Hello everyone, I have been doing even Mai Q&A in the live broadcast room for five months, and it has become an agreement between us to communicate with parents about the various things they encountered on the way to raising a baby.
In the live broadcast room, friends will share some large and small events with their babies, including both growth and confusion. I'm also doing my best to share some of my experiences and advice on parenting or counselling. Seeing myself able to help my friends find a way forward and change really made me have a more fulfilling and happier experience.
Some time ago, when Lian Mai was live- and live-streamed, a mother said that her child's performance during this time made her very troubled:
If you do a wrong question, you start to get angry with yourself.
As soon as you make a mistake, you start punching yourself in the face and punishing yourself.
As long as you don't get a full score, you feel that it is your own problem, and you can't do a wrong question.
When the mom carefully stated the behavioral characteristics of the child, one word that came to my mind was "perfectionism." Children with perfectionist tendencies are also more likely to put themselves at risk of anxiety and depression, have difficulty tolerating their mistakes, and make it more difficult for them to enjoy success.
The word "perfectionism" is easy to misunderstand, just as adult life often says "I am always obsessive-compulsive" and "you are too pursuit of perfection" - we tend to ridicule "the pursuit of perfection" as "perfectionist", but the diagnosis of mental health is not so.
In the field of children's mental health, "perfectionist tendencies" do not equal "the pursuit of excellence and progress", and the characteristics of perfectionist tendencies generally include these elements:
Perfectionist tendencies are characteristic
- Unrealistically high expectations and high standards for oneself or others, most of them are too harsh.
- It's easy to get frustrated with your mistakes, even at the cost of abandoning an entire project
- It is difficult to discuss changes or postponements of activities with children, and children will treat accidents as failures.
- Repeatedly restart the task or spend a lot of time smudging changes because you feel "not perfect"
- Low sense of self-worth, there are a lot of negative evaluations in life that are directed at yourself.
- Whenever you are criticized or feel that you are not doing well enough, it is easy to run.
- Always worried about failure, the child's standard of failure is far beyond the conventional standard
From this criterion, it can be seen that the disadvantages of perfectionist tendencies to children's growth are obvious, it will limit the child's growth, and it will also be more likely to lead to greater anxiety problems, such as social anxiety, generalized anxiety or obsessive-compulsive disorder.
How can we help children, this is the topic I want to share with you in today's article.
01
"Perfectionism" allows children to consume themselves
"The characteristics of perfectionism" are easily misunderstood or not taken seriously, for example, I have brushed a video before, a third-grade boy because he wrote a wrong word, he tore off the whole page of homework, and began to write again, so that it was repeated several times, and the comment area was full of praise, lamenting the child's self-discipline and excellence.
In fact, such behavior is not worthy of our appreciation, more importantly, if there is such a child in life, we must be vigilant and remind the child in time that "it doesn't matter, it really doesn't matter."
Adults feel that it is a good quality to do things perfectly, so we will involuntarily encourage children to follow suit, but when the degree of pursuit is unrealistic, perfection becomes a "barrier that cannot be passed", which will make children fall into the fear of "imperfection".
Just a few months ago, a 9-year-old girl in Xi'an, because of the pressure of studying, jumped from the 15th floor of her home and ended her young life.
On the day of the incident, the teacher asked all students to complete a one-and-a-half-page essay and turn it in at 5 p.m. At 4:30, the little girl sent a voice to her mother at work, saying that she had only written one page and one line, afraid that she would not be able to complete her homework at 5 o'clock.
At that time, the girl's mother did not care too much, but only advised her daughter to complete it as soon as possible in her voice.
It wasn't until the evening, when the girl's grandfather came home and saw the suicide note left on the table, that he realized that his granddaughter had jumped off the stairs.
The girl's "suicide note" has only a few words:
"Why can't I do anything?"
This is the most extreme example, but this example is to remind all my friends that the pressure on the child's heart is far more "fragmented" than we adults think.
A child's sense of self-worth can sometimes be really low, and a small thing that is not necessary in the eyes of others may be enough to crush him.
Perfectionist tendencies are even more pronounced, in their eyes, as long as they do not get a score of 100, even 99 points are not worth boasting; as long as the grades fall slightly, they are the worst children in the world; full scores no longer make him happy, because it is followed by anxiety about getting the next full score.
So, if the perfectionist child is not relieved in time and appropriately, the child will fall into a vicious circle of failure - self-denial - self-punishment - and continue to fail.
02
Why do children demand perfection?
The formation of child perfectionism actually has very complex reasons.
For example, in terms of innate temperament, he may have high requirements for himself from a young age. He himself is more sensitive to standards and requirements, and the durability is higher than that of children of the same age.
For example, when he faced setbacks, he did not get emotional comfort, and no one told him how these failures came about and how to face them. This leads him to start to fear setbacks and failures, and his "perfection" actually stems from the fear of "failure".
For example, parents themselves have perfectionist tendencies, and children have learned to learn and live with a demanding attitude of perfection in their growth.
Another common reason, which is often used by TV dramas to make scripts, is that many parents have "perfect" requirements for their children: no slackness, no meaningful things, no good grades without the love of parents and mothers...
Just like in the TV series "Little Shed", Ziyou's mother has strict requirements for her son, parents who ignore emotional connections and only seek perfect results will make their children's eyes only see "full scores", and secretly suppress their inner thoughts in the deepest depths.
All in all, perfectionist children are the common effect of many dimensions, and the first thing we parents can do is to reflect on whether they have given him too many requirements and pressures, and then find out in time and give him enough support to accompany him out of the "perfect dilemma".
03
How to make children face "imperfection"
The reason why we have always emphasized that "we want to do things perfectly" does not mean "perfectionism", here is a calm judgment and analysis of the process.
Many children have the idea of "doing the best in everything", which is a necessary stage of their growth. But just like practicing, if you use the right method to exercise, what you get is pure fire; if you practice in an extreme way, the final result is to go into the fire.
Therefore, as "guides", we must let our children learn to correctly look at perfection and imperfection. Here are three methods I've been using, hoping to inspire my friends.
One
Use conversations to reduce stress on your child
1. Recognize the ability and correctly attribute
Failure doesn't have to be your problem
Friends know that my brother likes mathematics very much, and he often participates in some math competitions, basically winning second and third prizes. Every time I went to discuss the exam papers with him, it was like this:
First of all, I will tell him that the general exam will be divided into difficult problems, medium questions and easy questions, and then I will analyze with him, what is the proportion of his pairs on the easy questions, what is the proportion of the problem pairs, and then what is the proportion of the more super-outline questions, and then I will say to him: "These super-program questions are all you haven't learned, so it's normal not to do them now, and you can learn them later, take your time, it doesn't matter." ”
Sometimes, we just want to help the child analyze the difficulty of the test or the task itself, and then let the child understand that in fact, there are some things that are not because of his poor ability, but some topics that require a lot of preparation and practice to complete.
When we finish the exam, I will help him sort out several directions to improve his ability, such as algebra, geometry and other dimensions in the wrong questions, if you want to improve, you can go to find relevant materials to learn.
In this process, the child can slowly understand what factors he can control in an exam, what the factors he cannot control are, and let him know that his ability has a time cycle.
Especially for a child with perfectionist tendencies, it is easy for him to drill the tip of the bull's horn. Therefore, when discussing with him, parents must unravel his horns and let him clearly know what he can control, such as effort, specialty, carefulness, etc., but the difficulty of the exam, the question type and the careful thinking of the questioner are beyond his control. Having your child learn to attribute correctly can help him face up to failure.
2. Lower expectations for your child
- You're already fine
Parents have more or less expectations for their children, and if the expectations are too high, they may put the child in a high-pressure environment of being watched, and force themselves to do the "best".
Like "how many points do you want to test", "you want to maintain the honor roll", "our family will all look at you later", are typical of excessive standards.
Speaking of this, friends can think about whether they inadvertently give him some pressure when they talk to their children, especially for children who are sensitive and demanding of themselves, they are particularly sensitive to the clear expectations of their parents.
Just like my brother, when he took a small video of English enlightenment during the epidemic, he was loved and supported by many friends. But after the epidemic, homework is busy, and he wants to do small projects and be busy with homework, so his performance is not as good as before, which also leads to him giving himself a lot of pressure.
So I stopped the project and told him, "Although the children like you, you don't have to put a lot of pressure on yourself for this project." You can relax a bit and wait until you want to make a product of your own again, and it's never too late to start. ”
I remember my brother was stunned, looked at me for a few seconds to determine if I was joking, and then when he realized that "it was really possible to slow down", he hugged me tightly and nodded.
I think both persistence and abandonment need to be respected. In my opinion, if parents find that their children are too demanding of themselves and their abilities are temporarily unable to meet the requirements, we need to help their children reduce their expectations and keep his pressure in a moderate state, so that it is conducive to the long-term development of his ability and mentality.
Two
See the child's efforts
Sometimes, the child's continuous efforts and pursuit of perfection are also so that parents can see themselves and give themselves more love. So we should talk more about the child's efforts, give him enough encouragement and support, and make him realize that we have been paying attention to the process of his efforts.
For example, when the child does oral calculations, we can discuss with him how long he has been doing this time, and the parents have observed how the children have improved their efficiency in the process, so that he understands that his efforts will be seen by the parents. It should be noted here that many parents know to encourage and praise their children, but to find the right "point".
For example, praising the child: "You are the best", but in the eyes of the perfectionist child, this "most" means to be compared with other classmates, but it will make his obsession with "first place" deeper.
Here are two principles to share:
Emphasize the process, not the result
Focus on effort rather than talent
So, try to find the point of effort in the child, see the child's continuous progress process, and use warm words to give him spiritual support.
Three
Share failures with your child
"Life is not satisfactory nine times out of ten", there has never been a smooth life. As parents, we should talk to our children more about the imperfections in life, talk about the "unsatisfactory" at work, and finally talk about our own coping methods, and teach children how to adjust their mentality.
1. Talk about the child himself: My child has just transferred to the first month, and often says to me: "Mom, I am not the worst child in chinese, I did not expect my language to be so bad." At this time, I said to him: "It doesn't matter, you think about it, you didn't systematically learn Chinese in international schools in the previous two years, and it is already very strong to run to public schools to have this level." And Mom didn't go to public school just to get you an A. ”
Sometimes, we just need to talk to our children more about "failure" and then talk about our views on failure, imperfection, and adjustment. For children, this is also a kind of perception and improvement at the level of thinking.
2. Talk about parents: I have always advocated in the live broadcast room, lessons, and sharing that parents should discuss their work and life with their children more, and let their children learn to reconcile with "imperfection" by sharing their own experiences that are difficult, embarrassing, or frustrated.
Why is parental sharing so important? Because the child's initial attitude toward failure, dissatisfaction, and imperfection is largely derived from the parents' point of view. Children will first observe their parents' emotions about failure, and then imitate their behavior patterns and ways of thinking, and gradually form their own set of success or failure views.
Therefore, parents must talk to their children about their views on "perfect" and "imperfect", "successful" and "failed", "chosen" and "not chosen".
For example, I will also tell my children that my current road to entrepreneurship is really quite difficult, because doing education itself is a very difficult, particularly long, very lonely thing, and you never know whether anyone needs family education, especially in my early days, it will be more confused. And from the first day of entrepreneurship, I received a fixed monthly salary, and all the revenue was company income rather than personal income, which was a "failure" in a sense for a self-media blogger.
But sometimes what sustains us is not because of how perfect it is, but because it's our belief, because I really love it, and I want to make it all come to fruition. I very much hope that in many years, looking back at these things I did when I was young, I will be grateful that I have been in contact with thousands of households and tasted the world.
When I share this with my children, I actually find that I will also get a large degree of reconciliation, and sometimes the choice of what is important is not the result, but the scenery of the process and the gain, which is growth.
So, we also want to let children learn to look at the so-called failure dialectically, the world is not black and white, try to relax a little, enjoy the process of effort, rather than staring at the results and falling into endless anxiety.
04
Write at the end
Today's article is basically a complete record of our live broadcast room.
Many friends said that the atmosphere in our live broadcast room is really good, warm and inclusive, real and kind, and I also want to continue to give everyone strength, but also to give children, to give new faith in parent-child relationship.
Perfectionist-inclined children, like boats in a foggy day, actually have the motivation to move forward, but they are lost on the way.
What we parents need to do is to light a lamp and put a beam of light, so that the boat that does not know why, where to go, and in which posture to move forward, find the most suitable path for themselves. Finally, use your abilities to keep going.
Mutual encouragement, yours, budding.
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