Wen 丨 Jianghu Bian Editor 丨 Kuma Edition 丨 Lulu
For ordinary people, "psychology" can sometimes be quite scary.
Because if you are willing, as a parent, you can always find your own disqualifications.
The child cried and did not comfort in time, you are "emotional neglect";
Comfort immediately, you are a "helicopter parent" ...
There are more vicious concepts in the world, waiting to dance their teeth and claws to new parents.
To put it nicely, the previous generation may be too busy to learn about parenting. But today the situation seems to have gone to the other extreme:
My childhood was so unfortunate, so I definitely won't PUA child, I have to give him a lot of praise, give him a free and perfect childhood.
As an adult, I want to give him as many options as possible. He can do whatever he wants, change it if he doesn't like it, and let him live happily (don't be as hard and limited as me).
Ten years ago, a similar parenting style emerged in American society:
Give children nuanced attention, reminding them that they are "perfect and special", "you are not bad at XXX, you are just good at XXX in other ways", "You need to be happy whenever and wherever you want (because that's my desire)".
Lori Gottlieb and her children
obsession with happiness,
It is not conducive to developing the child's true self
Clinical psychologist Judith Locke believes that overparenting has two characteristics:
1) Over-assisting
Parents, out of good intentions, overly help their children with various tasks. However, this can lead to difficulties in developing basic skills.
While children may be praised for successfully completing tasks, their ego is built on what others see as a false self – the same factors that can put children in psychological crisis.
2) Hypersensitivity reaction
（extreme responsiveness）
Parents are extremely responsive to their children, and they give more love, care, affection and praise to their children than they really are.
They believe everything the child says, overprotect the child to develop a high level of self-esteem, telling the child how different and talented he is, so that the child is not used to any constructive criticism, or overestimates his uniqueness in the crowd. But what they feel is not that they are good, but that they are better than others.
Lori gives two typical examples:
Parents with children will go to the class teacher and ask him not to use a red pen to correct homework because they are worried about hitting their child's self-esteem or seeing that they are in a bad mood. Lori calls it "the self-indulgence of parents using their children's self-esteem as an excuse."
The school has a junior soccer team, and organizers have invented various awards to make every child feel good. For example, give the best improvement award to the child who does not perform well but has improved, and the full attendance award to the child who does not achieve... All in all, everyone deserves praise, the team atmosphere is great, and there are no losers. But in fact, all children know in their hearts who the MVP is.
"Damn Multiverse"
Sometimes, setbacks are not only necessary (we grow from failures), but real (it is more in line with the rules of the society in which we live).
Parents may not want to admit it, shyness, frustration, exclusion ... These experiences of negative emotions also belong to the right to growth.
As psychoanalyst Adam Phillips says, demanding pleasure destroys lives. There must be pleasures and pains in life, and if we try to eliminate suffering, cover it up or numb it with pleasure, or forget it by diverting our attention or the attention of others, we cannot learn to accept and adjust to it.
The possible consequence of stopping all setbacks is that the child cannot withstand precise feedback on himself. Their narcissism is so inflated that if they don't get praise for a job, they are criticized.
Died of "social happiness"
Obviously, my parents also want me to live a happy life.
As I continue to move the conversation forward, I see that they actually have a fairly strict set of criteria for what happiness is:
Own a house in Beijing (out of a myth that a house can end drifting)
Have a marriage partner with a higher income than me (the kind that is decent)
The child is the director in the company (yes, it can't be a junior employee, it can't be a founder.) Because the former is too humble, the latter is too laborious. As for why he is a director, it may be thanks to domestic workplace dramas)
In this way, no matter what misfortune happens, I can call it social happiness.
Later, I gradually realized that there is no difference between wishing that the child must be happy and hoping that the child must be ahead, but two different projections of parents based on their own wishes.
"My Uncle"
Possible psychological motivations for parents are:
1) Confuse yourself with your child's needs
"My brother broke his leg playing football as a child, so you should never engage in dangerous sports, especially football"... On some levels, the starting point for overparenting is always excusable.
Because of anxiety or fear, parents try to avoid the noise on the road of their children's growth, fill their emotional black holes, and even ignore parent-child boundaries, depriving them of the opportunity to develop a complete personality.
However, living authentically means that you also need to experience loss of control, collapse, unhappiness, and imperfection. We don't need to kill them, we just need to learn not to let ourselves be killed by negative emotions. It's important to distinguish whether your emotions are coming from the present moment or a superimposed reaction triggered by the past.
2) Deal with death anxiety with fantasy bonds
The "fantasy bond" is a concept developed by psychologist Robert Firestone that first emerged in response to interpersonal pain and separation anxiety. In fantasy bonds, parents alleviate their fears of loneliness, separation, and death to some extent by imagining the connection between themselves and their children—that is, the ultimate separation.
Parents will feel that they are one with their children and cherish the feeling of being needed by their children, such as washing socks for adult children and calling their children every day. But in reality, they may not even be fully integrated into the interaction with the child and appreciate what the child really needs.
"My Uncle"
An unexamined life is not worth living
Philippa Perry wrote in her book I wish my parents had read this book:
Not long ago, a pregnant mother-to-be asked me, if I were to give a piece of advice to new parents, what would it be?
I tell her: no matter how old your child is, he will remind you with actions about the emotions you experienced at his age.
The part you really need to learn about parenting is dealing with the feelings your child triggers in you, learning to put aside the barriers that childhood left on you (which hinders your true love, your instinctive warmth and acceptance as a parent, physical contact, physical presence and understanding), and then enjoy some of the adult pleasure.
Counselor Philippa Perry
Parents need to examine their own trauma (experiences, beliefs, expectations) and work to heal themselves rather than project onto their children. When we truly see ourselves and learn self-compassion, we gain freedom.
I would like to end today's article with the existential psychotherapist Owen Yalon's "most espoused life creed": An unexamined life is not worth living.
If you always feel:
Don't let me catch anything that disrespects my children, or you can see how terrible it is for those of us who have been PUA since childhood to resist!
Harm, wake up, that's just the late pimples that erupt on our middle-aged foreheads.
Discover quality education