Do you really know how to communicate with children?

My colleague Xiaoyan opened a WeChat public account to write youth campus articles. She writes well, with approachable content and plain and gentle writing style. As a result, more and more young readers flocked to the backstage to leave her messages, treating her as a close sister and telling her their happiness, troubles and sorrows. Some people say that they have fallen in love with the elementary school bully in the next class and are so obsessed with him that one day is like three autumns apart. Some people say that their homework load is too heavy and they are so tired that they are exhausted. Before the mid-term and final exams, they are worried all night long. Others say that they do not know the meaning and value of life, and live in confusion every day, with no sense of direction, as if they are groping in the dark, not knowing how long this kind of life will last. They talked about almost everything they knew. Xiaoyan also treated them patiently and listened to what they had to say. Then these students said trustingly: \”Sister, you are so kind. I am willing to tell you anything. In fact, even my parents don\’t know what I told you. I don\’t communicate with them at all about these things.\” Xiaoyan asked them why. \”Because… my parents won\’t listen. Even if they did, they would just scold me for my wild thoughts and tell me to go study. They don\’t have me in their eyes, only my grades.\” Many parents are like the supreme being at home. Managers, they will only be condescending and give orders, but will not speak softly or listen attentively; they will only pay attention to whether the child\’s grades are good or not, but will not care whether he is happy, whether he has worries, and whether he has accumulated stagnation for many years. They are like leaders in old-style enterprises who do not pay attention to the spiritual life and psychological state of their employees, but only focus on their performance indicators. Under such circumstances, children cannot feel the warmth and will resist communicating with their parents. I once read a report: In Tianjin, Zhou Yubo, a psychology teacher at Yangcun No. 1 Middle School, specially conducted a questionnaire survey on middle and high school students in the city, and a total of 528 questionnaires were returned. The survey results show that when students have troubles and entanglements, only 9.85% of students choose \”talk to their parents\” as a solution. Many children would rather keep their emotions in their hearts and digest them silently, or find strangers like Xiaoyan on the Internet to express their feelings, rather than communicate with their closest relatives. If a child\’s negative emotions are expressed, they may feel better, but if the emotions are suppressed too much, accumulated for too long, and difficult to channel, they may suddenly erupt like a scourge. Under such circumstances, children may even behave in extreme ways. Some may run away from home, while others may never look back. After taking the college entrance examination in 2016, a teenager named Xiao Si committed suicide by drowning in Dazhou, Sichuan. His father was too vigorous and domineering at home, and his mother was extremely strict with his studies. Therefore, no matter what Xiaosi does, he will always \”get into trouble\”: He wrote in his suicide note that he \”was scolded even if he scored 98 points in the exam.\” \”The first time I took the monthly exam, I ranked 73rd in the school. I told my mother when I called him. , my mother said: \’Only 73?\’, haha, I almost cried with anger on the other side of the phone.\” His parents almost never asked him about his inner feelings, but only cared about the learning tasks to be completed. Even as a childWhen their children\’s achievements are worthy of recognition, parents still do not praise them and still have higher requirements. As a result, the child feels that he has become a learning machine to achieve his parents\’ goals, rather than a living person, not flesh and blood. Many parents pay too much attention to learning and only care about whether their children can fly high or not, and don\’t care whether their children are tired from flying or not. Once the test results are not in line with his expectations, he will get angry indiscriminately, without communication and without asking the reason. This terrible practice caused a strong sense of frustration in the children, forming an unbridgeable gap between the two generations. Parents are unwilling to delve into their children\’s thoughts, and the children themselves are even less willing to disclose them. As a result, all the bad emotions are accumulated and fermented in the heart. When the years go by, psychological trauma is formed and the child\’s behavior becomes extreme, and it is difficult to turn back. Yes, during student days, studying is the main task. However, a healthy psychology is the guarantee of learning results. If you want to have a healthy psychology, you cannot do without timely communication between parents and children. Psychologist Abraham Maslow once proposed the concept of hierarchy of needs, saying that human needs have five levels, which are physiological needs, safety needs, belonging and love needs, esteem needs and self-actualization needs. After one level of needs is met, people will have the desire to satisfy higher level needs. Yes, parents hope that their children can reach the highest level, realize themselves, maximize their personal abilities, and strive to excel in learning. However, in this process, we often forget that before the need for self-actualization, the child needs to feel safe, loved and respected at home. Only when these needs are met will he be willing to move on. Family is also a small world. If a child can feel a happy atmosphere here, he will have a stable home and a reason to fight in the big world outside. As children grow up, no matter how strong they are, there will be times when they are vulnerable and need to talk. At that time, parents should give their children the most effective communication and the most healing tenderness. In a family, parents are indeed like senior managers in a business, while children are like employees. However, as a senior executive, although he has great power, he still cannot abuse his authority. Instead, he must pay attention to communication methods and convey love and warmth to his subordinates, so that he can be wholeheartedly accepted by his subordinates. The University of California once proposed the concept of \”displacement effect of communication\”. This concept refers to, “In a company, only 20%-25% of the information from superior leaders is known and correctly understood by subordinates, while the proportion of information passed from bottom to top is understood by less than 10%, while the proportion of information transmitted from bottom to top is understood. The efficiency of communication between people is very high, and the content understanding rate reaches about 90%.\” Researchers have found that communication between people of the same level is more efficient because their communication is based on equality, so the information conveyed is more easily accepted by both parties. So they tried to set up equal communication channels within the company, and then they were pleasantly surprised to find that after communication, not only the coordination capabilities of superiors and subordinates were greatly enhanced, but it was also easier for them to achieve ideas, ways of thinking, etc. consensus. So they concluded: “Equal communication is effective communicationguarantee. \”Family management is also like corporate governance. If there is not enough communication, parents may not understand much about their children; parents may also understand little about their children\’s wishes. Therefore, we also need to communicate on an equal footing to ensure that we communicate with children Communicate effectively and pay attention to their status in a timely manner. On the one hand, this can strengthen the emotional bond, and on the other hand, it can also nip problems in the bud to avoid bitter consequences that are difficult to recover. We might as well pay attention to the following three aspects in order to communicate with our children Equal communication. First of all, to have equal communication, we must give them enough respect and attention. Nelson, an American parenting expert, once proposed that we can use the \”3A\” method to create a communication time that makes children feel happy. The first A is \”Attitude\”. Parents should feel from the bottom of their hearts that the communication time with their children is worthwhile and meaningful. When you truly feel that this kind of conversation is valuable, your words, deeds, and eyes and expressions will convey love and warmth to the child, allowing him to have positive experiences and feelings. As Nelson said: \”The mentality makes this special time a powerful tool to enhance the child\’s sense of belonging and establish relationships with others. meaningful emotional connections. This time teaches a child that he or she is valuable, loved, and appreciated. \”The second A is \”Attention\”. During the communication process, you need to concentrate on communicating with the child seriously and not be disturbed by other trivial matters. This can make the child feel that you are serious and that he is very important. Important and worthy of your full attention. The last A is \”Alone\”. When communicating with your children, choose a quiet place, stay away from other people, and create a peaceful and comfortable communication environment. This is just like when we do psychological counseling, we always It is a one-to-one communication, and the conversation is carried out in a warm, private and quiet atmosphere. This kind of atmosphere makes people more at ease, relaxed, comfortable to open up their hearts and tell you what is on their mind. In this way, children can be calm and true He can freely express his thoughts without getting upset because of the noisy situation; nor can he find it difficult to speak because of the crowds of people. There is a foreign saying: \”Love is time.\” \”If you invest your time seriously in your child, he will feel your sincerity, give back, and gradually let you hear his thoughts and demands. Secondly, in the process of communicating ideas, you must express Promote positive support for children. In the behavioral science community, there is a \”bowling effect\” circulating, which refers to the positive effects of support and praise: There are two coaches who take their bowling players to train, and the initial results of the two teams are the same. , all of them knocked down 7 pins with one ball. Coach A said to the players appreciatively: \”What a great job, most of them were knocked down. \”The team members were very happy after hearing this, thinking that they must keep up their efforts next time, so their scores continued to rise. But Coach B said critically: \”What\’s the matter, there are still three bottles that have not been knocked down! After hearing this, the team members were very dissatisfied. They felt that their achievements were not recognized, their morale was low, and the situation got worse. There is a saying in the business world: \”Nothing can kill a person\’s ambition more than criticism from his boss.\”\”As the \”leader\” of their children, parents should avoid dampening their children\’s enthusiasm and look at the bright side of things. A parent who is full of positive energy and supports their children will also make their children like and want to get close to them, and they will be more willing to tell you everything. Treat you as a friend. Third, when communicating, pay attention to empathy. In management, there is the so-called \”fishbowl effect\”, which was proposed by Japanese total quality management expert Shima Masaji. It means that if you want to carry out For effective business management, to understand your partners, you must put yourself in their shoes, just like if you want to know what a fish is thinking, you must jump into the fish tank and swim with the fish. You must try to see this from his perspective. The world knows that he actually has a very hard life. He takes three, six or nine exams in big exams and small exams every day. When his grades are not satisfactory and he is still immature, he can easily get discouraged and feel uncomfortable. And when they are sad, if the closest person Instead of standing behind them and encouraging them, relatives will be critical and demanding all the time, which will make them worse and make them feel even more uncomfortable. In addition, you must understand his thoughts and preferences, and be interested in people and things. Express appropriate interest. This makes it easier to find a common language with him in life and be regarded as a teammate by him. There was once such a joke that a child liked the star Li Yifeng, and his parents asked him: \”Who is Li Yifeng?\” ? \”When the children heard this, they felt that the generation gap with their parents was too big, and they immediately lost their desire to communicate. We don\’t have to know everything that our children like, but we need to know a little bit about the main hobbies so that we can easily pick up the conversation. The operation of a family is actually just like the operation of a company. As the CEO of the company, although parents have great power, they cannot just close their eyes and listen and be aloof. Instead, they should understand the public opinion, put down their dignity, and get along with their children peacefully and equally. Let the children feel that their parents empathize with my world. In this way, parents can understand their children\’s psychology in time and protect their growth when they need it most. And the children also get more from the family. With the happiness and nourishment, with the support, you will be more motivated to study for exams. The positive interaction between parents and children can create a positive atmosphere of democracy and affinity in the family. As time goes by, you will be happy and forget your worries.