In three years, he grew from a "absent" father to his best friend of his children. What are the stories behind this journey of transformation? Today, let’s share his father’s parenting thoughts.
When my son Ethan was in the small class, I was very busy with work and rarely had time to accompany him. One day, when I got home from get off work, I wanted to see the children who were preparing to go to bed first. It was rare to see me, and he looked dodging and had no topics to talk about each other. When I turned off the lights and left, it seemed like I had never been there. I clearly remember the dispensable look when my child looked at me. I suddenly felt "except for me, he is my son." I actually didn't understand him. There are many gaps in the relationship between father and son .
Similar situations gradually increase, and I am determined to change this situation. At that time, I would also propose some of my own educational ideas at home, but I would always run into a wall - I didn’t participate and I was really not qualified to speak. "You can do it, you can go" is that simple truth. It happened that Ethan's mother had to go on business trips frequently at work, and I had a higher degree of freedom in work, so I really chose "I'll go!"
From then on, I really participated in daily parenting: picking up and dropping off, playing with her, taking her son out alone... My feeling is: If you suddenly feel that your child is strange in an instant, it is because we didn't carefully notice the needs of the child at the beginning, and by the time we discovered it, he had already grown up .
As parents, you need to learn from the beginning.
Ethan loved to jump around on the sofa when he was 4 or 5 years old. We said to him many times, "Don't jump!" "Can you stop?" He agreed very well every time, and then continued to jump.
For a long time, I really had no choice but to ask him: "Why don't I let you touch the electric door and not let you put your hand into the electric fan, you can do it without saying that you can do it the second time. You clearly agreed not to jump the sofa, but you will still do it. Why?"
Ethan said: "Because electric shock may die! It's very dangerous! What's the danger of jumping on the sofa, it doesn't matter."
At that moment, I suddenly realized that he did not go in the left ear and out of the right ear, and he understood, but did not recognize .
The current consent of the child is only forced by the authoritative identity of the parents, or he doesn't know what to say or is afraid that it will not make sense, but he actually does not agree with the instructions from the parents in his heart. Although the child is young, he is already an independent individual with self-feeling and thinking. One-way instructions are essentially still getting along with him in the way of treating the baby. "I say you to listen" and "I tell you" are not communication, but commands and requirements. True communication requires "consensus".
Later, Ethan and I talked about jumping on the sofa for a long time. I assumed that various bumps and dangers around the sofa might be caused by falling, and explained the structure of the sofa to him, explaining the destructiveness of jumping on it to the sofa itself, and used specific information and examples to replace the simple sentence "Don't jump on the sofa."
This also made me realize that when we want to make a request to our children, it is no longer as simple as saying a word. To reach a consensus, it is very necessary to explain the causes and consequences clearly, and then ask him: "Can you accept my suggestions?" After that, the problem of jumping on the sofa was successfully solved. This "problem-solving idea" has also been used in many scenarios. We will ask more questions: "Do you agree?" "Do you have different ideas?" If the child has no objection at the moment, we will also tell him: "You have no ideas for the time being, but if you have different ideas later, you can ask your parents to tell them at any time."
Now, he often shares with us what happened that day and solves problems himself at home and on the way to school; he is willing to express his inner thoughts, and we have more opportunities to understand him.
If we ask more questions, he will say a lot more; when we and our children recognize each other, many problems with growth will be easily solved.
Now, I often Taking Ethan out alone (Dad said, isn't it more convenient for men to take their son out to play? There is no toilet. ) The father and son get along "very smoothly", and they have a lot of things. I don't regard my son as a child who needs to be dealt with, but as a friend who is most familiar - I know what he wants to eat, what he expects for today, and what we will be happy to do together.
But it was not that simple at the beginning. We had a 2-hour "conflict" with intense emotions.
One day on Saturday, I took the initiative to propose to Ethan to go to the LEGO flagship store in Hubin to see if there are any new things. Ethan happily agreed. As soon as he entered the store, the child mentioned 3-4 kinds of LEGO products he wanted to buy, but I refused them on the grounds that "I just stroll around today, and I don't have to buy something when I came out." Suddenly, Ethan turned his back to me excitedly, walked away angrily, and said nothing. After some ineffective emotional communication, he and I walked back to the car like strangers, one after another, and one after another.
in the car, and I also began to calm down and learn from the child again Why was he so angry today? He told me very aggrievedly that he brought him to the Lego store to choose toys. He chose several of them but couldn't buy them. So what are you doing today? It turned out that when I proposed to come to the Lego store, the child understood the expectation of "come to go" as "choose toys", so that the child felt that his father was not keeping his word and even deceived him.
Well, the child should be angry, it was me who caused the misunderstanding.
I started to ask Ethan: "Are we still happy when we went out today? "He thought for a moment and nodded. I continued, "Ethan, look, today my dad took the initiative to take you to the Lego store, right? We were very happy when we went out to the store, right? Then I did not promise that I would definitely buy it today, right? ”.
The child continued to think about it and nodded in agreement. I felt the atmosphere eased, and he began to accept what I said. So I continued, "Then think about whether Dad wants to take you to the Lego store today, and he did nothing wrong, right? I just understood that I said I would come and buy toys. I didn’t explain it clearly. We came happily, and Dad hopes that you can go back happily, okay? "
At this time, Ethan said, "But I still feel wronged, what should I do? "He returned to the Ethan who could communicate well with me before, and I was very happy. I started to smile and said to him, "Then let's buy some ice cream to compensate, or go back to Lego store and choose again. Do you like and want something you really want? Dad will buy it for you next time. "What made me very happy was Ethan's answer, "Actually, I don't like it particularly. Those toys just now weren't very fun. "So we ended the communication with one ice cream each and smiled.
This is a rare fierce conflict between me and my child. It made me realize that, whether adults or children, when there is a fierce conflict between people, the other person in my eyes may be negative . As parents, when we can control our emotions, we must find a way to get the child out of negative emotions at the first time, so that there will be a possibility of communication. When the child starts to accept the information I give, give in to each other and give a step, the child can always surprise me in the end.
Of course, speaking and explaining things clearly with your child in advance, benchmarking each other's expectations, understanding will cause the "fuse" of children's emotions, and preventing children from being trapped by vague expressions can avoid many conflicts.
The basis of all communication is to establish a real "relationship" with children. Only by first establishing an intimate "relationship", all these collisions and running-in are the nutrients for each other rather than obstacles.
Ethan is a very enthusiastic boy who is particularly brave enough to say "I love you". This is my mom's credit. After realizing that I am a relatively restrained person, I consciously convey the language of love to Ethan more and encourage him to actively express his emotions. This also affected me in reverse. With Ethan, I was able to maintain a "open myself" state and actively expressed more and more emotional expressions. After thinking about it, in fact, many times, even children care about me first and teach me how to care.
When I accompanied him to the sports meeting, a small hole was cut in his hand. The minor injury was not hindered from the activity, but he was particularly worried and never wanted me to participate in the subsequent projects. Because he was afraid that I would be injured again, he would keep saying to others: "My father is injured, and he can't go to tug of war!" Many times, the love of children for their parents is direct and unconditional, and they even hope that they can "protect" their parents.
The enthusiasm of children also drives us to get along with each other. As father and son, we have a lot of care and exposure to each other. I don’t want to form a confrontational father-son relationship with children.
I hope that the child’s emotions are stable. When they are questioned, opposed, or failed, they can have their own ability to withstand stress, instead of letting emotions fill their brains and nothing can be done; to form this, we must help children establish a comfortable inner environment in families and schools, so that children can appropriately release their inner feelings and learn to understand contradictions.
In front of him, I don’t want to be a noble and omnipotent father. No matter how old the child is, as long as I am wrong, I should admit it readily, make up for it if it should be made up, discuss it if it should be discussed, and solve it if it should be solved. A good relationship should be in a state of mutual advancement and retreat, so that he will not retreat or escape when encountering problems with others. He will have a sense of responsibility and will be willing to believe in the power of facing problems directly.
Looking back at my son's growth, we attach great importance to the years before going to elementary school, because we are in an era with extremely rich information, and the radius of children's life has expanded dramatically. Whether it is social, sports, language, or thinking, it is much more complicated than when we were young. Maybe our generation of things that only came into contact with in primary and junior high schools will meet in kindergarten, become accustomed to it, and learn to face it.
High-level development is equivalent to "Focus ". If the foundation is unstable, it will be difficult to catch it when you grow up and face a large amount of information input. We value the most whether children can maintain their children's nature when they are young and at the same time establish a relatively complete personality. Therefore, we are very glad that in the past three years of kindergarten, he can grow up in a campus that focuses on "making children become a better self".
Sometimes, we can't help saying, "Look at how xxx is doing, you can't do it!" He will say, "But I am Ethan, I can compare myself with myself and get better." This is a state we are very willing to see. If we can make a new choice, we will still stick to our original choice for the Elf Valley.
We believe in one sentence - "For the future, we may not know more than children." Many times, we actually cannot be a pioneer and "pull" the child away; of course, we don't want to be the person who is behind, and wait for the child to "push" us forward.Our family is a parallel team, and we want to grow up with our children and explore our direction together.
The future is long, and our biggest hope for Ethan is that he will find his own place no matter in any environment in the future.
Family is a community of life, and every member in it needs to find his or her own position and assume corresponding responsibilities. Through the cooperation of the family, we will explore a relationship model that adapts to ourselves. This is not only related to the growth of children, but also to the well-being of the entire family. What is a "good dad"? Ethan's father lets us see that he is willing to admit his "invisible" state, dare to face problems, not afraid of making mistakes, and be able to reflect.
All changes start with realizing it. No one is a natural good father. On the way to "become" a father, everyone needs to learn in practice. No matter how clumsy you try, it is valuable, and that is the only way to the child's heart.
-the end-
