The author | Dong Lin Fu
A few days ago, I went to the mall and saw a rather lively scene.
A 4 or 5-year-old boy in front of the stall selling toy cars crying, hoarse, the child's father to the little boy and drag and yell, after a while around a small circle of people, some people advised the child's father to better meet the child's wishes, to buy the child his favorite toys, some people are persuading the child, let him stop crying.
The child's father was very angry, dragging the child while saying: "You know that it is a waste of money, a bunch of car toys at home, why do you buy so much crap?" ”
The little boy cried out, "I just want it, there is no car of this color in the house!" ”
The father and son were deadlocked, the child cried out of breath, and the father of the child was blue in the face.
Such a scene, may be many parents with children have encountered, when the child around the age of 2 began to slowly germinate self-awareness and sense of property rights, children see their favorite items, they want to take it for themselves, want to let parents buy it.
In essence, this kind of thinking and behavior of the child is not a bad thing, it is a normal psychological phenomenon of the child growing up slowly. For parents, if material is sufficient and necessary, I tend to support the needs of parents, so that children know from an early age that what you want can be obtained.
However, the child's consumption is irrational after all, the child has no concept of money, if the child's needs exceed the parents' tolerance, or too extravagant and wasteful, parents of course to give the right guidance.
1. First of all, parents should control their emotions and do a good job of emotional management.
When a child appears to meet his or her own needs by crying, parents must first understand the child. For weak children, their ability to express themselves is still limited, thinking about problems is also very direct, and crying when their needs are not met is almost the only way to express their dissatisfaction.
After understanding the child, the parent will not be so angry.
No matter how the child vents his emotions, parents should maintain a calm and peaceful attitude. I especially disagree that when parents encounter problems, they are more hot than their children's temper, counter violence with violence, or abandon their children and ignore their children's safety, which will cause irreversible harm to their children's psychological and personal safety, which is a very irrational behavior.
The right thing for parents is to control their emotions and deal with it calmly and calmly.
2, do not suppress the child's emotions, let the child vent out.
Parents reject the needs of their children, on the one hand, the child's desire is interrupted by the parents, and the child is very uncomfortable. On the other hand, the child may wonder in his heart: Does my father or mother love me? Why don't I buy what I like? There is also the fact that children want to let parents meet their own needs by crying.
No matter what the child thinks in his heart, at this time the child's negative emotions are bursting, if the child suppresses the negative emotions in his heart, it is not good for the child's mental health, so parents can quietly wait next to them, so that the child can vent the negative emotions first, rather than forcibly stop the child.
3. Meet the reasonable needs of children.
I am not in favor of parents suppressing the reasonable needs of their children.
It is a normal psychological process for children to see their favorite items in the mall and want their parents to buy them. If parents blindly suppress this desire of their children, it is not a wise choice.
This kind of repression will cause two consequences, one is that children grow up to easily form a compensatory shopping for childhood, whether they need it or not, they buy at home, which is psychologically a compensation for the lack of childhood, and it is easy to form a "shopaholic" irrational consumption pattern.
Zhang Xinyi said that he had an unhappy experience in his childhood.
Zhang Xinyi said that when she was a child, the conditions at home were not good, and she did not dress well, once she liked a pair of white sneakers, and her mother set a learning goal for her, and promised that if she achieved that rank, she would buy her the white sneakers she liked.
After hard work, she achieved the goal that her mother set for her, but her mother was still reluctant to buy her a pair of white sneakers.
This became a scar on her soul, and after she grew up to make money on her own, Zhang Xinyi liked to buy herself shoes, especially white shoes, even if they were too many to wear.
I especially understand Zhang Xinyi because I have the same experience.
When I was a child, my mother lived a very frugal life, did not like to dress me, often my shoes were broken, my mother was still reluctant to buy me new shoes.
When I was in elementary school, I once went to the bathroom wearing a pair of torn shoes and met a girl in the next class, she looked at my shoes, skimmed her lips contemptuously, and said: "The shoes are so broken, they are still wearing."
Decades later, the little girl's contemptuous expression and insulting tone are still vividly remembered in my eyes, as if in my ears, and it really hurt my self-esteem.
Often my shoes are broken, my mother let me go to the shoe repair shop to repair the shoes, the little girl loves beauty, wearing shoes full of patches, I feel very inferior.
Unfortunately, at that time, my mother could not empathize with me, she just lived a hard life when she was a child, and she was afraid, in fact, now that I think about it, my family was really not poor enough to buy me new shoes.
When I work and have money, I found that I especially love to buy clothes and shoes, especially shoes, sometimes I will buy 7 or 8 pairs at once, dozens of pairs of shoes at home, I can't wear them at all, sometimes the shoes are too long, and the new shoes will age and can't be worn.
Later, I reflected that it should be the extreme desire for new shoes in my childhood that caused trauma to my soul, and when I grew up, I compensated for the crazy purchase of shoes, whether I needed it or not, but I just couldn't control myself.
Another repressive consequence of the child's normal material desires is that the child will not dare to bravely pursue what he wants when he grows up, and will make the child think that all the beautiful things are not worthy of himself psychologically, and may make the child live a very bitter life and dare not have beautiful things.
Many of the older generation live this life.
They were used to being bitter when they were young, and even if they had money later, they were still very harsh on themselves. We often see the elderly with a pension of more than 10,000 yuan, when buying vegetables, they must buy the kind of fast-broken, discounted dishes, and when they buy fruits, they must also buy the kind of fruits that are a little rotten and almost broken, because they are cheap.
In the depths of their hearts, they may feel that they are not worthy of good things, and only by using cheap, not very good quality things can they feel at ease.
In contrast, a colleague I know, who grew up pampered, I found that whether she was rich or poor, she would look at the quality of things, such as her clothes are not much, but every one of them is a fine product.
When she goes out to eat, her first consideration is cleanliness, hygiene and tastiness, not cheapness, and of course, she will control consumption within her own tolerance.
Therefore, I do not agree with parents indiscriminately suppressing their children's reasonable materialistic desires, of course, we must also guide children to consume reasonably and meet the needs of children within the scope of parents' economic conditions.
4, let the child understand that crying can not solve the problem.
When the child has finished venting his emotions, parents should comfort the child with body language. Cuddle your child and pat your child on the back. First listen to the reason why the child wants to buy something, and then tell the child the reason why he can't meet the child's requirements this time.
Let the child understand that everything can be solved through communication, not by crying.
For children with poor communication skills at more than 2 years old, parents should be more patient and give their children more comfort and guidance.
In short, let the child understand that the parents did not meet your requirements this time, not that they do not love you, nor do they deliberately not buy them for you, but that you already have similar toys, or that this item is beyond the parents' financial capacity this month, and they can also discuss with the child, if the child performs well, the parents will pay him next month and then buy it for him.
Parents should tell their children the reasons for doing this and the solutions to the problem, so that children understand that everything should be reasonable, know how to think in a different position, and let children slowly learn to deal with bad emotions and how to face the rejection of others.
In this process, if parents handle it well, they actually improve their children's emotional intelligence and let their children grow faster.
5. Instill the concept of money in your children.
Many children have no concept of money, which makes them very confused about why their parents just don't buy what they like.
Especially now most people use mobile phones to pay, children and parents go shopping together, can not see what parents pay, things will arrive, which makes children mistakenly think that getting things from supermarkets or shopping malls is very easy.
I suggest that parents can buy things with money when shopping with their children, so that children can intuitively realize that parents have paid money to buy these items.
You can even give money to your child, let the child pay at the supermarket cash register, and let the child understand that it is necessary to pay money to buy things.
After the child is slightly older, he can deliberately let the child know the price of each item and the monthly income of the family, so that the child understands the hardships of labor, the difficulty of making money and the fact that each item is worth cherishing.
In this way, children will slowly have a clear concept of money and goods in their hearts, and naturally they must consider the cost performance they pay and get when buying things, and slowly have a correct concept of consumption and money.
In short, when the child cries and asks for something, the response of the parents is very important, and the parents must also learn to think in empathy, so that the parents will be more able to understand the child and do the child's work more smoothly.
A good parent-child relationship must require parents to use their brains more and use a scientific attitude to treat their children after more learning. Raising children is the responsibility of parents, but also an opportunity for parents to progress and improve themselves, may all parents be growth parents, grow up with their children, progress together, parent-child relationship is harmonious, family happiness and harmony.