If there is any wonderful skill in parenting, it must be before the child is 6 years old, to establish various rules and habits for him, of course, not only before the age of 6, people should actually do this in their lives, but in the infant stage, we must pay special attention.
Because at this stage, fixed, good regular habits can benefit children countless times, and it is also one of the secrets of easy parenting.
I have been carrying a baby alone for four years, and I can take the baby, do housework, and work without mistakes, but also thanks to the rules and habits.
What are the rules and habits
What is the law? One of the meanings refers to the inevitable connection between things, which determines the inevitable trend of the development of things.
What are habits? Refers to the lifestyle that has been cultivated for a long time.
Both regularity and habit have one thing in common, which is rhythmic, predictable, neat and regular, not disorganized, and repetitive over time.
For example, we often say that children's psychological development laws, children all over the world are growing and developing according to these laws, we can predict the arrival of the next law according to the age of children and the current stage of behavioral development.
For example, we are accustomed to various living habits every day, getting up to get dressed, brushing our teeth and washing our faces, eating breakfast, brushing our teeth before going to bed, some people are also used to bedtime exercise, etc. We don't need to remind ourselves what to do, unconsciously we will do it.
Speaking of this, everyone must think that these are all common sense, is it necessary to say it again? At this stage, the child should be free and unrestrained, so as to conform to their nature, repeat the same rules and habits every day, the child will become rigid, do not know how to be flexible, right?
Infants and young children need fixed, repetitive patterns and habits, not one day at a time
Using the form of conventions and rituals, we can help ourselves and help children better understand and grasp the laws of the world---- "The Secret of Baby Language"
Allowing children to live in a life environment full of regularity and habits can have at least four positive effects on children:
1. Improve children's sense of security and reduce anxiety
A baby who has been in the mother's belly for nearly ten months suddenly changed the living environment, came to a strange, huge world, must be full of anxiety, fear, especially insecurity, if the people who raise the baby every day are different, or the baby is often changed to take the place, this week in the grandmother's house, next week in the grandmother's house, next week back to the mother's home, the baby must also be anxious.
Or the baby's daily feeding, sleep time is not fixed (except for newborns), when crying, parents find that it is time to breastfeed or put to sleep, the baby will become more and more difficult to carry.
All of these situations have one thing in common: it is to allow your baby to survive in a world full of challenges and uncertainties.
Uncertainty brings to your baby confusion, fear and anxiety.
Because he never had a way to predict where he would be tomorrow, when he would be able to eat, when he would be able to sleep, when he would be able to see his mother, all the activities were beyond his expectations.
Therefore, in the infant stage, to provide children with a regular living environment and living habits, so that children can predict the order of events every day, so that children can feel relaxed, happy, stable, which is also an important measure to establish a sense of security for children in the early stage.
2. Help children form stable emotions
To sum up the sentence without fixed laws and habits into one word: chaos, every day is different, may be fresh and interesting for adults, but for children, it is dazed and helpless.
Especially after the child enters the period of self-awareness development, always working against the parents, but it is not able to take care of themselves and properly arrange their lives, at this time, there will be various confrontations between parents and children, children are angry, parents are also angry, children cry, parents are more angry, you think, children are always immersed in this negative emotion, how to develop emotional ability steadily?
But if we have established a fixed and regular and living habit for the child, and he is accustomed to these processes, it will reduce the unnecessary friction caused by changing the process, our mood will be stable, and the child's mood will also be stable.
The existence of these rules of life can make children have psychological expectations for the future and avoid their resistance---- "Neuronal Cells in Neighborhood Relations"
For example, children have to eat and sleep every day, if there is no fixed law, then we have to solve two problems at once: one is to fix the time when the child eats and sleeps, and the other is how to let the child eat and sleep at this time point.
The child is estimated to have to cry twice, the child will say: Yesterday was not this time to sleep, yesterday was not this time to eat, why today to eat and sleep at this time! I don't! I just won't!
If we insist on eating at 12 noon and going to bed at eight o'clock in the evening, the only angle left for the child to fight you is: Wait a minute, I will play for a while.
3. Smooth transition of separation anxiety in different periods
We all know that children experience two separation anxieties before they are 6 years old, once when they are about 6 months old, and the separation anxiety of their mothers returning to the workplace, and once when they are about 3 years old, the child enters kindergarten anxiety.
The essence of separation anxiety is that children have to face the challenge of being separated from their mothers and enter a state of life that they have never experienced before, and unpredictable things follow: Will the mother come back after work? Will my mom pick me up at the kindergarten? Who will take me after my mother is gone? Will I be able to eat enough and have fun after my mother is gone? Am I safe after my mother leaves? What's in the kindergarten? Are the kids friendly?
If the child's previous life was chaotic and unpredictable, then this psychological pattern exacerbates the child's fears when dealing with separation.
In the face of the unknown, people's instinctive reaction is to worry and be afraid.
On the contrary, if the child in the previous life, can fully experience this ability to predict, clearly know that after eating will play with blocks, before going to bed will wash face and brush teeth and read a book, every day will go out around 2 pm to walk, the mother will kiss herself before going out, after going home will kiss herself, the development trend of things is exactly the same as what they predicted, the heart is safe, and will not be particularly afraid of the unknown environment.
Because everything is controllable and predictable.
4. Help children establish a sense of rules and improve social skills
All the rules and habits in the process of establishment, is a process of teaching children to cooperate with others, establishing a sense of rules, we need to convey rules to children, children need to implement rules, children can understand what you are saying, but also understand how to cooperate with you.
This fixed, orderly law and habit on the outside is actually a process of other laws, and the stage of other laws is a necessary stage for children to form a sense of rules, and only after other laws will they internalize the child's inner sense of order and form self-discipline.
A strong sense of rules, the ability to cooperate with teachers and classmates, coupled with the stable emotions mentioned earlier, can help children form good social skills, gain recognition in the team, and their popularity will not be bad.
Before a child goes to elementary school, the sooner these rules and habits are established, the better
1. Dietary rules and habits
It mainly includes the following points:
Meal time point: Newborns are mainly fed on demand, but they can be fed on time from 4 months, and the diet time after increasing complementary foods and weaning can be fixed.
Where to eat: We fix the place to eat at the table, rather than eating anywhere in the house.
Dining tools: Provide your child with his own dining chairs, plates, bowls and spoons and other tools.
Dining habits: wash your hands before meals, do not play with toys when eating, do not watch TV, do not listen to music or stories, do not chase food, do not picky meals, etc., after the child is two and a half years old, you can cultivate the habit of distributing dishes and chopsticks, and bringing the dishes back to the kitchen after eating.
2. Sleep rules and habits
Sleep is a more important module, before also wrote a lot of articles, here is a summary of the main points:
According to the different ages of the children, arrange a reasonable number of naps, the length of naps, and the time to get up and fall asleep
Fix the bedtime ritual, especially the nighttime sleep process, and arrange the procedures suitable for bathing, touching, reading, chatting, etc.
3. The rules and habits of reading
Open up a special place for children as a reading area, where children can freely flip through picture books without interference
Fix one or two reading periods, such as one in the afternoon and before going to bed at night, to develop the habit of reading
Cultivate the habit of taking books from the shelves and placing them in place after reading them.
4. Sort out the rules and habits of classification
Every child has a lot of toys, and we need to develop the habit of sorting and sorting for children, so that he knows that things need to be placed in an orderly and methodical manner, not piled up there.
Before the child is 2 years old, parents first demonstrate how to use various storage boxes to sort and sort out, so that children can hear and see
After the child is 2 years old, parents can take the child to play, fixed before going to bed every day, after playing, the toys are sorted out and placed in the prescribed position
In general, parents should try to fix the daily life links of their children, including diet, sleep, games, outdoors, etc., to ensure that the daily process is similar, even if they occasionally go out to play and disrupt the process, but they can quickly adjust it.
When the child is used to these processes, he will spontaneously follow these processes, we only need to shout to the point: the time to eat is up, the time to sleep is up, the child's inner installed program will be reflexively started, in the rebellious period, the child may not act immediately, but the resistance will not be very high, the parents will guide it slightly, and the process can continue to be implemented.
When establishing rules and habits, you need to pay attention to the details
The establishment of rules and habits can not be achieved in a day or two, and in the process of operation, you need to pay attention to the control of details, mainly in the following aspects:
1. Set goals according to the age and growth and development needs of children
Children of different ages eat, sleep and play differently, but also refer to their own family habits, so it is impossible not to use a whole set of models from birth to before school.
We can keep the general direction unchanged and then adjust the content of each item
2. When encountering special circumstances, learn to be flexible and flexible
It is not realistic to establish rules and habits exactly according to the needs of the child, because there will be various unexpected situations, such as going out, delaying a certain process, and so on.
In this case, parents should learn to adjust, such as shortening the time of a project, or advancing the whole process, and if the child is 3 years old, they can also discuss with the child how to reasonably arrange what will be done.
3, the establishment of any law and habit, must be "spoken out" in language
When we establish rules and habits, we need to use language to say to the child in advance, for example, it is time to eat, we are going to eat next, after the end, we can also tell the child: lunch is over, then we can play with the blocks.
The purpose of this is to correspond the "password" and the "event" to form a conditioned reflex and prepare the child psychologically. After the child is two and a half years old, we can ask the child, what do you want to do after lunch? What the child blurted out was definitely related to the game.
4, persistence, and constantly repeat the persistence to achieve the effect
Even the most insignificant rituals, as long as they are repeated every day, will penetrate into the depths of your soul---- "The Heart of Education"
Every repetition of the law is strengthening the law itself, if the parents fish for three days and dry the net for two days, it is impossible to establish any rules and habits, but will make the child form a habit of behavior that is easy to give up.