This English version was translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The Chinese text is authoritative.
Excellence is a habit.
The American psychologist William James said: “Sow an action and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.”
The power of habit is extraordinarily strong: it can send a person to heaven, or drag a person into hell.
Bad habits drive children off the right path, while good habits can propel them bravely forward on the road of life.
The ancients said: “By nature people are close to one another; by practice they grow far apart.” People’s original dispositions are similar; it is only in the course of growing up, under the influence of their environment, that their habits come to differ.
As the saying goes: “Good turns bad in a quarter of an hour; bad turns good only in a year.” The good habit of loving to read can vanish in an instant, to be replaced by the habit of going online and playing games, while getting rid of the bad habit of smoking often takes a long time.
So only good habits cultivated from an early age can benefit a child for life. Educating children begins with cultivating good habits.
1. Do your own things yourself.
Many of the habits of a lifetime are formed in early childhood.
As a child, the last emperor, Puyi, naturally had food brought to his mouth and clothes held out for his arms, and was escorted and guided wherever he went.
When he became a commoner, he was very poor at looking after himself: wearing his clothes inside out and buttoning them wrongly were common occurrences.
Once, while sweeping the streets, he even got lost as he swept and could not find his way back.
People must always take care of themselves. Life must be lived through oneself; only then is it a life.
In this way, when the day comes for parents to let go, they will not worry too much, and the child will not be full of fear.
2. Do everything early rather than late.
Many adults suffer from “procrastination”, rushing to do things only at the last moment; that is a lack of the habit of doing things “early”.
Training children to “do everything early rather than late” gives them ample time to deal with possible emergencies, and so develops a calm and composed attitude.
For example, be sure to have children finish their homework before they go out to play.
3. Take part in housework and develop a sense of responsibility.
Don’t always think that children are too small to do any work.
Having children do housework within their capacity mainly cultivates their sense of responsibility to the family. It lets them understand that they are members of the family with a duty to help share the household tasks.
A child who forms the habit of doing housework will also benefit greatly when establishing a new family as an adult.
A woman who is presentable in the parlor and capable in the kitchen, a man who can cook good dishes: these contribute to family harmony.
4. Develop the habit of reading.
There is no need to insist that children read the great classics. Start with their interests; it is enough for them to develop the habit of reading and be able to settle down with a book.
Parents’ example in word and deed is very important; they too should love reading and often read with their children.
The benefits of reading widely are: building vocabulary, strengthening one’s feel for language, improving writing skills, broadening one’s knowledge and improving oral expression.
A widely read, well-informed child has boundless potential.
5. Learn to choose and know what to give up.
We all understand that in life one must give up something to gain something, but when it really comes to giving up, especially giving up the people and things we love most, we fall into deep pain.
Cultivating a child’s ability to choose and willingness to let go from an early age also cultivates a habit of thinking, which will give him clear goals of his own when he faces major choices later in life.
The earlier one has goals of one’s own, the greater the chance of success.
6. Live a regular life.
A regular life is one of the factors of good health.
Turning day into night, eating at irregular times, playing all night when one feels like playing: these too are signs of a lack of self-control.
Help children form regular living habits, such as what time to get up every day, what time to eat breakfast, what time to do homework, what time to read and what time to go to bed.
Children who grow up living regular lives will spontaneously make plans for whatever they do, and they have more stamina.
7. Learn to listen and be glad to help others.
Parents must first be patient in listening to their children. Listening to a child is the greatest respect you can show him.
Having listened to their children, parents should also tell them to listen patiently to others and to understand them.
Teach children to respect others’ opinions and to know how to help others.
Children who know how to listen to others and are glad to help will, when they grow up, be extremely popular in their relationships and have a wider network of connections.
8. Never make the same mistake twice; always correct one’s mistakes.
It doesn’t matter if a child makes a mistake, but repeating a mistake cannot be excused.
“Never repeat a mistake”, never making the same mistake a second time, is hard even for adults. So the key to asking children to correct their mistakes is cultivating the habit of self-reflection, regularly examining their own words and actions.
9. Dare to try, dare to doubt.
There is no sure-fire road to success in this world. A dynamic life always involves a great deal of randomness, and the various factors are often unpredictable and hard to grasp.
So to succeed one must have the courage to try. In an uncertain environment, the spirit of adventure is the rarest resource.
Encouraging children to try, and also encouraging them to doubt, cultivates a spirit of courage and self-confidence, of taking responsibility and of independent thinking.
10. Control your emotions.
Don’t think that because children are small, they should cry when they want to cry, laugh when they want to laugh and throw a tantrum when they feel like it. In fact, controlling one’s emotions is a lifelong matter.
Children need room to vent their emotions, but they also need the habit of regulating and controlling them.
For example, when a child meets a difficult problem and gets frustrated, tell him that when facing difficulty, frustration and tantrums are no use; better first to do some other small, easy task to calm down, then come back and solve the problem.
If your child has not yet formed these good habits, then starting now, “push” him to form these 10 good habits, and it will be hard for him not to excel!
Because excellence is a habit.
