What are some of the ways parents destroy their children?

Some time ago, I saw an article in China News Weekly. The article wrote: In the outpatient clinic of He Fan, director of pediatrics at Beijing Anding Hospital affiliated to Capital Medical University, more than 40 patients came to see him in half a day, two-thirds of them. Related to depression and anxiety. In the pediatric inpatient department of her hospital, children with depression and anxiety disorders account for more than half of the beds. They are basically severe patients. Most of them have self-injury and suicidal tendencies. Hospitalization is to ensure safety. Some scale surveys show that in 2020, the depression detection rate among Chinese adolescents reached 24.6%, while the depression detection rate among rural children was 25.2%. 24.6% means that one in every four teenagers may be suffering from depression, which is shocking. When more and more children are troubled by depression, and when parents eagerly ask Dr. He Fan what the cause is, He Fan said, “It is difficult to simply attribute it to a certain factor. Among the many psychological problems among teenagers, Depression and anxiety are more affected by social and cultural environmental factors, but they cannot be simply attributed to one factor. \”Depression is a disease of the times, and there is something wrong with the ecological system composed of our families, schools and society.\” \”More than Adolescence\” \”The Key\”, a new book just released this year, also attempts to give an answer to this question from the perspective of biological evolution. The author Barbara Knutson is a doctor of medicine and an authority in the field of evolutionary medicine research. Her strength is interdisciplinary research. Not only looking at problems from the perspective of human problems, but also expanding the research direction and perspective of the entire animal kingdom to find answers. In her new book, a new perspective on understanding growth is revealed. She puts \”Island Taming\” This concept of biological evolution is based on the study of the spiritual crisis faced by human children in this era. \”Island taming\” is closely related to \”fear conditioning\”. The so-called \”fear conditioning\” is possessed by many animals including humans. Instinct. Our human ancestors faced threats from carnivorous animals in the past. When our ancestors escaped from a big bear, the intense, body-wide discomfort caused by fear would be bound to a certain event, place or individual. They will learn to avoid this stimulus in the future, a behavior called \”fear conditioning.\” Fear shapes the behavior of animals, and reactions triggered by fear can save lives. This gene is engraved in the animal\’s body. In genes, it has become a protective mechanism for countless generations. The so-called island taming means that if animals are allowed to live on an isolated island without danger, without natural enemies or predators, they will gradually lose the ability to \”fear conditioned reflexes\”. This Sometimes, once other problems arise, such animals will become very vulnerable. The problem of this era is precisely that modern humans live in a tame state on islands, and there is almost no influence of carnivorous animals on humans in human society. Threat, then, what will happen to a brain and body that evolved from a dangerous environment full of predators when it finds that these dangers are gone? Barbara quoted Lars Svensson, an expert on fear at the University of Bergen in Norway. Perspective: “In the modern world of affluence, where the environment is relatively safe, people no longer face the problems our ancestors facedof physical danger, we have more brain space to think about risks that may not come, and we live in a state of perpetual fear. Permanent fear isolates individuals and creates an anxious and lonely society. \”This also confirms the previous view of Pediatrics Director He Fan: \”Anxiety and depression are difficult to attribute to a single factor. It is a disease of the times. \” This generation of parents may have to pay a heavy price to realize that they are going in the opposite direction of the correct answer. It is difficult for us to go back to the era when our ancestors lived: they had to tremble and do their best to escape from the harm of large carnivores. It is even difficult for us to go back to the state a few decades ago when our grandparents were afraid of natural disasters affecting the grain harvest and worried that people would starve to death. The wheel of the times is rolling forward, just like the evolution of nature, it will not stop and wait. A certain species catches up. Each era has its own test papers, and people of each era have to gradually find the correct answer after groping in various ways, and even paying a high cost of trial and error. In solving the problem of \”island taming\” Facing the examination papers for the diseases of this era, the sad thing is that most parents may be going in the opposite direction of the correct answer. When parents see media reports on various dangerous information, they will be more inclined to protect their children from danger. This indirectly leads to More and more schools do not allow children to play during recess, because normal collisions may lead to complaints from parents and punishment from teachers, so it is better to be on the safe side and ban children\’s play across the board. Originally, It is normal for children to fail to keep up with certain subjects at school. However, in order to avoid potential criticism from teachers or ridicule that children may encounter at school, parents have also put pressure on their children outside the classroom. Many parents allow The original intention of children learning ahead of time is not to lead others, but to avoid the potential harm caused by children falling behind in school. The increase in extracurricular learning will inevitably reduce the time for children to play with children of the same age. Parents often say that now There is no one to hang out with children after school because everyone is in various classes. From the perspective of biological evolution, complete isolation from danger and the lack of playmaking with peers will directly lead to the vulnerability of the species. Sweden and Norway Scientists conducted an experiment with salmon. They divided a group of small salmon into three groups – the first group was placed in a tank with free-swimming predator cod. These small salmon coexisted with risk, and they needed to avoid cod attacks. and prey; the second group was also placed in a tank with cod, but with one key difference, there was a transparent net extending down the center of the tank, isolating the cod to one side. The young salmon could see their deadly The enemy can also sense how the enemy\’s swimming stirs up waves in the surrounding water. The third group was placed in an ordinary water tank without any predators. The experiment showed that the salmon in the first and second groups became smarter in the face of danger. . They have also evolved different strategies to deal with risks. One of the strategies is to swarm, that is, to join forces with their peers. Once they sense danger, they will suddenly turn their heads in the same direction, right next to each other, and act in a coordinated manner like a training team. But the third group of fish was much worse. They tend to overreact or react inappropriately when faced with threats, and they either sway more when underwater or don\’t react at all. Scientists call this unresponsiveness a form of physiological stress, a state of stupor or panic attack that makes them easy targets for dangerous attacks. Looking back at our human children, don’t they look like the little salmon in the third group? I have communicated with many of our readers, and they all said that there must be one reason why they must learn pinyin and write in advance before kindergarten. The school progress is too fast, and if they cannot keep up, the children\’s self-confidence will be hit. However, have you ever thought that if you are so worried about your child\’s negative evaluation in school, then when the child has worked so hard to learn everything ahead of time, he will be easily surpassed by other children, or if he maintains his advantage for one year, in the second year Or they lost everything in junior high school. How should they face this tragic loss? Parents do their best to prevent them from getting hurt at all, whether physical or psychological. What makes human children worse than salmon is that in order to isolate themselves from risks, parents, whether actively or passively, will deprive them of the opportunity to play with their peers. In fact, biologists have discovered that children who grow up in an environment without peers will Large animals cannot learn the safety skills needed in the real world. Interactions, conflicts, and fights between organisms and peers, including learning group rules and finding one\’s own rank in the group, are all essential and important steps to increase children\’s safety. From this perspective, a sad and painful fact is that completely protecting children from potential dangers may be the most serious mistake human parents can make. How to Destroy a Child with Your Own Hands Barbara said in her new book that almost all species, including humans, will face four basic challenges throughout their lives. They are: How to protect themselves safely? How to integrate into a hierarchical society? How to communicate about sex? How to be self-reliant? The skills corresponding to the four challenges are: avoiding danger; finding a place in a group; learning how to be attractive; being self-sufficient and setting goals. From this point of view, if you want to destroy a child with your own hands, the best way is what many parents are doing now. That is, driven by anxiety and fear, parents create an environment for their children that eliminates peer conflicts and only involves learning. In other external environments, we personally weave a cage for children that is isolated from external dangers and harm from peers. In the name of justice to protect children from harm, we directly deprive children of their ability to identify and respond to danger, thereby also depriving them of their ability to deal with the other three challenges. After all, on the journey of life, they are not even the first Can\’t even pass the test. Growth itself is a thing full of dangers, and we push our children into greater dangers in order to avoid dangers. This is a bit like what Hegel called \”the most profound tragic conflict in the world\”, that is, the two sides do not agree with each other. There is right and wrong, it\’s just two one-sided things that come together for good reasons. In this era, what should parents, schools and society do to help children develop coping skills?There is no way to generalize the abilities of these four basic challenges. As Barbara says: \”No one knows how much protection to provide in every situation. Ideal protection must be tailored to the strengths and weaknesses of the individual, as well as local environmental conditions. For example, in very dangerous, predator-intensive situations In an environment where animals are protected, animal parents will provide ongoing protection to their young offspring and even early adult offspring. On the contrary, when the environment is safer and resources are abundant, extended protection and provision are not only unnecessary, but also hinder the animals\’ development. Growth.\” This is not an easy thing, but the problems of an era will never be answered easily, but fortunately, we know the approximate right direction, and we are more thankful than making more mistakes on the wrong road. Fortunately, the country has called a halt, and this will be the starting point for a new expected change.