I believe that many parents have more or less this experience: children grow up little by little, but I can't understand them more and more. The child is always inexplicably angry, is it because of a bad temper? The child always seems to be unhappy, is he sick? Why is the child holding a lot of things in his heart and unwilling to tell me?
In fact, many times children are just involved in the "emotional storm", and we, as parents, can do a lot to help them get out.
On the occasion of the 32nd World Mental Health Day, let's learn emotional parenting tips to protect children's mental health!
The ability of adolescents to identify, express and regulate emotions is still developing, and when they fall into negative emotions, emotions are often manifested in cognitive thoughts and behaviors, such as: increased negative thoughts, low or high self-evaluation, more interpersonal conflicts, more use of electronic products, more or too much control, decreased hobbies, less or more words, withdrawn behavior, reduced motivation, easy to be irritated, and even impulsive thoughts and behaviors such as injury and destruction, self-harm and suicide.
Here are a few ways parents can try to help their children relieve impulses, regulate emotions, and stimulate motivation. If your child has risky thoughts and behaviors, seek medical attention promptly.
1. "Free Circle" experience
Required materials:
A4 white paper, colored pen (colored pencil, watercolor pen, oil stick, marker, etc.)
Experience steps:
- Guide your child to draw a circle large enough on the paper. (It is equivalent to creating an absolutely safe, private and free space for yourself)
- Feel the strongest emotions or impulses within yourself at the moment. (Awareness of emotions)
- Pick a pen of a certain color that matches your feelings, and doodle with lines, shapes, speeds, and dynamics that match your feelings. (Give impulses and emotions an outlet and accept emotions)
-Pick a pen of another color to respond to the doodle you just made to make this creation look more comfortable. (Improve self-regulation of emotions)
- Name your work and share your thoughts throughout the creative process. (Verbalize feelings, identify "self-awareness processes", and improve the level of intellectualization)
When children and adolescents fall into emotions or impulses, they can use the above methods to draw a safe space for themselves and temporarily stabilize themselves. They then become aware of their inner emotion/impulse and present it in any color, shape, or line that matches their feelings. Painting or doodling is a kind of healing in itself, which is equivalent to providing space and cushioning for the participant, which can help the participant to have a moment of their own being, to return to their inner moment of stability. Creation is healing, in which the participant's emotions/impulses have been relieved.
The above method not only provides participants with an outlet for emotional release, but also hopes that the person can give some new responses to their emotions/impulses, that is, provide themselves with a new possibility. In the above experience, after guiding the participant to present the emotions/impulses through colors, lines, graphics, etc., he can be advised to make some additions to his improvised doodle creation, in order to make the person feel that the work looks more comfortable for himself.
Finally, participants should be guided to describe their feelings through the creation process, such as asking: What part of your original doodle creation was your first part? What is it saying? After giving yourself a response, does this work look different? What do you feel and think about during this process? ...... Guiding participants to express in the above way is equivalent to allowing him to raise his inner emotions and impulsive thoughts and behaviors from the level of feeling to the level of reason, from the level of the unconscious to the level of consciousness, and thus the level of intellectualization is also improved.
2. Music mood synchronization
Music can affect physical reactions, emotions, and cognitive thoughts at the same time. The physical, aesthetic, emotional and interpersonal functions of music itself have a positive effect on children's identification, expression and sorting out emotions. Generally speaking, children and adolescents prefer music, and then share the emotional intervention method of "music emotional synchronization".
Experience steps:
- Parents communicate with their children to understand the music they want to hear most at this moment. If you can ask: How are you feeling now? Would you like some music? What music will make you feel more comfortable at the moment? (Guide children to discover more resources and ways, such as music, etc., to help children return to themselves and comfort themselves)
- Play the music that the child wants to hear, and parents accompany the child to listen and feel. (The process of listening is actually to provide a safe enough "self-contained" space for children to allow emotional expression, and the company of parents will make children feel safe and supported)
- After listening to the music, parents and children share their thoughts on listening to this music. (Promote children to colloquialize feelings, enhance their awareness, recognition and expression of emotions.) Parents should recognize and understand their children's emotional feelings, and do not judge or evaluate)
- Invite the child to share more songs he wants to listen to on the basis of the child's consent, and the parents will accompany them to enjoy and discuss and share after listening. (Different music songs will bring different emotional feelings and have a positive effect on children's emotional expression and regulation)
The method of "music emotional synchronization" can provide an outlet for children's emotions, play a buffer role, help promote emotional regulation, and enhance parent-child relationship, and good parent-child relationship has important value for adolescent emotional stability.
3. Tear paper
Required materials:
Paper (the material, size, etc. of the paper can be selected by the child, or prepared by parents in advance, preferably paper that is easy to tear)
Experience steps:
- Follow your inner impulses and tear the paper at will, such as speed, strength, direction, etc. that you feel most comfortable with
- After tearing the paper, express the emotions of the moment in words.
When a child is in a strong emotion or impulse, this method can effectively release and relieve the emotion or impulse, so as not to trigger hurtful behavior when a strong emotion or impulse appears. Parents and children can also draw inferences from one case and explore more ways and methods, such as smashing pillows, pillow fights, poking erasers, etc., to better promote the release and relief of emotions or impulses, and improve children's awareness and expression of emotions.
In this case, we need to guide children to accumulate positive emotions and find self-worth.
When a person is in negative emotions for a long time, positive emotions may be ignored, so we need to spend extra energy to rediscover positive emotions.
For parents, we can create conditions for children to experience positive emotions. For example, take your children to participate in some activities that interest them, go on trips, participate in public welfare activities, etc.
■ Spend time in nature
■ Painting
■ Various sports such as walking, running, swimming, playing ball, skating, cycling, etc
■ Dancing
■ Have dinner with friends
■ Make food
■ Watch movies/read books/listen to music/watch dramas/watch exhibitions/go to the zoo
■ Tidying / cleaning
■ Picnic
■ Fantasy
■ Volunteer
■ Do handicrafts
■ Keep pets
■ Take a bath
■ Plant flowers and plants
It is also possible to help children build their own list of values by following these steps:
Step 1
Make a list of the time that may take each time for activities that make your child feel pleasant or calm. There are only 24 hours in a day, and even if we have a lot of activities that we feel worthwhile to participate in, we need to consider the time each activity may take. If we exceed this time, this activity may drain our energy and become a burden. Another advantage of making a list of times is that when we need them, we can choose the right activity to do according to the schedule of the day.
Step two
Checklist of the composition of the activities. In order for this list to be available at all times, we need to include at least three types of activities on the list: activities that do not require the participation of others, activities that do not require the participation of others, activities that do not require a lot of additional equipment or materials, and activities that can be completed with others.
Step 3
Keep the checklist within reach and have your child do one of the activities above each day. Focus and engage in the process of doing it, be aware of the whole process, collect pleasant or calm feelings, and experience the self in the present moment.
Let rebellion be sublimated and allow "rebellion" in an appropriate way.
Rebellion is a good thing for children and adolescents, because only through rebellion can they spontaneously explore the world, which is very important for them to gain self-affirmation and sense of achievement in the future, and reduce their susceptibility to negative emotions. We can also make a list, discuss with the child, and find a mutually acceptable way to rebel, here are the specific steps:
Step 1
Brainstorm and list all the rebellious ways. At this step, we don't think about feasibility and security, just open your mind to what kind of activity is a rebellion.
Step two
Cross out inappropriate ways of rebellion. Inappropriateness refers to serious effects on life safety and health. Examples include suicide, drug use, gambling, high-risk sexual behavior, etc. Parents need to discuss with their children what is inappropriate for rebellion and provide knowledge when the child lacks the knowledge to ensure that the child can understand. For some controversial rebellious methods, such as perms, hair dyeing, tattoos, etc., it is possible to discuss when this rebellious method can be done and what kind of impact it may bring. If there is a large impact, how to minimize it. For example, you can wear a colored wig door on weekends. Here tell the child that they need to take some responsibility for their actions, so rebellion requires not only choosing the right way, but also choosing the right time and place.
Here are some rebellious ways to refer to:
Give an honest answer, even if the honest answer doesn't get the listened to
■ Wear non-mainstream dress on holidays when going out
■ Question opinions you disagree with
■ Let go of things that meet mainstream expectations but don't work
■ Say "no" to a loved one's request
■ Scream or shout when alone
■ Go to bed late and wake up late on weekends
■ Listen to songs at home without headphones
■ Don't put things where they should be
■ Do something that doesn't fit your personality
■ Buy things that are not practical but you like
■ Have a pet
■ Be yourself, even if others don't like it
■ Wear a T-shirt with your favorite slogan printed on it
The above content is excerpted from the new book "Family Emotional Parenting: A Practice Manual for Wise Parents" in the "600 Psychology" series, which is jointly published by the Shanghai Mental Health Center and Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press, which provides some communication advice for parents when children have different emotional states, and many of these methods are also applicable to every adult.
Xie Bin, Secretary of the Party Committee of the Shanghai Mental Health Center, said, "Emotional nurturing is a long-term task throughout the child's growth process, which requires us to continuously invest time and energy. Every child is unique and has different characteristics, parents should strive to understand the inner world of their children, listen to their voices, reflect on the experience and adjust strategies in time, so as to really help children gain healthy emotional management skills. ”
The publisher said that it hopes that this book can help parents open a door to a vast field in the difficult road of parenting - nourishing children's hearts with warm emotions. As nurturers, we can also use the power of children's growth to see ourselves and achieve a better version of ourselves.
Reporter: Yu Tingyuan
Editor: Xu Yuelin
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