Can "poor parents" raise "rich children"? | what it means to be truly rich in raising children

Author: Nan Xiaoxi

Source: Zeng Qifeng Psychological Studio (zqfxlgzs)

Nowadays, many people feel that it seems that it is difficult to get out of the cold door anymore:

Approaching the national college entrance examination, we will find that most of them come from families with good economic conditions.

Most of the children who seem to have a very smooth and happy life also seem to have a good family.

And those promising young people in the media and the public eye, it seems that many of them are also the children of middle-class families, and very few come from the cold door.

As a result, this seems to have become the consensus of many people - poor economic conditions are equivalent to losing at the starting line.

But is this really the case?

01

What does a child who is truly "enriched" look like?

Many people understand the word affluence as fully economically satisfying.

Only children who are raised by wealth can have a good future. But this is often not the case.

In the process of psychological counseling, we can reach out to many children from wealthy families.

Little A in sixth grade has learning disabilities and attention problems. Her mother rarely cared about her studies, because money brought a lot of convenience in exchange for a large number of high-quality learning resources. So my mother felt that she had tried her best, and she kept complaining, repeating and worrying about her grades that she could not make up for.

Although Little A wears a brand from head to toe and looks like a well-bred child, she looks delicate and her psychological state is also worrying: fragile, depressed, school-weary, and unable to withstand criticism.

Little B is another girl who grew up with a golden spoon. Although her father was absent from home for many years, he often bought her expensive gifts. Since she was a child, her eating and wearing degrees are the best, luxury goods are continuous, and she often posts in the circle of friends in various places where celebrities come and go and hotels that ordinary people can't afford to spend.

But as an adult, she became particularly insecure.

After the exchange, it was found that she had been afraid of losing her existing material enjoyment and complained that there was no more money at home. Her question to the counselor also sounded very reasonable: Don't you want to have luxurious enjoyment? Do you think there's any point in you being alive?

It can be seen from this that just using money to enrich may be exchanged for a child with many psychological problems, and may also create a child with a narrow vision and material enjoyment as the only value criterion.

However, I have a female friend, she is a typical successful person, a happy family, a successful career. More importantly, she is internally stable, psychologically mature, and her treatment of people and things also reveals high emotional intelligence.

Doesn't it say that girls should be rich and nurturing? In the eyes of others, this must be a typical girl who was raised by wealth, and there will be a later open and hanging life.

But after a deep conversation with her, I found that her family was very poor when she was a child.

Here's how she described her childhood:

"When I was a child, there was no oil in the stir-fry at home. But my parents were afraid that I was malnourished, and even if I didn't have any oil to eat, I would have to mix some oil in my meals. “

"My parents were optimistic, never said in front of me that they were poor, always kind, smiling, and didn't seem to have any sorrows."

"Although my parents are very hard, they spend a lot of time with me. In particular, the time of telling stories before going to bed has become a precious memory of my life. “

……

It sounds like she was indeed raised by "riches". But this kind of enrichment seems to have nothing to do with economic conditions.

And what kind of child is really "rich"?

First, they tend to be ambitious and action-oriented.

They cherish their own value from the bottom of their hearts and understand their true love and pursuit, which has become the driving force for their academic excellence and career development.

Second, they are generally emotionally stable and internally at peace.

This means that their self-function can handle the relationship between the internal world and the external world very well, have a good ability to regulate emotions, and have fewer psychological conflicts.

In addition, they have the ability to manage happiness and are more likely to harvest high-quality intimate relationships.

Because of their inner stability and security, they are able to get along better with others in the relationship, which becomes the key to their happiness in life.

02

What do the children who are raised rich get?

So, what do the truly rich children get?

First, they are given intensive spiritual companionship.

When Mr. Wu Zhihong talked about his childhood, he recalled his mother's experience of accompanying him a lot in the early days of his growth. Although his mother did not go out to work at that time and her living conditions were not good enough, it became an important source of security for his life.

But the little C I know is different. Although his parents were often at home, he often felt lonely.

Their weekends usually go like this: the father plays games in the study, the mother plays with his phone in the bedroom, and he watches TV in the living room.

This may represent the current situation of some parents: there may be abundant material conditions, but there is little time to spend with their children. Even together, the heart is rarely really present.

If a person has a lot of experiences in his memory of being well accompanied, it will be a kind of wealth in the true sense.

At the same time, children who are raised to the rich tend to live in a good and responsive environment.

The autopsychologist Kohut said that a place where there is no response is a hopeless situation.

However, many parents have a lot of problems to solve and unhandled emotions. Parents who do not deal well with their depression and anxiety are difficult to see their children's emotions and needs.

Children, on the other hand, need to get a response from their parents' eyes and see the light of pride, so as to verify their cuteness and value.

Such emotional nourishment is the best "rich nourishment".

In addition, the children who are raised by the rich are affirmed and accepted.

Parents will not force their children to complete what they cannot accomplish, nor will they be dissatisfied and demeaned because their children do not meet their expectations.

Instead, parents will accept the child as they are and encourage the child to be who they are.

In short, children who are raised to the rich are children who are fully loved.

If the parents are emotionally deficient, even if the family is rich, it is still the real "poor support".

03

Poor parents can also raise rich children

Even so, how do we understand the fact that more and more children who are out of the cold door are no longer out of the cold door?

What we need to see clearly about this question is, what is really limited by poverty?

Parents who are worried about the economy may have a lot of their own emotions in their hearts.

The inner anxiety and annoyance make it difficult for yourself to be a clear mirror to see the inner needs of the child.

Not only that, but the economic level may lower people's self-expectations and sense of self-worth, narrowing people's horizons.

Such a state makes it impossible for people to look at a wider place, pursue a higher goal, and have a spiritual pursuit that overrides the material.

In addition, parents who are plagued by poverty have a large number of unmet needs due to their own sense of scarcity. This means that it is difficult for them to meet the needs of their children.

Children who are not well satisfied are suppressing their own needs all their lives, and even unable to identify their own needs, so it is difficult to develop themselves, bravely pursue goals, and tap their potential.

However, there are also parents who are financially troubled and also have the ability to love. Their responses and insights allow children to form a cohesive self. And let the child feel that he is good psychologically, which is better than material superiority.

This also depends in part on whether the parents themselves received good responses, rich emotional nourishment and love in their early years.

If parents have such an ability to nourish their children, they can still "enrich" their children under the premise of poor economic conditions.

Parents who raise children in poverty tend to be emotionally stable, calm and optimistic.

Although life is not easy, they rarely project anxiety onto their children. Therefore, in a poor living environment, we can still maintain an optimistic and upward attitude towards life and have a positive and positive impact on our children.

Many people should remember the easter egg at the end of the TV series "Thirty Only": a family of three crammed into a simple rental house and pushing a cart out to sell scallion oil cakes. Although the conditions at home are very simple, the parents have always hung a quiet and peaceful smile, and there is no trace of half-hatred and oppression by the burden of life.

Parents who raise their children in poverty can see and try to meet their children's needs.

In the details of life in the family that sells shallot oil cakes, there is a scene that is still vivid: the mother takes the remaining egg whites from each leftover egg shell, gathers them into a small bowl, and fried a poached egg with all the protein for the child.

Although it may be a luxury to take out an egg for the child to eat at that time, the poached egg made of this egg white may become a precious memory of the child's life.

However, there are a large number of poorly financially disadvantaged parents who will say:

We're hard, you have to be sensible.

It is not easy for us to provide you with school, you must have a job.

How can you want this or that! Don't look at our home conditions, which can be compared with others!

Suppressing the needs of children comes from the parents' own sense of unworthiness. This sense of unworthiness, like a mantra, allows children to grow up with a strong belief that "I am not worthy".

Parents who raise children in poverty, even if they are wrapped in insecurity, give their children enough warmth, companionship, and security.

And these are the wings of a person flying high. It makes a person's vision go beyond the barrenness in front of him, throw it into the mountains and seas in the distance, and throw it into a rich, vast, and infinitely possible life.

Poverty does not necessarily create children with low self-esteem and a sense of scarcity.

Only by giving children enough response and love can we truly be prosperous.

Author: Nan Xiaoxi National second-level psychological counselor, lifelong grower, a person full of curiosity about life