How can I prevent my child from developing personality abnormalities? Is "born to offender" established?

Recently, a fourth-grade child in a primary school in Shanxi has been abused by boys in the same class since the second grade, and the abuse method refreshes the cognition, which makes people angry and causes heated discussions. Coincidentally, at a middle school in Shanghai, two 13-year-old girls returned to the classroom during physical education class to pour a clean bleaching mixture into the water cups of their classmates, causing many students to develop uncomfortable symptoms. In a vibrant campus, how can bullying and poisoning occur? What is the motivation of the evil teenager? How can parents prevent personality abnormalities in their children? Tencent Parenting's "Children Are Not Depressed" column invited Qingtianma, Tencent News Knowledge Officer and National Second-level Psychological Counselor, Chen Bi, Associate Professor of the College of Criminal Justice of China University of Political Science and Law, and Chen Xiaobi, Senior Lawyer and Civil Administrative Litigation Consulting Expert of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, to discuss the prevention and causes of children's pathology.

Core Ideas:

• 1

  In early adolescence, the worldview and outlook on life will not be fulfilled, emotionally immature, do things without thinking about the consequences, and are easily affected by the surrounding environment.

• 2

  Crime is definitely not caused by biological factors, but more by family and society.

• 3

  Groups that are easy to be bullied, victims who are easy to be targeted by criminals, are often loners, fathers do not love their mothers, and the more marginal children, the easier it is to become perpetrators and victims.

• 4

  The higher the degree of attachment of a person and society, then the lower the probability of committing a crime.

• 5

  Parents should not be too anxious about natural crime, which is still a small probability event.

Sunny Mother: From a psychological point of view, what is the cause of this pathological psychology in children in adolescence, which should be naïve?

Chen Bi: Children in early adolescence, the world view and outlook on life will not be achieved, will be affected by some eye-catching, more vulgar outlook on life, in the process they will identify more with their friends, so we see that many illegal and criminal acts are caused by friends, such as friends who suffer losses and are bullied, and generally juvenile crimes are often more common crimes.

Children in this period have the urgent desire to change themselves from children to adults, so they will do a lot of social roles to try to play, when playing social roles, lecture morality, to help others out, to pull gangs. But their emotions are immature, they want to become adults, and they lack the ability to empathize with adults.

There is also recklessness, small things, they will explode, emotionally uncontrollable, self-control is relatively weak, it is difficult to control their behavior. So it may also show some primitive instincts of our human beings, it is difficult to control themselves, precisely because of this characteristic, after the accident they are easy to regret, regret why I can't control myself? In fact, this is also what they deserve to save.

Chen Xiaobi: I make an inference from professional experience and theoretical knowledge, I guess that the information that teenagers are exposed to is too wide and too mixed, and when we are teenagers in this age group, we may return to the inner show, you want to show yourself, you are passively need parents and teachers to promote. Today's children are exposed to too much information, but school and home education are not keeping up. Parents and schools need to fully understand that children are currently exposed to a large amount of information, to identify whether it is harmful? Guide them in the right direction.

Italian criminologist Lombrosso, wrote a book called "The Theory of Criminals", the theory is "born criminals", based on this theory, we do not rule out that a very small number of adolescents or adults have criminal genes, of course, this conclusion is controversial, crime is more affected by the environment. What I would say is that if there is no right guidance, or proper intervention, it will get worse. For example, some people are abusers of school bullying when they are teenagers, and they may embark on the road of breaking the law and committing crimes when they grow up, because they get pleasure from bullying and injury, that is, they carry out harmful behaviors, which can bring psychological pleasure to them.

Lombrosso and The Treatise on Criminals

Sunny Mom: Is there really a genetic condition in terms of crime or antisocial personality? Is there what we call "human nature is intrinsically evil" or "born bad", how do we view this matter?

Chen Bi: Nurturers can actually rest assured that my own view is that every child given to you is perfect, and this should be the attitude of the nurturer.

Lombroso is the founder of criminology, proposed the "born criminal theory", he made a tracking of some particularly vicious series of murderers, and then performed an autopsy, found that these series of murderers, skull, and physiological characteristics, some are different from normal people, his conclusion is that these people may have biological atavism, apes in that dark jungle, if they want to survive, they may have to be slaughtered. They will have characteristics such as lack of empathy, less pain, and less shame.

Lombrosso's student, another master of criminology, Fili, also proposed that this kind of natural offender is only a part of the extremely low probability, the formation of crime is to people, family and society three elements of influence, so I also hope that parents do not worry, crime is definitely not caused by physiological factors, in fact, more family and social reasons.

Sunny Mother: I asked a Chinese prison guard in New Zealand what is the common point behind the crime, and he said three very interesting points, first, which community this person comes from, such as slums, or the security and conditions of the community itself are not very good, or there are many social chaos among teenagers, if the child comes from this kind of community, the probability is that they will be in a bunch in their prison; Second, family status, these children's parents are drunk and drug-addicted, and the parents' marital status and the entire family state are particularly poor; Third, the level of education, children are likely to be out of school very early. In addition, he also observed that the family is relatively stable, the parents' education level is relatively high, and the overall family structure is relatively good, which is very rare in the area under his jurisdiction.

Sunny Mother: Does juvenile delinquency have a lot to do with the original family? Is there something in the family that makes these children more likely to go to the margins?

Chen Xiaobi: First of all, let me respond to what Professor Chen Bi said, there is now a school called the Spiritual Research School, which specializes in juvenile delinquency, and according to their theory, juvenile delinquency generally has some mental defects.

Regarding the influence of the original family on children, there is a particularly famous sentence, called: unfortunate childhood needs a lifetime to heal, which is the impact of the original family on a person. I met a mother and son who came to counsel, dressed in old clothes, looked poor, the boy's father was an alcoholic, had all kinds of bad habits, the mother had no job, lived in an old alley, and this environment the child was admitted to college, which showed that his mother at least gave him love and protection.

If he has been discriminated against since childhood, and there are all kinds of bullying, he may also go astray, at least traumatized. We can't say that every child can become a talent, but as long as we give enough love and care, at least we can grow up healthy, live with a stable mentality, be an ordinary person, and have an ordinary job.

Sunny mother: In fact, the child still hopes that the people around him can give him a positive feedback, if the child is not so good at learning, all aspects of interests and hobbies are not liked, you give him a long-term denial, relatively speaking, the child is lacking love, not only criminal acts, I observed, easy to be bullied groups, easy to be targeted by criminals victim group, often alone, father does not love the mother does not love, the more marginal the child, the easier it is to become the perpetrator and victim. In a family with frequent domestic violence, when the child grows up, he either abuses others or is subjected to domestic violence, and he feels that this matter is a normal social mode, because he has not seen what a normal family looks like, and what normal communication between people looks like, so it will default to a social way.

Sunny Mother: In the case of more and more crimes committed at a young age, is the law on the protection of minors a kind of shelter for the perpetrators?

Chen Bi: If you have children at home, you are actually worried about two aspects, one is whether your child will become a victim, and the other is whether he will do something that should not be done, and now the criminal law is also working from these two aspects. Our country passed the 11th amendment to the Criminal Law in 2020, specifically lowering the age of criminal responsibility for minors, and previously people who have reached the age of 14 and are under the age of 16 should be criminally responsible for eight types of crimes such as intentional homicide, intentional injury causing serious injury or death, rape, robbery, etc. Anyone who has reached the age of 12 and commits intentional homicide or intentional injury resulting in serious injury or death may report to the Supreme People's Procuratorate for investigation of criminal responsibility. So in fact, two or three years ago, our country's criminal law has already put forward a position, that is, two-way protection, not only to protect young people from being victims, but also to curb the evil of such teenagers.

Of course, criminal law alone is not enough, there is also the law on the prevention of juvenile delinquency, and the law on the promotion of family education, and these laws must be added together to try to form a good family and social environment. I personally prefer to spend my time on prevention, and no amount of energy on education is more necessary and precious than condemning sanctions after the fact.

Chen Xiaobi: In 2019, there was a 13-year-old boy killing a little girl in Dalian, which shocked the whole country, which promoted the reform of legislation, and we must accept the status quo, that is, the laws of the world lag behind social development. Before this case in 2019, there was also a 13-year-old child killing a classmate in Hunan in 2018, so many incidents, everyone has been paying attention to the appeal, so the reform of legislation has been promoted, I think this is also a necessary process. I am not opposed to severe punishment for certain intentional injuries, which is the need of simple justice, but exchanging the rotten life of a criminal for the life of a good person, in addition to meeting the needs of most people for simple justice, actually does not play an absolute deterrent effect.

In the process of communicating with their children, parents should pay attention to empathy, communication and communication should be in place, because now the awakening of children's self-awareness is getting earlier and earlier, you have to use a way they can accept and say to him, what things can not be done, why can't be done, what are the consequences of doing this thing.

Sunny Mother: In daily life, at what time points or which small signals are released by children, parents and schools must pay attention to not simply naughty, but may really have a criminal trend?

Chen Bi: If there are adolescent children at home, you will definitely have moments when you feel that the distance between you has become farther, this may be intentional for the child, he wants to become an adult, wants to maintain a distance from you, and then he can establish his own circle, his circle is friends and classmates, if there are some deviant and illegal behaviors behind, it is precisely around these so-called classmates and friends, it has become a common criminal act.

At this time, you must not refuse to communicate with the child, don't feel that I have no way to communicate with the child, no matter. According to our social control theory of crime, the higher the degree of attachment of a person and society, the lower the probability of crime. Therefore, in adolescence it is necessary to establish a good relationship of dependence, do not give up the attachment bond between parents and children, you spend more time with him and he will definitely give you a feedback. Your evaluation is a very cherished thing for him, if he cherishes this attachment relationship and positive evaluation, then he will hesitate when doing some deviant behavior, which will reduce the probability of crime.

Another point is the sense of boundaries, parents in the family education, a very important point is to instill from an early age "your body boundaries can not be touched by others", as a parent must also respect the child's physical boundaries, such as after permission you can do certain things to him, he slowly understands that my body can not be done, he will also realize that I can not be hurt by others, the same can not do this to others.

Sunny Mother: It's not a sudden emphasis on this matter at a certain age, but a process. Just like the silk on a spider's web, the more silk pulls him, the heavier the baggage when he does some marginal behavior or transgression abnormal behavior. He will worry about how others don't like me, what if I do this, what if I hurt others, but if this person originally didn't hurt his mother, his grades were not good, and there was no one who cared about him, then whether he hurt others or hurt himself, no one cares. If children do not have a way to get positive support in their own small system, parents should pay attention and attention.

Chen Xiaobi: First, parents should not be too anxious about natural crime, it is still a small probability event, we must first guide children to adulthood, that is, how to become a person, and then become a talent.

Second, I think all children have a rebellious period, but some children are a little better, the rebellious period comes later, as long as the love we give the child is enough, the guidance given to him is positive, even if he takes some detours at a certain stage of life, it doesn't matter, believe in the child, he will come back. Our pursuit should be to experience different lives, feel different landscapes, and we can allow children to take some detours. As long as our basic education is in place, this foundation is laid, as for how to do the superstructure and how to go, we as parents give him enough support, and it is not a good thing for him to toss.

Sunny day mother: While guiding children to form a healthy psychology, it is also important to improve children's self-protection ability, how to let children learn to protect themselves correctly? What should parents do during the education process?

Chen Bi: Whether it is an adolescent child or not, from when he was a child, parents have to establish a sense of boundaries, this thing is owned by me, you can't take it, for example, some children will encounter bullying at school, he has any good things others must take away, if there is no sense of boundaries, he will feel that it doesn't matter I can buy again, if there is a sense of boundaries, in fact, he will have a concept of property rights and personal rights.

Second, respect the child's feelings. Sometimes the child says that I am uncomfortable and unhappy, or that I hurt me cold, and sometimes you may say that it is not so cold and will deny his feelings. But he said cold, is cold, only if he respects his feelings, if the future is violated, he can say it, many victims can't say a lot of childhood repressed things behind it. It is because the parents once disrespected him, he gave you hints where to be uncomfortable, but the parents did not respect him, how can he protect himself in the future?

Chen Xiaobi: First, high-quality companionship, why some parents only accompany their children for two hours a day is better than some parents who spend all day with their children, because high-quality companionship is very important. Carefully observed, precautionary, I can not accompany the child all day long, but he is willing to talk and communicate with me on every occasion when he is wronged, and find me at the first time, because he knows that I can not only observe his problems, but also coordinate with all parties at the first time.

Second, respect the child's self-awareness, we must have empathy, now the child's self-awareness is too strong, awakening too fast, we belong to a generation of savage growth, completely unprepared, so we have to think differently, you don't treat him as a 4, 5-year-old child, add 10 years old to him, treat him as a 15-year-old child, see what state he is, and then see what kind of psychology he is, why he has this psychology, slowly observe.

Third, do not shy away from medical treatment, and seek help from professionals in a timely manner. Some children are actually not simply a problem of adolescent rebellion, but really a psychological problem. If there is no reverence for parents, external professionals are needed to intervene at this time, and the child may only listen to change.

Finishing: Chen Yanbo

Reviewed: Cai Juan

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