1.Interaction is a need for growth
When it comes to teenage interaction, it is definitely ranked lower than learning in parents’ minds. This is not only true in China, but also in Western countries. The “Nine Problems of Adolescents” lists behavioral problems such as “children lie”, “no friends”, “fooling around with bad kids” and so on, which are completely from the perspective of mending the sheep. The problem. However, we rarely see books on learning that start with why they are failing.
In fact, from a mental health perspective, an illiterate person can be a relatively healthy person as long as he or she can adapt to the society in which he or she lives, whereas a person with poor interpersonal skills is not destined to be healthy in society.
From the perspective of child development, interaction is necessary for growth. An extreme example is the “wolf child”, who was adopted by the mother wolf as an infant. Although he was not defective in congenital quality and was a normal toddler, he completely developed wolf habits due to his isolation from human society. Recently, I saw a feature film on American TV about several young children who lost adult care due to their mothers’ alcoholism, or other reasons, and lived with the family dog until they were 7-8 years old, and it was already difficult to correct their habits and had great difficulties in communicating with other children of the same age. Despite the fact that there are full-time special educators who are responsible for education and research around the clock and have been able to carry out ordinary conversation and literacy, the gap between them and normal children, especially the difference in non-verbal communication, is still difficult to bridge, and I am afraid that they will have to live with this mental disability for the rest of their lives.
The above examples show that it is entirely possible for a congenitally normal child to develop a severe state of disability without the necessary human interaction. The lack of modern education, on the other hand, does not constitute a necessary condition for disability, although it is true that one is at a disadvantage in modern life.
2. Fetal Period
In fact, communication with the child begins in the fetal period. A pregnant woman’s perception of fetal movement is not limited to counting how many times she moves. A delicate mother-to-be can often sense her child’s reaction to her activities and change her behavior accordingly. For example, in a noisy and confined shopping mall, the fetus inside the pregnant woman’s belly may appear to move with a frequency different from the usual fetal movements, and the mother-to-be may not feel any other discomfort herself at this time, but from the fetus’ irritable reaction, she will decide to leave the environment. Of course, this is not really a human interaction yet, but a mother-infant connection based on biological nature.
Although there is still controversy about the so-called fetal education, for example, the once popular method of making the fetus listen to music through in vitro, some experts point out that the fetus’ hearing is not yet fully developed and this is unlikely to be effective. But paying attention to the fetus’ reaction and adjusting one’s life is apparently generally supported, because it is a communication in itself, a communication directly through the body’s reaction. As for whether to listen to music or recite Tang poems, it depends entirely on the pregnant woman’s preference, and as long as the mother is comfortable and healthy, the fetus will benefit.
3.Infant and toddler period
After the child is born, the mother has an innate advantage in communicating with the baby, which is what is medically known as the mother-infant bond. This is based on the biology that mothers and infants were once homozygous, communicating before birth, but not yet interpersonal, as there are no interpersonal boundaries yet. Parental communication with the infant after birth is, in one way, the translation of the mother-infant bond into increasingly complex interpersonal interactions.
Parents are the decisive force in the process of establishing interpersonal interactions with a normal infant. Unfortunately, however, the dual-career, short maternity leave system in place in our country is very much not conducive to the gradual transformation of the mother-infant bond into interpersonal interactions. Babies have to change primary caregivers a few months after birth, and the conflict between the rhythm of going to work and the rhythm of being the mother of an infant is very obvious. During the day, one has to work at the competent pace required by the adult world; at night, one has to go home and switch to the infant’s physiological rhythm of getting up from time to time. Children have to experience separation anxiety repeatedly from an early age.
Similar problems exist in developed countries, especially among highly educated professional women. This has become a global problem with no good solutions so far. The solution in Western health counseling readings is to go home and try to mentally let go of the work shadow and be a mom when you are with your child. It’s easy to talk about it, but not easy to talk about it.
In China, where the tradition of large families still exists, there is a common social phenomenon – intergenerational parenting. It is when one or both elderly parents raise the children, or even take turns to do so.
In China, the most common problem brought about by intergenerational parenting in urban areas today is the limited interaction of children. Due to the limited energy of the elderly, and the current urban population explosion and complex environment, many of them have to take the approach of limiting the scope of their children’s activities to ensure safety. The opportunities for children to play with their peers are greatly reduced. In the seventies and eighties, especially in the summer, often a compound of children playing with friends until after 9:00 p.m., often to parents called more than 3 times before they will go home. Nowadays, this scene is almost impossible to see.
Without running and playing and equal peer interaction, how could children, who were more nourished than our generation, get the necessary physical exertion and mental satisfaction? As a result, it becomes even more difficult to bring up at home. The elderly cannot meet the needs of their children and feel guilty, so spoiling occurs. The result of overprotection combined with spoiling and keeping the child close all the time is that the child develops behavioral problems.
Mime’s story
Silence was raised by her grandmother until she was three years old. When he returned to his parents at kindergarten age, he seemed unusually well-behaved and even a little mute. When she saw a stranger, she called “uncle! But the tone of voice is flat, no emotion, and no eye contact. One can’t help but think of the “Reverse! Back up!” The warning sound. When he arrived at kindergarten, he would not play with other children, but would only stand to the side and cry. Talking to the parents, I realized that his grandmother had forbidden him to play with other children since he was young, fearing losses and injuries. …… The insecurity and mistrust that had settled over the years of his grandmother’s life were transferred to the young child, and the distorting effect on his psychological development was evident. The good thing is that he returned to his parents earlier, after more than a year of parent-led change of life atmosphere and kindergarten group life exercise, finally became a lively and naughty children. At the kindergarten field day, she laughed and talked with the children in front of her, and from time to time, she gently pushed and jostled them, which was a far cry from the backwards radar-like scene.
Silence is lucky, but what will happen if similar situations continue?
The professor’s grandson
Years ago, a child was in middle school when his parents reported that he was bullying his grandfather at home, dropping things and shoving the elderly. This child’s parents’ work required frequent long-term travel, and it was his grandparents who brought him up, not without affection or rough treatment from his grandfather. His grandfather is a professor at a famous university, smiling, courteous, and very mild temper. It was only when his grandson lost his temper that Sven swept the floor, and the book manuscripts that he had worked so hard to organize for more than six months were torn to shreds. The boy was also quite polite when talking to the doctor and was not violent in character. Both parents and grandfather confirmed this and reflected that he never broke discipline at school and was particularly timid outside. A vivid example is that once he took a bus to school, and due to the crowdedness, he was not able to squeeze to the door in time when he arrived at the station. He was afraid to make a sound and ask the conductor to wait, preferring to take one more stop and walk back. This made him late and he went home to complain to his grandfather. He relied on his grandfather and hated him at the same time. Any emotions he had were directed at his grandfather. He knows it’s wrong, but it’s hard to correct it.
Yes! He needs to have a reasonable outlet for his emotions, and he needs to learn to interact with his peers and learn to express his feelings and defend his interests in the interaction. These “lessons” should have started in early childhood, but he has been “absent”, so how can he handle it by reason alone?
The above is a typical example. If we talk about children who do not eat properly, chasing and feeding, lying, cheating and other behavioral problems are more common, and sometimes they are signs of children’s emotional disorders. If parents are not in a hurry to correct their children, but rather take a moment to review their recent interactions with their children and the atmosphere of the family, it is often not difficult to find the real answers.
At this stage, the interaction between parents/grandparents and the child is the most important foundation of his life, and whether it is overprotective, coddling, or uncaring or rough treatment, it can have a negative impact on the child.
There is another special case in early childhood that is relatively rare but more overwhelming to parents.
The case: a pair of anxious young parents, Mr. A and Ms. S are both college graduates, free love marriage, after the marriage, husband and wife, life is harmonious and happy. The second year of marriage is expected to have a son, the son grew tiger head, large and slightly deep eyes seem to penetrate an indescribable wit, but also to the small family added countless joy and excitement. But it didn’t last long, they gradually discovered that their child seemed to have many incredible things compared to other children. The child had a very good memory, he would sing the children’s songs he was taught in full without realizing it, and he would remember the way back from a trip to wherever he went. He is not interested in toys that children generally love, but likes to play with round bottle caps and cosmetic bottles. He likes to twist his fingers or poke the wheels of toy cars repeatedly in front of his eyes, and is particularly fascinated by TV commercials and weather forecasts, and from time to time he repeats these things he sees on TV, but only repeats them mechanically. He does not respond to calls for his name, as if he did not hear them. He does not reach out to his parents for hugs like other children do. He does not like to be approached by his parents or children and is comfortable being alone. He does not make friends with children and does not play hide-and-seek or house games with everyone. He often hides in a corner and plays with a piece of flannel alone. Further observation also revealed that he played with blocks, only in rows, and could not build bridges or cars, and that he stubbornly insisted on living in the same environment and the same way, getting irritated and screaming and hitting his head if there were any changes.
This problem is called “child autism” in child psychiatry. The main manifestations are social interaction disorders, verbal communication disorders, and abnormal behavior patterns. If you encounter such a situation, you should go to a specialized hospital as soon as possible.
4.Elementary school period
Nowadays, most of the elementary school students in big cities have parents who are double-income workers, so they are sent to school in the morning and go out at least at 7:00 a.m. After school, they have to be taken care of first, and their parents rarely come home before 6:00 p.m. in the evening. In other words, apart from sleeping, children spend most of their time with their teachers and classmates. This is especially true for children who attend boarding schools.
If preschoolers are still primarily led by their parents and kindergarten teachers to interact with children, school-age children tend to be more autonomous in their interactions with peers. Adult-like social organization begins to emerge in school-aged children’s play. The child’s identification with roles begins to take on importance. The child begins to learn the rules of adult society and the bad customs of adult society begin to immerse the child’s mind.
The young leaders become the best in the group. They either do well in their studies, or have outstanding strengths, or are particularly enthusiastic about public service, all of which are originally esteemed by society and, according to Freud, are the demands of the superego on the ego. If the superego’s demands occupy an excessive position, the ego (instinctive) things will be squeezed without a normal outlet.
A child who is a junior leader was once the teacher’s favorite, the pride of her parents, and the role model of her classmates (at least that’s what the teacher always said). She helped the teacher collect homework, she organized classmates to check hygiene, she motivated activists to prepare a program for the June 1 festival so that she could represent the class on stage. She seemed to have everything going well and became the voice of adult society on what was expected of children. In order to do better, she worked hard, and when she encountered difficulties, she began to impose on her “lagging” classmates. Gradually, she became more and more unhappy, and her classmates turned away from her, not admiring her from the bottom of their hearts because she had authority. She began to think that someone was jealous and worked harder. But one day, when she was chosen down by her classmates, she felt a great sense of aggravation and loss.
Society demands more from people than any ordinary person can fully achieve, always more than everyone can achieve, so that human society can progress. Only a very few people in the crowd are fortunate enough to be truly exemplary, to give an example, “Lei Feng is exceptionally, only exceptionally good, the vast majority of us can not reach.” Being an exemplary person is both biological (for example, a child with an antisocial personality base is unlikely to be an exemplary student) and guaranteed by an acquired nurturing environment, which can be met but not sought. You can pay attention to the cultivation, but not deliberately forced. Otherwise, it will be no less distorting to human nature than having to make a singer out of a person who is incompetent in five voices.
By the time a child reaches elementary school, she is able to gradually internalize the external demands on herself. Perhaps the teachers and parents are not pushing her to be a role model, but some children’s personalities are more characterized by self-imposed pressure, constantly putting pressure on themselves. The child does not know that an exemplary person cannot be achieved by deliberate efforts in the short term. At this time, as teachers and parents should remind her that it is good to be disciplined and competitive, but she should also be able to tolerate her own and others’ mistakes and weaknesses, and be able to strive for more people to cooperate relatively happily, in order to make real progress. Unfortunately, in the real world, we adults don’t do this very well. If the principal in a school has a limited level of management in pursuit of the school’s survival, over-pressures the teacher and lacks encouragement, and the teacher is deeply stressed and feels unsupported, how can she drive the young cadre under her by good example? Without a good example, reasoning is not very effective in developing interaction skills.
In the case of the cadre mentioned above, there is nothing wrong with “stepping down” a little early. After a period of adjustment, she returned to a lively and relaxed state, in fact, “her smile is also very beautiful”. If not corrected in time, a child’s personality development can easily go off course.
There are also special conditions that have a greater impact on children during the elementary school years. Children with ADHD, for example, have difficulty with discipline. Generally adults may think that a child being active is not necessarily a bad thing. But being overly active and unable to be quiet is obviously not good for growth. The full name for ADHD is “attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder. Such a child’s attention is not sustained and he or she is overly active, which is commonly known in Beijing as “yawning hands”. As you can imagine, such children are easily treated as “bad” classmates in the classroom. Once the child falls into the ranks of the backward elements, it will have a negative impact on the child’s development. This is especially true when the child’s shortcomings are biologically determined and cannot be corrected in the short term through subjective efforts. Such children need special education, but the current educational environment in our country does not allow for this, and only relies on cooperation and understanding between teachers and parents to create as much of a relatively just environment as possible for the problem child under the guidance of a doctor.
More insidious than hyperactivity disorder are various learning disabilities. We all know that there are children who are better at math and children who are better at language. There are those who are good at it, and then there are those who are deficient. Psychologists and educators have found through their research that some children have special difficulties in learning certain skills, such as some who unconsciously skip lines when reading so that what he reads is incoherent, or some who cannot distinguish between pairs of objects that are in a mirror image relationship (e.g., people and in, 6 and 9). This will undoubtedly cause great difficulties for their learning, and the ordinary teacher who does not understand this may think that he is either not paying attention or is deliberately messing up. In fact, it may be neither, just that he is having difficulty in some way. Children who are difficult and defective in some way are more likely to have an inferiority complex, and in peer interaction then need more tolerance and help from parents, teachers and even society as a whole, but for the most part now, we do the opposite.
5, adolescence
When it comes to “youth”, the first thing that comes to mind is vitality and poetry, which reflects the mood of the onlooker. Parents of adolescent children may not be so relaxed, after all, this is a rebellious age.
There is nothing parents worry about more than sex-related issues. Somehow, the best things in this world are often the ugliest and most unpleasant on the other side.
Confucius said, “Food and sex are also sex.” But there are far fewer poems celebrating food than there are celebrating love, and there are far fewer negative issues related to appetite than there are related to sex. No matter how gluttonous or bad eating, it is not considered a moral issue, and robbing others of food is usually only a minor property issue; but sex is a different matter, and it is not good enough to be associated with the ugly soul, and there are penalties associated with violations and crimes. The civil law has a special marriage law, defining the social attributes of gender relations, bigamy is a crime. There are even more specific provisions in the criminal code for various sexual crimes. It seems that sexual issues are under the greatest pressure of all basic human desires. At the same time, with all the means used, it still makes people so worried. Apparently, sexuality is also one of the worst issues that human beings deal with.
It is the poor handling of this issue in the adult world that makes us extra nervous when our children start to face it. The first thing that parents should make clear when faced with such a problem is that the problem lies more with us adults than with our children in particular.
Do you have a harmonious relationship in your family? Can you and your spouse communicate easily about sexual issues? For example, can you share memories of your first love? Can you help each other in their relationships with the opposite sex? Can you elevate your sexual desires and urges to the level of beauty rather than just “pornography”? Can you recall any helpful help you received in growing up sexually? Can you discuss sex-related issues with your children?
If you answered yes to the above list of questions, you won’t have a hard time dealing with your adolescent child. If, unfortunately, you are not confident in this area yourself, there is no need to be overly anxious. The bottom line is not to judge your child harshly and not to dictate what is not allowed outside of the law and accepted moral norms. Then putting yourself down and learning with your child will be a great way for you to catch up on that lesson and help your child take the road less traveled. After all, you will have something in your life experience that can help him/her.
The most critical and difficult aspect of dealing with your adolescent child as a parent is the change of roles. That is, a gradual shift from being the nurturer and leader to being an equal caregiver and reminder. If this is still too abstract, imagine how your attitude would be different if a relative or friend’s child came to your house to stay for a while. As the saying goes, “A child is a guest for three years.” This is the truth. Children generally feel more at home with relatives and friends, their autonomy is satisfied, and they often seem more knowledgeable and responsible. It is a process of interaction between you and your child, and you are expected to be the initiator, to start taking care to seek your child’s input when he/she is a teenager, and to let him/her decide his/her own things within his/her capabilities, with you acting as a counselor and role model, assisting rather than planning his/her development. Don’t wait until your child begins to rebel based on biological instincts and then get involved passively.
It is often said, “The power of example is infinite.” As long as you don’t live your own life too hard, how can your child grow up with your style of living and not follow your example? Most children are still able to “see the good and think the bad”. The fear is that sometimes you get used to it and you don’t feel bad anymore, but you ask your child to live like you do, and then you are denied by others.
If your child is more adept at learning, not only learned your strengths, but also introduced the “advanced experience” of others, may be allowed to incorporate some fresh style it, do not you want your child’s life more colorful?
The real problem is that in addition to learning your strengths, your child sometimes unconsciously learns your weaknesses as well. He/she wants to change but doesn’t know how to start, so he/she turns to attack you, the “teacher”. This is the time when parents are most afraid of not being able to see their own limitations and not being able to tolerate them in their hearts. In this way, it is inevitable to turn to counterattack, “You are not as good as I am!”
Rebellion and suppression cannot help but be a form of communication, but it does not teach children tolerance and understanding.
What counts as bad interaction? How harmful is it? Just reasoning is still too abstract, so here is an example.
In the 1970s, there was a mother who was a doctor and had three children. Because of her busy schedule, she sometimes could not take care of her children’s emotional needs, which was very common at that time. More than one teacher told the story of their children.
For example, one teacher said she was writing an article there and her child crawled under the table to play with the honeycomb coal under the table, only to find that when the article was almost finished, the child had simply become black. Another teacher who went to the countryside was on duty in the emergency room of the township health center when someone came running to complain: “Go check it out, your son has set our pigs free.” It turned out that, because there was no time to control the son, the child played with the pigs in the dry school, riding on the pigs as commander. This time, I do not know how to get the pigs to release ……
But this mother’s child has a particularly stubborn personality, and this mother is also a strong personality. There is an example, still in kindergarten, the child in the morning to mom to send, the mother did not have time to go to work, let her own walk (on a compound, five minutes to, and at that time there was no problem with security, the child also know, usually walked by themselves). The little girl resolutely refused to do it, pestered her mother and refused to let go, and when she was halfway there, she refused to go. As a result, the mother left her and ran to the health center first. Not long after, a colleague later reported, “Go see your daughter, she is on her knees on the road, moving forward one by one!”
This pair of mother-daughter interaction is also more tit-for-tat, less communication with each other. The daughter, who felt unloved, pursued emotional satisfaction outside the home. As she reached adolescence, she was constantly involved in unstable sexual relationships. Often, she starts to feel that the other person cares for her and makes her feel satisfied, and soon finds out that he is a cheater, especially if he is a male with a big age gap, which makes her feel “warm” in the beginning. At this point, the mother can no longer reason to help, and not to spend time with her to make her happy. As she continued to experience dramatic emotional setbacks, she had several abortions, slit her wrists, took poison, and her love life was like a starving person, constantly eating badly, getting better and then going back to eating indiscriminately ……
See here, you may think this is a very irresponsible mother. In fact, it is not at all. From an onlooker’s point of view, she is a rather competent mother who struggled from a small, isolated town to Beijing and put several children through college. Whenever something happened to this child, she felt distraught. Every time her child was hurt, she asked her to come back, hoping it would give her comfort. But it was as if this daughter was her nemesis and they just couldn’t talk about it together. Her education was oppressive in her daughter’s eyes, and her daughter’s approach was simply seen by her as unintelligent. Finally, the emotional hunger could not be satisfied from the improvement of material living standards, and after another breakup with her boyfriend, her daughter could no longer see the meaning of life and chose to end her life at the age of 26.
This is just an extreme example. There are many similar examples. Some children become addicted to playing video games; some go to cabarets for all-nighters and start using drugs; some run away from home and get involved in criminal organizations …… What they have in common is the lack of a warm and relaxed family atmosphere, good parent-child communication, and rejection in peer interactions.
You may think that these examples are rather extreme and feel that your own children are not related to these. Then, let’s take another example that is too ordinary to be true.
There is a girl who is neither the oldest nor the youngest in her family. She has a good personality and has been a worry to adults since she was a child, and she listens to her teachers, does her homework well, and is a small cadre in her class. Everything could not be more smooth, she should not seem to have any dissatisfaction. But it is she who, behind her silence, has the same desire as other children to communicate more with their parents. When she was in middle school, she purposely didn’t go home one summer, trying to make her parents anxious so they could prove they cared about her. When her parents called to ask about the situation, she stammered that she wanted to review her homework more and that it was messier to build a house at home. The parents thought she knew what she was talking about and had a point, so they really didn’t come to pick her up. They felt that their daughter had always been self-controlled, and that not going home would save money on travel expenses, and that the family was raising money to build a house. But she was so sad that she cried for a while. Finally, she decided not to do such a silly thing again.
Indeed, she never showed her parents her desire for love again. Unfortunately, she also did not learn to satisfy her deep emotional needs through other interactions, but just behaved herself. She grew up to be a well-behaved girl. When choosing a boyfriend, she prefers the kind she doesn’t really like, but the other person pursues him relentlessly. If you don’t really like the other person, you won’t really get hurt; the other person is relentless, ostensibly satisfying her need for care. They got married and they had a child. But life has taught her that not genuinely liking can hurt. Because you let the other person get hurt, it will always come back to you. It’s not always the other person who has changed their mind. As far as I know, her husband is still in love, but he still can’t figure her out either. She put all her feelings into her child, who happens to be very like her in temperament, and this time, it seems that only she can understand the mind of the child. The rest of the family felt unable to intervene in the care of the child emotionally. Finally, the family’s emotional scales tipped too far, and the helpless husband’s mental state became worse and worse, from a lively young man, into a sighing, middle-aged man who did not know why he was living. She, in turn, worried about how she would suffer once her children grew up and left her.
And the child? Due to the antagonistic atmosphere at home, and one can only identify with one of the parents, become less talkative. He is only happy when his mother is playing with him. But how long can this happiness last?
This is not a pie-in-the-sky story, such a situation more or less exists in many families, most of which do not find a doctor to consult, but affect the healthy growth of their children all the same.
6.Conclusion
The healthy growth of a child cannot be achieved without interaction. From mother-infant bonding, to real human interaction. From thinking completely for the child, to gradually learning and progressing with the child. Since this book is limited to child and adolescent mental health issues, this topic will not be extended. But clearly, interaction issues are not something that can be brought to a close by adolescence. We are constantly learning to deal with a wide variety of people throughout our lives.
Finally, I wish my children good health and good communication with their families.