Ten standards for children’s mental health

Intellectual development is in line with age expectations, emotions are generally stable and can be moderately adjusted, have age-appropriate social skills, behavioral performance matches age characteristics, basically clear and positive self-perception, can cope with mild setbacks and negative events, have a basic sense of security in the environment, have age-appropriate sense of rules, have age-appropriate autonomy, and retain curiosity and desire to explore new things.

In fact, during the six years I have been doing clinical work in child psychology, the most frequently asked question is, “My child doesn’t like to play with other children. Is there a social problem? ”

When I was doing a free screening in the community last month, I met a mother who dragged her 6-year-old son in. She said that her son only played with one little girl in the kindergarten and would hide when other children approached her. At home, he went crazy with his parents. My mother checked the "Signs of Social Disability" on the Internet, and the more she read, the more panicked she became, and she couldn't sleep well.

I told her at that time that when we talk about "having age-appropriate social skills", we never require children to be "social cows". In fact, there are differences in the views of different schools here: Psychoanalytically oriented counselors will believe that as long as the child has at least one stable social connection, even if there is only one good friend, it fully meets the requirements of mental health, and there is no need to force the child to expand his social circle. ； Behaviorist counselors may suggest taking the child to try more social situations, but they are absolutely opposed to the coercive operation of "pushing the child out to say hello." Your child can share toys and discuss game rules when playing with good friends, and can clearly express his needs when communicating with the teacher. How can he be considered to have a problem?

Oh, by the way, here I have to mention another misunderstanding that many parents have: they think that mentally healthy children cannot lose their temper.

A while ago, a mother came to me for consultation. She said that her 5-year-old daughter cried when she couldn't put Lego together and threw the bricks all over the floor. She coaxed her for half a month according to the "emotional acceptance method" mentioned on the Internet, but the child was still like this. She asked if there was a problem with her emotional management ability. I laughed at that time. The prefrontal cortex of a 5-year-old child is not fully developed yet. You want him to be as emotionless and emotionless as an adult? Is this standard a bit too harsh?

What we mean by "the overall mood is stable and can be moderately adjusted" is the core of "being able to hold it in": if you drop a building block and cry for 10 minutes, you can calm down by hugging it twice, and you are still willing to continue fighting after that, which fully meets the standards. If the child breaks down and cries for more than half an hour over the smallest thing, cannot be coaxed well, or even engages in harmful behaviors such as hitting himself or biting others, then he needs to be vigilant. There is actually controversy here in the academic community: some humanistic scholars believe that children should be given complete emotional freedom without any intervention. ； However, the clinical consensus is that the prerequisite for emotional freedom is not harming oneself or affecting others. Completely letting go will make children unaware of emotional boundaries and prone to lack of security.

Another point that is easily overlooked by parents is "matching behavioral performance with age characteristics". Many parents come to me to complain, saying that their children in first and second grade are careless in homework, miss questions, write typos, and can’t correct them no matter how many times they try. Do they have attention problems or are they mentally unhealthy?

To put it bluntly, this is because adults are too anxious. Piaget's cognitive development theory has long said that children around 7 years old are still in the transition period from the pre-operational stage to the concrete operation stage, and the stability of their attention is only 20 minutes at most. Carelessness and being unable to sit still are normal manifestations of this age group. Unless the child is significantly worse than children of the same age: for example, others can count within 100, but he still cannot count from 1 to 10 when he is 5 years old, or he cannot sit still at all in the third grade and can stand up and run ten times in a class, then it is necessary to check whether there is a developmental problem.

I often tell parents that these standards are actually like the height and weight percentile table in the pediatric department. As long as it stays within the normal range, there is no need to stick to a certain point.

Take "being able to cope with mild setbacks" as an example. It is very normal for children under the age of 7 to "cannot afford to lose". They cry when they lose in a card game and rush to get ahead when playing a race. In essence, children of this age are still in the afterglow of "omnipotent narcissism" and feel that they should be the best. This is not a shortcoming, but a normal process of self-awareness development. If, by the age of 10, you still can't accept anything bad about yourself, skip school and cry all afternoon if the teacher says something to you, then you need intervention.

Oh, yes, and a very important reminder: these standards are for children with normal development. If a child has neurodevelopmental differences such as autism or ADHD, the standards must be adjusted according to his development level, and cannot be measured with the ruler of ordinary children. A while ago, the mother of a child with ADHD came to me and said that her child was in second grade, could not sit still, and did not meet the standards of "behavior consistent with age characteristics". Was there a psychological problem? I told her that after intervention, your child can now sit in class for 15 minutes. Compared with before, he could sit for 5 minutes and run away. This is already a big improvement and fully meets the mental health requirements of his developmental level.

In fact, many people in the academic community are opposed to this kind of list of "Top Ten Standards". They feel that it is easy for parents to use standard answers to score their children, which will instead create anxiety. I actually think it makes sense. After all, every child's natural temperament is different: introverted children don't like to join in the fun. You can't ask them to meet the social standards of extroverted children. ； A child who is slow to warm up is slow to accept new things. You cannot say that he has no desire to explore.

Every time I explain these standards to parents, I always add at the end: If a child can account for seven or eight of these ten, he is considered to be very mentally healthy. It’s normal to be a little short-tempered, a little shy, and occasionally unable to afford to lose. After all, childhood is supposed to be about jumping around and having a few quirks. If you really raise a "perfect child" who is perfect and meets all the standards, then you really have to worry.