This easily overlooked misunderstanding of thinking makes me more and more timid the more I raise my children

Highlights of this article:

Parents, what you think is immediate, in fact, is often counterproductive.

Why do we clearly establish rules, but children are confused and timid, but retreat to places where parents cannot see and refuse to communicate?

Today, we're going to break it down and sort it out, and you're sure to learn something from it!

The full text has a total of 4946 words and a reading time of 13 minutes

My child is called Xiaoxiao, who is 6 years old. Before he became more and more timid, he was extremely bold. How bold is it? I will mention two examples, and it will be clear.

The first example is not being afraid of people.

The reason why Xiaoxiao is called laughing is because he was born laughing. When the child was babyserving, the other children were crying, but he smiled at the nurse and the doctor. Friends and family came to congratulate him, who said to him: "Hello! "It makes him laugh. The security guard of the community, the neighbors upstairs and downstairs, and the owner of the nearby shop all know him, because other children have to hide when they see the living, and Xiaoxiao takes the initiative to stretch out his hands to hug. Go out to play in the park, run in front with a smile, hug the thighs of every passerby, raise their little faces, and call grandparents, uncles and aunts in an urn.

Smiling and thinking that everyone is fine, my father and I are afraid.

During a vacation, our family went to Chengdu with friends. Jinli is crowded. Smile and sit on the waist stool, and can't stop yelling. We couldn't help it, so we put him on the ground. Who knew that as soon as his feet touched the ground, he flicked his legs into the crowd and disappeared in the blink of an eye. My dad and I were so frightened that we struggled to cut through the crowd and chase him, finding him for several minutes—he was following an uncle to grab someone's clothes.

The second example is not being afraid of heights.

I look at Developmental Psychology, and there is an example in which researchers set up a cliff several meters high with a glass plate on which the baby is placed at one end and a mother or toy stands at the other end to entice the baby to climb forward. It is said that the babies involved in the study stopped moving when they climbed to the cliff and carefully observed the "cliff" in front of them. From this, it is concluded that babies have a natural perception of space and danger.

But smiling is not part of the study's conclusions. There is a high platform in our community, on which is planted a yellow gum tree surrounded by two people, with wrong roots, stretching in all directions, ten meters high under the stage, followed by a small square paved with granite. When Xiaoxiao learned to walk, he walked specifically to rough places, and every time he stepped on the roots of the yellow gum tree to the edge of the table, and when he grinned, he had to jump down - if he didn't hold it in time, he would have to fall miserably. If you don't let it go, he won't do it, and every day it makes adults worry.

In addition, there are countless examples such as not afraid of water, walking by ponds and rivers, not afraid of animals, resting their hands in the mouth of large dogs, catching mice with their bare hands, and so on.

But what worries me and my father the most is the willingness to go with strangers when we go out, and our lack of awareness of dangerous places such as heights and rivers. Although I know that I want my child to experience and develop more, every time I see the news of a child's loss or accident, my heart beats a drum - let's not talk about how good it is to raise the child, but the basic safety must always be guaranteed.

At first, in order not to undermine his sense of security, we adopted a conservative strategy, using rules to regulate behavior.

For example, the agreement: if you go to someone else's house, you must go with your mother; When walking on the road, you have to hold your mother's hand, and you must first tell your mother where you want to go and go with your mother. And always chant: You are still young, you can't protect yourself yet, and your mother won't see that you will worry ...

For high places and water sources, we also initially drew red lines, one is that we must not jump down, the second is that we must not go alone, and the third is how far we must be from the cliff and water. Six words repeatedly: Danger, I'm worried.

After a period of implementation, Xiaoxiao did not buy it, still how to come and how to come. Walking with his father by the river in winter (the community we live in is an island), he saw the red-billed gull in the winter, stunned and rushed into the water, and collapsed his father, pulled him to first ear and order to educate him, and then picked up a stone and threw it into the water, and warned sternly: Look, the stone falls into the river and sinks, and if you fall into the river, it will sink and die.

I threw stones into the river a few times, smiled and knew how powerful it was, and did not go to the water's edge again. When my father and I saw that this method worked, we drew the gourd and applied it to other things: dropping an egg and a glass to show him the consequences of falling from a height; I found some educational videos on the Internet specifically for children, telling him about the dangers of the road, the horror of human traffickers, and from time to time telling him what to do if he gets lost, who to find for help, someone with candy should not follow, and remember phone numbers.

The family knew that he was "afraid of death", and when he was sick and did not want to see a doctor to take medicine, injured and unwilling to deal with the wound, they tried to convince him with words such as "wound infection may have bacteria invade the body".

The effect is good and the results are immediate every time. Over time, we realized that things weren't quite right. Children are a little too afraid of potential dangers from the outside world.

In the past, the soles of the feet were pierced by glass and could still be padded and bouncing around, but now I am so nervous that I tear my eyes when I scratch the skin, and I can't help but ask: Will there be a lot of blood? Will it die? I used to run without a shadow when I went out, but now I pull me tightly, go out for a trip, no matter how beautiful the scenery is, he turns back step by step, for fear that he will lose it. I used to want to go fishing for water everywhere I went, but now when I can play with the water in the bright light, I stand in the ditch but I am so cautious that I don't move. Eat fruits and vegetables and see something wrong with the color, it will never eat again. Once in a classmate, when he heard the words "the earth is going to explode", he cried in fright ...

Now, friends and family have almost forgotten how bold he was when he was a child, and he said that he was "smiling and timid" and "he was very cautious".

I never figured out what was wrong. Although we can't escape overkill, the methods we used have also been consulted for a long time, and have been covered by various education experts, one did not scold and did not intimidate, that is, to tell the facts and put the truth, how did it become like this?

It wasn't until I heard a mother-daughter conversation while walking the other day that I figured out what I was wrong with.

The scene that day went like this: on a dimly lit embankment, a girl hula-la on a scooter rushed forward, and her mother shouted from behind: Baby, can you please slow down? Mom's legs are short, she can't walk so fast, and I will worry if she can't catch up with you. The girl stopped and turned around, and her mother stepped forward, smiled and said: Thank you for stopping, thank you for taking care of my feelings, I feel that I am valued, I am very happy.

At that moment, my heart clicked, and I became smarter almost immediately. The same worry about the child's accident out of his line of sight, the same telling the child to stop behavior, this mother and I are completely different ways of thinking.

She is very particular about her language. Instead of saying "how are you wrong", she said "I am very uncomfortable", she did not say "how should you be", but "I hope you can understand me", and finally "because of your behavior, my spirit has been satisfied".

While achieving the goal of not letting the child run around and avoid danger, she successfully conveyed three meanings to the child:

1. There is no problem with your behavior, you are fine.

2. You can have the ability to take into account the feelings of others and adjust your behavior to take care of others.

3. Your understanding can give great comfort and encouragement to others, and you make the world a better place.

This is an excellent personality guide for the child, helping the child to realize and develop how to become a strong and kind person. In such a language, how can a child be timid when he constantly perceives his own strength?

She is guiding the child's behavior in a positive way.

On the other hand, my father and I have always expressed and guided the smile, all of which are conveying these messages to him:

1. There are many dangers and horrors in this world.

2. You are not capable of facing and dealing with these dangers.

3. Your behavior is inappropriate and wrong.

As soon as this information is translated by the child's brain, it is almost a sentence: the world is bad, and so are you. Invisibly shapes a pessimistic, negative, terrifying worldview to children. He is like he was thrown into the dark primeval forest, how can he not be afraid? How can you be confident?

We are guiding the child in a negative way.

Positive and negative, these are two perspectives on things, two completely different outlooks on life. It is not only the expression and influence of this one, it will penetrate into the bits and pieces of daily life, and influence the child at any time: for life, we are an open, accepting mentality, or a rejection, anxiety mentality - this is the core of the child's sunshine confidence or cringe and timidity.

Looking back, isn't the state presented by the "bold" smile of the past a natural openness and acceptance of the world?

Once you figure it out, things will be easy to do. As soon as I met with my dad, I almost immediately finalized my future improvement guidelines:

1. Improve language, from expressing "you" to expressing "I".

Language is a powerful tool that can strike the heart. Parents' language conveys the most subconscious emotions and motivations, and children are usually able to capture them accurately.

We usually remind children, mostly "you don't", "you should" and "you can" as the beginning, on the surface is a reminder, but in fact it is a denial and accusation. Because the words "you, me, him" are very specific, it does not represent things, but specific people, when we express with the word "you", what is negative is the child itself. This pits us against our children.

Think about it, in work and life, whenever I hear others say "you don't" and "you should", I will be more or less uncomfortable, feeling that the other party is condescending, wanting to overwhelm me, and my heart will be defensive and resistant.

It's the same with children. But the child loves us, but does not have the strength to fight back against us, and its discomfort has to be suppressed. They also trust us, they will write down our evaluation of him, and over time, they think that they are really "bad" and "not good". Over time, it stifles self-confidence and promotes low self-esteem.

The most direct way to circumvent this is to change the expression "you" to the expression "I". For example, "I think", "I feel", "I hope" and so on.

Just like that mom, instead of expressing "you can't go too fast, it's dangerous" the expression "Because I'm worried about you, I want you to stop". It has nothing to do with the quality of people, it has nothing to do with the right or wrong of things, it is just the private feelings and needs of "me". In such a context, the child is not blamed, but expected.

This is the first and most important step in improvement.

2, learn to show weakness, ask children to help more

Parents are always all-powerful and strong in front of their children, which makes the child feel secure and makes him feel inferior for his weakness. Like a hen spreading its wings to protect the chick, the protection also casts a shadow on the top of the chick's head.

Showing weakness is when the hen spreads its wings, her muscles and bones are sore, and she has a lot of effort, and she needs the chicken to help with the help of branches underneath. This changes from a unilateral power export to a cooperative conspiracy of two people - I want to protect you, but there are some things I can't do, I need you to help me complete this together, you are not the passive receiving party, you are an important participant, it is my strength.

Just like that mom did. She found a weak point for herself: her legs were short, she couldn't walk fast, and she needed her child to slow down to cooperate with her. She invites the child to "conspire" together, so that the child can be the master of the relationship and feel his own strength.

3. Discover the good side of things and tell your child about it

That mother didn't constantly warn her children like I did: the world is dangerous, and there are many bad people out there. I believe that she will not emphasize the words "you will die" when facing water, facing fire, and facing "cliffs".

She ignored these anxious and disturbing factors, and after speaking out about her needs and inviting her children to conspire, she only expressed her feelings: Because of your behavior, I am very moved, happy, and satisfied. She only presents the good side of the incident to the child.

In the same thing, when Mom and Dad see light, the child is illuminated, and Mom and Dad see the darkness, and the child is covered. Children who have been walking in the light are, of course, confident and brave.

4. Give operational support to help him master the skills to protect himself

The last step is to work with your child to recognize the danger, analyze the danger, and master the way to protect yourself in danger.

A person's self-confidence must come from the level of understanding of things and the perception of self-ability.

Life is full of stressful and dangerous terrible things, and those things are like wall after wall, and if we run into it and escape, then we will always be trapped in the finite, spinning around in an increasingly small space.

Only those who dare to tear down walls and explore the way will gain experience, break through one wall after another, and move towards a vast world.

Take human traffickers, for example. Just because there are traffickers, we can't give up putting a child into contact with strangers, giving up traveling on his own, giving up letting him gather his own experiences.

We can calmly and rationally discuss with our children that there are a group of people in the world, hiding in the crowd and doing bad things. You can also look at the data analysis with your child: where and when traffickers usually commit crimes, and what are their methods. We can discuss ways to avoid it – for example, not walking alone in alleys, not going out alone after 9 p.m., how to effectively save yourself if you get lost, and so on. WE CAN ALSO PLAY DIFFERENT ROLES AT HOME WITH OUR CHILDREN COSPLAY, PRACTICING HOW TO RESPOND TO DIFFERENT SITUATIONS.

The best protection must be to enrich their cognition and strengthen their abilities.

5. Celebrate every small but great victory.

Children who dare not run water drip water, children who dare not light a fire light a fire, children who dare not go out to buy snacks by themselves go out, children who dare not sleep by themselves sleep by themselves sleep by themselves ... Every time a child changes, we have to celebrate with him. Not a simple boast of "you're great," but a formal meal, a full drink, and a cheerful toast to his victory.

The seeing, attention, joy and pride from parents will definitely turn into a full of pride and continuous strength in the child's heart.

To sum up, it is: change the language + learn to show weakness + see the good + exercise ability + celebrate victory.

After the plan, I can't help but ask myself: Will the smile change because of our ideas? I don't know. The road to parenting is full of pitfalls, and even if you are well prepared, you may step into a trap or rub a leg of mud.

But I think that only by going forward can we have a chance to reach the other side. This calmness may be the source of "acceptance".

Let's wait and see!

Raising children is a science, and it requires sincerity for heart. When we repeatedly receive complicated information from the outside world, it is better to go to the complicated and ask ourselves: what kind of person I am, what kind of parent-child relationship do I need; Ask the child again: What kind of person is Ta and what does Ta want me to give?

Don't always think about "teaching" children, you must first really see the child, see the characteristics of Ta, and take the child and explore together.