【陳慧珊】有一種教育，叫學習做決定 (6) 放手

當我決定要成為父母時（或者是其他角色如女演員、學生、朋友和家人），我嘗試記住，假如我用教育和知識約束了我和孩子，我只是白白浪費了它們。

從一個新手媽媽變成一位更有意識、亦希望是更稱職的母親，我偶然發現了自己的一套「育兒理念」。我意識到，為了作出一些堅定的決定，特別是那些需要瞬間做出正確判斷的決定，我都十分依賴一個信念－「放手」。放手，無論對父母，抑或孩子，都是最好的。

在女兒年幼時，為了建立一段穩固的親子關係，做決定的時候我都把專注力投放在她的生理、情感、社交和認知的需要上，藉以為她營造一份安全感。我相信，這能為她的身心發展打好基礎。確保她感到安全，成為一個在她有需要時可以無條件地依賴的人，這些都是女兒出生頭幾年時我直覺認為正確的事。

當她踏入下一個成長階段，我的決定開始關注什麼才能夠給她最大的自由度，讓她作出屬於自己的選擇－例如如何學習、學習什麼、什麼時候學習、向誰學習的榜樣等。

我發現，只要讓她置身在各式各樣的體驗中，並容許她建立屬於自己經歷的想法和意見，即使年紀還很小，她也有足夠的能力去理解身處的環境，以及確立自己的世界觀。更重要的是，在探索和成長之際，她還會從與自己相關或感興趣的事物中，建立她的價值觀和信仰。

這些年來，比起展示她如何學習或為她訂立學習目標，我更有興趣讓她身處於不同的體驗當中，並從這些本來就應該屬於她的經驗中學習。

例如，陪伴女兒繪畫時，我從不會透過操縱她的手，意圖告訴她應該如何繪畫；讀完一篇詩後，在討論意思前我都會先了解她對詩的理解（只有她問起意思時才會進行討論，因為我相信，在家裡一起讀書應以享受，而非教學為目的）；在決定是否允許她放學後參加足球訓練時，縱使知道她將會面對很多困難和失望的時刻，但只要她有興趣，我還是會放手讓她去。

而她一次又一次茁壯的成長，都肯定了我每個放手的決定。

在為人父母的路上，我做了一些心理筆記，紀錄我在抉擇時掙扎應該參與、介入、或是放手的經驗。通過分享這些反思，我希望當你們遇到一些作為父母的難題時，能帶來一些啟發。

*我們可以灌輸給孩子的真正「教育」，是個人的獨立生活、奮鬥和勝利的經驗，這些都不需要額外的解釋、確認，或父母的干預。

*放手讓孩子走自己的路，是讓他們展示以自己的力量所達成的事，而非指出稱職的父母需要為子女的事，以滿足我們的自尊心。

*他們或會給我們帶來驚喜，向我們證明他們能超越自己的成就，但即使他們跟我們原定的方式殊途同歸，亦絕對不是一件壞事。至少，他們意識到這是自己的事情，是為自己取得成就（或失敗）。

*我們愈是練習放手，就愈能夠見證不為孩子界定具體目標的好處。我們要相信，我們早已在孩子的成長初期，引導他們建立一個堅實的基礎。此後，當需要幫助時，他們都可以隨時回望過去，卻不被過去所限。最有信心且最有能力的孩子更會懂得忘掉所學（從《星球大戰》、800歲的大師尤達所啟發），並創建自己的旅程。

*放手，比起行為，它更是一種態度。那些相信「順其自然」是最好的方法的人，都不曾受過去和指定的目標所限。有能力的人不會害怕未知或不可預計的事。

*即使他們未能達到「一定的目標」，但阻止他們嘗試並不會使他們得到寶貴的經驗。我們愈把孩子拉回身邊，只會使他們愈遠離自由。

*最無條件的愛是願意承受質疑的痛苦：或許我們可以阻止一些事情發生，但我們選擇不去干預。

*在現代社會中，大部分家長都望子成龍。也許，我們需要張開眼睛、豎起耳朵，接觸不同的可能性，以免墜入作為父母的慾望陷阱。通過放手，我們可能會意外地為接受孩子低調地生活的自己感到自豪。

最近，我參加了一個於香港舉行的英國預備學校開幕發布會。當時，記者們都紛紛向我提問一個我早有預料的問題：我是不是一名「怪獸家長」。雖然我回答了我不是，但我更加關注我們會否因為「怪獸家長」或隨和的父母這些歸類而影響了做父母的決定。世上大部分家長都好父母，他們會作出認為對子女最有益處的決定。而那些有勇氣放手的父母，他們不一定很出眾，卻應歸類為最負責任的父母。

作者：陳慧珊

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Decision Making is Educational

“Letting Go”

When I make decisions as a parent, (or in any other role, as a matter of fact, i.e. actress, student, friend, family member), I try to keep in mind that education and knowledge would be wasted if I utilized them to constrain me, and my child.  

In my journey from being an inexperienced mother to evolving into a more aware and, hopefully, better parent, I stumbled upon my “philosophy” of parenting.  I’ve realized that in order to make steadfast parenting decisions, especially those moment-to-moment decisions, I need to rely on the belief that “Letting Go”, is the best way to go, for both parent and child.

In the early years of my daughter’s life, I focused my decisions on establishing a secure parent-child relationship in which being responsive to her physical, emotional, social, and cognitive needs helped her form a sense of security; I believed that this practice would be the foundation to her healthy mental and physical development for life.  Ensuring her that she could feel safe, that she could unconditionally rely on a loving figure in times of distress and needing guidance, was something I innately felt was the right thing to do in the first few years of her life.

In the next phase of her development, I made decisions according to what would give her the most freedom to make her own choices — as to how to learn, what to learn, when to learn, and who to learn from.

I also discovered that, by merely exposing her to a variety of sensory and practical experiences and giving her a free hand to create her own thoughts and ideas about her experiences, that she had the ability, even at a very young age, to make sense of her environment and to form her own ways of thinking about the world.  More importantly, as she explored and grew, she also managed to begin to construct her system of values and beliefs according to things that were relevant and interesting to her.

Throughout the years, rather than showing her how to learn or demanding a destination from her learning, I have been more interested in exposing her to different experiences; what she might learn from those experiences have been left up to her.

For example, when drawing alongside my daughter, I have never maneuvered her hands with the intention to execute exactly how something should be drawn; after reading her a poem I’d always ask her for her own interpretation first before we discussed what the poem meant (and only if she asked about its meaning, since I believe that reading together at home should be based on enjoyment and not on explicit teaching); on deciding whether to sign her up for after-school football when she initiated the interest, although I foresaw that she would face many harsh struggles and disappointments, I still let her go.  

Time and time again, she’s confirmed that my decisions to let go – have inspired her to thrive.

Along the way of parenthood I’ve made some mental notes about my experiences of letting go that has helped me in my times of struggling among the choices of whether to get involved, to intervene, or to let go.  I hope that by sharing these reflections, that there could be some important thoughts worth recognizing when you face your own parenting dilemmas.

*The one genuine “teaching” that we could pass on to our children, is the individual’s independent experience of living, struggling, and triumph, which needs no external explanation, confirmation, or parental intervention.

*Letting go of our children means letting our children lead the way in showing us what they can do on their own accord, and not feeding our pride with confirmation of what we can do for them as a good parent.

*They may surprise us and show us that they can surpass their own achievements, or even if they end up with the same results as they would if they had done it our way, that wouldn’t be so bad either.  At least they would have realized things for themselves, and would have attained accomplishments (or failures) for themselves.

*The more we practice letting go, the more we will witness that it’s best not to define for our children a concrete destination.  We need to trust that we have guided them to establish a firm foundation in the early phase of their life from which they could automatically look back to their roots in times of need but are not dictated by the past.  Better yet, the most confident and capable children are the ones who unlearn what they have learned (inspired by the wise words of an 800 year old master, Yoda, of ‘Star Wars’) and create their own journey.

*Letting go is as much an attitude as it is a behavior.  Those who believe that “going with the flow” is the best way to go are free from burdens of the past and constraints of a defined destination.  The most capable people are those who are not afraid of the unknown or the unpredictable.

*If they still haven’t gotten “there”, no good experiences will come out of preventing them from trying.  Because the more we pull them back, the further they will be from cherished freedom.

*The most unconditional kind of love is the willingness to bear the possibility of pain that comes with the questioning of our parenting abilities because we could have prevented something from happening but chose not to.

*In contemporary society it’s normal for most parents to want their children to make their mark in the world, but perhaps we need to relinquish the trap of our parental desire and open our eyes and ears to a different possibility.  By letting go we may unexpectedly pride ourselves in accepting that some of our children may actually want to live in anonymity.

Recently I attended a press conference for the opening of a British preparatory school in Hong Kong.  The first predictable question that reporters swarmed me with was whether I’m a “monster parent”.  My response to them was obviously that I am not, but the more important idea that I wanted to get across was that whether we make decisions which categorize us as “monster parents” or easy-going parents, the majority of parents on this universe are good parents, who base their decisions on good intentions for their children.  And those parents who have the courage to make the decision to let go, doesn’t necessarily make them superior parents, but it puts them in the category of being responsible parents.

Text by Flora Chan