A significant portion of children’s destinies do not actually need to be changed.

-ing means it still needs to change; it’s still on the way to Rome. -ed means you’ve already arrived in Rome.

What’s the way to use expectations management to motivate a kid to study hard? Take them to see the work and living environments of those “successful” people—those who studied well and are doing well—and spark their desire.

That decision, to change his attitude toward learning, might look like taking the kid to stay at a five-star hotel or tour a top tech company’s campus, telling them: “Students from Qinghua, Peking, Jiaotong, Zhejiang, and Fudan will travel and work at this standard in the future.”

For kids from “-ing” families (still striving), this can be effective.

But for kids from “-ed” families (already there), it may not work at all. After visiting, the kid might think: “A five-star hotel isn’t even as fancy as my own home.” Or after touring the workplaces and per diems of those top-university grads, they might find it doesn’t even match the standard of life they have at home.

A kid’s lifestyle isn’t determined by their own ability—it’s determined by their dad.

The kid might only have the qualifications of a community-college graduate, but because they were born into a family of board-chairmen, they live the lifestyle of a chairman.

That’s a huge expectation gap.

A kid from an “-ing” family might be full of longing for that transit station on the road to Rome. Show it to them a few times, and their expectations get guided.

But a kid from an “-ed” family is born in Rome itself. How could you make them yearn for a transit station on the way there?

As adults, we know clearly: if you can’t keep up with the rat race, you’ll have to leave Rome.

But a kid born in Rome won’t understand that. Or by the time they do understand, it’ll already be too late.