Wang Xiaoqian said:
Parents feel that they have nothing to do with the word "abuse", but it is not necessarily true.
There are usually 2 types of abuse in the home: physical abuse and emotional abuse.
Physical abuse is well understood to be hitting a child, but emotional abuse is often overlooked. Yes, that's the word, "neglecting" a child, is an emotional abuse that hurts the child very much.
Wu Zhihong once said: "If there is no response, home is also a hopeless situation." ”
Rather than scolding, "ignoring" is more like an invisible sword, stabbing a child with mental destruction in a cold disregard, but not knowing it.
Ignoring children is actually a kind of "cold violence"
There is a French short film called "Scar Club".
It tells about the trauma children suffered in childhood, from tangible scars caused by scolding to invisible scars caused by parental indifference.
In the film, there is a little boy, he has two boy friends, a girl friend, four children, all have one thing in common: they all have "stains" on their bodies.
The difference is that the other three children's "stains" are red, while the little boy's is blue.
Later, the little boy learned that the "stain" of his friends was beaten out, and his own "stain" was caused by his mother's indifference.
In his home, his mother only watches TV all day, and he wants to talk to his mother, but his mother pushes him to the side without turning his head.
Every time mom silently "refuses", his world collapses once.
The "stain" that shone with blue light rushed towards him like a tide until it overwhelmed him and scarred him.
Indifference, neglect, disregard, non-communication, and non-communication, resulting in mental and psychological harm to others, is a typical "cold violence".
A zhihu netizen described it like this:
How to say it, being coldly violent by your parents, this feeling is like having a very blunt knife, constantly scratching on your body, constantly scratching, not bleeding, but the pain is very real.
Cold violence, like mental abuse again and again, physical wounds can be healed, spiritual wounds, invisible is easier to be ignored, so the difficulty of healing is also very large.
In her book Cold Violence, the French writer Marie François Irigoyan refers to cold violence as "invisible but real violence" and elaborates on its far-reaching dangers.
Specific to the "cold violence" of parents on their children, it is a huge impact on their personality, psychology and personality.
Children who have been "cold violence" by their parents for a long time are prone to extreme thinking, love to drill the horns, have low self-esteem, sensitivity, a sense of grievance, a sense of control, do not know how to express themselves, and will not deal with interpersonal relationships, fragile feelings, and changeable emotions.
To be precise, they are like a seed that drifts with the wind, always looking for a place to stay, but they are afraid of no one to accept, and they are afraid that they will not be able to take root and sprout.
Fear, self-denial, and emotional deprivation will be the hidden pains of their lives.
Ignoring the child will cut off the emotional connection between parent and child
I have a friend who is having a particularly unpleasant time with his children over homework.
Every time the little guy writes homework, he always and pees, or, lying on the desk in a daze, a simple calculation problem, can write for half an hour.
Friends have reasoned, yelled, scolded, beaten, and in desperation, said to the child: "Never care about your homework anymore." ”
After that, the "Cold War" began for the children.
On the first day, less than half a day, the child took the initiative to come to ask for peace, pulled the friend, and promised, and sweet talked, and the friend still ignored it;
At night, the child, who could have slept independently, actually asked to sleep with his mother, and in the end, the friend refused.
The next day, the child obviously began to be anxious, playing with everything absent-mindedly, peeking at his mother's face from time to time.
My friend said: "In the end, although the child was very serious about writing homework for two days, watching the child please me, I always felt that something was wrong. ”
It was really a pinch of sweat for her friend, fortunately, this method, she only used once.
In the book Neglected Child, clinical psychologist Jonis Webb notes:
Any parent in the world has ever made an educational mistake that disappoints their child. But what is really harmful is that parents ignore their children's emotions, and they have been deaf and blind to their children's emotional needs.
Children will make mistakes, disobedience, these behaviors, are part of the growth, parents can take a variety of ways, to infect or educate children, how to make up for mistakes, correct behavior, but can not because of the child's mistakes, to cut off the emotional connection between children and parents.
Ignoring the child is a very serious cut.
In fact, in the process of getting along with children, in addition to these reasoned "cold treatments", there are also some invisible neglect and indifference to children:
People are accompanying children, but they are absent-minded, playing mobile phones, playing games, and not communicating with children;
When the child encounters difficulties and needs companionship, the parents are at work and drive the child away;
The child is bullied outside, and the parents do not comfort them, but accuse the child of being "useless";
The child's body is hurt, or feels pain, the parents do not feel empathy, but say to the child: "I can't stand such pain"...
These seemingly ordinary small things, once or twice may not matter, the number of times, the child will continue to "be pushed out" feeling, there will be a strong "sense of abandonment".
In the end, I would only fall into deep self-doubt, and even my parents did not love me.
You know, this kind of invisible self-denial and doubt is difficult to be detected, but it will follow the child's life, they will be inferior in the heart, not wrapped in love, the soul is like being locked in a small black room, it is difficult to see the sun.
Educating children, both love and punishment, all need to be learned
The famous American social psychologist Abraham Maslow said:
If you deliberately avoid the heavy and do smaller things than you can do with all your might, then I warn you that you will have a very bad time in the days to come.
The same is true of parents educating their children.
For children who make mistakes and disobey, the simplest and most effective way is to cut off the emotional connection with them, leaving him in isolation and helplessness, and has to forcibly control his behavior in order to save the emotional connection with his parents.
However, this is also the way to hurt your child the most and deeply.
Parents can only promote their children to build good self-esteem if they emotionally protect and nourish their children.
How?
In the book "Children's Brains":
The author puts the child's brain on an old steam train with two locomotives, each with a boiler at each end.
A train helps children achieve their goals in life, and a locomotive points to negative behaviors that make children feel difficult and miserable.
Every act and every word of the parents is equivalent to adding firewood to the boiler.
Through this metaphor, it is actually telling parents that if they want their children to behave positively, they need to add firewood to the "corresponding boiler".
If parents simply stare at their children's problems, and in terms of behavior and language, they will strike and punish their children's mistakes, then it will only make the boiler representing "negative emotions" burn more and more.
In fact, everything has two sides, when parents learn to look at their children's behavior from a positive point of view, and encourage and strengthen, the child's brain, self-awareness, is positive, confident, I can, I am loved.
On the contrary, when parents just blindly use negative language such as "you are stupid", "you are bad", "you are useless", "you are not worthy of love", "writing homework is more important than you", etc., or physical behavior is passed on to the child, the child can only get worse and worse, more and more rebellious.
What is lacking in the relationship between parents and children is a kind of "seeing".
If you want your child to "see" the hardships and hardships of their parents, parents must first understand the motivation behind "seeing" their children's behavior.
Then, observe, feel, listen to their ideas, and respond in a timely manner.
Of course, when you really don't have time to respond to your child, be sure to look your child's eyes patiently, tell the specific time, and respond to your child in the promised time.
At that time, you will find that your children are really cute.
Wang Xiaoqian
Famous host, parent-child education expert, founder of "Wang Xiaoqian Parent-Child Theory", "Marriage and Family Psychological Counselor" of the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Love Promotion Ambassador of the "Family Growth Plan" of the China Women's Foundation, expert consultant of the "Love and Nurturing future" family early education public welfare project. In-depth study of self, family system and children's development rules, and continue to explore practical and operable child parenting concepts and family solutions. Because of its practice in the field of family education and its strong sense of mission and practice, it is trusted by millions of parents and mothers.