Today's text is excerpted from psychotherapy guru M. Scott Pike's "The Road Few." There is a record in the book that a 30-year-old financial expert came to the author's office and hoped that the doctor would correct her bad habit of always procrastinating on work. In the first hour of work, this lady always completed the easy and favorite work first, and in the remaining six hours, she always tried to avoid those tricky errands, and as a result, before she knew it, the time passed and the work was delayed. The psychologist found that this had a lot to do with the counselor's lack of "self-discipline" in her work and the parenting of her parents in childhood (described below), and finally, on the basis of helping her with psychoanalysis, helped her manage to force herself to solve the tricky errands in the first hour of work, and the rest of the time, the work became relatively easy. Because she was a relatively determined person, she soon completely overcame the problem of procrastinating work.
Here, the author mentions "deferred gratification," which is not coveting temporary comfort and resetting the order of happiness and pain in life.
This process, adults generally describe as "first bitter and then sweet", for children, is closely related to "self-discipline". "Self-discipline" is a headache for many parents, so today Xiaobian shares this article with you, hoping to inspire parents in terms of "self-discipline" education.
Internalize self-discipline as a habit
In childhood, from the age of 5, children can learn this principle of self-discipline – to bear pain first, then to enjoy pleasure, to avoid the disadvantages of immediate comfort.
For example, if a 5-year-old boy has a little more patience, lets his companions play the game first, and waits until the end, he can enjoy more fun without interruption and urging. For 6-year-old children, when learning to eat cake, they are not in a hurry to eat the sweet cream in one breath, or eat the cake first and then eat the cream, you can enjoy a sweeter taste. Getting elementary school children to treat homework correctly is the best time to cultivate the principle of "bittersweet before sweet". When your child turns 12, he should no longer need to be urged by his parents to complete his homework before watching TV. If so, after the age of fifteen or sixteen, they will internalize this principle into a habit and become a norm for themselves.
However, according to the experience of educators, many teenagers lack this healthy habit, they are unwilling to study hard, they like to talk and do things on a whim, and they can easily write "problem students". Why? Studies have shown that the effects of genes are not obvious, and other factors remain to be demonstrated, but most indications are that homeschooling plays a considerable role.
Children's lack of self-discipline is not necessarily due to the lack of strict discipline from their parents
Children's lack of self-discipline is not necessarily due to the lack of strict discipline from their parents. In fact, many of them are often subjected to harsh scolding or corporal punishment. But such an educational method can only have a negative effect, because it itself violates the principle of self-discipline. Discipline without the principle of self-discipline as a backing will not play any positive role.
If parents themselves do not abide by the principle of self-discipline, they cannot become an example for their children, but only become negative teaching materials. Some parents often tell their children, "Do what I say, but don't learn from me." "Their behavior lacks the minimum self-control, dignity and rationality of their elders, such as alcoholism, sloppiness, beatings, stealing and even treachery." These parents have no self-discipline in their lives, but they force their children to live in an orderly manner, and the results can be imagined. If parents know self-discipline, self-control, and self-esteem, and live an orderly life, children will take such a life for granted. If the parents' lives are chaotic and messy, the children will also accept them all.
Parental care is essential. Even if the family environment is full of chaos and life is poor, as long as there is love, it is still possible to cultivate children who understand self-discipline. Conversely, even if parents, as doctors, lawyers, business managers or philanthropists, have a fairly rigorous lifestyle, if they lack love and warmth, they will raise children who will do whatever they want, act recklessly, and do not understand self-discipline.
Love is the driving force for the healthy growth of the soul. Raising children to learn self-discipline requires enough time. If you don't spend energy on your children and spend very little time with them, you won't be able to understand their needs and find the right way to educate them.
When the child obviously needs to develop self-discipline, instead of picking up the burden, we impatiently say: "I don't have the energy to take care of you, you can do whatever you want!" "At the end of the day, when children make mistakes and force us to act, we take out our anger on them. We are reluctant to investigate the nature of the problem or consider what kind of education is appropriate. If parents are accustomed to teaching their children with strict corporal punishment, this is not education in essence, but venting their resentment and dissatisfaction.
The starting point of self-discipline
Smart parents will use appropriate encouragement, encouragement and praise, as well as necessary warnings and rebukes, to subtly guide their children's development direction and teach them self-discipline. They will carefully observe the child's behavior, from the child's eating, doing homework, lying, evading responsibility and other behaviors, in time to find problems; they will also listen to the child's voice. In the education of children, they know when to be tight, when to relax, when to praise, when to criticize, and they can correct children's problems in time and make problems disappear into invisibility.
Caring parents are good at examining their children's needs and making rational judgments. When children are faced with painful choices, they will sincerely go through pain and suffering with their children, and children can also receive this pain of their parents. They may not immediately show gratitude, but they can grasp the connotation and true meaning of pain. They reminded themselves: "Since mom and dad are willing to endure pain with me, the pain is not necessarily so terrible, and it is not necessarily too bad." I should also take responsibility and face my own pain. This is the starting point of self-discipline.
The greater the effort of the parents, the more the child will realize his or her value in the hearts of the parents. Some parents in order to cover up the failure of family education, will continue to tell their children how much they love him, how much they value him, but all this can not escape the eyes of children, children will not be deceived by lies for a long time, they are eager to get the love of their parents, if the parents repeatedly rebel, it will only make them lose confidence, even if they do not show anything immediately, but they will regard the parents' teaching and promises as worthless. To make matters worse, they can't help but imitate their parents and copy their way of life.
Children who grow up bathed in the love of their parents can develop their minds healthily. They will occasionally gamble and complain about their parents, but deep down they know that their parents love them deeply. The cherishing of their parents makes them know how to cherish themselves, know how to choose progress rather than backwardness, and know how to pursue happiness instead of giving up on themselves. They take self-esteem and self-love as the starting point of life, which is more valuable than gold.
Self-discipline is self-care, self-cherishing, not self-abandonment.
"I am a valuable person" – recognition of self-worth like this is a basic prerequisite for mental health and the foundation for cultivating self-discipline. It comes directly from the love of parents. "I am born to be useful", this kind of self-confidence must be cultivated from an early age, and it can only be half the effort to make up for it after adulthood. If children can enjoy the love of their parents from an early age, even if they encounter great setbacks in adulthood, the strong self-confidence will be enough for them to bravely overcome difficulties instead of abandoning themselves.
Recognition of self-worth is the basis of self-discipline, because when a person feels that they are valuable, they take all necessary measures to take care of themselves. Self-discipline is self-care, self-cherishing, not self-abandonment.
We've just talked about "deferred gratification," so let's take time as an example. If we think we are valuable, we think that our time is also valuable, so valuable time must also be used. The financial expert who procrastinates time simply ignores the value of his time. As a child, she had an unfortunate experience: her biological parents were able to take care of her, but whenever the school holidays, they would pay to send her to her adoptive parents' home, and she experienced the feeling of being under the fence from an early age. She felt that her parents did not value her, were unwilling to take care of her, and felt inferior. When I grew up, although I was smart and capable, my self-evaluation was low and pitiful. Because her self-evaluation is low, she does not know how to value her time. Once she realized her value, she naturally realized the preciousness of her time and must arrange it in a reasonable and orderly manner.
A sense of security gives children patience and self-discipline
All children are afraid of any form of abandonment. The vast majority of parents have a keen intuition about this fear of their children, and they make assurances to their children: "We love you the most and will never abandon you." "Of course Mom and Dad will be back, and we'll always be with you."
If, in addition to these verbal assurances, there is also practical action to cooperate, then when the child reaches puberty, the underlying fear will disappear. They don't just covet temporary comfort and sacrifice long-term happiness, but are willing to somehow postpone temporary satisfaction. They know that as long as they wait patiently, their needs will eventually come true, just like the assurances made by their parents.
If parents do the opposite, they will threaten and discipline their children with "abandonment" at every turn: "Do as I say!" Otherwise I won't love you anymore! This means abandonment and death. This makes children full of fear of the future, they feel that the world is not safe, and even see the world as hell, and this fear will remain until adulthood. They would rather overdraft their future happiness and satisfaction than postpone it. In their eyes, the future is too far away, too vague, too unreliable, so the timely future is many times better than the present, and they are not willing to wait, only willing to get by.
For children to develop the habit of delaying gratification, they must learn self-discipline. To let them learn self-discipline and trust in security, it not only requires parents to be sincerely committed, but also needs the consistent love and persistent care of parents, which is the best gift that parents can give their children. If the gift is not available from the parents, the child may also receive it from other sources, but the process is bound to be more arduous, usually a lifetime of hard work, and often ends in failure.
The way to get along
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