Children's mental health blackboard

Can you naturally express your happiness and grievances? Will you not continue to attack or withdraw when playing with your peers? Will you be able to adjust to setbacks such as being scolded or failing in exams, and will you be able to adjust in half a day to one day, and will you not be sluggish for several days in a row?

Last month, I went to the district's experimental primary school for psychological education. As soon as the meeting ended, I was pulled over by a third-grade head teacher, who told me that there was a boy in her class who had been tearing up his own homework for the past half month, and the eraser on the table was full of holes. I had gone to the parents several times before, and they all said that the child was "itchy and needed a spanking." After going home and being spanked twice, the boy got even worse. Later, I chatted with the child for 15 minutes and found out that his parents had recently gotten divorced and they were asking him, "Who will you be with in the future?" He was afraid that he would cry or be angry with his parents, so he could only hold back his anger and vent it on his homework book.

In fact, there have been two different intervention ideas in the field of child psychology. There is no absolute right or wrong, just adapt to different family situations. One group is more psychoanalytic and believes that all children's behavioral problems are essentially outlets for suppressed emotions - children will not say "I am anxious" or "I am in a dilemma" as accurately as adults, but will only express it through concrete behaviors such as tearing things, biting nails, and wetting the bed. To solve the problem, you must first find the source of the emotion. The other group is more cognitive-behavioral and believes that there is no need to dwell too much on past reasons, as long as the correct positive reinforcement is provided: For example, when a child takes the initiative to say "I am unhappy today" for the first time, no matter how ridiculous his reason seems to you (for example, his favorite animated character is injured), don't deny him, just say "Oh, that's it, you must be feeling bad." If you do it a few times, he will not express his emotions by destroying things.

Many parents ask me if I want to spend a lot of money to sign up for the "Children's Emotional Intelligence Training Camp" that costs tens of thousands of yuan, saying that it can quickly improve their children's mental toughness. I usually laugh first and say that you should do a small test first: when eating tonight, don't talk about studies, and ask your child, "Is there anything you feel adults don't understand about you recently?" If he is willing to tell you, the tens of thousands of yuan can be saved to buy Lego. If he rolls his eyes and says, "You don't understand even if I tell you," then you should first change your communication style. It will be more useful than any class you sign up for.

I would like to list a few small minefields that are easy to ignore. They are all common pitfalls that I have encountered when receiving consultations in the past few years. I just copy them in the side column of the blackboard to give parents and teachers a reminder:

• Don't use words such as "If you don't obey me, I won't want you anymore" and "You are a sister, you have to give in to your brother" as mantras. For children under 10 years old, the former is a real existential fear, and the latter is a blatant unfairness. If you save too much, it will be a knot in your heart.
• It is not laziness if a child is dazed in class and sits on the sofa for 10 minutes after school. Adults have to learn how to fish when they are tired from work. Children also need some free time to process a day's information. Don't rush them to do homework as soon as they start.
• If you really find that your child has persistent behavioral abnormalities, don't first think about "family scandals should not be made public", and don't casually scold the child as "pretentious". Talk to the school's psychology teacher first. Most of the cases are minor problems, but it will become troublesome if it is delayed for a long time.

Oh, by the way, there was another hotly debated topic before: Should we give our children "unconditional love"? The front-line counselors I have met are also divided into two groups. One group believes that children must be given a sense of security. If a child makes a mistake, he should hug him first and then talk about the problem. ； The other group believes that unconditional love is not unconditional satisfaction. If a child hits someone, he must be told clearly, "Mom loves you, but hitting is wrong." The sense of boundaries is as important as love. I don’t think it’s necessary to argue in black and white terms. Your child is usually timid and sensitive, so you should be more tolerant. ； If you usually bully others without fear of anything, then you should first establish rules and be more flexible.

I once met a grandma who picked up her grandson from school, and she said that she didn’t pay much attention to raising her baby. Even when she picked him up after school every day, she would listen to him talk about "nasty things" in school for 20 minutes: so-and-so pooped his pants in class, or the PE teacher had a hole in his socks, but she didn't interrupt and just laughed along with her. The child is now in junior high school. Every time he encounters something, he is willing to tell his family. He has never had any psychological problems. You see, there are actually so many complicated methods. To put it bluntly, it is to take the child's emotions seriously and don't always hold him to adult standards. That's better than anything else.