Accompany without disturbing, pay attention without control.
I saw one such post on Weibo.
"Why do I feel like my parents are always with me and stressed me out?"
Since my mother went to school for a parent-teacher conference, I must personally watch her endorse and write homework every day, which makes her feel very depressed and particularly uncomfortable.
Several times she and her friends made an appointment to go to the bookstore to buy books together, and her mother also followed, saying that she was not at ease and must accompany her.
She said: "I've really had enough of these days, do I have to be stared at by her all the time?" ”
In fact, many parents are like this, they want to try to give their children more companionship, but rarely examine their own way of companionship.
As one netizen said:
Parents always think that companionship is "monitoring" their children, but they do not think that their gaze will cause anxiety, tension and stress in the child.
Some parents seem to have been accompanying their children all the time, but because they deviate from the "trajectory", they invisibly hurt their children without knowing it.
Some parents will always hover their eyes around their children, supervise their children's life and learning at all times, and once they do not meet their expectations, they will "correct" their children in a way of control and oppression.
This kind of companionship lacks the flow of love and is often a distraction to the child.
The other day I heard a mom complaining:
Why do I spend a lot of energy with my child, around him 24 hours a day, he still annoys me, am I easy?
Because this mother was pregnant with her second child, she used to feel that there was too little companionship for her child, so she wanted to take this opportunity to accompany her child more.
Eating with the child, writing homework, reading stories, and taking good care of him in life.
Unexpectedly, it aroused the disgust of the child, and now the child locks himself in the room as soon as he sees his mother.
Why is the more "accompanied" the child, the more rebellious it is?
Psychologists have concluded that the root cause of such a problem is "excessive companionship", because the parents' accompaniment is too hard, making the child resentful.
Just like this mother, she wants to spend more time with her child, but her eyes have always been on the child, and she is always "worried" about her child:
Children must be on the side when writing homework;
The child sleeps at night, always worried that he will not sleep well, and constantly checks;
Spending all day with the child, but staring at him doing this and doing that...
These words and deeds seem to be "valued" to the child, but in fact, it is an invisible "excessive control", which ignores the child's feelings, so the child feels very painful.
Teacher Yin Jianli, an education expert, said:
The longer parents study with their children, the closer their role is to the overseer, and the child does not like the overseer in his bones.
Once the "amount" of parental companionship is excessive, it will evolve into "monitoring" of the child, so that the child feels a sense of oppression, which will only produce a rebellious psychology.
A third-year high school girl once complained to her mother that "she put too much pressure on me to breathe."
She said:
My mother stared at me every day, not only to keep watching at all times when doing homework, but also to keep looking at me when I slept, which made me feel a kind of invisible pressure, making me very tired and nervous.
By the end the girl had reached the point of self-harm.
As the saying goes, "if you are too late, things will be reversed", and everything that exceeds a certain limit will only transform in the opposite direction.
When companionship becomes supervision and interference, parents unconsciously ignore their children's feelings, and finally form "parents keep controlling, children keep running away."
Not respecting the child's inner companionship is just a kind of kidnapping of the child, and it is difficult to raise a child with a sound personality.
There is a clip like this in the parent-child variety show "After School".
When a northeastern mother was writing oral calculation homework with her child, she always felt that the child was too slow to calculate, and kept saying:
"Do you need to wrench your fingers on this?"
"The mouth is a pinch of time, not for you to embroider."
"It's not as good as you are."
…
(The picture comes from the variety show "After School", invaded and deleted)
The daughter was directly angry by her mother, crying and saying, "Let my father accompany me."
Many parents subconsciously want to turn their children into "what they like", so they always love to point out their children next to them.
This kind of uninvited "intrusive" into the child's world seems to be "helping" him, but is actually "disturbing" the child.
Its consequence is to constrain the child's growth and destroy concentration.
In 1973, a classic study published in the journal Developmental Psychology found that:
Allowing children to play freely helps to develop their creative thinking.
The researchers divided the 90 young children into three groups.
The first group: children can choose four kinds of free play from a pile of toys;
The second group: the researchers asked the children to imitate the staff to use these items;
Group Three: Children can't see these everyday objects, and can only sit at the table and randomly draw what they want to draw.
After ten minutes, ask your child to say how to use an item.
The experimental results showed that the first group of children who played freely said that the creative use method was three times that of the other two groups.
Children can only exude their own thoughts without external interference.
This excessive interference of parents is the most likely to make children have a confused state of "I don't know what to do".
Not only is concentration affected, creativity is also waning.
Montessori said: Never bother a child unless you are invited.
On the surface, parents are "helping" their children, but it not only restricts their creativity, but also stifles their focus on doing one thing.
Children can do something independently from the age of 3, and the last thing they want to do at this time is to be "disturbed".
Parents' "trying to change" thinking will only make their children's developmental abilities more limited.
Teacher Yin Jianli said:
No limit is nurturing, and a childhood that lacks experimentation and does not make mistakes is terrifying, and it does not mean that the child's future will adapt better.
We give our children attention and companionship based on the child saying "I do."
Parents should not interfere with children who are seriously doing things because "I want to change you", and it is likely that their children will be bound by excessive parental involvement.
In a park in Luoyang, Henan Province, a exercise video of a family of three went viral.
In order to accompany their children, the parents insisted on running with their son every day, and have been insisting on it for more than a year so far.
(Image from @People's Video, invasion and deletion)
Every morning, the family of three wears parent-child clothing, although they are tired from running, but their faces are full of happiness.
In the interview Dad said: Accompanying on a run.
This feeling of hard work and sweating together may be the most sincere love for children.
Companionship is an "activity" that is both simple and enjoyable for parent-child relationships, but the key to making it happy is "intentions".
Writer Rao Shirley once said: Companionship is the best education for children, and education is just companionship in different ways.
The more attentive the parents are to their children's company, the higher the concentration of their children's love.
1. Accompany your child and respect his "solitude"
Parents' meticulous attention to their children is love, but it takes a reasonable degree to accompany their children.
We must first consider a question: Does the child need us to accompany?
Before the child is 3 years old, the central point of companionship is "close companionship".
However, after the age of 3, the more companionship is not the better.
When the separation of parents from their children begins, parents give him space to be alone.
Psychologists say that children need a warm and stable emotional connection, to learn to be alone, and to keep him in a safe space for himself.
At this time, we must give our children "guardian companionship".
Parents do not have to keep their eyes on their children all the time, as long as they let their children feel the presence of their parents.
German child psychologists once did an experiment.
The researchers left several children in an empty room with only a handful of chairs and everyday items.
The child was bored at first and waited a little impatiently.
The bored children started playing games.
Everyday objects at hand were used as toys by children, and they also played role-play.
Companionship does not need to "supervise" the child all the time, but to be silent on the side, not to disturb him, so that the child can use his own thinking to deal with things.
Let the child understand that "the mother is next to me, I am safe", which is a good atmosphere for the child to feel happiness and freedom.
2. Accompany your child and respond first
Psychologists have shown that:
A person's sense of security comes from the quality of childhood parental companionship, and the early companionship of life determines whether the child's feelings about the world are cold or safe.
Its key factors are companionship and response.
The value of effective companionship lies in "interaction", which is the switch that maintains the emotional link between parents and children.
Children are naturally sensitive, and from infancy, they have a sensitive perception of their parents' words and deeds.
Micro-expressions, movements, speaking styles, and tones are all important influencing factors for accompanying children's quality.
Therefore, the best companionship is to make the child feel that you and he are "together".
Harvard psychologist Catherine suggests:
At these critical times, parents should put down their phones, put down their tools and get along with their children.
On the way to school;
Pick up your child on the way out of school;
When parents come home from work;
Dinner time;
Before going to bed;
These times are the most conducive to building an emotional relationship with their children, and parents should take the initiative to put down the "tools" or work in their hands and interact with their children wholeheartedly.
Play games together, tell stories together, share joys and sorrows together.
The companionship of being seen and responded to is the most nourishing for children.
3. When you are with your child, don't talk about teaching
The key words to accompany children are "respect" and "tolerance".
Young children, the brain is developing rapidly, has been living in the senses, they can not understand the logic of parents, so once the accompaniment to add a preaching component, it will affect the child's perception of parents.
So don't impose your own views on your children, but do everything "let the children come by themselves."
A mother once made three chapters with her child:
Can't write words, look up the dictionary yourself;
Do not write the topic, read it yourself three times, don't always shout "Mom";
Try to solve the problem after trying, try to shout "Dad"...
When we learn to throw problems at the child, he can grow through trial and error.
With a tolerant heart to feel the flow with the child, in order to achieve the maximum effect of companionship.
Write at the end
I know that someone once asked: How much money a pair of parents make every month to support a family.
One of the highly praised answers is this: the key word to hold up a home is not money, but love.
Companionship is a process of "making love".
It is not the parents staring at the child's eyes all the time, and it is not an interference with the child.
Instead, give the child attention and seeing, and "treat" the child with patience and response.
Good parents will definitely give their children these:
Prop up your child's sense of security with intimate connections, give him hugs and interactions;
Awaken the child's curiosity with appreciation and attention, and accompany him to explore and innovate;
Enlarge the child's space, don't "grasp the child too tightly", and take the child's trial and error as an experience.
Companionship without interruption, attention without control, from companionship to let the child find a lifetime of happiness will be meaningful.