After a quarrel with my 13-year-old daughter, I realized: Never confront adolescent children head-on. The biggest thing a parent can do is…

\”When will this annoying adolescence end?\” Not long ago, I saw a mother\’s request for help on Xiaohongshu. Her daughter is in adolescence and has been unable to communicate properly for a whole year. When I get home every day, the child spends most of the time locked in his room and refuses to communicate. The few conversations he has have are basically making requests to his parents. If he refuses, he will look bad. There have been many times when netizens have tried to have heart-to-heart conversations with their daughters, but she always responded unilaterally. The children always did not express their opinions or speak, and their attitude was very cold. Seeing his once lively and lovely daughter become like this, this netizen was exhausted both mentally and physically. She collapsed and said: \”My suffocation has worsened recently. It\’s too consumed and I feel very weak. Where is my lively, funny and loving daughter? Did I lose you? When will you come back…\” They all said Children\’s adolescence is a disaster for all parents in the world, it is true. The originally well-behaved and docile child suddenly seemed like his enemy. He was rebellious, extreme, and always wanted to fight against him. He couldn\’t say or scold him, and he often went to extremes. What parent can stand such a contrast? It reminds me of the psychologist Winnicott\’s famous saying: \”I planted a baby, but I harvested a bomb!\” In the difficult adolescence, faced with such a child who \”gets by\”, what should we as parents do? How about getting along with them? There is no winner in a head-to-head confrontation with adolescent children. Adolescence refers to the transition period from childhood to adulthood. In people\’s traditional impression, this stage mainly comes after children enter middle school. However, with the improvement of living environment and nutrition, early puberty has now become a common phenomenon, and many children have entered puberty in the middle and upper grades of primary school. Children at this time become extremely \”difficult\”. On the one hand, they are eager to get rid of their parents\’ control and have an increasingly strong desire to make their own decisions and be different; on the other hand, their brain structures such as the prefrontal cortex are not fully developed, and they cannot control their emotions rationally, cannot think in other people\’s shoes, and simply cannot Reason. In this case, if adults adopt a \”head-to-head\” education method, it is destined to only plunge the parent-child relationship into dire straits. There was such a mother and daughter in the CCTV documentary \”Conversation Behind the Curtain: An Experiment in Communication in Adolescence\”. The girl Li Hanyu is 12 years old and is in adolescence. She can\’t stand her mother\’s nagging and controlling nature, and she frankly resents her. Her mother has a straightforward personality, and she always quarrels with her daughter when she disagrees, and is often angered by her children. Once, the teacher wanted to recommend Li Hanyu to participate in a competition. Seeing that the opportunity was rare, my mother agreed without hesitation. But when she told her daughter the news, she firmly refused and even said harshly: \”I won\’t go even if you beat me to death!\” Li Hanyu\’s attitude completely angered her mother. Out of control, she cut her daughter\’s newly bought clothes into pieces. Unexpectedly, Li Hanyu showed no signs of weakness. That night, she retaliated by cutting off all of her mother\’s pajamas and socks. In this way, the tense mother and daughter refused to give in and fell into a long cold war. During the interview, when this matter was brought up, Li Hanyu was still confident: \”She cut mine, and I have to cut hers too.\” Yes.Therefore, my mother couldn\’t figure it out very much. She didn\’t understand why her adolescent daughter became so stubborn and ignorant. Li Haanyu’s truthful answers during the question session of the show revealed her true inner thoughts – when asked what her parents did that most disgusted her, she said: “Forcing me to do things I don’t like. And my mother. I get very annoyed when they often rush me.\” When asked when she least wanted to talk to her parents, she said: \”For example, if she gets bad grades and then she keeps saying it, she gets very annoyed.\” The experience of the girl Li Hanyu is the epitome of millions of adolescents. At this stage, parental toughness will only lead to more obvious confrontation from the child. As American education expert Jeffrey Bernstein said: \”If parents insist on fighting for power with their rebellious children, they will end up in a lose-lose situation.\” When facing adolescent children, the more we want to overpower them , pushing them further away. In this head-to-head contest, there is actually no winner. In the face of adolescence, the biggest thing parents can do is to do nothing. The Festinger\’s Law in psychology points out that \”10% of life is made up of what happens to you, and the other 90% is made up of your reaction to what happens to you.\” It depends on how things react. \”In terms of parenting, our attitude and reaction to adolescent children actually determines how our children will go through this stage – whether they will be in trouble or live in peace depends on it. Our approach. Education expert Chen Mo once said: \”The reason behind the repeated emotions of adolescent children is that they have entered the \’second period of resistance\’ (the first period of resistance is at the age of two or three). When children feel that they are not allowed to grow up, they I started to resist. \”In fact, if there are adolescent children at home, the first thing parents need to do is to abandon the idea of ​​​​a sharp point of view, let themselves soften and \”weaken\”, and give their children space and opportunities to grow independently. Specifically, it mainly involves the following two aspects: 1. Learn to shut up and give in. Colleague Sister Liu’s son is a sophomore in high school this year and has always been “other people’s children.” Not only does he have excellent grades, but he also has a harmonious and close relationship with his parents. Not going through the rebellious phase of adolescence. When we asked Sister Liu for advice, she said with a smile: \”Which child doesn\’t worry adults during adolescence? It\’s just that I learned to pretend to be deaf and dumb and not be as knowledgeable as the children.\” It turns out that since my son entered adolescence, , Sister Liu decided to believe in a principle – keep your mouth shut, and never say anything if you can. And it was her ability to \”carry things clearly\” that enabled her son to always get along well with her. Wang Dianjun, principal of the High School Affiliated to Tsinghua University, once suggested that when dealing with adolescent children, parents should \”cook more, talk less, and especially nag less.\” Nonstop preaching and exhortations will not make children obedient, but will only arouse more and more resentment and disgust from them. At the same time, parents should also learn to give in and let their children make their own decisions as long as there is no danger in something they insist on. In the face of adolescent children, we might as well \”treat them by doing nothing\”. We should not try to change the children, and there is no need to conflict with them. Only when adults let go of their obsession with \”winning over their children\” can they truly win over their children.son. 2. Change your identity and become your child’s “fellow traveler.” Qian Wenzhong, a professor at the Department of History at Fudan University, once talked about a past incident of his son on a talk show. When his son was in adolescence, he was particularly addicted to online games for a period of time, to the point of forgetting to sleep and eat, and his grades were also affected. In this regard, Qian Wenzhong knew that he could not let it go, but if he used drastic and extreme measures such as cutting off the Internet cable and smashing the computer to ban his son from playing games, the relationship between father and son would definitely become tense. He tried to put himself in his son\’s shoes and played the game from his son\’s perspective. It turned out to be very fascinating indeed. At that moment, he understood why his son became addicted. Therefore, Qian Wenzhong decided to \”do the opposite\”. On the one hand, he encouraged his son to explore more interesting things than playing games; on the other hand, he deliberately found some well-made historical-themed games and actively recommended them to his son. In this way, the son did not turn against the adults because of the issue of mobile games. Instead, under the guidance of his father, his son became interested in history, and finally chose the history major as the direction of studying abroad. A potential educational conflict was successfully resolved in this way. Professor Li Meijin once pointed out that when parents get along with their adolescent children, they should not be opponents but fellow travelers. Parents may wish to change their identities, put down their high and authoritative airs, and do not stand on the opposite side of their children, but get along with their children like friends. Only when children feel equality and respect will they establish a close connection with their parents and truly listen to what adults say. In the last book \”Decoding Puberty\”, he wrote: \”During adolescence, the mutations of the body and mind are like a violent storm. Every child who seems rebellious and unapproachable needs strong support from his parents.\” The more arrogant and domineering a child is, the more fragile and sensitive a child is behind him waiting for our care and protection. As parents, we must give our children recognition, encouragement and respect, so that they can feel their own strength and value, so that they can actively work hard and experience the joy of progress. Click \”Like\”, treat children with a sincere heart, and act with respect. I hope all children can break through the difficulties of adolescence, turn into cocoons and become butterflies, becoming more and more sunny, confident, and dazzling.