Being a good and reasonable parent requires constant effort and learning

On November 27, 2017, Tianjin, on the weekend, Zhang Xiaozhe took time to accompany his son to the library children's area to read books and enjoy a rare parent-child time. (File photo) Courtesy of Visual China

"Being a parent is a learning process, and no one is born a good parent." Associate Professor Guo Yanqing of Peking University Sixth Hospital said, "Because of the arrival of children, a talent has the identity of a parent, and in the process of caring for and disciplining children, he has slowly learned how to become a parent." Being a parent is a career that lives to learn from old age. ”

How to be a good parent? Guo Yanqing told the China Youth Daily and China Youth Network reporter that good parents must be both "reasonable" and "reasonable." "Empathy" simply means "do not do to others what you do not want.". In Guo Yanqing's view, the most prominent manifestation of "no desire" in the parent-child relationship is the excessive control of parents over their children and the excessive involvement in their children's lives. This excessive control and over-involvement is a manifestation of "unsympatheticity".

Excessive control can create averse stimuli towards children

Guo Yanqing said that to "communicate" with children, we must first regard children as free and independent individuals who need to be respected, and parents should grow up with their children and realize that children should not be the object of parental control, but a subject of self-development. Excessive control and excessive involvement of parents will disrupt the process of children's natural growth and hinder the child's space and willingness to grow on their own. "In fact, children have their own ability to be independent, and like all living things, as long as they are in an environment suitable for growth, they can naturally and automatically grow and develop."

However, a common fact is that because the child is the person that parents care about the most, many parents will use the way of seedlings to manage the child and force the child to "learn well", but the result is likely to be that the parental control becomes an aversion to the child. In the face of disgusted stimuli, children naturally appear to cheat, violent resistance and other avoidance behaviors.

Therefore, Guo Yanqing pointed out that to be a "reasonable" parent, first of all, we must treat the child as an independent and independent individual, go with nature, respect nature, take the child's perspective as the perspective, and see ourselves as the condition for the child's growth, rather than the child's savior. "Although parents bring their children into the world, they do not have the right to control and control their children, let alone use their children as their own tools." Guo Yanqing said.

"Regardless of the management", to create conditions for children to "self-manage"

How can parents be "empathetic"? Guo Yanqing put forward the eight-character principle of "whether it is management, take the initiative to meet". Taking children's homework as an example, Guo Yanqing explained that managing children's homework is a headache for many parents. Many parents will repeatedly remind their children to write homework, and keep an eye on the process of children's homework, even the child's toilet, nose picking must interfere, which leads children to think that writing homework is not their own business, but the parent's business. But in fact, if parents "don't care", do not remind their children to write homework, do not care whether the child has completed the homework, when it is time to turn in homework, the child will naturally realize that writing homework is his own business. Therefore, the "no matter" of parents is to provide conditions for the "self-management" of children.

The principle of "regardless of management" also applies between family members. In a family, if it is always the mother who is managing the child, then the father will not intervene, because in fact the father does not have the opportunity to manage the child. "We often see moms blaming dads for not caring about the kids, but in fact, if moms let go for a while (within a week), we see an increase in dads' behavior in managing their kids." Guo Yanqing pointed out that parents control their children too much, in fact, they are erasing the conditions for children's self-discipline, and these conditions are actually the necessary conditions for children's own independence and independent development.

At the same time, he stressed that "whether it is managed" is not to ignore the child, but to realize that parents do not have the right to authoritarian management of their children. Sometimes you have to "open one eye and close one eye" to your child. The parent closes his eyes, and the child becomes independent.

"Proactively meet" your child's requirements, following several criteria

When children ask for parents, how should parents respond? Guo Yanqing believes that parents should be "actively satisfied". There are several criteria for "active gratification": psychological criteria, timing criteria, and operational criteria.

The first is the psychological criterion of satisfaction. The object of active gratification is the child, so the satisfaction should be based on the child's psychology as the standard, and the parents should meet the child's real needs and wants. However, in the process of daily management of children, parents often do not take the real needs of the children, but take the needs of their children as their own standards to meet the children. Guo Yanqing for example, for example, children want a red toy, and only green in front of them, buying red toys need to go a lot more, at this time parents may feel that green toys are the same, so they bought green. But in fact, the child's wishes have not been met.

The second is the timing criterion to be met. When should parents satisfy their children? Guo Yanqing believes that grasping the opportunity of satisfaction is a key part of establishing a parent-child relationship. For example, when a child sees something, his eyes light up, or he loves something, or he expresses his need for something in words, this time is the time to meet.

The third is the operating standard that is met. Specifically, how are the acts of gratification implemented? Guo Yanqing put forward the principle of "initiative, generosity and unconditionality". Since parents want to meet their children at the right time and let their children get what they want, they must take the initiative and be generous, do not talk about conditions, do not say "you can write homework can be" "you are now testing fifth, next semester test third can be" such as conditions.

However, in the process of daily management of children, parents may have another situation, which does not meet the above three criteria, that is, when parents reject the child's requirements, the child has problem behavior, such as rolling on the ground, crying, and having to meet their own requirements, then parents can not meet the child. Because this involves the basic principle of behavior management, that is, problem behavior cannot be reinforced. "If the parent satisfies the child at the moment when the child has problem behavior, the child's problem behavior will be reinforced." This is the exclusion criterion to be met. Guo Yanqing said.

Guo Yanqing concluded that when parents grasp the standards of active satisfaction, give children autonomy, and give children the opportunity to be independent and independent, parents will also feel at ease in their daily lives. If parents always set their sights on their children, turn their children's things into their own affairs, and turn their children's time into their own time, parents and children will not be happy.

Parents' demands on their children should be reasonable and feasible

Guo Yanqing believes that to be a good parent, you must also be "Dali", and "Dali" refers to "reasonable requirements".

Parents should help their children grow, but not replace their children's growth. In the process of children's growth, there should be appropriate management and control. What is proper management and control? What are the reasonable requirements of parents for their children? Guo Yanqing believes that parents should meet 4 conditions at the same time when asking their children.

First, what parents ask their children to do must be something that their children are capable of doing. Guo Yanqing pointed out that parents should have an understanding of their children's basic abilities, know what children have the ability to do, and cannot ignore their children's basic abilities when managing their children. For example, parents feel that it is natural to require children to complete homework, but because each child's ability is different, and the teacher assigns homework according to general standards, when the difficulty of homework exceeds the child's ability, the child will only "lazily play slippery" and "grind foreign workers" in front of the homework, or simply give up.

Guo Yanqing especially reminds parents not to easily think that the instructions or requirements they make to their children are all things that children can do, sometimes just parents think that children can do it, but in fact, children do not necessarily have this ability. The premise for parents to make demands on their children is to know the root of their children's abilities. The more parents know about their children, the more effective the instructions will be. This condition seems simple, but it actually means that parents must have enough understanding of their children.

How can parents know enough about their children? Guo Yanqing said that there is no shortcut to understanding children, that is, to "crawl and roll" with children, to spend time to observe children, and to carry out various temptations in the process of observation in order to find out the bottom of the child. If parents do not get along with their children enough, but do not care about the actual ability of the child to make demands, it is not to help the child grow.

The second condition is that "it can be but not difficult". Although the things assigned to the child by the parents are the children's ability to do, this does not mean that the children can successfully complete, and there are many conditions that affect the child's initiation of the task, one of which is the difficulty of the matter. In the face of difficulties, all people will have an escape psychology, which is a natural mentality and a common weakness of human nature. Therefore, when parents assign tasks to their children, they must pay attention to the difficulty not to be too large, that is, "can but not be difficult".

For example, to solve a math problem, the first child takes 3 minutes, the second takes half an hour, and the third takes 3 hours. If solving this problem is assigned to these 3 children as a task, which child is most likely to have avoidance behavior? The answer is obvious. Therefore, when parents make requests to their children, they should pay attention to letting their children do things that are capable of doing at the same time without being too difficult, which also requires parents to understand their children's abilities for a long time by spending time with their children and observing.

The third condition is that parents should master the time, and the tasks assigned to the children do not require the children to take too long to complete. "For example, if a child who can solve a math problem in 3 minutes has 100 questions assigned to him, it is easy to stimulate the child to avoid behavior." Guo Yanqing explained. So for children, how long is short and how long is long? Guo Yanqing believes that this is a problem of individualization. Maybe 3 minutes is too long for one child and too short for another. Parents need to take the time to get to know their children in order to individually measure how long a child is tolerant of a task.

The fourth condition is that if the task assigned to the child is the child's ability to do, and it is not difficult to do, the time is relatively short for him, but the child is still unwilling to do it, then the parent can assist the child to complete. For example, parents ask the child to throw the banana peel he threw on the ground into the trash can, this instruction the child has the ability to do, it is not difficult to do, it takes a short time, but the child just does not do it, then the parents will assist him hand in hand, and he will pick up the banana peel and throw it into the garbage can.

If the requirements made by parents to their children meet the above four conditions, then this requirement is reasonable and feasible.

Guo Yanqing concluded that parents try not to give orders to their children in their daily lives, "regardless of management", they should give their children autonomy, let them explore the world freely, and give them various conditions and opportunities to contact the world, which can stimulate the growth of children. At the same time, parents are one of the children's growth conditions, so when necessary, parents should manage their children, but management should be "reasonable" and based on a full understanding of their children.

"Reasonableness" requires constant effort and learning

Guo Yanqing believes that to be a good parent who is "reasonable" can work hard from 3 directions.

First, self-management and lead by example. When you see that there are some problems with your child, parents should first ask themselves whether they also have these problems. Parents should solve their own problems first, so that children have a good example.

Second, it is necessary to cultivate the mind and improve tolerance. Everyone should be aware that others are different from themselves, and everyone has their own preferences, cognitions, and emotional attitudes. If everyone feels that they are right, it is easy to clash with others. Guo Yanqing pointed out that the process of conflict is not good, but the result of conflict is sometimes good, which makes everyone realize their own shortcomings and realize the differences of others. Conflict can increase everyone's tolerance. "Inclusion is not something that comes out of meditation, but something that needs to be experienced in life. To experience all kinds of conflicts and cultivate your own tolerance in the process, such tolerance is true tolerance. ”

Third, we must be good at learning scientific methods of dealing with problems. Guo Yanqing said that there are many skills in managing children, which are actually included in the field of applied behavior analysis. "Applied behavioral analytics has identified many measures and pathways that can be effective in changing people's behavior. Parents may wish to learn from it. ”

China Youth Daily, China Youth Network reporter Xia Jin Source: China Youth Daily

February 15, 2022 Edition 09

Source: China Youth Daily client