Thesis on the relationship between children's mental health and their original family environment

The core conclusion is put first: the family of origin is the basic influencing factor of children's psychological development, but its role is probabilistic rather than decisive. The two present a non-linear interaction model - a bad family environment will significantly increase the risk of children's psychological problems, but good mental toughness and external support systems can offset some of the negative effects.； On the contrary, a favorable family environment cannot completely prevent children from developing psychological problems. There is currently no empirical research in the academic community that can prove that the family of origin is the only determinant of children's mental health, and no research can deny the central role of the family environment. The relationship between the two is far from being summarized by the "family of origin theory" or "the theory that family influence is useless".

I have been on the front line of child psychological intervention for 6 years and have nearly 300 cases in my hands. I feel particularly deeply about this conclusion. Last year, our center conducted a small-scale statistics. Among the 142 cases of children under 14 years old with emotional and behavioral abnormalities treated from June 2022 to December 2023, 79% of the cases had varying degrees of family dysfunction: either a long-term high-conflict marriage relationship, an authoritarian/neglectful parenting model, or an intergenerational emotional expression disorder. But at the same time, we also tracked 36 children who grew up in high-risk families (including parents in prison, long-term domestic violence, poor single parents, etc.). Among them, the psychological scale scores of 10 children were completely in the healthy range, and they were even more adaptable than many children from ordinary families.

In fact, the academic debate on this issue has been going on for nearly a hundred years. The classic psychoanalytic school was the first to bind the family of origin to the psychology of children. Freud even believed that a person’s personality structure is basically finalized before the age of 5. Family trauma in childhood will enter the subconscious and accompany the person throughout his life. Many psychoanalytic counselors will also trace psychological problems in adulthood back to childhood family experiences. However, in the 1970s, after the rise of positive psychology, many scholars began to challenge this view. The "Psychologically Resilient Children" study conducted by Seligman's team found that even if about 30% of children grow up in high-risk family environments, as long as there is at least one stable supportive role (which can be grandparents, teachers or even neighbors), they can develop a sound personality and will not have expected psychological problems at all. In recent years, research on developmental psychology has tended to favor a middle ground: the influence of the family of origin is the "base color", but subsequent life experiences and personal characteristics will continue to modify this base color, and the final psychological state is the result of the combined effect of multiple factors.

I just received a case of a 10-year-old boy a while ago. The child bit his nails until all ten of his fingers were covered with bloody scabs. He couldn't sit still in class and often fought with his classmates. His mother cried as soon as she came in. She said that she and her husband always quarreled in front of the child, which was why the child became like this. She and her husband have been sleeping in a separate room for half a year. The family is afraid to let it out, and the child still hasn't improved. I talked to my child twice and found out that half a year ago he was blocked by senior kids at school asking for pocket money. He didn't dare to tell his parents. Every time he bit his nails, he thought about being blocked. Later, we called my parents for family therapy together, and my parents found out that when their children had just been stuck in traffic, they mentioned something when they came home. They were getting divorced at the time, and without raising their heads, they said, "If you don't mess with others, others will mess with you?" ”, the child never dared to speak again. You see, in this case, the high-conflict environment in the family is indeed the cause of the problem, but what really makes the problem worse is the closing of the family's "response channel." If the parents had asked more questions at the time, the child would not have gone to the point of biting his fingers.

It's interesting to say that many people on the Internet now like to blame all psychological problems on their original family. I have seen many adolescent children who have conflicts with their parents and say, "It's all because of you when I was a child that I have a bad personality." There are also many parents who feel that "I feed him, clothe him, and give him the best. What else is he dissatisfied with?" Both sides are a bit extreme. I once met a girl from a very well-off family. Her parents were both university professors. They enrolled her in the best interest classes since she was a child. She was never beaten or scolded. However, she was diagnosed with severe depression in the second grade of junior high school. Later, after talking with her, I found out that her parents had controlled her to the point of having to worry about what socks she wore. She had never made her own decision since she was a child. Even her parents who were majors in college had already decided for her. She felt that she was just a puppet on strings and her life was meaningless. I have seen a survey from the Institute of Child Psychology of Beijing Normal University before, saying that the impact of a family's "emotional openness" on children's mental health is three times greater than the impact of family income and parents' education. I think it is particularly true. In many cases, you don't need to give your children good material conditions. You are willing to listen to his nonsense and admit his mistakes with him, which is better than anything else.

Many parents ask me what they need to do to give their children a healthy family of origin. I never ask them to be the "perfect parent". I really don't. I have seen a father who has a bad temper and occasionally yells at his children, but every time he yells, he squats down and says to the children, "Dad was too loud just now, and it scared you, didn't it?" "Dad was just upset because of something at work. It's not that you did something wrong. I'm sorry." His children are now particularly good at expressing their emotions. If they are wronged in kindergarten, they will tell the teacher directly, and they will tell their parents when they get home. They will not keep it in their hearts at all. On the contrary, those parents who force themselves to be perfect parents every day and pretend to be nice to their children even though they are already very upset will make their children more likely to have problems - children are very sensitive and can feel the emotions you are pretending to do. Instead, they will wonder if there is something wrong with them that makes their parents so uncomfortable.

After doing this for a long time, I often feel that the psychology of a child is like a little succulent that has just grown up. The original family is the flower pot and soil in your hand. Good soil and breathable pot are of course a bonus, but even if the soil is not good, don’t forget to water it, shake the flower pot when nothing happens, and give it more sunshine, and it will still grow round and round. What you are most afraid of is that if you use the best ceramic pot and put the most expensive nutrient soil in it, but if you pour boiling water every day and pull the leaves when there is nothing wrong, then the succulents will not be able to survive, no matter how hard they are. The original family is never about original sin, nor is it a safe. To put it bluntly, it is nothing more than how you treat the little person around you. How much respect, how much recognition, how much real preference you give him, how much confidence he will have in his heart to withstand the ups and downs in the future.