Live Stream: Overly Pampered Education Creates Three Superstars in One Family

Zhou Lin sat on the sofa, her finger hovering above the phone screen, looking at the two lines of text Chen Chu had sent.

She paused for a moment, then couldn't help but chuckle softly.

This straightforward way of speaking gave her a long-lost sense of ease. She was used to carefully choosing her words and knowing how to conduct herself when dealing with all sorts of people. She had to be respectful when speaking to her teacher, tactful when speaking to Wang Wenwu, and careful when speaking to Wang Zihao. But Chen Chu's attitude of "just say what you want to say and don't beat around the bush" made her shed her social armor all at once.

She breathed a sigh of relief, leaned back on the sofa cushions, and quickly typed a line of text on the screen before sending it.

"Then I'll just ask directly, Teacher Chen, what's the secret to educating children? Tell me the truth."

Shortly after the message was sent, Chen Chu replied, his tone carrying an undisguised speechlessness.

"What kind of secret formula could there be... Do you think there's some kind of formula in this world that you can just plug in and solve all the problems? You have a master's degree, do you even believe that yourself?"

Zhou Lin stared at the reply for a few seconds, then slowly typed out a few words: "But you taught Ziran so well."

She paused for a moment, then added, "Ziran is so obedient and sensible, and she can even cook. Besides, Zihao isn't as stubborn around you anymore. There must be a reason for this."

She thought about it and felt that simply asking for advice verbally wasn't sincere enough, so she found the red envelope function on WeChat, prepared a red envelope containing a fairly large amount, and sent it over.

The note on the red envelope read, "Tuition fee, please accept."

She waited a while, and then the screen displayed "The other party has returned your red envelope".

Then Chen Chu's message popped up, this time with a helpless tone: "Don't send me any red envelopes. I'm really not an expert. I can't even give a proper lecture on educational theory. Wait a minute."

Chen Chu put his phone on the coffee table, leaned back on the sofa, looked up at the ceiling, and remained silent for a few seconds.

He really didn't have any secret formula. His way of educating Chen Ziran could be summarized in six words: "Treat children as human beings." But these six words sound neither like a theory nor a method, so Zhou Lin certainly wouldn't be satisfied.

She kept asking, and he felt bad about ignoring her. After all, she was a serious person, unlike the kind who would give up after asking a couple of questions.

Chen Chu picked up his phone, opened Doubao, and entered "educational philosophy, family education keywords" into the search box. He browsed through the results, selected a few that looked impressive, copied them, and sent them to Zhou Lin.

"The most important thing between children is balance, not the kind of balance where you hold water, but the dynamic balance of the emotional weight between family members. An unbalanced family raises unbalanced children."

"The essence of education is not shaping, but observation. Observe what kind of seed your child is, and then give him the corresponding soil. You can't make a cactus bloom in a paddy field."

"The ratio of criticism to praise should be at least one to five. One criticism needs five sincere words of affirmation to balance it out; otherwise, the child's self-esteem will be overwhelmed by negative evaluations."

Zhou Lin stared at the messages for a long time, her eyes growing brighter and her breathing becoming lighter. She pondered the term "balancing technique" over and over in her mind. Balance is not about carrying water, but about the dynamic balance of emotional weight.

She thought that was absolutely right.

The reason why Wang Zihao behaves the way at home is because the balance of the family has been disrupted.

As she read, she pulled out a notepad and a pen from the coffee table drawer and neatly copied down the sentences.

Her handwriting was small and delicate, with perfect spacing between each character, as if she were taking classroom notes. After copying it down, she looked at it again, then put down the notepad. Just as she was about to message Chen Chu to ask for more details, she caught a glimpse of a figure out of the corner of her eye.

Wang Minghui was sitting in a chair in the restaurant, his two calves dangling off the edge of the chair, his hands supporting him on the seat, looking down at his slippers, his lips pouting so much they could hang an oil bottle.

His brows were slightly furrowed, and his whole face was filled with displeasure. His usual lively and energetic spirit seemed to have been sucked away by something.

Wang Minghui wasn't throwing a tantrum. When someone throws a tantrum, they cry, shout, or roll on the ground. He was just sitting there quietly, sulking.

Zhou Lin put down the notepad, walked over and squatted down in front of him, her eyes level with his.

She reached out and gently squeezed her son's small hand resting on his knee, her voice as soft as a leaf falling on water: "What's wrong? Who upset Minghui?"

Wang Minghui pursed his lips and remained silent for a few seconds, his small brows furrowing even more tightly, as if he were thinking about how to accurately express his dissatisfaction with his limited vocabulary.

Then he looked up at his mother and said in a very serious and solemn tone, "I don't like people touching my head."

He paused for a moment, then added, as if submitting testimony to a court, "When Ziran touched my head, I felt uncomfortable."

Zhou Lin was taken aback. Looking at her son's serious, almost solemn little face, she didn't know how to respond for a moment.

In his world of understanding, touching someone's head is a way of expressing affection. Adults touching children's heads, older brothers touching younger brothers' heads, all stem from affection.

But Wang Minghui said he didn't like it.

This dislike was a completely foreign concept to her.

She had been touched on the head when she was a child and never felt uncomfortable, so she instinctively thought it was something to be happy about.

But now she is facing a face that is very clear and unambiguous: "I don't like it."

She opened her mouth, several thoughts racing through her mind. She couldn't go and tell Chen Ziran, "Don't touch my son's head." He was just a fourteen or fifteen-year-old boy, a newcomer. Touching Minghui's head was simply an expression of goodwill. If she went and said, "He doesn't like you touching him," what would Chen Ziran think?

Do you feel that the people in this family are particularly mean, calculating, and difficult to get along with?

What if he feels unwell and goes back to tell Chen Chu? How will the show be recorded then?

As a stepmother, she was already walking on thin ice. If she offended the guests on the show, Wang Wenwu would definitely say she was incompetent when he came back.

Moreover, it was just a pat on the head, was it really necessary to make such a big deal out of it?

Zhou Lin reached out and gently pinched Wang Minghui's chubby cheeks, making his serious little face look a little comical. Then, in a soft voice like she was coaxing a child, she said, "Brother Ziran touched your head because he likes you. He touches your head because he likes you, which is a good thing. Don't throw a tantrum over such a small thing, okay?"

Wang Minghui's face was pinched, forcing his lips to pout even more. He looked at his mother, a hint of dissatisfaction and resentment flashing in his big eyes. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but his mother had already made her point. If he said he hated his brother again, he would be considered naughty and throwing a tantrum.

He was a good boy, so he chose to keep quiet.

He pouted and nodded, then looked down at his slippers without saying anything more.

Around 2 p.m., Chen Ziran came out of the guest room, rubbing his still sleepy eyes.

His afternoon nap was neither too long nor too short, just enough for him to recover his energy but not enough to fully wake him up; his head was still a little fuzzy.

He walked into the living room and saw Wang Minghui sitting next to the coffee table, flipping through a comic book.

Chen Ziran yawned and walked towards the coffee table. Just as he was about to go over and say, "What are you looking at?", he saw Wang Minghui look up at him, then quickly close the comic book, slide off the sofa, and walk into his room with the book in his arms, closing the door with a "click".

Chen Ziran stood there, his hand still hanging in mid-air, not even having a chance to say "Hi".

He looked down at his empty palms, then looked up at the closed door, his lips twitched, and then he put his hands back in his pockets.

Does this kid not welcome me?

They were fine in the morning. Although they weren't particularly enthusiastic, they at least greeted us and helped serve us rice.

How come I turned out like this after just one night's sleep?

He stood there for a moment, hesitating, wondering whether he should chase after them and ask, but then he thought better of it.

Children's minds change quickly; they might be fine on their own in a little while.

He pursed his lips, turned around and went to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water, without continuing to chase after them.

At the same time, on the other side of the city.

When Chen Chu led Chen Xiayu through the kindergarten gate, the timing was exactly right at the afternoon drop-off point.

Sunlight streamed down from above, illuminating the paving stones in front of the kindergarten.

Chen Xiayu carried her backpack with a rabbit pattern on it, her hair tied in two slightly asymmetrical little buns. She hopped and skipped as she walked, humming a song she had made up herself.

The homeroom teacher stood at the classroom door to greet them. Seeing Chen Chu and Chen Xiayu walking over, she smiled and waved to them: "Xiayu's father, you've come at the right time. I have a few things I want to tell you."

Chen Chu's heart skipped a beat. In his experience, the opening line "I have a few things to say" was a warning sign, usually meaning that what he was about to hear was not good news like "Your child has done a great job".

But his expression didn't change much. He simply bent down slightly, patted Chen Xiayu's small shoulder, and let her go into the classroom first. Then he straightened up, looked at the teacher, and waited for what he would say next.

Seeing his alarmed expression, the teacher couldn't help but laugh. Then she took two items from the display shelf by the classroom door and handed them to him.

The first item was a painting. It depicted a crooked little house with an adult and a little girl standing next to it.

The adult's hair was painted in various colors, and the little girl was holding a round object, which looked like her plush rabbit. In the lower right corner of the drawing, a name was written crookedly in crayon: Chen Xiayu.

The second item was a math problem sheet, densely packed with twenty addition and subtraction problems within ten. Each problem was followed by an answer, sometimes a number, sometimes a circle. He answered eighteen correctly.

"Chen Xiayu has made great progress recently." The teacher's tone was filled with genuine satisfaction. "Her accuracy rate in calculation problems has reached over 90%, and her drawing has also improved rapidly. Look at this painting; the composition is much more complete than last month, and the details are much richer."

Chen Chu took the drawing, looked at it for a while, then looked up and called into the classroom, "Nannan, come here for a second!"

Chen Xiayu ran out of the classroom and looked up at Chen Chu.

Chen Chu squatted down, held the drawing up to her, and then reached out his other hand to pinch her chubby little face, shaping it into a round shape: "How can our little girl be so capable? When Daddy was little, he couldn't even draw a straight house, and you're so young, yet you draw better than Daddy!"

He released his grip on her cheek, gently rubbing the tip of Chen Xiayu's nose with his thumb, his voice filled with undisguised pride, "The teachers are all praising you, don't you think you're amazing?"

Chen Xiayu squinted her eyes as he pinched her cheek, giggled a few times, then stood on tiptoe, gently pinched Chen Chu's cheek, and said in a childish voice, mimicking his tone, "Daddy's great too!"

Chen Chu paused for a moment, then laughed, kissed her on the forehead, stood up, and looked at the teacher again.

He noticed that after the teacher finished praising him, his expression softened slightly, and his tone became more deliberate, as if he were preparing to say something more serious. He was all too familiar with that expression; praise was just the appetizer, criticism was the main course.

"There's one more thing. In two weeks, the kindergarten will be holding a parent-child interactive activity."

The teacher's voice remained gentle. "We really hope you can come. Xia Yu is doing better and better at school, but we've noticed that she seems reluctant to play with other children. She prefers to be alone, either drawing or doing arithmetic. When other children invite her to play games, she usually shakes her head."

The teacher paused, her eyes filled with kind concern: "She has indeed made great progress recently, but she has almost no friends at school. I hope the parents can pay more attention to guiding her in this regard, because children still need the friendship of peers to grow up healthier."