When your children grow up, will they block you from their circle of friends?

I\’m sad today. A friend I met at summer camp more than ten years ago was diagnosed with breast cancer. She said she didn\’t want to tell her parents. I asked: Are you afraid that they will be sad? She said she was afraid they would make me sad. I was surprised and asked her why. She said, because the first reaction of my parents when they found out about this was to scold me: I told you not to stay up late or eat junk food, but you didn’t listen. Are you in trouble now? Although I know that my parents say this out of concern, I still feel that it is already sad enough, and you still have to make up for it. I was speechless and didn\’t know how to comfort her. Cancer may mean life or death. On the other end of the phone, she would rather tell an ordinary friend than let her parents know. She reminds me of people who block their circle of friends from their parents. Xiao A likes portrait photography and posts his works on Moments. Dad said, if you don’t take the civil service exam seriously, what are you doing with those messy things? Little C was bullied at school, and his father said, you must have made people hate you, otherwise why would they pick you to bully? Little Z’s high school mathematics teacher liked to stroke the hair of girls in the class during evening study hall. She went home and told her parents. Mom said, who asked you to have your ears pierced? You are so flashy and showy that you are not focused on studying. I believe that the parents of Little A, Little C, and Little Z all love their children. But they unknowingly made two mistakes: 1. Can’t wait to be their child’s critic; 2. Eager to solve problems and don’t know how to resolve their emotions. Since I became a mother two years ago, I have found that the feelings of a first-time parent are very similar to A firefighter. The baby was just born, and the delivery room in the United States was very air-conditioned. The baby was so cold that he cried, so he quickly asked the nurse to wrap the baby in a heated blanket. The baby was bloated, and his face turned red from crying, so he quickly tried to burp her. At first, I didn’t have enough breast milk. , the baby was crying from hunger, I drank soup desperately, fed her every hour, and finally achieved exclusive breastfeeding. In the process of \”fighting fires\” again and again, we built up our confidence as parents. After the child turned one year old, I gradually realized that the role of parents should no longer be that of firefighters. Because in addition to eating, drinking, and defecation, children have more advanced needs, they have more complex emotions, and they even have the buds of social relationships. They need to be understood, praised, accepted and recognized more. But some parents spend their entire lives being their children\’s fire fighters and never break away from their role as new parents. If their children failed in the exam, they said, they should quickly analyze the reasons and sign up for a cram school. When your child is lovelorn, they say, I should have told you that the man was not a good person, so that you would not listen. The child decided to resign and travel, and they were worried: Lao Wang\’s son next door became a director and still worked overtime every day. What are you doing? Therefore, there are adults who block their parents’ circle of friends. Kahlil Gibran wrote that your children are not your children, but the children that \”life\” desires for itself. They come through you, but not from you. Although they are with you, they do not belong to you. You can give them love, but you cannot give them thoughts, because they have their own thoughts. (Excerpted from Bing Xin\’s translation of \”The Child\” by Kahlil Gibran) Although I also want to be Su Bao\’s firefighter for the rest of her life, I know that she is an independent person and will eventually have her own Xiaoyu.universe. I prefer Monet and Van Gogh classical music, she might prefer Andy Warhol heavy metal. A child will encounter many forks in her life, and it is up to her to make choices and trade-offs, and bear the consequences. Many times we are unable to help at all. All parents have to do is to shape good values ​​for their children early in life, so that they will take fewer detours in the future. If one day the child really takes a detour, when he comes home to talk to you, parents who first accept their emotions and then solve the problem can gain the long-term trust of their children. When we decide not to be our children\’s firefighters and watch them drift away with trust, we have fulfilled our mission of growing up as parents. Next time my child breaks her knee and runs to me with tears in her eyes, I will no longer ask her anxiously, \”How did she fall?\”, but I will give her a one-minute hug first to let her know that I am here. Because ten thousand words for me to help you are not as good as one sentence for me to understand you.