Gentle and firm, cures all diseases

Many people born in the 80s and 90s may have been beaten and scolded when they were children. By the time our generation became parents, spanking and scolding were no longer popular, but there is a very popular word called gentleness and firmness. The routine is like this: When bedtime comes, the mother doesn\’t lose her temper, just turns off the TV, calmly takes the child to the room, and tells him that the lights are going to be turned off now. No matter how much the child cries, his face does not change. I heard that this helps children respect their parents\’ authority and develop good habits. I was talking about this topic with my best friend that day, and she happened to have experienced a similar scene. She said, \”Look, I have become gentle and firm. Why is there still a reluctant look in the child\’s eyes?\” Why did my child show fear when he saw me walking in \”gently and firmly\” after watching TV the next day? 1. Eagerness to correct children’s behavior and lack of emotional resonance. I remember that not long after I arrived in the United States, I traveled to a small town and stayed in a B&B. Before I went, I only communicated with the old lady who owned the house through email a few times. Unexpectedly, when I first arrived at her house, she gave me a warm hug as if I had met a long-lost old friend. I was shocked by this exaggerated expression. It took me a long time to get used to it. Family and friends should hug tightly when meeting and saying goodbye. , if you have a good relationship, you should kiss on the cheek. We Chinese are traditionally a reserved nation, and we often lack physical contact and direct expression of emotions between relatives. And emotional connection is the foundation of a good parent-child relationship. Without \”connection\”, no matter how gentle the child is, the child will feel that what he is facing is just a \”gentle wall\”. Being gentle and firm is a form of parenting. If you are not careful, it will become just a formality and lack substance: for example, if the child refuses to eat, then I will hold you down gently and firmly to eat; if the child refuses to sleep, then I will be gentle and firm. Lock you in a dark room. There is nothing wrong with being gentle and firm in itself, but when correcting a child, do not skip the step of understanding, otherwise the child will feel that they are facing only a \”gentle\” wall. Allowing children to express their emotions such as anger, frustration, and disappointment, and letting them know: I understand how you feel, is more important than correcting behavior. 2. On the surface, we are giving children choices, but in fact, children have no freedom. I went shopping in the supermarket a few days ago and saw a little boy about two years old who refused to sit in a stroller and insisted on running around in the supermarket by himself. He had a \”gentle and firm\” father. He grabbed his son and asked: Do you want to climb on the stroller by yourself, or should I carry you up? The child cried reluctantly, and his father hugged him and put him in the cart. Observing this example, we can find that although the father\’s questioning method is gentle, the child does not have the opportunity to choose. Whether he gets in the car by himself or his father carries him into the car, the child does not have the freedom to choose, nor does he get emotional resonance from his father. . Dad\’s approach is more like a dictatorship. In fact, the father can hold the child first, take a minute to let him know that he understands his desire to run around freely, and then tell him, after we buy the things, can I accompany you to run around downstairs in the community? Such gentleness and firmness are more humane. 3. Try to let the children endure natural consequences. Many kindergarten teachers around me will mention natural consequences when they talk about disciplining children.a concept. That is to say, when adults manage children, they should relax restrictions appropriately, allow children to explore and make mistakes, and then learn from their own mistakes. I am a person with mild mysophobia, and Su Bao has a wild eating style and often stains the whole table, so I always wear a bib for her so that her clothes will not get dirty. Su Bao entered kindergarten at the beginning of this year. They don\’t wear bibs for meals in kindergarten, so I had to let her adapt at home. At the beginning, I often couldn\’t help but remind her, \”Be careful not to drip it on your body.\” But the effect was not very good. Sometimes she would even deliberately confront me. Later I realized that don’t turn your children’s homework into your own homework. Even if the clothes are dirty, it is just a process of learning to \”eat cleanly\”. So I began to acquiesce in her eating and changing clothes. Children also naturally want to be neat and beautiful. After many \”mistakes\” and practice, Su Bao rarely soiled his clothes when eating. For parent-child communication to be truly effective, two things must be achieved: one is emotional resonance, and the other is letting go to a certain extent. When we learn any parenting rule, we should not just look at the literal meaning, but the message behind it. On the road to parenting, there is no once-and-for-all rule, only parents who are constantly growing.