"Hahahahaha
Last weekend, I took Xiao Chang to the mall, and as I walked, I heard a child behind me begging for forgiveness.
Turning around, there was a mother holding a 4-year-old boy sitting in a chair in the doorway of the restaurant, scratching the child's creaky nest while waiting for a seat.
It looks very happy, but the mother is full of interest, but the son can't stand it. Although he kept smiling on his face, his body kept trying to leave his mother.
Just as his mother had just finished closing, the boy began to cry. Mom didn't understand:
"Why are you still crying?"
In many people's minds, tickling is a form of play. Especially when you see children laughing, you can't help but think that children will like it.
But they don't know that tickling and laughing is just an automatic reaction of the body, just like we sneez uncontrollably.
And, in ancient times, tickling was not a happy game, but a form of torture!
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="19" > from funny to fearful, a smile that is deadly enough</h1>
Regarding tickling, Chang Dad's most impressive thing is the scene in "The Book of the Dragon Slaughtering in the Heavens" where Zhang Wuji scratched the heart of Zhao Min's feet. Just such a small action made the arrogant and stubborn Zhao Min ask for forgiveness one after another:
"Spare me!"
And Zhang Wuji's serious look also obviously knew that this scratching of the foot was not a game, but a means of torturing people.
In fact, from the Han Dynasty onwards, tickling has become a form of torture called laughter. At that time, there was a consensus called "the doctor who can't be punished", that is, the doctor (referring to the official second only to the monarch) who committed a crime was not punishable by punishment, but this did not mean that the nobles could act arbitrarily.
In order to maintain the dignity of the nobility and at the same time play a disciplinary role, the punishment of "tickling" was invented.
Foreign countries also have such penalties. Survivors of Nazi concentration camps described how their companions felt when the Nazis carried out the "laughing punishment":
The tortured men were stripped naked and fastened to the execution chairs, and the Nazis scratched their whole bodies with goose feathers, happily competing with whose cries were worse in front of them. The victims were at first forced to hold back, but few were able to hold out for 5 minutes, and they began to laugh, their eyes filled with fear, and then they cried and laughed. ”
If the person scratching the itch does not stop, what will be the consequences? There was only one, dead.
In the 17th century, this kind of punishment was very popular in Europe. Fix the inmate and then apply salt water or honey to his feet. The sheep would keep licking their feet, and the torturer couldn't help but laugh all the time. If the brine or honey is gone, it will continue to be applied. In this way, the sheep kept licking and the man kept laughing until the man died.
We say "laugh to the point of being out of breath" every day, which is not a joke. Seeing the above example, I believe you can appreciate that laughing is not only happy, but may also cause cardiac arrest and suffocation.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="169" > tickle and laugh, that's not real laughter</h1>
In 1897, American psychology proposed two types of tickling.
Knismesis: a slight tickle, which generally does not cause laughter, but only a feeling of itching;
Gargalesis: Scratching sensitive areas repeatedly can make people laugh.
The "laughing punishment" we mentioned above, and the tickling of the child at the beginning of the article, belong to the second type of Gargalesis.
Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, an expert in cognitive neuroscience at the University of London, found in experiments that when we are tickled by others, the somatosensory cortex and anterior cingulate cortex in the brain are activated.
The somatosensory cortex manages the person's sense of touch, while the anterior cingulate cortex is responsible for dealing with emotions, rewards, and impulse control, which are related to pleasure.
Later, researchers at the University of Tübingen in Germany found that when people are tickled, another part of the brain is activated, that is, the hypothalamus responsible for fighting or flight.
In layman's terms, this process can be divided into three steps:
✎ In the first step, the somatosensory cortex is activated, and the brain feels very itchy;
✎ In the second step, the anterior cingulate belt is activated back into the cortex, feeling very happy;
✎ In the third step, the hypothalamus is launched, a defensive response appears, fighting or fleeing.
Therefore, when tickled, people will laugh and try to stop each other quickly or just run away.
In addition, surgeons have found that when the nerve responsible for pain is cut off, the patient's itching sensation is also reduced. Based on this, they speculate that itch and pain share a neural pathway.
In short, whether from the brain science or neuroscience analysis, it is really uncomfortable to be tickled.
It is also true that a survey of college students showed that only 32% of people like to be tickled, and 36% of people explicitly said they did not like it.
So, even if a child laughs out of a pig's cry when they are tickled, it doesn't mean they're really happy.
Many adults recall that they felt very uncomfortable when they were tickled by adults as children, and some people said that when they thought of being tickled, they felt very anxious, stiff, and wanted to refuse.
Why?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="173" tickles >, which is a war of aggression with a sense of physical boundaries</h1>
As we said earlier, when tickled, our body undergoes a series of physiological responses similar to conditioning. Just like when someone gently taps the ligament under the knee, our calf bounces up involuntarily.
When tickled, our bodies react involuntarily. Only when the tickling person stops can we regain control of our bodies and take back control of our bodies.
This also means that when we are tickled by others, we cannot dominate our own physical feelings, and our physical sovereignty has been violated.
At this time, loss of control is the biggest feeling.
So when a netizen described his feelings when he was constantly tickled by his parents when he was a child, but he couldn't refuse it, it made me feel that this was clearly the previous "laughing punishment":
I was a little breathless, afraid that I would suffocate, and I couldn't control myself from laughing or writhing. Even though I wasn't tied up, at that moment I felt like I was being tortured.
There was no way to welcome or refuse the touch of his body, and the shadow of being forcibly tickled as a child continued into his adult life. Even if he just thought of the three words "tickle", he felt goosebumps all over his body and produced an inexplicable sense of anxiety.
When a person has a sense of control, it means that he has certainty and security. Conversely, when a person repeatedly experiences a sense of loss of control, it means that he has to fight against insecurity, uncertainty, and over time may fall into anxiety, panic and even depression.
When many parents forcibly tickle their children regardless of their children's feelings, they are actually telling him: "Your body is not up to you", "It is useless for you to stop".
Therefore, even if many children feel uncomfortable, they do not have the consciousness and courage to say "no" loudly, which is very detrimental to the child's sense of physical boundaries.
So, is tickling going to be completely eradicated?
Not really. Moderate tickling is also beneficial, such as increasing parent-child relationships, meeting the needs of children to be touched, and promoting growth and development.
Moreover, if done properly, tickling can also be used to cultivate a child's sense of physical boundaries.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="175" > you say stop I will stop, this is respect</h1>
In the sex education classic book "Don't Touch Me Casually", the mother's sex education of her child begins with "scratching the itch".
At night, before going to bed, Mom would chat with Jimmy. Mom scratched Jimmy's stomach and Jimmy giggled. After saying that, he also hugged Jimmy and rubbed Jimmy's earlobe with his nose.
Is this series of actions very similar to the way we usually tickle with children?
Jimmy couldn't stop laughing, and he felt very uncomfortable, so he shouted "No, Mom! No! ”
The mother did not continue, but immediately stopped, and deliberately stressed to the child:
"When you ask me to stop, I'll stop."
This is to emphasize "physical sovereignty" with the child, telling the child that your body is your master, and the mother will respect you.
Immediately after, the mother clearly pointed out the problem of tickling:
"If I keep tickling you and won't stop no matter what you say, that's the problem."
There's a problem here, obvious to us adults, but it's really hard to identify for weak children, let alone resist.
For example, scratching an itch can be uncomfortable, but the child may feel that this is not a problem, but something that needs to be endured.
Therefore, parents must clearly say to their children: "This is not right, this is problematic", and then demonstrate the correct practices to the children.
At this time, you can direct the topic to "problematic touches", such as obscenity, sexual assault, so that children can establish a sense of physical boundaries, and once they encounter inappropriate touches, they can immediately identify and loudly reject.
In fact, it is not just scratching the itch, there are many ways to cultivate the child's sense of physical boundaries, such as kissing the child, holding the child, touching the child, etc.
Either way, it's important to do "if the child says stop, you have to stop." Maybe you can't tell the knowledge of sex education as fluently as the mother in the book, but as long as you can respect the child's feelings, the child will subtly understand what is the "boundary" and what is "autonomy".
As parents, we have a responsibility to make our children understand from an early age that only we can control our bodies. This is both to teach children a sense of physical boundaries and to teach children to learn respect.
A netizen said that her sister-in-law likes to tickle children. However, when the child was four years old, he said a sentence that made the whole family ashamed:
Mom, I had a smile on my face, but I wanted to cry in my heart.
At that time, the family knew that the child's laughter was forced.
As parents, we all want to give our children 100% safety, be wary of traffickers, be wary of unsafe environments, be wary of dangerous toys, be wary of unhealthy food...
But sometimes, it is we who hurt our children, and it is precisely our self-righteous love that brings them the shadow of life.
The next time you tickle, if your child says "don't," be sure to stop!
I also don't like to be tickled, and I don't want other family members to tickle children, please click "like + look again" at the end of the article!