? In life, we all want to be good parents and communicate with our children calmly, but the ideal is full and the reality is very skinny.
? Most people unconsciously use verbal violence against their children, such as preaching, evaluating, interrupting, comparing their children with others' children, etc. This will inevitably bring emotional and spiritual harm to children, ranging from the impact on parent-child relationship to the healthy development of children's personality and psychology. Then, how can we not only fulfill the responsibility of discipline, but also cultivate children's sound personality and establish a good parent-child relationship?
? Before answering this question, let's popularize the concept of nonviolent communication, which was put forward by Dr. Marshall Luxembourg in the United States at 1963. Specifically, in the process of communication, don't use verbal violence to hurt people easily, such as accusing, preaching, or interrupting and commenting at will, but listen carefully to the inner feelings of others. At the same time, express your wishes frankly, and feel empathy and live in harmony. Today we are going to interpret nonviolent parent-child communication, which can be said to be the practice of nonviolent communication in the field of parenting.
Gu, the author of this book, is an expert in clinical child psychology, director of clinical psychology department of 3A hospitals, and has more than 20 years of experience in children's psychological counseling. He combined the theory of nonviolent communication with various cases of parent-child communication and summed up the training method of nonviolent parent-child communication. It can be said that the book "Non-violent Parent-child Communication" is like a guidebook, telling parents exactly what to do. And if adults encounter problems in the process of communicating with children, they can also follow the picture to find a solution.
? Are you a little impatient when you hear this? Next, I will interpret this book for you in three parts.
? First of all, let's understand the wrong communication methods, that is, what are the manifestations of violent parent-child communication.
? Next, let's learn the correct way of communication, that is, how to communicate with children in a non-violent way.
? Finally, what obstacles you may encounter and how to overcome if you want non-violent parent-child communication. Let's start the content of this book!
? 0 1, a common way of wrong communication.
I believe many people have heard the story of tadpoles looking for their mothers, but there is a more interesting new version recently.
? A group of tadpoles have worked hard to find their mother and are trying to throw themselves into her arms happily. As a result, the first sentence mother frog said was: "Have you finished your homework?"
? Hearing this, the tadpole turned and left, saying, "This must not be our mother."
? Did this story make you laugh? People who make up stories are really talented.
But mom and dad, after laughing, you might as well calm down and think back. Do you sometimes communicate with your children in this way?
? When I came home from work, the first sentence was not to say hello to the child, nor to ask if the child was hungry now, but to open my mouth and accuse me: Are you watching TV again? Have you finished your homework?
? And this kind of prologue without temperature is undoubtedly a violent parent-child communication.
? Although children will not turn around and swim like tadpoles, they will also be hurt by your verbal violence, but many times, you are invisible to the naked eye. Then, apart from the example just cited, what other wrong forms of violent parent-child communication are there? Do you really want to know? Don't worry, we will give examples one by one according to the severity of language violence.
? Let's start with the least violent bully. In the process of communicating with children, do you often say things like "finish your homework at the first time", "put away your toys today" and "you have to be in the top ten anyway"?
? Note that at this time, the violent tendency of language has begun to take shape.
? If adults blindly impose their expectations on their children regardless of the actual situation, and even get furious at some trivial mistakes, it is likely to destroy the harmonious parent-child relationship.
Another way of violent communication is to compare one's own children with other people's children, which is also very annoying to children.
Some parents always say, "When will you surpass your neighbors in the exam?" "Why can't you be as sensible as your brother?" .
Some parents even ask their children to be versatile and compare what their children are not good at with what other children are good at.
In fact, adults say this will not make children work hard, but will make them depressed and feel that their grades are poor and their parents don't like themselves. Constant denial from parents is likely to make children feel inferior and even affect their lives.
? In addition, many parents are used to talking about their children's evaluation, suppressing them if they have nothing to do, labeling them and scolding them. For example, if you are a child, you can't hurry up, why are you so disobedient and so on. Do these words sound familiar to you?
? These violent words, which both hurt self-esteem and self-confidence, are blurted out because parents regard all the behaviors of their children that are not in line with their own values as wrong, inappropriate or even unreasonable. And they want to make their children obey their parents' inner rules through criticism and accusation. The consequences of doing so are not only not conducive to children's correction, but easy to arouse children's rebellious psychology. Because children are likely to regard these comments as parents' rejection of themselves, which will lead to hostility.
When you hear this, you must understand that parents are communicating with violent language, talking to other people's children when they are forced, and labeling their children at will.
? In addition, many adults like to complain and complain with their children. "I have no face to tell my relatives that you didn't do well in the exam", "You don't study hard who you deserve" and "I yelled at you because you were too careless".
At this time, on the surface, it seems that parents are weak, but in fact, this is another kind of language violence covered with a coat of weakness. It doesn't look so explosive, but it can invisibly affect children's way of thinking and even their personality.
Because if you think about it more, you will find that the implication of parents is that it is all your children's problems that make me so miserable. In the long run, these children will learn to be responsible for their parents' emotions and lives, rather than their own lives.
I have seen many children growing up like this. They are used to living in an irresponsible way of thinking: "It's all arranged by my parents, and I have to do this job." I haven't learned to do these things since I was a child. What do you want me to do now? Or some children go to the other extreme. When they grow up, they are too responsible for their parents: "I must get ahead, or I will be sorry for my parents." "I can't find too much partner. What can I do if it is not good for my mother? "
In the end, many of these children grew up to be horse-haired men and gnawed at old women, unable to have a normal marriage life.
Hearing this, many parents are already very nervous. It turned out that a few words I said casually would have such a great impact on children. But oh, knocking on the blackboard here, the wrong parent-child communication performance, has not been fully listed here.
? If complaining and complaining are useless, some parents will threaten and warn their children, and the degree of language violence will skyrocket. For example, if you don't listen, I won't want you. This is the mantra of many parents.
? Of course, this sentence may be very useful when the child is young, and he will get better soon.
Because they can't be independent and take care of themselves, they can only correct their mistakes immediately to please their parents.
But once the children grow up and have the ability to get rid of their parents' control, this trick will not work. If parents overreach themselves and continue to threaten warnings, more intense parent-child conflicts are likely to break out.
I don't want you. If you talk too much, the child will probably think that your love for her is conditional, so that the sense of security will be lost, and then it will become more timid or unconfident.
Hearing this, do you think it is too difficult to be a parent? I can't say that, I can't say that, and I don't know how to communicate with children.
Don't worry, next we will introduce how to communicate with children correctly and nonviolent.
02. How to conduct nonviolent parent-child communication?
What the hell should I do? Before solving the mystery, let's do a little investigation.
Do you often have evaluative words such as right, wrong, bad, selfish, disobedient and lazy in your daily communication with your children? If the answer is yes, it means that most of the time, you are communicating with your children in evaluative language.
? However, as we all know, evaluation is often subjective and lacks evidence, which usually makes children feel unconvinced and distrustful. It is likely that children will have negative emotions from the beginning, which will not only make communication difficult, but even eventually turn into conflicts. Therefore, the first step of nonviolent parent-child communication is to replace the language of evaluation with the language of observation.
So what is the language of observation? It is to describe the facts objectively, but generally do not speculate and judge children's thoughts, behaviors and emotions. For example, if you see a child climbing on the table to reach the snacks on the top of the cupboard, if you blurt out "Why are you so naughty" and "greedy to death", this is the language of evaluation.
And if you just describe the facts and say, "I saw you climb on the table to get the snacks on the top of the cabinet, which is a bit dangerous", this is the language of observation.
And once parents give up their preconceived subjective evaluation and use the language of observation instead, what benefits will it have?
That is, children may be more willing to accept the facts you described, and there will be less resistance, so that communication in your will have a good start.
After that, your communication with your child will go to the next step, which is to express your feelings.
? If I ask you, how do you feel when your child is disobedient? Some parents will answer "I think this child is too ignorant" and "I feel that he is just not serious about his learning attitude". In fact, these are not feelings. These are all ideas and parents' comments on their children. Real feelings are words that express emotions, such as anger, depression, worry, happiness and so on.
? At this time, what parents have to do is to experience the emotions they feel when facing their children, and show them good emotional handling methods. Then help the children to clarify their feelings in this issue.
? For example, children put off doing their homework. Mom, don't say, "What can you do besides play?" . This is a very typical evaluation language.
You know, parents can easily hurt their children's self-esteem and make them think that "I am a person who can't do anything but play."
Imagine that the mother has learned to use the language of observation. She told the child this way: "When you did your homework today, you played Transformers three times. Look, this is describing the facts. Next, my mother began to express her feelings. I'm afraid you didn't finish your homework before going to bed, and I communicated with you before. You can't play while doing your homework, but you didn't do it, which makes me very depressed. "
? Look, the words worry and depression are my mother's feelings.
In addition, when it comes to expressing feelings in emotional words, in real life, parents often make the mistake of blaming their feelings on their children.
Did you say something like that? "I can't pass the exam like this." "I worked so hard for you." Hearing these words, children usually cater to their parents out of guilt and fear, or break the jar and fall, constantly contradicting their parents.
? Therefore, when parents express their emotions, they should point out the relationship between their feelings and themselves, such as "I am disappointed that you didn't do well in the exam because I value my ability in parenting education".
Of course, in the process of communication, we should also pay attention to the children's feelings. For example, you can say "I feel you are very sad" to your child, so that the child can feel that you are paying attention to him and understanding him.
Hearing this, some parents may want to say something, and I also want to pay attention to their children's feelings, but the older the children are, the less communication they have with us, and it is difficult to find a topic. He is also an attitude that you don't understand or I don't care. In a word, we don't know what he is thinking.
? At this time, the author suggests that you can use some listening skills to understand your child's feelings. For example, you can talk more about your feelings with your children. And parents remember, don't say such things in the process of chatting: "I warned you long ago that you would regret not listening to me."
Because the child builds trust with you through bit by bit communication, but your accusation is likely to push him further, and he is even more reluctant to confide in you.
Well, now we know that in the process of communicating with children, adults should try their best to express their feelings in words, and at the same time understand the real feelings of children at the moment.
So why do we spend so much time talking about our feelings?
This is because why parents and children have this feeling and there are some unmet needs behind that feeling.
Once the needs of both parties are considered and met, the problem will be solved and the purpose of parent-child communication will be achieved.
Therefore, the most critical step of nonviolent parent-child communication is the next step. Parents should learn to further understand the internal needs of themselves and their children from the emotional point of view, and strive to weigh and meet these two needs. So, what should we do?
? For example, the mother asked the child, "You are too busy playing games. What good school can you enter?" .
The son said, you don't have to worry if I can't get into a good school. Communication is therefore deadlocked.
Later, under the guidance of a counselor, the mother explored what the real needs of herself and her children were.
First of all, my mother changed her statement: "Son, it made me angry to see you still playing games before the exam, because you didn't listen to me at all and made me feel disrespected, but I still want to hear that your needs are met by playing games."
The son replied, "I am no longer a child. Can you leave everything alone and give me some freedom?"
At this time, the mother did not argue with the child angrily, but carefully analyzed her son's words and saw the child's need for freedom. But she is still worried that if she lets go, the child will lose control of herself and play games every day.
? At this time, the consultant asked his mother, what would happen if the child played games every day? What should I do if I don't study well and have no ambition?
Knock on the blackboard here, please pay attention. When the counselor asked this question, he was digging deep into what his mother really needed.
Finally, my mother thought it over carefully and replied, "My son always said I was vain. I never admitted it before. I thought I was doing it for the good of my children." But to tell the truth, no matter what the future of my children is, I really want my children to earn enough face for me in front of relatives and friends and meet their recognized needs. "
When I heard this, did you take a gasp and admit silently in your heart that I actually have this need, and sometimes I regard my child as a tool to satisfy my vanity.
At this time, you might as well press the pause button and take this opportunity to think carefully about what you really need to raise a child and whether there is anything else. For example, do you still have to avoid responsibility?
According to the author's analysis, when many parents say to their children, "You must do well in the exam", they may subconsciously evade their responsibility as parents to help their children grow up.
Why do you say that? Explain that adults have the responsibility to take care of their children's growth and supervise and coach their learning. But adults don't want to bear it, what will happen?
You can only throw the pot to the child and express it in this necessary tone, so as to ask the child that you must grow up well and do well in the exam.
There are many similar words: "children just can't play games" and "children should go to better schools" and so on. If you have a lot of such needs and necessities in your mind, just like the mother in the example, you should see what needs you have not met, whether you have the need to avoid responsibility, and whether you must satisfy them by forcing your children.
? Of course, as parents, they still have the responsibility to educate their children. In particular, many minors are still immature, and they may not know what they should do.
But after understanding the real "needs" of us adults, you have to think and change.
What the hell should I do? Is to change what you have to do from concept to what I choose to do.
Back to the example of my son playing games before the exam. After understanding her real needs, the mother wanted to understand that what I did for her children was no longer for my face. I choose to discipline my child because I love him and hope he has a good future. Therefore, compared with the freedom that the son wants, the evaluation of others is not so important at all.
? In this way, the mother's grievances and complaints will be less, and the communication with the children will be smoother.
Well, we have spent a long time discussing the needs of adults and children, and then we will learn how to realize them.
Again, children need to be understood. He wants to play games. His logic may be that I am tired of studying and play games to relax.
If parents agree, it means that parents understand his thoughts. Parents don't agree, just don't give him freedom.
In fact, parents can tell their children through communication that I know you have tried your best to study, and then the children will feel the joy of being understood.
Then parents can help their children find solutions that meet the needs of both parties.
For example, there are many ways to relax, and playing games is just one of them. You can also explore more and healthier ways to relax.
Well, to sum up, how to carry out nonviolent parent-child communication means that adults dig deep into their feelings, discover their real inner needs, then listen to their children's needs, and then make changes in their concepts and motives to better think about how to meet the needs of both sides.
03. Overcome obstacles in communication.
? Hearing this, do you think this kind of communication doesn't seem too difficult, does it? But in fact, parents will still encounter some problems in practice.
For example, "I can't help but want to scold my children when I am angry, and I can't control myself completely", which is the most feedback from parents.
Therefore, to achieve nonviolent parent-child communication, we must first solve emotional problems.
First, let's talk about it. Managing emotions begins with loving yourself.
For example, a 6-year-old child wants to eat ice cream in winter, but his mother doesn't allow it, but the child wants to eat it. Mother said inexplicably, what ice cream to eat in winter.
The child retorted that other children eat, so why can't I eat? At this time, the mother was angry and shouted at the child: Why are you so disobedient?
As for the child, she got angry and started throwing things, so the mother slapped the child in anger.
My mother also regretted it afterwards, because under unreasonable emotional expression, parent-child communication became a parent-child war.
On the surface, this conflict is caused by whether you can eat ice cream. In fact, behind emotions, there are unmet needs.
So, what is a mother's need to be satisfied, which makes her angry with her children?
Mother may think it is her responsibility to keep her child healthy, so she doesn't want her child to eat cold ice cream in winter.
Besides, my mother also said, why are you so disobedient? The implication is that she wants her children to be obedient and respect themselves. However, the child's resistance is equivalent to giving his mother a negative evaluation, and his mother's self-esteem has been hit, so the mood suddenly broke out.
? Therefore, reconstructing self-evaluation, no matter what others say or think, always loving yourself and less blx is the beginning of managing your emotions.
And some parents are too hard on themselves because they don't love themselves enough and are flammable and explosive. For example, if one thing is not done well, some mothers are entangled and deeply guilty. They feel that they should have done this and that, and feel sorry for this person and that person.
? You know, the pressure brought by such excessive criticism is particularly easy to produce negative energy. Therefore, in order to get rid of negative emotions, we should put down excessive demands, pamper ourselves appropriately and meet our inner needs, instead of putting expectations of others or society first. In this way, you will have a more positive evaluation of yourself and better control your emotions in parent-child communication.
? Well, after that, parents should learn to love themselves. Let me ask you a few more questions from the heart.
In the process of interacting with children, do you regard them as an independent individual?
Also, will you listen to your children? When children don't want to do their math homework and say they hate math classes, can you hear the implication?
Are you eager to tell him how important mathematics is, or are you patient to ask him, "Why don't you like it? Can you tell me about your feelings in class? "
Will you be tolerant enough for your children to make mistakes to some extent? The author's suggestion is that no matter what the child does, parents should understand that his motivation is good and allow the child to reflect on his behavior.
? Because this is equivalent to sending a message to children-they can try in the process of growing up, they have the ability and the means to face problems, and even if they make mistakes, children can learn from various situations and do better next time.
Finally, let's go back to the example of eating ice cream. If the mother can talk to the child calmly. She will find that her daughter is clamoring for ice cream, not only because she sees others want to eat it, but also because the little girl will feel that if her mother doesn't buy it for her, her mother doesn't love her enough because other mothers buy it for her children.
? Hearing this, do you think the child's idea is naive and cute? But many times it is.
? In children's world, they don't mean to be angry with you, they just express their love to you in their own way. And if adults understand this special expression of children, they will definitely be less angry.
? Hearing this, you must have understood how to hold your temper and not get angry in the process of parent-child communication.
First of all, you should learn to love yourself and meet your inner needs, which will help you control your emotions.
Secondly, you should learn to listen to your child's needs and understand him from his point of view, which will also help you handle the parent-child relationship more peacefully.
Ok, that's all for today's interpretation. To sum up briefly, we talked about three parts today:
? In the first part, we learned some common ways of parent-child communication errors, such as coercion, comparison, moral judgment, shirking responsibility, and even threats and warnings.
In the second part, we know the key elements of nonviolent parent-child communication in detail, namely observation, feeling and need. Observation without comment is the highest form of human wisdom. Understanding children's feelings is the key to open the door to communication, and the key action to make communication effective is to meet the needs of both parties.
? Finally, we know that in the process of parent-child communication, if you can't control yourself and always want to get angry, then you might as well learn the emotional expression of love.
By loving yourself and listening carefully to your children's needs, your bad temper may be alleviated.
Before ending this book, I want to give you the following words.
In contemporary society, most parents, especially mothers, are under the double pressure of work and life.
I am often caught in a dilemma between taking care of my family and children and doing a good job.
On the one hand, I feel that I shouldn't be so tired, just try my best. On the other hand, I often think "I must be a good mother and give my children the best".
The common conflict in educating children is, do I want them to grow up healthily and happily, or do I want them to become hard-working people?
Most parents will say, I want them all. In fact, the healthy growth of children needs "good enough" parents, not perfect parents.
This is the view put forward by British psychologist Winnipeg. He believes that everything a good enough parent does is based on their love for themselves and their children, which is full of self-compromise and intimate and attentive listening to their children.
Let's try to be good parents together.