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Text | Huang Taotao
Figure |pixabay.com
Some time ago, I saw a video, the general content is that a two- or three-year-old girl saw a balloon at the entrance of the mall, wanted to get one, and was a little shy, so her mother simulated it with her, hoping that she could have the courage to open her mouth.
It was a very good thing, and the mother and child went back and forth smoothly. However, in the process of simulation, the mother suddenly decided to reject the child, try to see how she would react, and suddenly said: "Little friend, this balloon has been booked by other children, will you give it next time?" ”
The child, who was originally happy, suddenly looked dim and even cried. However, the mother was still not satisfied, and after comforting the child, she trained her again. The child was still sad and crying.
But under the final "training", the child showed his "indifference" or even "joy" in front of the camera, repeating the slogan taught to her by her mother and shouting "It's okay to be rejected!" ”
I don't know how everyone feels when I see it, but I didn't expect that the "frustration education" that was once popular actually made a comeback in this way, and the object turned out to be such a young child. Therefore, I would like to clarify in particular: "frustration education" is by no means artificially creating unnecessary setbacks, such deliberate, not only has no benefit, but is even likely to cause unexpected harm to parents.
「01」
Setback education is to accompany children to face setbacks
Not deliberately creating setbacks
If there is meaningful frustration education in this world, it should be to cultivate children's resilience. The meaning of frustration resistance is not to make people "immune" to setbacks, as if they did not happen when they encountered setbacks, like the children in the video shouting "It doesn't matter if they are rejected", which is not a normal human emotional response.
The significance of resilience is that when we encounter setbacks, there will still be normal emotional reactions such as frustration, discouragement, sadness, etc., but these emotional reactions will not become overwhelming and submerged, these emotions can flow through the body and mind, but they can also flow away, so that we can recover. Having better resilience means you can recover from setbacks faster, rather than pretending they don't exist.
So is it possible to resist setbacks by artificially creating setbacks, rehearsing setbacks, or even "correcting" the natural emotional outpouring of children when they encounter setbacks again and again, and teaching children a few chicken soup slogans?
The answer is clearly no.
From a psychological point of view, emotions are not "right or wrong", nor can they be "corrected", feel happy when happy, want to cry when sad, which is a reflection of human emotional health. Imagine that we, as adults, have not been admitted to the school of our choice, or if the interview is brushed and the confession is rejected, is it not insincere to shout a few times "It is okay to be rejected" to erase the frustration in our hearts? If adults still find it difficult, it will only be harder for children.
Similarly, when adults suffer setbacks, they want their relatives and friends to accompany and encourage, accept that they also have a vulnerable side and a low moment, or do they feel that their feelings are not valued and only need a few words of encouragement to face it calmly?
Every child eventually grows up, and every adult is once a child, and the impact of early life on a person is very far-reaching, and the earlier the memory and experience, the more exponential the impact on the next stage of growth. After a child is appeased, accepted and encouraged when he encounters setbacks, the events of setbacks often do not leave deep memories, but the feelings of being internalized can affect the child more long- and this is the real source of resilience.
「02」
Man-made setbacks
It's hard to replicate real-world setbacks
One of the bigger mistakes in the parents' approach in the video is that this kind of improvised frustration "rehearsal" is neither prudent thinking nor contrary to common sense in life. In real life, first of all, the probability of the promotion staff deliberately embarrassing the children is extremely low; secondly, even if such a thing really happens, parents should help the child to face this sudden and abnormal setback at such a time, to guide the child to see the operation of the real world most of the time, rather than accepting the abnormal and strange small probability event as a common thing.
Maybe some parents will feel that I let my child see the worse or even dangerous side of the world first, so that the child will be more likely to encounter surprises in the real world? Even in more extreme cases, some parents feel that if they maintain a positive concept of the world, it will harm their children, and it is better to let them taste some hardships in the family and prepare early.
Coincidentally, psychologists have helped us with this experiment, in a research article published last year by Jeremy D. W. Clifton and others, "Parentsthink—incorrectly—that teaching their children that the world is a bad place is likely best for." They) points out that it is true that about 53% of parents believe that they should pass on their children the original negative beliefs about the world, but the results of the study show that this communication is not good for children:
Overall, people with negative beliefs about the world are worse off on average. They have worse health, more negative emotions, more depression, more suicide attempts, much lower life satisfaction, a much lower sense of happiness, and they don't like their jobs and perform slightly worse than their peers in the same industry...
So, taking ten thousand steps back, whether there are setbacks in the real world, in fact, none of us can really control. But as the most trusted and dependent parents of the original child, the artificial setbacks, we can know with great certainty that the damage it brings is far greater than the uncontrollable setbacks in the external world. Especially in young children, it is difficult to understand whether these artificial setbacks are a rehearsal of good intentions or whether the parents are actually rejecting them.
「03」
Develop resilience
Or positive guidance makes more sense
So, after understanding the wrong practices and discovering some minefields, is there anything right we can do? In fact, there are many methods, and the "Anti-Stress And Parent-Child Chapter" written by Japanese positive psychologist Hiroshi Kusei can be said to be a good "operation manual" that not only conforms to oriental culture, but also adopts practical daily suggestions. (Note: The stress resistance mentioned in this book is another Chinese translation of resilience.) ）
Kusei Hiroshi believes that even if it does not go well, he can work hard to persevere. Despite the difficult problems or disputes, we can go on without wavering. Even if you fail, you are not discouraged, and if you maintain a stubborn heart, you can still solve problems without fear of new challenges.
Children with the above characteristics are "stress-resistant children". The development of "stress-resistant children" needs to start from five areas: self-esteem, emotional regulation, self-efficacy, optimism, and quality of interpersonal relationships. None of this needs to be achieved by parents artificially tripping their children up and deliberately creating setbacks.
Among them, the self-esteem as the foundation is actually how much we value it. Healthy and stable self-esteem levels can be said to be the anchor set when setbacks strike in a person's life - "If self-evaluation is too low, you will feel stretched in many places in daily life, and this feeling is called 'discomfort in life'." "Even in adulthood, people with strong discomfort still don't know whether their lifestyle is correct or not, and they will have strong uneasiness. Discomfort leads to a sense of uneasiness, uneasiness produces a sense of inferiority, doubts about one's own abilities arise, self-esteem declines as a whole, and then falls into such a vicious circle.
In childhood, give the child enough positive attention, full affirmation, and praise that truly fits the child's characteristics, without comparing the child with others, or frequently hitting the child for the sake of the senseless "shame and courage", and viciously pointing out the child's shortcomings and shortcomings. These important things, especially meaningful early in life, will become more and more "compound interest" in mental health accounts, and become a lifetime of wealth.
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