When a child gets angry, your reaction determines their personality
A while ago, my girlfriend almost complained to me crazily every day:
My son is simply crazy. He just went out to ask for a toy, but I didn't buy it and ended up lying on the ground.
Oh my god, who understands what it feels like to have a little ancestor who inexplicably throws books and toys at home?
As he grows older, the temper of his best friend's son also gradually lengthens.
Often, before his parents know what's going on, he starts shaking his face and crying at the slightest disagreement.
The family members eagerly inquired, earnestly taught, and sternly rebuked at times, but the bear child still went his own way.
Finally, my best friend can only accept fate: maybe my child was born with a hot temper.
But in fact, we know that no child is born irritable, and no child is born a demon.
What they grew into later on is mostly the result of postnatal shaping.
A child with a hot temper is likely due to a problem with your emotional education.
Therefore, when a child gets angry, your first reaction, especially the first sentence, is extremely important.
There is a topic on Zhihu:
How to relieve emotions when a child is angry?
There is a story in the comment section that instantly breaks people's defenses.
When the blogger was a child, he became obsessed with copying lyrics for a period of time.
One day when she returned home, she suddenly realized that the lyrics she had copied were missing. She immediately burst into tears with sadness and didn't even care about her family or relatives visiting.
As a result, before she could fully comprehend her tears, she saw her mother's massive figure, blurred and blurred, rushing towards her with a fierce momentum through the tears on her eyelashes.
The next second, the blogger had two more slaps on his face:
Why cry? Don't cry, keep your mouth shut! Can't you see that we are all busy?
In an instant, the cry choked up in the throat and was never shouted out again.
Since then, she has remembered:
You can't cry when you're angry. Crying is not allowed.
How heartbreaking.
Many parents have a natural aversion to crying and screaming, whether it's because of the noise or because it triggers their own insecurity, and they will try their best to stop their children from getting angry.
Little do they know, this kind of restraint is the most hurtful.
Scientific research has shown that the rational brain of humans is much more underdeveloped than the emotional brain.
Even for adults, when encountering dissatisfaction, their emotional brain always comes first, followed by their rational brain.
Children are even more so.
But due to the immature development of the brain in children under 6 years old, they are unable to control their emotions at all.
Faced with dissatisfaction, they will only make a big fuss and shout loudly.
However, this does not mean that this emotional brain is the obstacle on our path to harmonious coexistence with children.
Yan Yijia emphasized in his book "Emotional Parenting" that:
Children's emotions are not a flood of beasts that need to be suppressed, but an important driving force for their mental growth.
Positive emotions such as joy and happiness can strengthen children's recognition and pursuit of beautiful things, while anger and sadness can also help children establish self-awareness and learn to face reality.
If children are not allowed to release their emotions and are kept in a suppressed state, over time, they may develop various psychological problems such as anxiety, depression, and isolation, which can affect their physical health.
When a child loses their temper, they must remember that temper itself is not scary, what is scary is our attitude of treating bad temper as a raging beast.
Unload prejudice and patiently accompany children through the surging bad temper, so that they can learn to coexist with emotions and grow up in the sunshine.
I once heard a psychological counselor tell such a story.
In Australia, a white couple in their 40s adopted a 6-year-old black adopted daughter named Tracy.
Tracy had suffered from a long period of abuse before and felt extremely uneasy inside.
But after coming to this home, her white parents have been taking care of her with little wings, making her feel an unprecedented warmth.
One evening, white parents invited a psychological counselor to have dinner with them.
The dinner that day was very sumptuous, but as Tracy had just finished pulling out her teeth and couldn't eat hard food, her foster mother cooked a bowl of noodles for her.
At the dining table, adults were chatting and laughing together, and the scene was once very harmonious.
However, suddenly, Tracy lost control of her emotions and threw the bowl to the ground. She then covered her face and cried while cursing.
The foster parents were obviously confused, but surprisingly, they didn't scold the child out loud, but looked at her gently.
After more than ten minutes, Tracy finally calmed down.
They finally realized that Tracy's teeth were too painful and sad, but her foster parents were laughing heartily.
This immediately reminded her of the days when she was abused and laughed at loudly, and she began to lose her temper and attack her adoptive parents.
Originally, children would never lose their temper for no reason. Every time they lose their temper, they are expressing their demands.
I have also seen a similar news before.
A 9-year-old boy who has been entrusted by his parents to relatives for a long time and rarely sees them.
Surprisingly, whenever he is alone at a relative's house, he behaves very sensible. Once his parents visit, the child will get angry and cannot be persuaded.
My parents were very puzzled, but later after analysis by a psychological teacher, they found out:
It may seem like the child is losing their temper, but in fact, this is just a way for them to express their need for parental companionship.
Psychologist John Bowlby once proposed an attachment theory——
Children have a strong need for intimate relationships.
If they feel that their parents are not paying enough attention to them, they may try to win their parents' love by throwing tantrums, which is an instinctive act of seeking help.
Therefore, when a child gets angry, please replace impatience with pity and incomprehension with help.
Every child who loses their temper is not irritable or unreasonable, but seeking more sense of security.
Since children don't lose their temper for no reason and their temper is not like a raging beast, how should we deal with this storm?
- Accept emotions and provide a sense of security: I know, I understand
I watched a variety show before and was very impressed.
When actor Hu Ke brought his son Xiaoyuer to participate in a parent-child program, Xiaoyuer took a liking to a toy and insisted on buying it.
Hu Ke disagreed, and Xiaoyuer shouted at his mother, 'Stinky mother, bad mother...'
At this moment, Hu Ke did not scold the child for being unreasonable, nor did he try to reason with the child. He just gently hugged the little fish in his arms and said, "I know.
As a result, the little fish miraculously stopped making noise, and soon after, the mother and son reconciled as before.
Many people find it incredible, but in fact, this is the power of acceptance and empathy.
A phrase like 'I know' or 'I understand' is far more valuable than a thousand words of wisdom and methodology.
Everyone likes to appreciate and affirm, rather than deny and suppress.
Only by allowing children to be recognized, their emotions to be put into practice, and they can be relieved, can they have the next 'rational thinking'. - Teach children to express their emotions
Education scholar Li Meijin once said, "Children's emotional expression ability needs to be cultivated and guided from an early age.
This kind of emotional cultivation not only needs to focus on daily life, but also requires timely intervention after children lose their temper, helping them quickly get out of emotional misunderstandings.
After the children calm down, guide them to recognize their feelings and express their emotions.
For example, a child gets angry because their mother is unwilling to buy new toys.
So, is the child's inner anger due to not getting it? Or is it because of my mother's refusal to buy toys that makes me sad?
If they cannot distinguish between anger and sadness, they can use facial expressions and body posture to tell children the difference between the two, and let them learn to distinguish their own emotions.
At home, you can also set up an "emotional sharing time". When the time is up, parents will be the first to share what happened during the day and their corresponding emotional experiences.
Both positive happiness and joy, as well as negative sadness and frustration, can be shared with children.
Next, guide the child to talk about what happened on that day and their corresponding feelings, so that they understand that expressing emotions is a normal and encouraged thing. - Guiding Reflection: Teaching Children the Correct Way to "Get Angry"
Many times, children throw tantrums simply because they have not established a reflective awareness of their emotions and are not aware of the inappropriate aspects of such behavior.
And every time you lose your temper, it's the best opportunity to establish a sense of emotional reflection.
After the child has a correct understanding of their previous emotions, they can be guided to reflect on their behavior:
Baby, you just threw the book and toys on the ground, but you haven't found the book you want yet, right? Let's try to think of other ways and see where else we haven't looked before?
If there is no solution to some things, then guide children to properly relieve their bad emotions:
For example, "Baby feels very angry in his heart, so let's try squeezing dry noodles, playing sandbags, or playing ball games to see if we can calm down
Of course, it is important for children to establish a sense of emotional reflection and teach them how to properly throw tantrums. They should not rush for a moment, but instead practice repeatedly day after day.
In this process, what we need to do is to be more patient and listen, and then wait patiently for the flowers to bloom.
I really like Sukhomlinsky's words:
Every moment, when you see your child, you see yourself; You educate your children, which means educating yourself.
As children grow up, they increasingly feel that raising them is essentially raising themselves again.
From their joy and excitement, we see the innocence of childhood; Tracing back to the sense of security we struggled to find in our childhood through their anger and irritability; From the confusion of dealing with their different emotions, adjust one's mood and cultivation over and over again.
Then, coexist and grow together with the child.
We always say that parents are the original documents, and children are the copies.
When parents' emotions stabilize, children's emotions naturally stabilize as well.
Every child who does not throw tantrums when faced with problems must have a pair of parents standing behind them who unconditionally accept their child's emotions, guide them to express and reflect on their emotions.
Parenting starts with nurturing oneself, and for the rest of your life, please have more patience and love. Do not vent your anger or force yourself, so that every emotional outburst of your child can be accepted and tolerated, guided and nurtured.
Only in this way can we help children smoothly overcome setbacks and hardships, and live a good life.
Click 'watching' and encourage your friends.