Chapter 36 5.Be an "obedient" parent

Asking children to be "obedient" is a very common thing in our lives.Whether you are obedient or obedient, or not, has become a simple standard for people to evaluate children.But in my family, maybe my husband and I have always had a consciousness, so we seldom use the word "obedient" to Yuanyuan; on the contrary, we prefer to be "obedient" parents. When Yuanyuan was about 2 years old, once a relative and I took her to Tiananmen Square to play.When going to the bus station, you have to cross an overpass.Yuanyuan doesn't take the steps, but walks on the small cement platform with railings on both sides, only ten centimeters wide. She always likes to "find a new way".The relatives said, let's not take that, but take the steps, okay, and hurry up to take the bus.Yuanyuan didn't listen.I told my relatives, don't worry about her, let her go that way if she wants to.

Yuanyuan grasped the railing with her two small hands, and slowly moved up little by little. I was beside her to protect her from falling down. At this time, another little boy who was slightly older than her came over. Looking at Yuanyuan, he wanted to walk along the railing from the other side. His mother said, "Walk well, be obedient!" and forcibly pulled the boy away. . Yuanyuan finally climbed up the overpass with great difficulty. She was very excited and wanted to walk along the railing from one end of the bridge to the other.The relatives said, "Yuanyuan is good, let's be as obedient as that child, so we won't go here anymore, okay?"Taking into account the emotions of my relatives, I also said to Yuanyuan: "Come down and walk, let's hurry up, okay, this is too slow."Yuanyuan said no, grabbed the railing again, and moved forward step by step.I saw that she was having a lot of fun, so I didn't care about her.

After finally passing the bridge, it was time to go down. She still wanted to try the feeling of walking down the railing curiously.Halfway through the walk, it may be that there is no novelty, and I feel that it is really inconvenient, so I come down. Crossing this overpass originally took one minute, but now it takes about ten minutes.I could sense the impatience of my relatives around me.She smiled and said to me, you are such a good mother, the child is so disobedient, and you are so patient, I think you always listen to the child, let her do whatever she says she wants to do. I understand my relative very well. She had no children at the time and didn't know that every child was "disobedient".I apologize to her in my heart.Between the interests of adults and the interests of children, I have to choose the interests of children first. Even if it was not my daughter but her child, I would also like to accompany the child to cross the bridge slowly—we originally took the children out to play, why? We must regard it as meaningful to go to Tiananmen Square, and regard it as meaningless to cross the overpass. Where children play is not fun.Perhaps in Yuanyuan's eyes, the sky bridge is much more interesting than the square.

The "obedience" of father Yuanyuan and I as parents sometimes goes too far in the eyes of others.During the Spring Festival when Yuanyuan was 12 years old, we drove back from Beijing to Inner Mongolia to celebrate the New Year.Originally planned to leave on the eighth day of the lunar new year, after breakfast, we all picked up our big bags and small bags and prepared to leave. Yuanyuan dawdled to get dressed, with a reluctance, saying that she stayed at grandma's house for so many days, and she only stayed at grandma's house for two days. Play enough with two sisters.Seeing how inseparable she and the two young ladies are, I wanted to cry.It's not a big deal for us to consider going back one day late, but her father and I have no rest time when we return to Beijing, so we go back to work the next afternoon.So I decided not to leave that day, took off my clothes, and took back the things I had moved to the car.The three children jumped up for joy.Yuanyuan's grandma was worried that we would be too tired if we went back like this, and felt that we were pampering the children too much.

But our "indulgence" did not make Yuanyuan a self-centered person. On the contrary, she was very understanding. Everyone who met Yuanyuan said that she was sensible and stable.She did grow up more complete than her parents.We sincerely respect her various ideas, especially as she grows up and becomes more and more sensible. When we have any problems and we don’t know how to solve them, we will discuss with her, listen to her ideas, and truly become a woman in front of her. "obedient" parents. As parents, we are certainly not "obedient" in everything, and we had many conflicts with Yuanyuan when she was growing up.But thinking about it now, almost all conflicts reflect the problems of the parents, that is to say, they all include the parents' incomprehension of their children or inappropriate ways of solving problems.

When Yuanyuan was about 4 years old, my friend Yu Yu and I took Yuanyuan and Yu's little daughter Xuanxuan to Tiger Mountain Park to play.We walked up the mountain along a small dirt road, and two little girls ran in front. They were all wearing beautiful clothes and clean.Xiaoyu and I followed behind, chatting and taking care of the two pleasing little girls in front. The two of them were walking, and suddenly they were on all fours, crawling on the dirt road on hands and knees.Xiao Yu and I saw it and called them up quickly.They didn't listen and kept crawling like that, so we ran over, pulled them up, patted the dirt on them, and criticized them for dirtying their clothes.Both little girls looked unhappy.

Like any little thing in life, I forgot about it in a blink of an eye.A few years later, when she was in the fourth and fifth grades of Yuanyuan Primary School, she once criticized me for not understanding her well, and suddenly brought up this matter. Yuanyuan said that it seemed to be her first time climbing a mountain. She and Xuanxuan were walking in front and felt very curious. This is obviously walking up a mountain, why is it called "climbing a mountain".They thought the word "climbing" was fun, and decided to climb on all fours in order to really "climb the mountain".As a result, as soon as they started to "crawl", we yelled at the back, which made them very disappointed.

When I heard Yuanyuan say this, I remembered that there seemed to be such a thing.I felt distressed and regretful and asked Yuanyuan: Why didn't you tell your thoughts at that time? If my mother knew that you thought so, she would definitely not stop her. Your thoughts are so cute.Yuanyuan said, we were so young at the time, and we thought that way in our hearts, but we couldn't say it out of our mouths.If you take your time and ask us why we do what we do, maybe we can tell.Yuanyuan went on to criticize that adults often use their brains, direct children blindly, and always blame children for being disobedient.

Yuanyuan's criticism convinced me, yes, why can't I "climb" when climbing a mountain? "Climbing" is such a fun thing.Clothes can be washed if they are dirty, and it is no big deal if they are worn out.What a mistake to spoil such a fun-filled attempt by a child for the trivial reason of not getting his clothes dirty. I am a little embarrassed to think about how many such mistakes there are.If I go back in time, I will definitely do better and never treat my children so arbitrarily. Children's consciousness development and language expression ability are often out of sync. Many things come to mind but cannot be said, or what is said is far from their original intention.The expressions they use most are obedient or disobedient, obedient or rebellious, laughing or crying.Adults should not simply think that the former is good and the latter is not, and do not make children "obedient" indiscriminately.Be sure to hear the child's voice from their various expressions.It is also necessary to find a way to guide them to express their thoughts in words.

I recall an incident when Yuanyuan was 3 and a half years old.At that time her father was working out of town and would come back every few months.She often misses her father very much, and always asks when he will come back, and why the father of the kid next door, Xiaozhe, doesn't work in other places. At that time, a series called "As long as you live better than me" was broadcasting on TV.It tells the story of a mother in SOS Children's Village who took good care of several orphans and fell in love with a man but could not get together.Yuanyuan also followed me to watch some intermittently.

One day the TV plot was that the children were disobedient, and the mother ran away from home in anger. The children were left alone, unable to eat, and missed their mother, so pitiful.Yuanyuan seems to be paying attention to this episode. After reading it, it was time to go to bed. I asked her to drink some water before brushing her teeth.She neither took the water glass nor ignored my words, but kept asking about the plot in the TV series. I heard that she wanted to know why her mother ran away from home, why she didn't want her children, and why did she return? not coming back?I was annoyed by her questioning, so I said stop asking, just drink water and go to sleep.Yuanyuan reluctantly took the water glass, hesitated to speak, and suddenly burst into tears. She seldom cries at ordinary times, which surprised me. I thought she was worried about the children in the TV series, so I told her quickly that their mother would definitely come back. If I watched TV tomorrow, I would definitely be back.Yuanyuan's crying didn't weaken, it seems that she wasn't thinking about this. I was sure that she was not crying because of physical reasons such as stomach pain, so I asked her: Baby, why are you crying, can you tell me?I wiped her tears and asked a few more times before she cried and said, "Where is their father?"I picked her up and said that the baby doesn't cry, do you miss daddy, daddy will come back next month, let's call daddy tomorrow, okay?She cried and shook her head.It seemed that she didn't want this answer either. I was very surprised, kissed her on the cheek, and encouraged her to tell the reason.She might want to talk, but she tried hard to stop crying, but she couldn't speak, and she looked anxious. Let me change the way of asking: Do you want your mother to do something, and if the baby says it, the mother will do it, okay?Yuanyuan nodded, she thought hard again, and said, "Mom, let's change houses. This house is not good." After speaking, she burst into tears again. What she said made me puzzled, Yuanyuan looked aggrieved and bewildered.I asked her why she wanted to change houses, and she cried out of breath and said: "This house is not good, I want to change houses." I didn't know what this little guy was thinking, so I found a towel to wipe her face, coaxed her not to cry, and asked her to tell me what kind of house she wanted to change.Yuanyuan tried her best to stop crying, she seemed to want to answer me very much, but she couldn't speak, she was in a hurry. I thought about it and asked her: Do you not like our house?She nodded.It really confuses me, there must be something else why she suddenly doesn't like our house.I asked her carefully again: "Baby, is there something you don't like in our house? What don't you like, can you tell mom?" Yuanyuan thought about it, and burst into tears again. She cried and said, "Don't want a house like that on TV, don't want a house with a big red pot, mom, let's change houses!" I asked her what a "house with a big red pot" was, and she cried Look down and point your finger at the red plastic basin where the toys are on the floor. I guessed why.In the TV series, there is a little girl named Yaya who is also about three or four years old. Her toys are kept in a big red plastic basin.Yaya's toy basin happens to be the same as Yuanyuan's toy basin.The red plastic basin appeared on the camera many times, and I pointed it out to Yuanyuan, saying that she, like Yaya, had such a large basin of toys.Today she saw that Yaya has no mother, and she has become so pitiful, and she can't fully understand the cause and effect of the plot. Xiaoxin may have such a reasoning - with such a big red pot house, father will not be at home, mother would run away from home—so she was terribly worried. I guided her to speak out her thoughts slowly through questioning, and it was indeed the reason.I comforted her with words she could understand, and finally convinced her that my mother would never run away from home, and my father would live with her every day in the future. These had nothing to do with the big red pot. Yuanyuan fell asleep happily after letting go of her worries.I looked at her peaceful little face in deep sleep and felt that it was very important to understand the child's mind.If adults feel that the child is ignorant, do not understand what she is saying seriously, coax her or scold her indiscriminately, and the child's heart knot cannot be solved, how long will she be distressed and uneasy. I do often see some really "disobedient" children in life. Once I was having dinner with a few friends, and a mother brought a 7- or 8-year-old boy.The dishes were all served, and everyone was about to move their chopsticks. The little boy suddenly asked his mother to take her outside to buy some kind of toy. The mother said that if he wanted to buy something, he had to finish eating before going.If the child quits, he has to leave immediately, constantly pestering his mother, and getting into an awkward fight with his mother, which makes everyone uneasy. The kid did seem to be "extremely disobedient" as his mother called him, and he didn't seem to understand or empathize with anyone at all.Everyone tried various methods to persuade him to wait until the meal was over before buying. They wanted to make him happy and hoped that he would eat some food, but he refused to eat or listen to a word of persuasion.Mom ignored him and told everyone to ignore him. Later, an uncle teased him and said that he wanted to "cheers" to him. He took a can of Coke and handed it to the child. The boy took it and seemed ready to compromise.Just as the child was about to open the can of Coke, his mother hurriedly stopped him and told him not to drink Coke, but to drink almond milk.The child said he wanted to drink Coke, but the mother snatched the Coke, handed over a can of almond milk and said, drink this is good.The child quit and said angrily: You never let me drink Coke, but let me drink yogurt and almond milk every day!Mom said: How many times have I told you that Coke is not nutritious, why drink it! Someone next to me persuaded my mother to make an exception today and let the child drink Coke once and drink less.The mother's expression was non-negotiable, saying that she couldn't let the child's temper go, and she absolutely couldn't drink a sip of Coke.He cracked open the almond milk, poured a glass and put it in front of the child and said, "Be obedient, drink this!" The child angrily refused to eat or drink. I sighed in my heart, with such a "disobedient" mother, it would be strange to have an obedient son! Parents are children's first and most important role models.If parents want to persuade their children to do what adults think about everything, and ask their children to obey themselves all day long, they will teach their children to treat others in the same way unconsciously.Young children quickly learn a set of ways to kidnap their parents. "Disobedient" is their usual rope, negative but effective.If this kind of incident accumulates too much, it will form extreme psychology and develop into a kind of paranoia. Many seemingly commonplace practices in education actually have many mistakes that people cannot see behind them.Over the years, people have been accustomed to asking children to be "obedient", as if it is for the benefit of children, but in-depth analysis, we can see that this is the inequality between adults and children.It's not that parents are unwilling to treat their children equally, but that it's not easy to be alert to their sense of authority, and they don't realize that they play an authoritative role in front of their children. The philosopher Fromm is full of criticisms of authoritarian ethics, and believes that what it advocates is "obedience is the greatest good, and disobedience is the greatest evil. In authoritarian ethics, the unforgivable crime is resistance." No matter how much parents love their children, if they often ask their children to be "obedient" and always ask their children to obey themselves, he is an authoritarian in his bones.Such a person almost never doubts the correctness and undeniability of his request to the child, and he has never been truly equal to the child in his subconscious.But in the eyes of children, they are just "disobedient" parents. What is basically certain is that those who are very self-righteous and paranoid must have a relatively long period of life in their childhood that must obey the will of others, and their personal will is constantly suppressed.This is the psychological trauma left by his childhood environment, which cannot be completely healed in his life.Many people impose this kind of paranoia on their offspring, and leave traces of paranoia on their offspring. Of course, being "obedient" parents is by no means obedient to their children and cannot break through the moral bottom line.Don't listen to a child's impolite orders, endless quid pro quo, or rude words.Otherwise it is pampering. "Being obedient" and connivance are two completely opposite things. The essence of "obedience" is how to understand children and how to treat children equally; connivance is just spoiling. "Being obedient" cultivates citizens with a democratic temperament; connivance can only create a small tyrant who dictates orders. Rousseau said: "When a child is active, don't teach him how to obey others; at the same time, when you do things for him, don't let him learn to be submissive. Let him be in both his actions and your actions. I also feel that I have his own freedom." Expressed in the words of this article, parents and children should not control each other, but should be "obedient" people.Parents, as the strong and dominant party, are the creators of the situation - if you want to have a good and obedient child, you must remember: first be an "obedient" parent in front of the child. ●We take our children out to play. Why do we have to regard going to Tiananmen Square as meaningful and crossing overpasses as meaningless? Where children play is not fun.Perhaps in Yuanyuan's eyes, the sky bridge is much more interesting than the square. ●The clothes can be washed if they are dirty, and it is no big deal if they are worn out.What a mistake to spoil a child's fun-filled attempt for the trivial reason of not getting his clothes dirty. ●It is very important to understand the child's mind.If adults feel that the child is ignorant, do not understand what she is saying seriously, coax her or scold her indiscriminately, and the child's heart knot cannot be solved, how long will she be distressed and uneasy. ●If parents want to persuade their children to do what adults think about everything, and ask their children to obey themselves all day long, they will teach their children to treat others in the same way unconsciously.Young children quickly learn a set of ways to kidnap their parents. "Disobedient" is their usual rope, negative but effective.If this kind of incident accumulates too much, it will form extreme psychology and develop into a kind of paranoia.