让孩子成长为适应良好的成年人的秘诀【英语学习】

知春

Here’s the secret sauce that turns kids into well-adjusted adults

这就是让孩子成长为适应良好的成年人的秘诀。

By Kevin Stinehart

作者：凯文·斯泰恩哈特

Published May 30, 2026. ET

We built a world where a child's freedom depends on parents' work schedules, extracurriculars, travel sports and whether there is anywhere left for kids to gather without an adult turning it into a monitored program.我们构建了一个这样的世界：孩子的自由取决于父母的工作安排、课外活动、旅行运动，以及是否还有地方可以让孩子们聚集在一起，而不会被成年人变成一个受监控的项目。

Every year in my third-grade classroom, I see the same small emergencies.

每年在我的三年级教室里，我都会遇到同样的小紧急情况。

A child loses a math game and dissolves into tears. Another hovers at the edge of a group, desperate to join but unsure how.

一个孩子输了数学游戏，顿时嚎啕大哭。另一个孩子徘徊在人群边缘，渴望加入却不知如何下手。

A minor argument on a project becomes a major crisis with multiple students shut down.

一个关于项目的小争论演变成一场重大危机，导致多名学生停工。

A student hits a hard math problem and announces, before even trying, “I can’t.”

一名学生遇到一道难题，还没尝试就宣布：“我不会做。”

These are not bad kids. They’re honestly amazing kids. But they are under-practiced.

这些孩子并不差。说实话，他们非常优秀。但他们缺乏练习。

Experts call this “executive function,” the mental toolkit children use to handle frustration, control impulses and push through when something is hard.

专家称之为“执行功能”，这是儿童用来应对挫折、控制冲动以及在遇到困难时坚持下去的心理工具。

Adults now write books, create programs and build interventions around these skills.

现在，成年人也会围绕这些技能撰写书籍、创建项目和制定干预措施。

But here’s the ironic thing: Childhood itself used to give children daily chances to practice them. For free.

但讽刺的是：童年时期，孩子们每天都有机会免费练习这些技能。

Kids made up games and fought over the rules — and learned to compromise or risk losing their playmates.

孩子们自创游戏，为规则争吵——并学会妥协，否则就有可能失去玩伴。

They got bored and invented something. They lost. They pouted. They tried again. They got left out, made up, built forts, scraped knees and discovered, crucially, that disappointment is not the end of the world.

他们感到无聊，于是发明了点东西。他们输了。他们撅着嘴。他们又试了一次。他们被落下，但他们和好如初，建造堡垒，摔得膝盖都擦破了，并且最终发现，至关重要的是，失望并不是世界末日。

This is not nostalgia. The old days were not perfect. Some children were unsafe. Some were excluded. Some adults looked away when they should have stepped in.

这并非怀旧。过去的日子并不完美。有些孩子身处险境，有些孩子被排斥在外。有些成年人本应挺身而出，却选择了视而不见。

We can acknowledge all of that without denying what a play-filled childhood gave children: daily, low-stakes practice at becoming capable and resilient human beings.

我们可以承认这一切，但同时也不能否认充满游戏的童年给孩子们带来的益处：每天在低风险的环境下练习，从而成为有能力、有韧性的人。

That kind of childhood has been quietly squeezed out, and we are living with the results.

那种童年时光正在悄然消逝，而我们正在承受其带来的后果。

We built a world where a child’s freedom depends on parents’ work schedules, extracurriculars, travel sports and whether there is anywhere left for kids to gather without an adult turning it into a monitored program.

我们构建了一个这样的世界：孩子的自由取决于父母的工作安排、课外活动、旅行运动，以及是否还有地方可以让孩子们聚集在一起，而不会被成年人变成一个受监控的项目。

Then we act confused when children can’t handle a little independence, manage interpersonal conflicts or tolerate being bored for four minutes.

当孩子无法适应一点独立性、处理人际冲突或忍受四分钟的无聊时，我们却表现得一头雾水。

A child does not become resilient because adults lecture her about grit. She becomes resilient by facing low-stakes problems she is actually allowed to solve.

孩子不会因为大人给她讲授毅力就变得坚韧不拔。她只有在面对一些风险不高、且她有能力解决的问题时，才会变得坚韧不拔。

The deepest skills of childhood are learned through free play: tiny conflicts, disappointments, negotiations and recoveries that teach children, over time, “I can handle this.”

儿童时期最深刻的技能是通过自由玩耍习得的：微小的冲突、失望、协商和补救，随着时间的推移，教会孩子们“我可以处理这件事”。

A child does not become socially skilled from a kindness curriculum but by entering a group, reading faces, making mistakes, repairing harm and coming back a little more socially skilled next time.

孩子不是通过善良课程就能获得社交技能的，而是通过进入群体、观察面部表情、犯错、弥补过失，并在下次以更娴熟的社交技能回归而获得的。

You cannot lecture a child into these skills. Yet that is exactly what modern childhood keeps trying to do: introduce more activities, more adult management, more structured enrichment — all to compensate for the play-filled childhood we’ve crowded out.

你无法通过说教来教会孩子这些技能。然而，现代儿童教育却恰恰试图这样做：引入更多活动、更多成人管理、更多结构化的拓展——所有这些都是为了弥补我们剥夺了孩子充满玩耍的童年时光。

There is a great childhood divide in America now.

如今美国儿童的成长存在着巨大的鸿沟。

Some children still have neighborhoods with sidewalks, backyards, a playground within walking distance and a pack of neighborhood kids to join after school.

有些孩子仍然生活在有人行道、后院、步行可达的游乐场的社区里，放学后还有一群邻居小朋友可以一起玩耍。

For too many though, every social experience is scheduled, supervised, paid for and chauffeured by an exhausted parent.

但对太多人来说，每一次社交活动都需要安排、监督、付费，并且由疲惫不堪的家长开车接送。

That is less development. Less practice. Less learning. And less fun.

这意味着更少的发展、更少的练习、更少的学习，以及更少的乐趣。

And here is the part parents know: They can’t fix this alone.

而父母们也明白： 他们无法独自解决这个问题 。

One family can’t rebuild a neighborhood. The first brave parent who sends a child outside finds the same thing: emptiness, because every other child is at practice, tutoring or inside on a screen.

一个家庭无法重建整个社区。第一个勇敢地把孩子送出门的家长发现的也是一样：空荡荡的，因为其他孩子都在练习、补习或者待在家里玩电子屏幕。

That family cannot become the entire village.

那一个家庭不可能成为整个村庄。

So who steps up? Everyone else.

那么谁来挺身而出呢？其他人。

A church opens its playground/gym one evening a week for free play where kids make up their own games.

教堂每周开放一个晚上作为自由玩耍的场所，孩子们可以在那里自创游戏。

A PTA hosts before-school play on the playground — no agenda, no craft, no activity stations.

家长教师协会在操场上组织课前游戏活动——没有议程，没有手工活动，也没有活动站。

A block chooses Thursday afternoons as “kids outside” time.

一个街区选择周四下午作为“儿童户外活动”时间。

A library sets aside two hours each Saturday for loose-parts free play instead of another adult-led program.

图书馆每周六会安排两个小时供孩子们自由玩耍，而不是进行其他成人主导的活动。

Schools run a play club each week after school.

学校每周放学后都会举办游戏俱乐部。

A parks department protects open fields and encourages free play, not just organized leagues.

公园部门保护开放场地并鼓励自由玩耍，而不仅仅是组织联赛。

None of this requires a product, a curriculum or another expert on a podcast.

这一切都不需要产品、课程或播客上的另一位专家。

It requires ordinary adults (teachers, coaches, pastors, librarians, YMCA workers, community organizers, neighbors) to stop treating unstructured free play as bygone and quaint, and start treating it as the fundamental way children become capable, resilient, socially skilled human beings.

这需要普通成年人（教师、教练、牧师、图书管理员、基督教青年会工作人员、社区组织者、邻居）停止将非结构化的自由玩耍视为过时和古怪的做法，而开始将其视为儿童成为有能力、有韧性、具备社交技能的人的基本途径。

For years, we have asked what is wrong with kids today. We’ve added programs, charts, activities and interventions.

多年来，我们一直在思考现在的孩子到底出了什么问题。为此，我们增加了各种项目、图表、活动和干预措施。

Maybe the better question is simpler: What did we take away from them?

或许更好的问题其实很简单：我们从他们身上得到了什么？

Unstructured play is where children practice becoming capable. It is where a lost game becomes survivable, a group enterable, a conflict solvable and “I can’t” slowly becomes “I’ll try.”

在非结构化游戏中，孩子们练习如何提升自身能力。在这种游戏中，输掉的游戏可以继续进行，融入群体可以做到，冲突可以解决，“我做不到”也慢慢变成了“我会试试”。

We don’t need to recreate the past. But we do need to rebuild the conditions that let childhood happen, and it’s going to take all of us.

我们不需要重现过去，但我们需要重建让童年得以发生的条件，而这需要我们所有人共同努力。

Kevin Stinehart is a South Carolina elementary-school teacher and doctoral student focusing on childhood, play and redesigning schools around children’s developmental needs. Adapted from Substack.

凯文·斯泰恩哈特是南卡罗来纳州的一名小学教师，也是一名博士生，他的研究方向是儿童早期发展、游戏以及如何根据儿童发展需求重新设计学校。改编自 Substack 。