1
A recent small incident surprised me a little, and at the same time, it also made the parenting ideas of adolescent children more clear.
Oranges they have a requirement in school that boys' hair can't grow more than an inch. On the weekend, I saw that the orange's hair had grown and reminded him to cut it. After cutting back, I looked at it, the sides were shaved short, and the middle head was still a little long.
I said, "You'd better go back and cut the middle shorter, or in a few days the teacher will remind you to cut your hair again." ”
Orange looked left and right in the mirror, and also felt that the middle was a little long, but it was estimated that he was too lazy to run again, hesitated, and said: "I will not go, just like this." ”
As an old mother who thinks about her children, I continue to persuade: "You go now, save yourself a few days to go again." Otherwise, I always think about it. ”
Orange's attitude became firmer: "I'm not going, I'll talk about it when it's long, you leave it alone." ”
I wanted to persuade again, and then I thought about it: this is his business, he is not in trouble, then let him go. So I closed my mouth and let go of the matter.
Who knows, after dinner, Orange said to himself, "I'll go again." With that, he put on his coat and went to the barber shop again, and trimmed the hair on the top of his head short.
2
This small thing made me realize once again: Many times, children's so-called rebellion and disobedience are maintaining their psychological space and safeguarding their sovereignty.
Many times, we manage too much, although it is out of love and for his own good, but in fact, it is to use our own will to oppress the child's will, which is a violation of the child's psychological boundaries.
At this time, the child's attention is focused on the confrontation with the parents, and there is no time for independent and serious thinking.
When the parent lets go and leaves enough space for the child, he can withdraw his mental strength to himself, to experience the thing itself, to understand what he really wants, and to make a decision that is in line with his heart.
Just like a country, when a foreign enemy invades, it will concentrate all its strength to resist aggression. Only when the diplomatic relations between the two countries are normalized can we seek development with peace of mind and make the national strength strong.
The bigger the child, the bigger the territory he needs to gallop, the more he needs enough space.
Mental space, it sounds a bit abstract, how to do it specifically?
I have summarized it, and I might as well start from these aspects.
3
Leave room for emotions
When children cry, are depressed, angry, and have negative emotions, we are always eager to reason, give advice, various comforts, and even personally go on the field to help the child solve the problem.
It seems that we are very concerned about our children's affairs, but in fact, we are intolerant of negative emotions. Thinking about solving the problem quickly and eliminating negative emotions.
It is better to say that when the child is older, the more ineffective these methods are. Many children will act impatient and resistant:
"Okay, I get it."
"Don't say it, you don't know anything!"
Parents will silently label their children: this child is too rebellious, and adults can't listen to them at all. alas!
As everyone knows, the emotions are not digested, and they are still there, and even the correct words cannot be listened to.
Emotions, which need to be seen, also need space to digest.
We can accompany our children with empathy – I understand how you feel, I see.
(How to empathize, you can see the article "Why Empathy Doesn't Work?") You may have a fake affair together")
At the same time, we may wish to leave room for our children to slowly digest and process their emotions.
There is space, there is room for return, blindly driving, it is easy to force the child into the tip of the horn, there is no way to go, can only turn around and fight with you.
4
Leave room for errors
Leaving enough space for children also requires parents to have a certain fault tolerance rate.
We know what it would be wiser to do, but it's not easy to watch a child make a less correct decision and watch him fall into a pit.
At this point, we need to understand two things -
First, we need to understand that many times things are opposites.
After experiencing the darkness, I know the preciousness of light.
When you experience separation, you will cherish the gathering.
Only when you experience mistakes do you truly know what is right.
Second, the bigger the person, the greater the cost of making mistakes. While the child is still young and the mistakes are still within the controllable range, it is best to let him experience and accumulate experience and lessons in trial and error.
What parents need to do is to fulfill the obligation of reminders, and at the same time, to be a safe base for their children.
5
Leave room for "uselessness"
Will you allow your child to do nothing? When you watch your child in a daze and idle, can you control the urge to assign him tasks?
Just like Chinese painting, there is a blank space, and the meaning is obvious. Parents should also hold on to their anxieties and expectations, leave blank space for their children, and allow him to do nothing or do things that seem "useless" to him.
Every Friday night, it's Orange's movie time, and after dinner, Orange goes back to his room with the computer and watches one night. Sometimes it was 11 o'clock and it was time for us to go to bed and he was still watching. I'll remind him and leave him alone. Many times, we don't know what time he slept.
Every Saturday morning, it's orange bedtime. He would sleep comfortably until he woke up naturally, and when he woke up, he would not get up, and he would curl up on the bed and brush his mobile phone to listen to stories.
We don't bother him either—it's really hard to go to school five days early and late, and on the weekends, let him choose his most relaxed way to "fall" down.
The world is so interesting —
When you are allowed to do nothing, you will realize that you really want to do something;
When allowed to "fall," an inner motivation grows.
When allowed, it will be self-disciplined.
Why shouldn't that be the case for us adults?
6
Leave room for problems
When children encounter problems, we are always anxious to do something, hoping to cut the problem down as soon as possible. As everyone knows, the problem itself also has a "life", and there is also a process from bud to demise, we need to respect the facts and leave a certain space for the problem. At the same time, this process is the opportunity for children to grow.
So, sometimes, if the problem isn't very serious, we might as well let the bullet fly for a while.
Some time ago, Orange and a deputy subject teacher had a little friction, and the teacher said something in front of everyone that made him faceless. Orange was a little hurt and said in a gamble: I will not listen to his lessons!
To this end, I talked with Orange for a long time, taking him to look at this matter from all angles, I could feel that Orange's mood had eased up a bit, but I was still a little grumpy: "The teacher said that it hurts too much, I just don't want to take his class well." ”
"Understood," I said:
"You can understand that you can't breathe out." But you've done a great job — from not daring to express yourself to daring to stand up for yourself, that's a lot of progress.
I just want you to know that the next stage is to be able to stick to yourself and take care of the feelings of others, how to balance the delicate relationship between the two, and need more wisdom and experience. It's normal that you can't do it now, that's the process of growing up, and that's how I came to be.
At the moment, you can do whatever you want. If the teacher wants to ask the parents, we will cooperate. If you need us to talk to a teacher, no problem. ”
Orange didn't say anything more, but he could feel that his heart was much more relaxed.
In the next two weeks, people really did what they said, and in two consecutive classes, they showed a "non-violent and non-cooperative" attitude.
I didn't say much more than asking about the situation and finding the right moment to say a word or two, but I kept my attention to this matter.
Later, several things happened one after another, which made Orange have more understanding of the "rules". When I went to class again, although I still had a knot in my heart, I still did what I had to do, and the rules that I should abide by were still obeyed.
It's been two months since it happened, and it tends to fade over time, and because something happened that gave it an unexpected solution—to be precise, it hasn't been fully resolved yet.
But I am not in a hurry, so I let Orange slowly experience in this process, experience his emotions, experience the relationship with the rules, experience the subtlety of human interaction, and leave enough room for the solution of the problem.
These are the only ways to grow.
7
Today's parents, as long as the financial conditions permit, will set aside a room for their children. We know that the older the child, the more they need to have their own space.
Many parents overlook that we must not only leave physical space for our children, but also leave enough psychological space for him.
In this mental space, he can stay with negative emotions, can do nothing, can be bored in a daze, can be single-handed with problems, and can also make mistakes and failures.
In this space, he flickers and moves, freely, fully experienced, fully experienced, fully regurgitated, and his ability slowly grows, and wisdom slowly arises, and he gradually grows into himself.
If parents can't hold on to their anxieties and expectations, cling to their children at the psychological level, take care of everything, interfere everywhere, and refuse to share room with their children psychologically, the children are bound to fight for their own psychological space - in the eyes of parents, this is rebellion.
Therefore, when we once again lament the child's rebellion, we may wish to take a look: how much psychological space do you leave for the child?
If the child is a small whale, what do you give to the child, is it a fish tank? Is it a pond? Or the sea?