Traps and Secrets on the Road of Parenting

The relationship between spouses should take precedence over the parent-child relationship.

The attachment pattern established by children before the age of three will affect their emotional life and personality health for a lifetime.

A sixty-point mom is good enough.

Mothers should learn to love themselves first in order to better love their children.

Listening to the child's needs, understanding the child's feelings, this is the basic skill of a good mother.

We should not destroy the children's inner drive with spoon-feeding education, but give them freedom and love."

All of the above are just random thoughts that came to my mind, and I could go on indefinitely. Doesn't it look very familiar? Because this generation of mothers has already read many different versions of chicken soup on various parenting public accounts. These truths are basically familiar to this generation of mothers in terms of basic psychological literacy.

Each one may have a theoretical source, each one may be correct. But why do you still often feel that you are not doing it right? Do you often blame yourself when you yell at your child - "I'm not a good mother, parenting experts say you shouldn't yell at children"? Or do you deliberately arrange a date with your husband once a month, but you don't actually know what to do with your husband, or you don't have any interest? Or when your child can't stop watching TV, you want to force him to stop, but you're worried that you haven't given him enough freedom to watch TV? Isn't it about freedom and love?

The answer is simple. Because these are all surface moves of martial arts, even if you learn all the moves, you can't make a complete set of boxing/swordsmanship, because your inner strength is still not enough.

What is inner strength? It is your level of personality maturity. Kohut said that who the parents are is more important than what the parents do. The reason is that no matter what you do, your subconscious will definitely reveal what you really want to convey and express, and children are completely open receivers. They will naturally receive all the information transmitted by their parents, and thus be deeply influenced by their parents. So does the information transmitted by parents at the conscious level not affect children? Of course it can. However, consciousness is just the tip of the iceberg of the subconscious. In places where you are oblivious, you are silently influencing your child.

The purpose of this article is not to oppose psychological popularization or parenting sharing. Cognitive upgrading is the most basic step in behavior change. But in recent years, the information explosion and content homogenization of parenting public accounts seem to increasingly indicate that at a certain point we should go further than simple cognitive upgrading. In fact, before the inner strength has caught up, too much cognitive indoctrination has become a new shackle.

The new generation of mothers generally have a higher level of cognition and have fully accepted the concept that children need to be fully cared for emotionally and spiritually. As one of them, I deeply know how much mothers are bound and restricted in these countless "shoulds" and "should nots". And how much they want to try harder to do better for their children - just look at the proportion of popular parenting courses and psychological courses that are mothers, but in the end they are still stuck in every specific scene in daily life, tangled and anxious.

So we need to practice inner strength. Take your attention off the specific moves first. Focus on yourself first. If you have various obstacles and difficulties in dealing with interpersonal relationships, why do you think your child will learn to exceed your ability just by reading a few truths to him? If you can't handle your own intimate relationships, how can you expect your child to internalize a mature intimate relationship pattern and have healthy intimate relationships in the future? If you live every day in the shallowness of firewood, rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar and tea, only revolving around your child, unable to suppress your anxiety and pretending not to be anxious, why do you expect your child to grow ideal wings and fly to heights you can't even imagine? Where does he see creativity, happiness and passion?

When your personality grows and your heart is clear, all the above truths will automatically fall into place. They don't need to exist as guides, at most they are just a description of a state - this is why you tend to overexert yourself and distort your actions when you strive towards any single truth.

Because you are already living in a state of pursuing your own life, you naturally shift your focus from your child to yourself and your intimate relationships, you will of course love and take care of your own needs first, when you don't have time or energy to accompany your child you won't blame yourself, because your child is just one important aspect of your life. You are already capable of separating from your child from now on - this is the best blessing for your child and your parent-child relationship. But more importantly, in every moment of daily life, you have the confidence to make your own judgment - there is a truth, let me say it before it becomes chicken soup.

In front of any specific judgment, there are no experts, no formulas, and no absolute right or wrong, only you, the person who is with the child, the person who knows the child best, can make the most accurate judgment.

Yes, I'm saying that if your child today must eat a lollipop before eating, or must watch TV for another half hour, or if he doesn't want to do the homework he needs to complete, whether you want to empathize with him and allow him, or want to stop him, yell at him (yes, you read it right, yelling at him is also possible), or any other response, you are more authoritative than any so-called authority.

Because you love your child, when you put your heart into feeling this moment, you know what is right, what is the best choice for you. And this confidence comes entirely from your solid self, from your affirmation of your own value - I am good, so I also know what is best for my child. At this moment, you will no longer be entangled in whether I have destroyed his inner drive? Will I affect the child's sense of security? These moves are no longer important, your inner strength has reached a realm where you don't need any moves, and you win without a move. From now on, you just need to be yourself at ease.