Children, please don’t be clever. Keeping promises is a kind of ability.

How to break love entanglement? A mother of a sixth grader came to me for consultation. According to this mother\’s description, the thing that troubles her the most is that her children like to make stringent demands, are impatient, and do not keep their promises. They often conflict with their mothers over trivial matters in life. His mother would often lose her temper to suppress him when she couldn\’t argue with him. She knew that this would hurt the parent-child relationship, but she couldn\’t find a better way out. Take the matter of mobile phones, for example. Among the families I have contacted, her family\’s mobile phone management is very loose. There is a mobile phone specially for this child to play with. He can play with it every night as long as he finishes his homework, and there is no time limit. , I just play casually on the weekends. However, my father always adheres to the principle that this mobile phone cannot be brought to school. Therefore, his father will take this mobile phone away from work and bring it back to his children after get off work. However, this child has violated the agreement many times. When his father forgot to take away his mobile phone, he would secretly take it to school. Once, he happily sent a photo to his mother and said that the art teacher asked the students to create a painting by themselves. Since it was a casual creation, he drew a pile of poop and some small ants. The picture was very disgusting. The teacher frowned after looking at it, but still let the painting pass. The child found this incident very funny and couldn\’t help but share it with his mother. Afterwards, my mother figured out that the painting in the art class was taken away by the teacher after class, which meant that the child not only brought his mobile phone to school, but also turned on his mobile phone in class. In recent times, the child has frequently begged his parents that he wants to manage his mobile phone by himself. This morning, he discussed with his father that he should hold the mobile phone by himself, but his father said \”no\”. The child continued, \”I think my time arrangement is pretty good. You see, I\’ve finished my homework in the morning, and I managed my cell phone well in the past two days. Isn\’t it okay if I don\’t take it to school and leave it at home?\” The father still said \”no\”, and the child continued: \”Is it okay if I don\’t pick up the phone on Saturday?\” The father simply ignored him. So, the child went to his mother and said, \”Why can\’t Dad let me hold the phone by myself?\” The mother said, \”Why do you have to hold the phone?\” The child said, \”Because that is my phone.\” Mom said Said: \”Although it is given to you, it does not mean that you can fully manage it. You do not have the ability to manage your mobile phone yet.\” The child emphasized again: \”I won\’t take my mobile phone on Saturdays, so it\’s not enough for you to manage my mobile phone.\” \”?\” This sentence directly touched the mother\’s weakness, because she did not want her children to play with their mobile phones for too long. So she told her child: \”I\’m busy going to work now. There are many details to discuss on this issue. We need to think about it carefully and talk about it tonight.\” With clear logic and accurate lines, I said to my mother: \”Your son is really a master negotiator. You see, he made a request and found arguments to prove that he had the ability. If he didn\’t agree, he would take the initiative to make concessions. Dad was unmoved, so he took a curveball to save the country – changing the negotiating partner, and finally got a vague agreement from you. Promise.\” After hearing this analysis, my mother said, \”Hey, why didn\’t I realize it at the time?\” Next, my mother and I analyzed the child\’sThe so-called \”proof\”: First, under the original agreement, the child brought his mobile phone to school without his parents\’ permission, which in itself violated the agreement and just proved that he did not manage himself well. Second, he said he finished his homework on Monday morning. This is because he left all his weekend homework until Sunday night, and postponed it until Monday morning when he was sleepy at night. This can only mean that the child did not arrange time well on the weekend. It can be seen from this that this child has a special \”ability\”: it is obviously inappropriate behavior, but he changes his perspective and packages it as his own advantages, and even persuades his mother. He understands his mother\’s psychological needs very well, so he promised not to use his mobile phone on Saturdays. However, based on his past behavior, it is very likely that he will make a promise first, and then continue to find reasons and ways to pester his parents on weekends. Therefore, I recommend that the mother decline the child\’s request. My mother said, \”After this analysis, I understand the pros and cons of this matter. Then I will go home in the evening and tell him that this matter is not allowed, and then give him the reasons.\” I asked my mother to base it on the child\’s personality. Let’s predict his reaction. Mom said it was very likely that he would continue to pester: why not? You all said that\’s my phone. My classmates can all manage their mobile phones, why can’t I? Hum, if you don’t listen to me now, I won’t listen to you in the future either… I said to my mother: My children are more concerned about mobile phones than us, so we might as well Have your \”lines\” ready and wait for him to ask. The lines we designed are as follows: Child: Mom, have you considered the mobile phone? Mom: I’ve considered it. Child: How are you thinking? Mom: No. Child: Why not? Mom: First, you violated the agreement by bringing your mobile phone to school on Thursday and Friday; second, the weekend homework was not completed until Monday morning, and this will not be allowed to happen in the future; third, the mobile phone matter Dad made an agreement with you. From now on, you can talk to dad directly about your cell phone, and you don’t need to come to me. You can probably tell that the mother waits for the child to ask questions, has a calm attitude, and adheres to the principle of \”answer what you ask\” without saying a word. She seems passive, but in fact she has firmly grasped the initiative. Next, the mother even had a little \”little expectation\” in her heart. After returning home, she waited for the child to ask, but the child didn\’t ask until she went to bed. The mother felt a little \”little disappointed\” in her heart. The next morning, the child Finally he couldn\’t help but speak. My mother told me very excitedly later: You know, the child has such a \”tacit understanding\” with us that he actually \”read\” the lines we designed intact, and he didn\’t say \”oh\” after listening to me. No matter what I say, this is really not like his style. It is so unexpected. Although I only answered these few sentences, it is the first time that I feel that talking to children can still have such weight! Small cleverness at the moment, big loss of life. Most of the time, I advocate treating children gently and try to give them understanding and support, but our handling style in this matter is quite tough. Why treat this child like this? There are three reasons. First, keeping promises is a kind of ability. Second, correctBeing entangled will make children go astray. Third, making up reasons will affect the child\’s state of mind. Obviously, when preparing a special mobile phone for the child, the agreement between both parties was very clear. However, the child got the benefits of the agreement and turned a blind eye to the bottom line of the agreement. Once he found out that his father had forgotten to take the phone with him at work, he secretly took it to school. In addition, a promise like \”not picking up the phone on Saturday\” is just a temporary measure, and he had no intention of keeping it when he made the promise. Therefore, such children often do not have their own rules of conduct, do not know how to restrain themselves, and take advantage of loopholes whenever they have the opportunity. If a child does not intend to keep his promise, then the next time and attention will be attracted to one topic: How can he keep his promise? We can imagine that this child has to pay attention to whether his father has taken away the mobile phone every day, and also think about how to hide after stealing the mobile phone without being discovered? How do you defend yourself when you are criticized? Or thinking about what reasons can be used to convince parents. Over time, such children develop a cunning intelligence: they are very good at digging traps for others and can make up high-sounding reasons. As this mother said, sometimes she knows that he is perfunctory or telling lies, but it is difficult to find evidence to expose him. Although the child has gained some benefits with his cleverness, his heart is always in a state of uncertainty. Until the last moment, he does not know whether his little trick will succeed. Moreover, his thinking angle and assumptions about others are all Negative, therefore, children are always in a variety of complex emotions such as luck, complaint, entanglement, hostility, etc. Because of this, pampering and compromising children does not help them, but harms them. We might as well think deeply: If a child never takes keeping his promise seriously and relies on cleverness to obtain small immediate benefits, what does he lose? Externally, we have lost trust; internally, we have lost our own rules of conduct. The style of such children when they become adults is very likely to be: lack of self-discipline, failure to keep promises, selfishness, lying, adapting to the changing circumstances, lack of foresight, and being rejected and disliked by others. This kind of behavior will make a person\’s life full of chaos and distress, and bring trouble to those around him. Usually, the probability of success in such a life is very low, and the sense of happiness will not be too high. Therefore, we choose not to tolerate our children\’s dishonest behavior, but we also stick to a bottom line, which is not to blame or get angry, but to use clear logic to defeat those specious reasons. Of course, the root cause of children\’s problems often lies with their parents. From the mobile phone, it can be reflected that the mother\’s boundaries are unclear and her logic is unclear. Therefore, I do not specifically have trouble with my children, but I also adopt an intolerant attitude towards my mother\’s unclear boundaries. I spent a lot of time discussing with my mother how to clarify my boundaries, talk to my children logically and clearly, and control my emotions. This two-pronged approach started to show results in half a month. A month later, the mother said: I feel that my child has changed a lot. I used to feel scared when I told my child something, for fear that he would get entangled. Now I feel that he is quite reasonable and no longer racks his brains. When bargaining, he will basically do whatever is agreed upon. explainTo be honest, I\’m very pleased. I can\’t bear to see children being fettered by small cleverness. What I would rather see is that every child has a broad vision, lofty aspirations, the sea is wide enough for fish to leap, and the sky is high enough for birds to fly.