\”Why are my parents always right and me always wrong?\”

A few days ago, I was playing with my eight-month-old daughter on the floor mat. When I got up, I rubbed my elbow on her forehead. Her forehead didn\’t look red, so it shouldn\’t hurt, but she was probably frightened and started crying. , I quickly picked her up, patted her back to comfort her, and apologized to her: Baby, I\’m sorry, mom accidentally touched your head, does it hurt? It\’s okay, it\’ll be fine in a while. sorry. She soon calmed down and continued playing happily. For young parents of our generation who value equality and respect, it may be easy to admit mistakes to their children, but for the previous generation – our parents, it may be very difficult to admit mistakes. Several visitors once asked me when they talked about the harm their parents\’ behavior had caused to them: Why was it all my fault? Aren\’t my parents also at fault? Why do I always admit my mistakes and apologize, but they never admit their mistakes or apologize? When the visitor, Little A, was in junior high school, her mother always sneaked into her room and peeked at her diary. When she found out, she told her mother that this was wrong and that you can\’t peek at my diary anymore. Mother said nothing. Little A later locked the diary, but after returning home from school, she found that the lock had been opened by her mother, who peeked into her diary again. She was very angry and had an argument with her mother, but her mother said: The diary is for others to read, and since I am your mother, I have more rights to read your diary. The visitor, Little C, was admitted to a key high school, but because the tuition fees of key high schools were relatively expensive. Her father favored boys over girls and did not want to read to her. But she wanted to go to school, so she went to talk to her father. During the conversation, the two men quarreled, and the father slapped him hard in the face. Little C ran away from home angrily. Her mother found her and persuaded her to go back and apologize to her father and admit her mistake. She complained: I was not wrong, he was the one who hit me, why should I apologize? Her mother asked her back: Do you still want your father to apologize to you? Little C was speechless and had no choice but to go back and admit his mistake to his father. One day when the visitor, Xiao Z, was in the fifth grade of elementary school, the fifty yuan left in the desk drawer at home disappeared. His mother asked his father if he had taken it, and his father said no, so his parents concluded that it was Xiao Z who took the money because the family Just the three of them. Little Z refused to admit it, but his parents forced him to admit it. They also called him a beast for stealing money and lying, and then beat him up. The aggrieved little Z lay injured on his little bed and cried, but his parents pretended not to see him. Two months later, the missing fifty yuan was found, tucked into an old calendar. Little Z has been waiting for his parents\’ apology, but what he got was that his parents forgot about it, as if this incident had never happened. We are human beings, not perfect, and we will make mistakes. Parents are also human beings, so parents will also make mistakes. The logic is one thing, but the reality is another. Many parents either think that they are doing the right thing. Either he is wrong and he never admits it. Why is this? The most common reason is that many parents educate their children only by relying on their own parental authority. They feel that they are parents, and as parents they are absolutely right. They hold the gangster logic of \”because I am your parent, so I am right\” in parent-child relationships. relationship, lostThe basic respect and equality of being a human being always teaches children condescendingly and makes them obey their will unconditionally. When children make mistakes, they must admit their mistakes and repent, but when they make mistakes themselves, they never take the initiative to apologize to their children. I have a client who had a quarrel with her mother. Every time she apologized and tried to repair the relationship, she was the one who yelled at her mother: \”Why, you are always right. I admit my fault every time.\” , Compromise?\” Her mother said confidently: \”Just because I am your mother!\” It is most useless to tell them what is right and wrong when facing such parents, because telling them what is right and wrong means being reasonable, and they are actually the least reasonable. Reasonable parents talk about ethics and filial piety with their children, but they are unreasonable. If you don\’t listen to them, you are wrong and unfilial. Some parents clearly realize that their words and deeds are wrong, but they will not apologize to their children verbally. There is a saying that \”I love you so much that it is hard to say\”, but in fact, what is even more difficult to say is \”I\’m sorry\”. For many Chinese parents, saying \”I\’m sorry\” to their children can be very humiliating. What is that face? In fact, it is dignity and a sense of existence. For many Chinese parents, admitting mistakes to their children is a lack of dignity, and their own sense of existence may even be damaged. According to psychology, if a person attaches great importance to face, it is actually a manifestation of narcissism. Psychologist Zeng Qifeng once said that \”face\” truly corresponds to the Western psychology of narcissistic personality disorder. The narcissist is \”I am right at all times. If you expose my \’face\’, I will be broken and I will wish you disappeared.\” Therefore, if such narcissistic parents admit their mistakes to their children, it is equivalent to admitting \”I am not good\” and \”I was wrong\”, which will cause the collapse of their narcissism, and they need to live in the \”I am good\” \” I am right\”, so in order to maintain their narcissism, they will never admit their mistakes to their children. Admitting mistakes to children actually requires the inner mental health of parents. It requires parents to be able to accept their imperfect selves internally and have basic affirmation and trust in themselves. They will not feel guilty just because they admit that they have done something wrong. If you deny yourself as a person, you feel that your existence as a person is threatened. It also requires parents to be people who truly respect their children and treat their children as equal individuals as themselves. They will not think that they are superior to their children just because they are adults and parents, nor will they think that they are inferior to their children just because they admit their mistakes. Children come first, they respect children, respect facts, and will not make moral judgments or moral kidnappings on children. In the process of educating their children, if parents feel that they are right in everything and their children are wrong, it will cause great harm to their children. The first thing that is harmed is the parent-child relationship, and the second is that it is easy to raise children who have a hierarchical concept, are afraid of authority, and are accustomed to obeying authority, or it is easy for children to form distorted values ​​​​that are unable to distinguish right from wrong and are accustomed to treating people and doing things wrong. On the contrary, if parents have done something wrong and have the courage to apologize to their children, it can have a positive effect on the parent-child relationship and the upbringing of the children. 1. When parents apologize to their children, the children will feel that their parents respect them and regard them asAs an independent individual, he and his parents have an equal relationship, rather than a subordinate relationship, so that parent-child communication can easily become smoother, rather than community confrontation or power struggle. 2. Parents\’ apology can help children understand that everyone is likely to make mistakes and no one is perfect, and indirectly teaches children to accept their own imperfections. 3. When parents apologize to their children, they can tell them that it is not terrible to make mistakes. They can take responsibility by admitting their mistakes, seek forgiveness, or find other ways to make up for their mistakes. Some children will take making mistakes very seriously when growing up. Because they are afraid of making mistakes, they either dare not try new challenges, or after making mistakes, they choose to escape, shirk responsibility, and whitewash the situation. Some children will even shirk in order to cover up their mistakes. responsibility and make bigger mistakes. 4. Parents’ behavior is a role model for their children. Parents admitting their mistakes can teach their children to distinguish right from wrong, learn to take responsibility for their own actions, and learn how to handle problems correctly and how to communicate when they make mistakes. 5. When there are problems in the parent-child relationship, especially when children are psychologically harmed due to improper parenting methods, parents can apologize to their children and obtain their children\’s forgiveness, thereby repairing and improving the parent-child relationship and allowing the children\’s inner trauma to be healed. Make the parent-child relationship more intimate and warm. Dong Qing once felt physically and mentally depressed because of his father\’s strict education. Her father did not even allow her to look in the mirror. He once said to her: No matter how much you dress up, a potato is still a potato. The time you spend looking at the mirror every day is better than reading more books. When she was a freshman, her father invited a family of three to a restaurant for the first time. During the dinner, her father suddenly raised his glass and said, \”Let me toast you and apologize to you.\” I thought about it, I have treated you wrongly in many ways over the years, please don’t take it to heart. Dong Qing bursts into tears every time she talks about this past incident. One of my clients shared with me the story of her mother’s apology. When she was young, her mother often beat and scolded her children to vent her emotions because of her hard work, heavy housework, and poor relationship with her husband. When she became an adult, she told her mother about the past: One time, her mother beat her with a clothes hanger because of something trivial. At that time, her mother was silent for a while, and then said to her guiltily: When I was young, I had a bad temper, did not study well, and did not know how to educate children. I often beat and scolded you. Now I know that what I did was wrong, and there were many things that hurt me. I love you, I hope you can forgive me, and I hope you can not be affected by those things in the past and live a happier life. After hearing this, she hugged her mother and cried loudly. Since then, the gap between mother and daughter has been reduced by most, and the relationship between mother and daughter has become more harmonious and intimate than before. She said that her mother\’s belated apology made her feel relieved and allowed her to see her mother\’s love for her, which allowed her to let go of her worries and gain great healing. There is a saying that parents spend their entire lives waiting for their children to thank them, and children spend their entire lives waiting for their parents to apologize. As a child, have you been waiting for that \”I\’m sorry\” from your parents? As a parent, have you ever said \”I\’m sorry\” to your children because of your own mistakes?