In order to pursue fairness and fairness, the child ignores his true love and needs, blurring his self-awareness
The little boy who pestered his grandmother to ask for glue, does he really need glue, or does he just want to have something exactly the same as his brother, so that he can feel that he is being treated fairly?
From the child's words, we can infer that the little boy actually does not need glue. He just saw grandma buying things for his brother, but not for himself, and felt unfair, so he said: Why only buy for his brother, not for me?
The glue is likely to be taken home and wandered in front of my brother's eyes, and then it fell into dust.
When a child is obsessed with what he has and I have to have something without differentiation, he gradually ignores: what I need, what I like, and what I suit myself.
These three questions are important contents of self-cognitive development. Why is
important? Because these three problems can solve the confusion children encounter in life, study and work:
When children see others have a lot of beautiful clothes, shoes, and toys, the envy and jealousy that they have. Why do they have no annoyance? It can be solved by "What I like and what I need".
There are thousands of beautiful things in the world, I just need to choose what I like, and I need it.
When the child sees someone else’s speeches on the podium and is at ease in group activities, the contrast and huge sense of gap can be solved by "what I am suitable for myself".
Everyone has a behavior pattern that suits their personality. Some people are suitable for the front, some are suitable for the backstage, some are suitable for the ostentatious, and some are suitable for restraint. It’s not that I am not as good as him, but that I am not suitable for him.
When a child faces the cruel knockout round of the junior high school entrance examination and the college entrance examination, when he needs to fill out his application, the confusion, anxiety and difficulty in making a decision can be solved by "what I like and what I suit myself".
Key high school rocket class is very good, but if I go in, it may be at the bottom, which is too much pressure for me. This major is very popular, but I am not interested, and it is not my specialty, and I may not be able to stick to it.
Therefore, we need to see this: we cannot unconditionally compromise another child’s “I want to be exactly the same” requirement because of the so-called pursuit of fairness.
Doing this can not only avoid meaningless fairness, but also develop the self-awareness of two children
1. Use family rules to replace children's quarrels, parents break up lawsuits
The fairness that children pursue is mostly the needs of "being able to do something and being able to buy something", such as watching TV, playing with mobile phones, buying snacks, buying toys, buying new clothes, etc.
Every child has such a need, but the financial and human resources of the entire family are limited. This child has to buy that child. Parents can still bear the price of small snacks and toys. If it is a little more expensive, large items will be stressful.
How to balance resources, how to avoid children quarrel, and formulating family rules is a necessary method, such as:
Snack Procurement Rules: Wednesday and Saturday are snack procurement days, and each child has a quota of 30 yuan, so they can choose each. They can choose whatever they choose and how they choose at will, as long as it does not exceed the quota.
toy procurement rules: The first day of each month is the toy procurement day. Each child has a 50 yuan quota. They choose their favorite toys. If they don’t want to buy them or don’t have enough money, they can save them and let the children decide for themselves.
This type of family rules has three meanings:
ensures that parents’ money bags will not fade too quickly, and try to make the expenses of buying snacks and toys as much as possible to avoid the child buying too much and too expensive for in . When the child buys things, the parents are short of money.
purchase times and money amount are fair. Two children can focus on "what I like and what I need", instead of staring at what my parents bought for each other and why they didn't buy it for themselves.
Develop children's financial literacy, and children over 4 years old can have their own pocket money. Instead of both children pestering their parents to buy things in the supermarket, it is better to let them take their pocket money to spend.
2. Guide children to develop self-awareness in comparison
As mentioned earlier, there is no differentiation between two children: I also have it. As for whether this thing can be used, what I need, what I like, it doesn’t matter, I just need it.
If the second child is only one or two years old and self-awareness begins to emerge, it is normal to "follow the trend and learn from the eldest child", but we still need to guide the child to bring the focus back to themselves and ask him: Are you choosing what you like?
helps two children develop their own self-awareness, which is an important way to solve the problem of "undifferentiated fairness". We can guide the children in different scenarios like this: When buying things, tell the two children: You each choose what you like.
When tasting the food, ask the two children: Which dish do you like?
When evaluating the same thing, ask the two children: What do you think? When there is a conflict between
, ask the two children separately: Let’s talk about the process. When soliciting opinions from
, ask the two children: What are your ideas?
If every child’s feelings and needs can be seen by parents, they will naturally not blindly follow the trend and pursue fair treatment everywhere.
Back to the beginning of the article, the little boy who wanted to buy glue, if I were that grandma, I would do this:
squatted down and said to the child: I bought something for my brother, but I didn’t buy it for you. Do you think it’s unfair, right? The glue is needed by my brother because he wants to do handicrafts. You can think about what you need, what you want to do when you buy it, and then tell me, I will buy it for you.
Maybe the child will still talk about glue because he is 4 years old and may not have any understanding of "what he needs". So since he said glue, we will assume that he needs glue. After buying it, guide him to find something that can be used with glue. He can imitate his brother for handwork, and tear the paper open and then glue it on. In the process of finding a purpose, the child will find that the glue is what he needs.
With this experience, he may not choose the same thing as his brother when he buys things next time.
