Parents do not respect their children in order to satisfy their "desire for control"? Be wary of this interpretation!

Text | He Rihui

Publish | Sunny day psychology

01. If it is always said that parents "control" their children, it is not good for them

"My parents are too strong, they let me go east, I can't go west."

"My parents never respected me, even if I just made a little opinion, they would suppress me."

"My parents treated me as an accessory to them, always asking me to fulfill their unfulfilled wishes, and never thinking about what I really wanted to do."

.......

Many teenagers complain that their parents' "desire to control" is too strong, and they are overwhelmed.

Many adolescent patients diagnosed with depression, bipolar disorder and other adolescents will easily see such information when they search the Internet:

Parents are too "controlling", and children are prone to depression;

Parents' harm to their children is all to satisfy their "desire for control" and so on.

In 2008, some netizens set up a "parents are scourge" group on Douban, which quickly absorbed a large number of group members, once as many as 120,000. Some well-known psychological counselors in China, such as Wu Zhihong, have also publicly stated the view that "parents are scourge". In this post bar, it is also full of words such as "parental desire for control".

On the web and in life, the term has become very prevalent. It seems that as long as parents ask their children to listen to their opinions, they can be labeled as "controlling".

However, is this behavior or education method of parents really out of "desire to control"?

The word "desire to control" comes from the psychoanalytic school, comes from the West, and how it is translated is difficult for us to examine.

In the Chinese context, if we say that one person "controls" another person, this meaning is often very negative, referring to the former's selfish desires, ignoring the latter's feelings and interests, and ordering the latter to obey its own orders.

Therefore, many teenagers are prone to anger when they see the message of "parents control their children", and they are more resentful and dissatisfied with their parents, and the parent-child relationship has seriously deteriorated. Some children even break with their parents. For adolescents who are still growing up and cannot be independent, such a rigid parent-child relationship often does more harm than good.

In fact, most parents who demand strong and do not know how to respect their children are obviously not for their own selfish desires. On the contrary, their greatest intention is to think that this is the best way for children.

Moreover, the social concept of our country, and even East Asia as a whole, is deeply influenced by Confucian culture, emphasizing "one hundred virtues and filial piety first." In the cognition of many parents, children should respect their parents and not go against their parents' wishes, which is to observe filial piety.

Therefore, many parents are strong and high-pressure on their children, on the one hand, they are worried that their children will make wrong decisions and live a miserable life in the future; On the other hand, it is due to the influence of traditional Confucian culture. Although there are problems with their concepts and methods, in any case, they do not "control" children out of selfish desires.

Whether from the perspective of the cultural gap between the East and the West, or from the perspective of parents' psychological activities, it is very unscientific and inappropriate to use "desire for control" to describe parents' mistakes in education.

We have met many adolescents in the clinic, and they have been misled by extreme psychoanalysts that all their problems stem from their parents' "desire to control". They went from depression to anger, with violent mood swings, and even hitting people and smashing objects at home.

In the eyes of mainstream psychiatry, this situation means that the condition is exacerbated, and it is more difficult for the patient to recover. And many doctors think that this is a symptom of a hypomanic episode, and it is easy to change the diagnosis of depressed patients to bipolar disorder, and suddenly become "major psychosis".

There is also a adolescent patient who suffered a lot of superimposed psychological trauma from her parents during her growth, and her heart was very depressed and painful, and she was diagnosed by other psychiatrists as depression and bipolar disorder.

Her parents took her to psychological counseling in the psychoanalytic school, and the psychoanalyst suggested that she could have a big fight with her parents to vent her negative emotions.

However, this patient was influenced by Confucian culture since childhood, and she could not quarrel with her parents at all. She fell into even more serious self-denial, believing that she could not even fulfill the counselor's requirements, and even desperately believing that her recovery was hopeless.

Moreover, after being misled, some teenagers may have very big conflicts with their parents, and even abuse and beat their parents in public. Although their parents definitely have the responsibility for family education, in the eyes of outsiders, how can children beat and scold their parents so much?

Once their out-of-control behavior is filmed by passers-by and posted on the Internet, it is easy to trigger public opinion, and netizens accuse them of being "white-eyed wolves", resulting in "social death", which is even more detrimental to the growth and mental health of adolescents.

02. Parents' intentions are good, but they urgently need to change their methods

In fact, when many parents hear their children accuse themselves of being too "controlling", they also feel very aggrieved.

Although they inadvertently cause a lot of psychological damage to children, objectively speaking, their starting point is indeed for the good of children. They love their children very much in their hearts and put a lot of effort into them. Many hardships in life, they would rather bear it themselves than let their children bear it.

Moreover, today's society is very seriously involved, and parents are "old and young", bearing huge psychological and economic pressure. It is already very difficult for them to work hard to raise their children as adults. But in the end, these parents do not get the understanding of their children, but are resented by their children! Many parents are also bitter and unable to talk to.

Moreover, some children become sensitive and extreme after being exposed to the non-objective statement of "desire to control", no matter what parents do or say, they will think that their parents want to control themselves.

For example, if parents say that they should write homework and play after school, children think that their parents have deprived them of their personal freedom, in order to satisfy their desire for control; Parents give some advice out of kindness, and the child thinks that the parents are commanding and forcing themselves ...

Some children have suffered from depression, bipolar disorder and other mental and psychological disorders, they are more like hedgehogs, full of thorns, and are likely to be angry because of a parent's inadvertent words and behaviors, and even hit people and destroy things. Parents are worried about the fluctuations of their child's condition and can only obey their child, resulting in parents who are also very miserable and physically exhausted.

If parents find that their children have this condition, they always interpret their parents' behavior from a negative perspective, which is likely to mean that the child has developed a sensitive and suspicious paranoid personality, and it also means that the child is likely to suffer a lot of superimposed psychological trauma from parents.

Although we do not consider this part of the parents to be "in control" of the child. It can also understand the grievances of parents, but if parents really want to ease the parent-child relationship and want to be good for their children, the last thing they should do is complain and blame their children.

On the contrary, at this time, parents should quickly strengthen the awareness and ability of self-reflection, and deeply think about the following questions:

Children always say that their parents are "controlling", which is of course misguided by some information. But why do your children have a strong resonance with these messages?

Does this mean that he has adopted improper family education methods, always disrespects children, and causes superimposed psychological trauma to children?

If we do cause a lot of psychological damage to children, what is the deeper reason behind this? In addition to being influenced by Confucian culture, are there also negative factors of our own family of origin?

For example, some parents also suffered superimposed psychological trauma brought by their parents when they were young, and accumulated a lot of negative emotions in their hearts. When they become parents, it is easy to be unable to control their emotions when educating their children, and they are too harsh and always harsh on their children.

A small number of parents even have the mentality of "daughter-in-law becoming a mother-in-law", thinking that they were always controlled when they were young, too depressed, and now they have finally become parents, and they can finally taste the taste of discipline their children. When they are in a bad mood, they may even inadvertently vent their anger on their children.

If these parents lack self-awareness, they can easily copy their parents' wrong education methods and continue the negative impact of their original family to the next generation.

Their children suffer a lot of superimposed psychological trauma from an early age, and the risk of depression and bipolar disorder is very high. Once suffered, parents will also feel very painful, and the whole family will find it difficult to move forward in this vicious circle, and may even fall into despair and continue to regress.

03. Adolescents can better achieve independence by understanding their parents' behavior more rationally

So, for teenagers, how can we understand more rationally that our parents are strong and disrespectful to us?

First, although parents have caused us a lot of psychological damage, most of them are unintentional mistakes because they do not master the real scientific way of family education.

Many parents out of the psychology of "hoping for their children to become dragons and daughters to become phoenixes" are easy to be too strict with their children. They hope that through rigorous education, children will have a better foothold in society in the future and gain a more prosperous life. But they do not understand the real law of guiding children to "adult talent", and will only blindly "chicken baby".

That is to say, parents love us, but their love is blind love, not wise love, not conscious love.

Second, parents ignore our feelings and thoughts, which actually has many objective factors, especially the influence of the times.

The parents of the post-60s and post-70s generation are very poor in materials during their growth period, and they are very satisfied if they can eat and wear warmth, and if they can still have books to read, it will be the happiest thing. Their emotional needs are not strong, and their parents are even less respectful of their children.

However, most children are now born with material satisfaction, or even material excess. According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, when the needs of survival and security are met, people naturally turn to spiritual needs, such as the desire to be understood, respected, and recognized.

This is the case with today's teenagers, who are particularly concerned about spiritual satisfaction and hope that their parents will give them more understanding and respect, listen to their own ideas, and let themselves decide something. But many parents lack awareness of this and still use traditional concepts to educate their children. Their perception is still stuck in the last century and has not kept pace with the times.

Third, we can repair the relationship with our parents to a certain extent, which is to make our emotions more stable, cognition more rational, learning, interpersonal relationships and even the whole person in a better state. In this way, we can concentrate and we are more likely to achieve our goals and achieve independence sooner rather than later.

Adolescents are still unable to be financially independent and often live with their parents, and if we are often angry with our parents and have parent-child conflicts, this will inevitably affect our academic performance, life status and mental and physical health. If we lose our own future because of the fault of our parents' education, it is also too worthless.

Therefore, we take the initiative to repair the parent-child relationship with our parents, learn to look at it rationally, and try to maintain emotional stability, which is to make ourselves better through the growth stage. We must consciously exert our subjective initiative, focus on learning and self-improvement, get out of our original family as soon as possible, achieve independence, and be the master of our own life.

When we have the financial means, we can choose how to get along with our parents. If it is really difficult to run in with our parents, we can only fulfill our legal maintenance obligations, usually do not interact too much, and avoid psychological harm from parents.

Of course, if parents also want to improve the parent-child relationship and do not want their children to misunderstand themselves with the word "desire to control", they must also make a lot of self-reflection, change and improvement to avoid causing new psychological trauma to their children.

If they can, parents can even sincerely apologize to their children for past mistakes and continue to improve the way they get along with their children.

Moreover, parents should learn the "three steps of benign communication" - empathy, listening, and active guidance.

Among them, empathy is the most important step, parents should stand in the child's point of view, try to understand their feelings, even if it is difficult to understand, at least listen carefully to the child's thoughts, do not judge and deny at will.

When it comes to making decisions, parents should try to take care of their children's opinions and feelings, respect their children's personal wishes in non-principled matters, and allow children to try and make mistakes. Even if parents want to change their children's decisions, do not blindly force them, but analyze the pros and cons behind different decisions with their children and guide them to make more rational choices.

Parents should fulfill three responsibilities - "birth, nurturing and education". In this day and age, it is not difficult for most parents to give birth to and raise their children.

But more importantly, parents should master the knowledge of accurate spiritual psychology, learn the real scientific knowledge of family education and the laws behind the adult growth of adolescents, and strive to become the ideal parents in the minds of their children.

If children can feel their parents' understanding and respect for themselves in the bits and pieces of life, it will naturally be easier to see their parents' dedication and good intentions, and love their parents from the bottom of their hearts. When they come into contact with information such as "parents have a desire to control their children", they will naturally have their own rational judgment and are not easy to be misled.