This article is compiled from Teacher He Lingfeng, PhD in social psychology, Shanghai Institute of Sport professor and doctoral supervisor; Teacher Lu Xiaoying, PhD in Developmental and Educational Psychology from the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and experts from the Chinese Dream·SPEC Love Communication Project Public Welfare Lecture Group The content of the forum "Management and Ignorance in Parenting and Parenting" organized by the 2022 National Family Education and Family Psychological Construction Forum is copyrighted. Excerpting and reprinting are strictly prohibited, and any infringement will be investigated!
People often say that in education, you must know how to "let go". In education, what aspects should be "let go" and what aspects should not be "let go"?
Teacher He Lingfeng:
When it comes to "letting go", I think parents should start from three aspects: Let go of the hand holding the child; let go of the hand of forcing the child; let go of the hand of dragging the child. Below , let me introduce it to you.
First of all, parents generally worry that their children will stumble or go astray on the road to growth. Therefore, many parents will rely on their own experience to plan their children's growth according to their own wishes and "hold" their children in their hands. I think parents should respect their children's wishes, give them a certain amount of freedom, and let go of their children's hands.
Secondly, in order for their children to "win at the starting line", many parents will enroll them in many tutoring classes and interest classes, regardless of their children's own preferences. When their children show resistance, many parents will take stronger measures to force their children to participate. Parents should loosen their grip on their children and allow them to have choices.
Third, when children make some requests, many parents will refuse them for various reasons. For example, if a child wants to go out to play, some parents will refuse on the grounds of study. In my opinion, parents should let go of their children's hands and let them do what they want to do.
In contrast to "letting go", parents must not "let go" in the following three aspects: lifting the child's hand; leading the child's hand; holding the child's hand.
Family is every child's harbor. Parents should create a safe and warm family atmosphere for their children, so that the family can become a solid backing for their children. Therefore, parents must not let go of their hands to lift their children and let the family become a dangerous and cold quagmire.
Parents should not only create a harmonious atmosphere for their children, but also set rules and boundaries. The hand that leads the child means that parents should guide their children to grow within boundaries. Once a child shows a tendency to exceed the rules, parents need to detect and intervene as soon as possible to prevent the child from "getting out of the circle".
In the process of maintaining a family, the parent-child relationship is also an essential part. The relationship between parents and children lasts half a lifetime. In a good parent-child relationship, parents and children are bound by the closest blood relationship, watch each other, and cannot be easily severed. No matter what situation the children grow up to, they must keep in touch with each other, care about each other, and assume corresponding responsibilities for each other. Therefore, you cannot let go of your child's hand.
Teacher Wang Jiqiong:
Every child has his own characteristics. Whether to "let go" is a dynamic process and depends on the parents' knowledge and thoughts. There are no strict standards.
Regarding the issue of "letting go" or not, parents with scientific, complete and systematic thinking can flexibly adapt according to the characteristics of their children, while parents who lack the corresponding knowledge will be helpless. Therefore, I would like to make three suggestions for parents: Be a scientific parent; establish psychological boundaries; respect the wishes of your children.
My idea is to adapt psychology to daily life. Corresponding to the suggestions I made earlier, if parents want to be able to cope with education, they must first possess a certain level of knowledge and quality. Children are created by their parents and grow up under their care. As caregivers, educators, and companions, parents should strive to become scientific parents.
There is a common problem among Chinese parents: The psychological boundaries are blurred and they often cross the boundaries, leading to a situation of "not being able to guide big things and worrying about small things." Therefore, parents should work hard to establish their own psychological boundaries, so as to maintain a more stable and harmonious parent-child relationship with their children, and provide appropriate and moderate help to their children.
Finally, and most importantly, parents should focus on cultivating their children’s good habits and adjusting their bad habits, including living habits, study habits, etc. In addition, parents should respect their children's habits.
Take throwing away garbage as an example. When there are two trash cans in front of them, younger children may make choices by chanting formulas and ordering troops. At this time, some parents will urge their children and express their dissatisfaction. The emotion of patience. When parents do not respect their children's habits, the children may feel that they are not understood and accepted, which in turn affects the parent-child relationship.
Teacher Lu Xiaoying:
My child is now in adolescence, so I have very deep thoughts on this issue. Research shows that when children enter adolescence, parents will face the most difficult stage of parenthood. mentions the topic of "letting go", which can be traced back from the perspective of psychology. It involves education methods and other aspects.
In the current era, the "post-00s" and "post-10s" grew up under the slogan "love and freedom" and gained love from their parents and sufficient freedom. But while parents give their children freedom, they also miss some requirements for their children. In 1978, American psychologist Baumrind proposed two dimensions of parenting styles: demandingness and reactivity.
Demandability means that parents should set standards and boundaries for their children's behavior. Responsiveness means that parents need to do their best to meet their children's needs, including material needs, psychological needs, emotional needs, etc.
As parents, the process of raising children is essentially fulfilling social responsibilities and obligations. The ultimate goal is to cultivate legal and excellent citizens for society. Starting from this ultimate goal, "letting go" means to let the children return to society when they are full-fledged.
Research shows that compared with other mammals, humans have a longer attachment period to their caregivers, ranging from 13 to 25 years. At different stages of the attachment period, children will have different needs. Parents can flexibly respond to their children's needs at different stages of development, decide whether to "let go" and control the degree of "let go".
However, in actual practice, as the phenomenon of " being rolled into " in education becomes more and more serious, young parents born in the 80s and 90s who receive education in the new era are invaded by an overwhelming number of parenting books and are indoctrinated into being "perfect mothers" " concept. During this process, many mothers will feel that they have a "cloud spouse, pig teammate" in their family. This is because many parents have unknowingly imposed society's expectations of parents' perfect decision-making on themselves, causing parents to over-involve their children in the process of raising children, resulting in the blurred boundary problem mentioned by Teacher He.
In the process of "letting go", parents should consider the following points: pay attention to the needs of their children; examine their own abilities as parents; and evaluate the consequences of over-involvement. Based on this, the topic of "letting go" seems to be only an operational concept on a practical level. In fact, I think this topic is more like a reflection on the philosophical level, and it is also the difficulty.
In the process of raising children, responsibility, nurturing and care are constant themes. However, parents' love for their children takes different forms at different times. For example, the habits mentioned by Teacher Wang should be focused on cultivating children before they are 6 years old. On the premise of adhering to the love for children, moderate requirements should be put forward for children.
Many studies in the field of psychology show a point: The rules set for children should be moderate. When parents have too high demands and it is difficult for children to achieve them, it will cause great damage to the parent-child relationship. In my own family, I don’t put too many demands on my children, and I can even express my powerlessness and vent bad emotions at home. But I have set a bottom line for my family: protects my own health and safety. Do not cause harm to your own body and avoid being in an unsafe environment.
Moderator:
Teacher He mentioned love and freedom. How do the three teachers understand this topic?
Teacher He Lingfeng:
The two most important functions of education are enlightenment and persuasion.Enlightenment is to inspire wisdom, allowing children to learn to stand on the shoulders of their predecessors and see the world with the accumulated wisdom of mankind. Encouraging kindness is to establish correct three views for children and become people who are helpful to themselves, others, and society.
In actual operation, family education and school education perform these two functions respectively. School education teaches children to better understand the world based on human history and knowledge accumulation through the teaching of different subjects such as Chinese, Mathematics, English, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. Family education should guide children to correctly deal with the relationship with the world.
People live in three environments: physical environment; human environment; and my environment. physical environment is the physical environment in which people live, which requires people to be able to handle the relationship between themselves, the times, and the objective environment. The human environment is an interpersonal environment composed of other people and society. It requires us to learn to get along with, cooperate and compete with different people to gain our own sense of accomplishment. My environment is a personal inner environment, which requires us to handle the relationship with ourselves.
Back to the topic of "love and freedom", combined with the above three environments, I think love refers to our natural love for this world, this era and country, as well as our love for others and society, and also for our own body, Fame, psychological state of love. Love is the essence of the three realms. As the main body of "encouraging kindness", the importance of family education is evident.
So, what is freedom? People are autonomous individuals with missions, responsibilities and value pursuits. Freedom is to gallop in the world and is the means to bloom life.
Therefore, love is the processing of relationships, and freedom is the sublimation of life. We should obtain the ability to love in family education and obtain the weapon of freedom in school education. Both are indispensable.
Teacher Wang Jiqiong:
There is a classic song called "Devotion of Love", which is well-known to every household, but I believe that love is not a kind of dedication, but an expression based on what the other party receives. Love should be based on communication and expressed through appropriate means. When love goes astray, the other person will be misunderstood or even hurt. It's like I love noodles, but you give me steak cooked by a British chef. No matter how high-quality the steak is, it is not my cup of tea. Instead, ordinary noodles are more in line with my taste. If you still force me to eat steak, I will feel very uncomfortable, which is the wrong expression of love.
Based on my experience, I have summarized five steps to communicate love, which are often used in daily life: Pay attention to emotions; care about the other person's life; connect emotions and get closer; provide support; look to the future. takes communicating with children who come home from school as an example. The five steps are as follows: You are back, are you happy today? Did anything happen at school today? Is there anything you want to share with me? How can I help you? How would you like to spend your weekend?
Many people cannot understand "a beast mates with a beauty" and think they are very incompatible. But there is a surge of love between the two, and they establish a loving relationship through communication, which is something that others cannot understand or evaluate. Whether you are dealing with your partner or your children, I believe that learning to communicate must be an important prerequisite for expressing love.
Speaking of freedom, I can't help but think of what my parents taught me when I was a child: Freedom within the scope of discipline is true freedom. Looking at from a historical perspective, we can find that rules are not a constraint on freedom, but a guarantee. The sun and moon we see with the naked eye are the same size, but in fact the two planets are very different. Vision limits our understanding of the truth of things. Rules set the benchmark for what is true and false, right and wrong, and build a framework for a harmonious society. As a human being, walking in society, living in the family, and studying in school, we must abide by the rules, and we must also let our children abide by the rules. Let our children know that citizens must abide by party discipline and state laws, lovers must be loyal to their significant other, and family members must bear their responsibilities. Family responsibilities.
There is a line in the movie "Spider-Man", "The greater the ability, the greater the responsibility." People with greater ability must take on more social responsibilities and contribute to society, while people with less ability must do what they can. matter.Even if a person does not have any ability, he can at least not break the rules or cause harm to society. Real freedom within the rules.
Teacher Lu Xiaoying:
We have all heard the saying, "A filial son emerges from under a stick." This sentence reflects that traditional Chinese education concepts advocate parents’ right to express their children. The arrival of a new era means the innovation of old traditions. Currently, people are calling for a change in parenting concepts, abandoning sticks, and giving children love and freedom.
From the perspective of children, when children do not yet have the ability to analyze, parents should give their children scientific love. Comparing a parent's love to a bowl of chicken soup, when a child needs chicken soup, what parents should do is to determine whether the bowl of chicken soup is poisonous and ensure that the child drinks non-toxic chicken soup. From the perspective of parents, when giving love, the most important consideration for parents is not how their love can promote the development of their children, but to ensure that this love is not mixed with "poison".
Secondly, parents should understand the laws of children's physical and mental development, express their feelings in ways and methods suitable for their children at different stages, and ensure that their children can actually receive the love from their parents.
Due to cultural influence, Chinese people are generally not good at expressing love directly with words such as "I love you". When I was young, if I said "I love you" to my mother, both my mother and I would feel flushed, and my mother would feel very sudden. Now, I will often express to my child his importance to me and my love for him, so that the child can directly receive the love I express. There is a common problem among
parents: takes giving love as its starting point and deprives it of love. I believe that many parents have said something similar, "If you are not good, if you don't get 100 points in the exam, or if you don't get first place in the exam, I won't like you." At this time, instead of giving love, parents will give love instead. Strip away from the child. Therefore, we must use appropriate methods and give children scientific love based on the laws of development.
When it comes to freedom, I think of the slogan of a certain APP: Self-discipline leads to freedom. I don't really agree with this slogan, because I feel that only under extreme indulgence can the body and soul be completely free, but this is only an idealized state. Teacher Wang put forward a major prerequisite for freedom in the previous article: abiding by rules and discipline. In my opinion, children also need to have the concepts of "little freedom" and "big freedom".
Take children doing homework as an example. Parents should let their children understand that if they watch too much TV today and the homework is not completed, the child may seem to have gained a small amount of freedom, but the accumulation of such small freedoms will cause him to lose his future. Great freedom in professional choice. So we need to examine and evaluate our current behavior from the perspective of life-long development.
From a parent's perspective, Baumrind's theory (two dimensions of parenting: reactive and demanding) still applies. Responsiveness encompasses a parent's acceptance of their child and sensitivity to their needs. Research has confirmed that these two indicators have a significant impact on the quality of the parent-child relationship. Subsequently, some researchers used the term "insight" to describe these two indicators. Parents use their own insight to evaluate whether they have the ability to give love and freedom to their children.
Psychologist Lamb proposed a model of the concept of father involvement (father's involvement in children's education), dividing father's involvement into three categories: investment, accessibility and responsibility. investment can be understood as the degree to which the father directly participates in care and interacts with the child, emphasizing the quality of parent-child interaction. Accessibility means that fathers need to respond promptly and proactively to their children's needs. Responsibility means that the father should fulfill his duties and fulfill his responsibilities. I believe that the above three dimensions should be the goals of parents’ growth. Only with the ability in these three aspects can children be given full love and freedom.
organizer/Katerina.R
review/Quan Ming Chenying
(Mr. Lu and Mr. Wang’s parts were not reviewed by the experts themselves)
editor/Chenying
