加迫切地要求家長(zhǎng)們學(xué)習(xí)表達(dá)關(guān)愛(ài)的新方法，把對(duì)失敗的恐懼轉(zhuǎn)化為對(duì)孩子天分的信任，優(yōu)先考慮目前生活中的快樂(lè)和挑戰(zhàn)，而不是去擔(dān)心未知的未來(lái)。“父母的教育方式現(xiàn)在到了十字路口，”她在書(shū)中寫(xiě)道，“我們?cè)摏Q定是繼續(xù)保持現(xiàn)狀，還是用新的理念武裝自己，選擇一條不同的道路。毫無(wú)疑問(wèn)，我們的孩子現(xiàn)在生活的世界，不僅不關(guān)心他們的需求，甚至還在傷害他們。”

Levine is correct to say that, as parents and as a society, we’ve reached a tipping point, in which the long-dawning awareness that there’s something not quite right about our parenting is strengthening into a real desire for change. Families, their fortunes tracking the larger economy that encouraged so much of their excess, are crashing after bubble years in which they spent their every penny, and then some, on cultivating competitive greatness in their kids. Now exhausted, often disenchanted and (conveniently enough) broke, they’re reconsidering whether the mad chase was worth all the resources that sustained it.

萊文說(shuō)得對(duì)，家長(zhǎng)和社會(huì)，都到了轉(zhuǎn)折點(diǎn)。很久以來(lái)，我們就隱隱感到我們的教育方法有問(wèn)題，現(xiàn)在我們迫切地感到需要改變。經(jīng)濟(jì)大環(huán)境好的時(shí)候鼓勵(lì)大家過(guò)度消費(fèi)，所以人們?cè)诮?jīng)濟(jì)泡沫時(shí)期花光了所有的錢(qián)。經(jīng)濟(jì)泡沫破滅之后，依賴經(jīng)濟(jì)大環(huán)境的家庭財(cái)富也隨之化為烏有，家庭也變得支離破碎，這時(shí)候有些人就把錢(qián)都花在培養(yǎng)孩子的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)能力上。而今家長(zhǎng)們精疲力竭、疲憊不堪，終于醒悟過(guò)來(lái)，開(kāi)始反思這種瘋狂的追求是否值得。