▼ Ms. Liu is worried about her son Xiaoming's declining academic performance:
"I've been laid off for a year, and the child's father doesn't pay much. Although the whole family is living poorly, we still save money and attach great importance to our son's nutrition and study.
Now my son is in his third year of high school, and his grades have seriously declined since his second year of high school, falling from the top ten in his grade to the lower middle level. My son and we were very anxious.
Moreover, during this time, he also had some strange thoughts, always feeling that if others touched him, he would suck away his intelligence, and although he knew that this idea was wrong, he still couldn't help but think so. What can be done about this? We were all in a hurry and didn't know how to help him.
Now we are also reflecting on whether the expectations of the child were too high before, causing him to be too stressed. Because my father and I are not highly educated and do not work very well, I hope that my child will not follow our old path, and can be admitted to a first-class university, so that he can find a good job and live a good life in the future.
The child is very sensible, and loves to learn, our hard work he sees in his eyes and remembers in his heart, and has always hoped that through his own efforts can improve the family state and change his life, usually in class, homework is very serious, primary school, junior high school grades are very good.
After entering high school, thinking of the severity of the college entrance examination, we usually grasp his homework very tightly, he himself is under a lot of pressure, he studies very hard, and hopes that he is very good in all subjects. In his second year of high school, he failed to get the top ten in two exams, he was very anxious, and added a lot of practice to himself, in addition to school homework, he did not want to fall behind in extracurricular tutoring classes, and often stayed up late at night to study.
We see him so distressed and worried, let him rest more, relax himself, he can't do it, the mood is more irritable, depressed, and feel that we don't understand his efforts. When I have an emotional breakdown, I will hit my head with a fist, feel that I have worked hard, I don't know why I still can't learn, and I think I am stupid. No matter how much we comforted and persuaded him, he couldn't listen. We're worried that he's going to collapse if he keeps going like this, what should we do?"
Guangzhou heard about the psychological counselor
Teacher Xu Wenjiao interpreted
The objective situation of the family, the financial pressure of parents, and the parents' expectations for their children's learning, Xiaoming sees it in his eyes and remembers it in his heart, and he has long experienced feelings of scarcity, low self-esteem, and anxiety.
Emotions are signals of a state of mind and a response to whether one's needs can be met.
Xiao Ming has always experienced some unpleasant feelings, and his own needs have not been met. These unpleasant feelings make people want to avoid and eliminate, so to some extent, Xiaoming will be forced to keep moving forward, changing himself, and changing the outside world to change these emotional experiences.
Previously, Xiaoming put the way to change his emotions and internal pressure on learning, and felt that as long as he could maintain a good academic performance, he could change his family and his life in the future.
However, this expectation was thwarted in the second year of high school, once or twice of setbacks, maybe Xiaoming will be a little disappointed, anxious, and can still carry it hard, to "fight", but if the number of disappointments exceeds the line set in the child's heart, the child is easily defeated.
For some children, it doesn't matter if they fail ten times and dozens of times, and for others, one or two failures are enough to crush him. This difference is not only related to the family environment, parenting style, but also to the child's self-perception.
Children's self-perception determines their perception of the outside world.
Several times the results did not reach the goals set in his heart, making Xiaoming feel out of control, anxious, self-blame, and even feel incompetent and useless. These inner thoughts and feelings made him very painful and difficult to accept, so he worked harder to learn in behavior, hoping to make up for it and regain the sense of control he once had in learning.
But the fact that the grades have not been able to go up has reinforced those negative thoughts and feelings in his heart, which Xiaoming feels both confused and helpless, has some psychological distress, and presents certain symptoms: emotionally more anxious, unable to really relax; Uncontrollable "strange thoughts" appear in his thinking, always feeling that if others touch him, they will suck away his intelligence, and although they know that this kind of thinking is wrong, they still can't help but think like this.
This "strange thought", which expresses his inner learning pressure, self-blame and anxiety, is also a kind of self-protection in a sense: others have caused me to lose my intelligence, not my incompetence to put me in this state, so there is no need to blame myself excessively. The specific content of the idea may come from the physical contact experience that makes him uncomfortable, or it may come from his delusion, and the delusional thinking is deprived.
It is recommended that parents take Xiaoming to a regular hospital or psychological counseling institution in time to seek the help of a psychological counselor, carry out professional diagnosis and help, see how long the child has been in this situation, whether anyone touches him to make him feel the most uncomfortable, he feels who deprived him of his intelligence, what kind of state has become of his inner after deprivation, will he feel blank, thinking stagnant, as if thinking has been "sucked away", "taken away", "emptied"; Feeling or worrying that being touched by others will suck away your intelligence, what coping behaviors you have done, whether you will avoid contact with others in life, and so on.
Based on the child's previous intelligence level, if the child's inner state is peaceful, it is not too difficult to keep up with learning, it is recommended that parents can let the child have a period of professional adolescent psychological counseling if the economy allows, adjust the child's perception, belief, thinking, emotions, help the child have a peaceful, stable and healthy mentality, and better adapt to the outside world.
Xu Wenjiao
・Listen about it Counseling Center - Senior Counselor
National second-level psychological counselor
Sandbox game consultant
Member of the Professional Committee of Psychological Counselors of Guangdong Mental Health Association
Member of Guangdong Psychological Society
Member of the Psychoanalytic Professional Committee
Psychological consultant of the "Rights Protection Service Station" of the Guangdong Provincial Women's Federation