Returning home during the summer vacation, I encountered frequent cultural conflicts, how did I solve it?

Highlights of this article:

In the blink of an eye, I haven't been back to China for five years. Just after the New Year at the beginning of this year, I couldn't wait to buy a ticket to return to China during the summer vacation, and enthusiastically drew my child how to eat fragrant, drink, and spicy scenery and enjoy the big cake of how to return to China for three months. Who expected that less than two weeks after returning to China, my children and I would have symptoms of "water and soil disobedience" one after another.

This symptom is not a physiological "disobedience", but a cultural "disobedience" in lifestyle and way of thinking, which is often called cultural conflict. Broken down, these conflicts are not only in overseas Chinese families, but also widely exist in domestic families, but are wrapped in the terms of urban-rural cultural conflict and intergenerational cultural conflict.

What are the dynamics behind these conflicts? How should children be guided to face and solve it? This article will provide some superficial discussion of these issues.

First, the first symptoms appear

The child was only a year and a half old the last time he returned to China, and there was no opportunity to experience the "culture clash". When I returned to China this year, I was just over six years old, an age when self-awareness was soaring. Although I made some preparations in my heart and did not expect that the life of returning home would be a happy scene, I did not expect that the conflict would occur so frequently and intensely. Just give a few examples.

Conflict one

Attend a family gathering banquet. The child Momo is reluctant to serve it, because most of the dishes at this banquet she can't eat (coordinate Sichuan, most of the dishes are spicy), and the few that are not spicy are not used to her eating. At this time, several relatives and elders took turns to advise: "Be polite" and "Don't be picky eaters", and after some persuasion, the child's mood is already very tense. Next is the whole family toast together, the child is unwilling to raise a glass, and it is another turn of persuasion. When everyone finished toasting and sat down, the child completely collapsed and broke out: "I haven't even toasted yet, you all have finished drinking!" Then fell into crying.

Conflict two

The child plays with several cousins at the cousin's house. Some props such as scissors and white paper need to be used, and the child goes to the adult of the cousin's house. The adult insisted that the child call her by the correct name in order to give something, but the child refused to call. At first, she probably didn't know how to call it, but the adults taught her how to call it again, but the child still refused to call it. After a few minutes of stalemate, the child gave up and walked away. For the next two hours until he left, the child was not very interested, and his emotions were obviously in a state of irritability, but he finally controlled it and did not come out.

Conflict three

Playing with my cousin, an object falls to the ground and the child says, "I'll pick it up myself." My cousin picked it up directly. The child didn't know how suddenly his temper came up, and said again: "I said I will pick it up myself", and then threw the thing back, but I didn't expect my cousin to pick it up again. The next two people reached an impasse, one had to throw it back and pick it up again, and the other had to help pick it up. After a few rounds, both collapsed.

2. Searching for the cause of "disease"

At first, everyone thought that these big and small conflicts were strange to the environment and were not used to it, and I did not pay too much attention to them. But two weeks passed, not only did not improve, but the child became more and more temperamental, and conflicts became more frequent. That's when I realized that some intervention might be needed.

To intervene, you need to understand what is really happening to the child. What are the intrinsic drivers of conflict?

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The first layer of exploration

The first thing that comes to mind is that children may not adapt to the environment of "too many people" in China. More people does not mean that there are many people in the absolute sense, such as walking on the street, going to any attractions, eating and shopping, etc., all activity places are full of people. While this is also true, these strangers do not have much impact on children. What really affected her was that there were suddenly too many people crowded into the space of daily life.

In the child's upbringing, it has always been a small family of three people. Even if you often make appointments with friends, the two spaces of "play" and "life" are separate. And back in the country, the boundaries of "life" are suddenly blurred. Visiting the homes of various relatives and elders, countless cousins accompanied everywhere they go, and worse, often need to stay at relatives' homes for a day or two, resulting in serious invasion of personal space.

There was once a conflict that showed this "sense of being invaded" in children.

On the way back to his grandparents' house, the child asked his grandmother, "Are we going to your house?" ”

Grandma said, "It's your grandparents' home, it's your mom and dad's home, it's your home." ”

The child refused: "That's not my home, my home is in America." ”

Grandma always wanted to convince the child that this was also her home, but the child never admitted it, and finally I changed the subject.

It can be seen that for the child, her living space is not only filled with so many relatives who suddenly appear but have never met, but also completely lose their "foothold". This double compression of living space and psychological space may be one of the reasons for her frequent emotional loss of control.

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The second layer explores

Along this line, I began to consciously reduce the number of multi-person gatherings she needed to attend, minimize the frequency of visiting relatives and friends, and arrange a mother-daughter outing alone from time to time. When I took her out alone, the child's mood was indeed much better, and the two of them got along very easily, which was very close to the daily pattern in the United States.

My child also expressed to me several times: "I don't like so many people in China, they all come to annoy me." ”

I jumped at the chance and asked her, "Why do you think they're annoying you?" ”

The child said, "They always have to tell me many times about everything, and I know it and keep saying it." Other times I clearly said that I didn't need help, and they always came to help me. ”

I thought about it, and these scenes that the child said did come up a lot.

The first situation is some problems with living habits. For example, children don't like to wear slippers at home, sit on the floor, eat without holding bowls, like to drink ice water, etc., these are problems that my child's father and I usually don't care about; There are also some issues that I agree need to be paid attention to, but are not worth overemphasizing, such as eating and rubbing, not taking the initiative to call people, and sometimes talking not big or small (such as "Grandma, your belly is so big, you can play the baby game"). But in the eyes of many elders, these are problems that need to be corrected repeatedly, which makes the child feel "annoying" her.

The second case is slightly more complicated. My child is a person with strong self-esteem by nature, which can also be said to be extremely good face. When she is thwarted in doing something, a big taboo is to go up and help her casually, and nine times out of ten it will trigger a strong emotional confrontation in her. The relatives and friends and elders in the family do not understand her characteristic, and secondly, the elders are indeed prone to the habit of taking care of everything. For example, if the child is in trouble when building Lego, I will quietly wait for her to take the initiative to ask for help, and the elders may not be able to help out. And this help is often stepping on a landmine.

Therefore, after a deeper analysis, it is found that under the shallow reasons of "too many people" and "living space and psychological space are compressed", two clearer deep reasons can be excavated: 1. Too many cumbersome rules make children feel restrained; 2. Some behaviors of elders with insufficient sense of boundaries may trigger children's antagonistic emotions.

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The third layer explores

Digging into this step, I originally felt that it was enough to get it into place. After communicating these thoughts with the child several times, there were some results, and the frequency of the child's emotional attacks was reduced to a certain extent. I thought I had found the right direction, but I needed to communicate slowly over time. But one day when I was talking to my child on bedtime, my child's words shattered my illusions.

I asked my child, "Do you think China or the United States is better?" ”

The child replied: "I think there are good places in both China and the United States." But I think you treated me better when you were in the United States, and you treated me badly in China and often quarreled with me. ”

The child's words gave me a head start, and I suddenly realized the most important missing link in my analysis: myself.

I kept analyzing her interactions with her new environment, but forgot that I was the most important bridge between her and this environment.

So many relatives and friends she saw back to China were basically equivalent to strangers to her; All the places she went back to China were also unfamiliar environments for her. From her perspective, I am her most important connection to the outside world on this journey. She feels the attitude of the outside world towards her through me, and also judges how she should respond to the outside world through me.

The pressures and conflicts I analyzed earlier are objective, but what really stimulates children's emotional reactions is actually my reactions. If I can accept those pressures steadily, transform and absorb them myself, and then tell her what to do, then her reaction will be relatively peaceful and stable; And if I wasn't in a good state at that time, not only did I not do a good job of buffering my child, but I might have amplified the pressure from the outside world and passed it on to her, then she would have exploded 100% emotionally in this case.

Think back to the several major conflicts that came back home, and each time it fit this pattern, without exception.

The child's emotional control actually really reflects my emotional control.

Analyzing this, I believe that I have truly cleared the clouds and saw the light of day.

Third, the solution

Finally found the cause, so how to treat the problem?

The process of finding the cause is to explore layer by layer from the outside to the inside; Treating the condition requires a reversal of direction, starting from the deepest cause and eliminating it step by step from the inside out. And the deepest cause has been found, and that is me.

Therefore, the first step in the solution I developed was to stabilize myself.

Why did my mood become volatile after returning to China? In fact, the reason is very simple, the pressure that children face, I am also facing; Even because I need to help my child isolate the influence, I have to take on extra pressure. I don't like visiting relatives and friends frequently; I also do not agree with the interference of elders in children's living habits; The experience of being invaded by others at will, such as entering a room while I was sleeping or even showering, was also very troubling.

In short, if you don't live with your parents and elders for a long time, suddenly living together will inevitably have various frictions and conflicts. Under all these pressures, my own emotions are often in a flammable and explosive state, how can I help my child maintain stability?

Recognizing this, I took the following measures:

Adjust your mindset, focus more on things that are not related to your family (such as work), and reduce your focus on your family's behavior, which is commonly known as "out of sight, out of mind".

Be honest with your child: Mom has also been under a lot of pressure recently, because mom has a lot of discomfort in China like you, so she will be as prone to anger as you.

Every time you fail to stabilize yourself and cause your child to face escalation of conflict, you must immediately explain to your child after calming down: It's not your fault that the mother didn't control her emotions just now. If there is indeed something inappropriate in the child's behavior, make it clear that although the xx thing you just did is not right, it is not your fault that your mother yelled at you and made you start crying, because your mother did not control herself first.

The second step is to help the child understand the differences between people and people, but at the same time it is more important to stand firmly on the child's side and resist the pressure with her.

When your child is calm, talk to her about how to deal with and respect differences between people. In this process, the most important purpose is not to let the child understand how much reason, but to let the child feel the support of my understanding, so that she firmly believes that I am on her side.

For example, on the issue of differences in living habits, I discussed with her the foods that everyone liked:

Me: Everyone can have their favorite food, like you like to eat noodles, pizza, cucumbers, lettuce, your cousin likes to eat meat and fish, and mom and many people in Sichuan like to eat spicy. Everyone can have their own preferences and choices, and that's normal.

Kids: They always make me eat things I don't like.

Me: Because they think those are delicious things from their own point of view, they really want you to try them, maybe you will like it. Don't you know this too? After trying everything, you know if you like it or not.

Child: I'm just not used to it. I have never lived in China and it may take me a long time to get used to.

Me: You're absolutely right. Like many people in China, they will not be used to it when they go to the United States, and they will also be picky eaters. If someone keeps persuading them to eat a pizza burger, they may also find it annoying. It's just that they are adults, so they will know how to control themselves better and will not cry.

Child: Then when I grow up, I won't cry anymore.

Me: Yes, that's it. You are still learning how to control your emotions, there will be many times when you can't control it well, this is normal, and your mother often can't control herself. But mom will always grow up with you, and we can study together.

The third step is to let the child try to resolve the conflict on his own.

After a few doses of strong medicine for the cause inside, the conflict manifested in the outermost layer has obviously eased a lot. At this time, I chose to let the child solve most of the conflicts on his own. Whether it is communication with elders or playing with cousins, although it is inevitable that there will be some stumbling, more than half of the time it can be solved by themselves. Even when I wasn't involved, she was able to handle her emotions better, which was a waste of my efforts.

epilogue

The experience of these two months of summer vacation is actually a very good opportunity for children to grow. After returning to the United States, I could clearly feel a stepwise leap in her emotional cognitive ability:

Be able to better put yourself in the shoes of others and see problems from the perspective of others;

Be able to actively perceive the emotions of others and adjust their own state to adapt;

When emotions are stimulated, they can calm themselves down more effectively and reduce the chance of evolving into emotional outbursts;

After an emotional outburst, it can also calm down faster;

Be able to communicate her emotional feelings and desires more effectively, such as telling me why she is angry and what I need to do to keep her angry during an attack.

Although these abilities are not yet proficient, they are still in the stage of Duan Yu's initial training of the Six Veins Divine Sword, and the spirit is not good from time to time. But for a six-year-old to do that, I have no more to ask for. The road to emotional learning is long, and I will go up and down with my child!

Author's note: The child's father is completely invisible in the text because the child's father did not return to China with us during this summer's vacation, so the problems encountered were only solved by the mother. It is hereby explained.