Father's function

After the child enters the age of three, the father has become an important role in the child's life. So, in the long process of children's growth, what specific functions does the father have? This is a very real and very practical question.

According to the traditional customs of Chinese, the father's functions include five components: offering, blessing, discipline, preaching, and victory. That is, the father should do:

First, earn money to support the family, and have time to spend time with the wife and children (support function);

Second, to protect the wife and children from natural and man-made disasters (protective function);

Third, set family rules to maintain structure and order within the family (disciplinary function);

Fourth, pass on to children about life, the meaning and value of life (missionary function);

Fifth, lead by example to be a strong and powerful man, at least better than the mother, that is, if the father is a very man (victory function).

In fact, emphasizing the function of the father is not a feature of Chinese Confucian culture, but also a topic of common concern to people in different cultural backgrounds. For example, the U.S. Department of Health once organized experts to compile a manual called "The Importance of Fathers in the Healthy Development of Children", which shows the importance attached to the family functions of fathers.

This Handbook defines seven functions of fatherhood in the modern American family: (1) to develop a positive relationship with the child's mother; (2) to spend time with the child; (3) to raise the child; (4) to discipline the child appropriately; (5) to guide the child to the world beyond the family; (6) to protect and provide; and (7) to be a model for the child.

Comparing the above two definitions, it can be seen that in the Americans, the victory function of the father is basically removed, and the missionary function is weakened. This is because in a social context that emphasizes male-female cooperation, the father's "strong or not" does not seem to matter, the importance of the victory function is relatively reduced, and the development of individualization becomes the mainstream of children's education.

At the same time, today's society shows a tendency to multiple values, and the channels for individuals to absorb external information are also extremely diverse, and it is actually difficult for fathers to pass on the values they recognize to their children in their entirety. Therefore, the weight of "speech" declines, as a compensation, the role of "teaching by example" rises, and the father becomes a model of the child's identity, which may affect the child's growth in some new way. At the same time, modern society emphasizes the role of fathers in guiding children to participate in social interactions outside the family.

Nevertheless, the victorious function of the father still has a psychological value that cannot be ignored for the mental development of the child.

Children, especially sons, always expect "my father is better than your father" and expect his father to be superior to his mother in strength and authority. Just like the son in the British movie "Life Driving Lesson", hearing his parents divorce, he was extremely indignant: "Dad, as a man, how can you let her dump you instead of you dumping her?" ......”。 Know that in a family where the father lacks the function of victory, the son will feel timid and humiliated in the face of competition and setbacks.

In family education, to effectively play the function of fathers, we must correctly understand and grasp some basic principles. Below I propose four basic principles for parents to refer to.

It should be recalled that these principles, which involve paternal functioning, apply to all families where the child is underage and do not depend on whether the husband, as the father of the child, is "qualified" or "unqualified" in the eyes of the wife.

Principle 1: The father's marital function is the most important function, and the performance of the remaining functions must be premised on the normal marital relationship.

The marital function of the father can be simply described as: the father has the ability to make the child feel that he is worthy of the mother's love. This sentence is a bit winding, but it speaks to the essence of the function of father's marriage (emotion). At the same time, it leads to a rule: marriage is greater than parent-child relationship. This is a basic proposition in children's education.

If the parents are noisy or despise each other, the father cannot win the respect of the mother, and is unable to resolve the contradictions in marriage, the child is prone to implicit bad behaviors such as "frustration and withdrawal", or manifests as explicit bad behaviors such as "attack and destruction".

Further research found that when couples are in marital conflict, if they are evenly matched and do not give in to each other, the child will be placed in an extremely insecure experience and show higher aggressive and destructive behavior after the age of three. In the event of a marital conflict, if the father or mother always calms the conflict by forbearance and compromise, the child will show frustration and withdrawal after the age of three.

This shows that whether it is noisy or complete, it will have a negative impact on the formation of the child's personality.

Conflicting marital relationships make parents lose their rationality, and they will unconsciously use their children's affairs to challenge each other, or use children as objects of quarrel and contention with each other, so that children are cast a psychological shadow. Not only that, because parents have different opinions and tit-for-tat, and the lack of "consistency" in family education, children often feel at a loss, but also feel that there is an opportunity to take advantage of it, and their behavior gradually falls into chaos.

If both husband and wife ignore the improvement of the marital relationship, but simply operate the parent-child relationship and make every effort to improve the parent-child interaction, it is often half the work and backfire. Parents who live in harmony and love each other will become the object of their children's identification or attachment.

Principle 2: To perform the function of the father, it is necessary to recognize the difference in the behavior of the father and the mother, as well as the difference in the division of labor, and to recognize the "role differentiation" between the parents.

To recognize differences, there is no need to harmonize the father's behavior with the mother's standards. It is a basic fact that parents behave inconsistently when raising their children, and it is also a normal phenomenon of the family system.

For example, mothers are a leader in arranging housework, feeding their children and taking them to the hospital, and are often anxious because their children are sick. And the father is often not active enough, and even looks like a "dazed" waiting for his wife's command. This is the norm. However, many wives ignore this difference and ask their husbands to get along with their children according to their own ideas, which increases the contradictions between them and affects the feelings.

Acknowledging differences does not impede the consistency of family education. For example, playing games with children is a father's strength, and nearly two-thirds of children over the age of three will consciously choose to play with their fathers. However, my father's advantage in terms of games is physical games such as "bouncing" and "lifting". One example is a father picking up his child and holding him up high in the air with his head down, or throwing the child into the air, and then suddenly catching the child and laughing as the child laughs.

Mothers' strengths are speech games, long-distance games (i.e., shaking or rolling toys from distance to stimulate the child), and mind games. Telling stories and patiently teaching children to use one thing are mothers' strengths. However, relatively speaking, the father's physical play is a useful supplement to the mother's speech game.

There are two factors that affect the natural process of "role differentiation" between parents: one is the father's personality maturity and family responsibility, and the other is the mother's level of control and anxiety.

Unlike fathers, mothers themselves are prone to anxiety about their children's problems, and if a wife happens to meet a husband who lacks responsibility, this anxiety will be magnified, coupled with women's natural desire for control, and the natural differences in parental roles will become a reason for marital conflict.

Principle 3: The father is the norm-maker, the mother is the defender of the norm, the protagonist of discipline and discipline is the father, and emotional reassurance is mainly borne by the mother.

If a child makes a mistake, should he be punished? Who should be this "wicked man"? This is an operational thing.

First of all, it should be noted that children before the age of three do not need to be punished, because children at this stage do not have a concept of right and wrong. As for after the age of three, it depends on what the situation is. How to implement punishment education, understand the relevant precautions, please listen to my online open class - "The Art of Punishment Education".

In most cases, children after the age of three begin to feel a sense of awe for their fathers. This phenomenon is widespread because the presence of paternal authority is required for the growth of the child. Therefore, establishing the prestige of the father, or low-key, giving the father a respectable position, is an objective requirement of family education, rather than emphasizing what is superior and inferior between parents.

"Male outside, female inside" is the general division of labor model of parents, guiding children from the family to the outside world is the responsibility of the father, therefore, the father must let the child in childhood life, follow the basic code of conduct, in order to ensure that adulthood can smoothly accept the rules of society. Mothers, on the other hand, teach their children to take care of themselves and learn to master basic life skills such as eating and dressing.

From another point of view, the basic characteristics of the father are physical strength and the center of decision-making, while the mother is the leader of domestic affairs, the resolver of contradictions, and the emotional center of family members, and "strict father and mother" is the mainstream family model.

If the father does not fulfill the obligation of "norm-setter", the mother is bound to fill the void of this role, so that she becomes insensitive, the maternal traits are weakened, and the lack of emotional care function is first of all the father's dereliction of duty, not the mother's credit.

Smart wives will maintain the "role authority" of their husbands, promulgating norms for their children in the name of their fathers, rather than placing fathers in regulated roles.

For example, if a child wants to buy an important thing, the mother, although she does not need to tell or ask her husband, will still tell the child to "wait until I ask my father", and with such words, a father image of "having a position and a deed" is created.

In the education of children after the age of three, the ideal situation is that the father formulates the norms, and the mother supervises and implements the norms, trying to maintain the authority of the father, rather than destroying the image of the father.

Unfortunately, in some families with marital defects, the mother usually does not maintain the authority of the father, but degrades the image of the father. For example, a mother, in the face of her son's mischievous behavior, reprimanded her child by saying, "Look, you're causing me trouble again!" It's like your inattentive dad! ”

Mothers who have studied psychology may be more intimidating in their words, and the husband's "inattention" will become "not big". One mother told me she had two sons. I asked her who her eldest son was, and she said it was the "husband who didn't grow up." I was silent for a long time after listening, unable to respond.

If the father does not act, in the long run, the father image in the son's heart will surely collapse. As a result, the child is either ashamed of having made a mistake similar to that of the father, or instead becomes an arrogant who ignores male authority, organizational rules, and social norms.

Principle 4: The absence of the father and the absence of functionality are important "structural" psychological traumas for the child to avoid or compensate for as much as possible.

The "absence" of the father here usually refers to the death of the father, the divorce of the mother, or the father's lack of responsibility and the long-term departure from home, and the inability to stay with the child due to work reasons.

The "functional absence" of the father refers to the fact that although the father is actually present, he is incapacitated by his indifference to family affairs, or has no voice, or is "marginalized" by the mother or other family members (such as grandparents and grandparents), and becomes an insignificant role, and is actually unable to fulfill the responsibilities of the father and perform the functions of the father.

Psychologists have found that the absence or functional absence of the father has a substantial impact on children after the age of three, whether it is preschool, primary school, or adolescence.

The presence or absence of the father is closely related to the child's academic status. Most of the children who are poor in school and primary school come from families where their fathers are around the age of five. Most of the children who excel in their studies come from families where the father is always at home and who is always in the care of the child.

Another statistical study confirmed that the percentage of children in "mother-child" or "mother-daughter" single-parent families who are bored with school is usually twice as high as in normal households.

Not only that, but the presence or absence of the father also has an impact on the child's ability, cognition and will quality. Fathers who are often with their children can provide a model for successful operation for their children, so that children have the opportunity to observe and imitate their fathers, thus greatly improving their ability to cope with life and their confidence in solving problems, and forming a motivation for perseverance, decisiveness and achievement.

The absence of the father also significantly affects the child's attitude in peer interaction, manifesting as unsociable, and the "group sex" is significantly lower than that of children in normal families. They are shy and timid in their dealings with their peers, and are reluctant to play a fierce risk game with their peers. However, such children's violations of discipline in kindergarten or school are above average, and from time to time there are manifestations of unhappiness, sadness, depression, neuroactivity, and self-harm.

Many fathers are often objectively absent from home because of their work, such as seafarers, soldiers, geologists and petroleum workers, engineering construction personnel, professional managers working in other places, and so on. How can such a family effectively reduce the psychological impact of the father's absence on the child? Here I give two remedial suggestions:

The first suggestion is to improve remote communication between father and son. Including routine telephone calls, network contact, to enhance communication with the wife and children, which can effectively reduce the negative impact of the absence. In the child's mind, whether or not to feel the presence of the father is first of all a subjective experience, and secondly a fact.

The second suggestion is to educate children by quoting the "father's name". The "quote" here means that even if the father does not exist, the mother can still introduce the concept of "father" into the context of mother-child communication in the daily communication with the child, so as to indicate the existence of paternal love. For example, the mother says, "Baby, let's take a look at the pictures sent by dad... good no good? "Next week, Dad is coming back from Shanghai, what does the baby want to say to Dad the most?" ”。

The child makes a mistake, and the mother can borrow the father's name to criticize the education of the child: "Son! What did Dad say? Is it okay to take away someone else's things without their consent? Similar references can greatly enhance the feeling and experience of "father presence."

(Western Shu Black Wind)