I have said 'empathy' 10,000 times, but most parents still use it wrong, please don't perfunctory children
I have to say that today’s parents are a generation of humbly learning, especially when it comes to educating their children. Everyone regards developing children's high emotional intelligence as an important part of education.
Therefore, when the child loses his temper, parents also learn to manage their own emotions first, and try to use empathy to recognize and accept the child's emotions, as the parenting experts or books say, so as to relieve the child's negative emotions. the goal of.
But the so-called talk on paper is ultimately shallow, and I absolutely know that this matter has to be practiced. Even if parents are full of empathy for their children and think they have done it, not everyone can achieve the desired effect.
Often under empathy articles, you will see a message like this: "I am obviously empathetic, why does the child still lose his temper?"
Repeated failures in practice start to make parents doubt the correctness of empathy.
In fact, this is really not a pot of empathy. If empathy is used incorrectly, it is useless.
01About empathy
The concept of empathy was proposed by Rogers, the founder of humanism. Refers to a person's ability to experience the inner world of others. To put it simply, it means being able to truly think about problems from the perspective of others.
It includes three meanings:
■Parents go deep into the heart of the child through his external words and deeds to experience his emotions and thoughts.
■Parents rely on their own knowledge and experience, and have a certain grasp of the child's experience and personality, so they can better understand where the problem lies.
■Parents use skills to successfully communicate their empathy to their children and get positive feedback from their children.
It can be seen that empathy is not a simple subject. It not only requires parents to have a certain understanding of their children, but also requires skills.
Empathy is actually a very difficult thing. After all, without personal experience, it is impossible to truly perceive what happened from all perspectives and psychology of others.
However, qualified empathy is that parents can keenly perceive the negative emotions of their children and use their own positive emotions to eliminate them, so that the children feel that "it turns out that my parents understand me".
02 Fake empathy
Why do you say empathy 10,000 times, but most parents still use it wrong? In fact, this is a kind of inertia.
The current thinking of many parents is to let their children stop crying quickly, so they use their own wisdom as adults and use their brain power to implement so-called empathy for their children without distraction.
As most books recommend, the first step a parent takes when a child is showing negative emotions is to use empathy to help him define and recognize his own emotions.
The conversation goes something like this: I can sense you're mad right now.
But the result is that the child will turn a deaf ear to this sentence, and even show resistance.
Carefully reflect, in this process, did the parents stand on the child's point of view? No! They are still standing in their own perspective, thinking about using the empathy skills in the books to quickly stop the children from making trouble.
Thus, empathy has changed from an education to a skill. When parents use this technique with their brains, they are not trying to instill love and attention in their children.
If we use the definition in the encyclopedia to express empathy more completely, it should be: accompanying the child calmly with love and attention to help him recognize and understand his emotions.
A detailed breakdown of each of these words is as follows:
■Take care, really love and care for the child, the purpose is to prevent the child from feeling unhappy because he has been indulging in negative emotions, not after the child stops crying, I can do my own thing.
■Calm, many parents feel uneasy when their child is crying and tossing, and they will appear very anxious. They go straight up and pick up the child and coax him to stop crying. Therefore, parents' anxiety is the most intuitive feeling for children.
■Accompanying, when parents empathize, they must be at the side of the child, not at a distance. For example, when the child is crying in the bedroom, the parent is sitting in the living room or study and saying from a distance: I know you are sad now, but shall we calm down first? This is perfunctory.
■ Help children understand their own emotions. This understanding must be correct. Parents should not simply and rudely define their children's emotions without thinking. Think about what happened before the child cried and what was his motive? This will be more accurate and effective.
03 The premise of correct empathy - both parents and children have a precise understanding of emotions
This belongs to the knowledge and experience of parents and children themselves. If there is no accurate grasp of emotions, then using empathy is like being blind.
Parents need to learn the vocabulary of emotion names by themselves, and then in the process of getting along with their children in daily life, teach him what is in the emotional library, and try to tell him which emotion the expressions on his face correspond to.
For example, I often ask children: Which face are you in here now? Which face is the mother in here now?
And when reading picture books or watching cartoons, make full use of the opportunity to express to children the emotional atmosphere of the characters in them.
Below is a picture of the emotional library in positive discipline for parents to refer to.
04 The correct way to open empathy, please stop perfunctory children
- Respect and allow children to vent their emotions
Sometimes children have some intense anger, sadness, depression and other negative emotions. If they don't vent out, the consequences of stagnation in their hearts are very serious.
Parents should not speak in a hurry, try to accompany the child quietly first, wait for him to vent his unease, and give proper verbal guidance.
For example: Baby, it's okay, if you are really sad right now, you can cry out loud, and your mother will be by your side, okay?
Many parents start to make mistakes from this step, because they all want their children to stop crying quickly, but this is actually wrong. In order for children to quickly recover from violent emotions, it must take a buffer time. This is what gives children Best respect.
- Guide the child to calm down
In the process of the child venting his emotions, if the parent finds that he has gradually eased signs, this is the time to intervene.
In scientific research, it has been proved that hugs and other actions can directly shake a child's mind and help him calm down more than words.
Therefore, parents can send hugs the first time, and then tell their children to try to take deep breaths to calm down physically and emotionally.
At this point, more than half of the empathy has been carried out, but the child's negative emotions have not been completely resolved.
- Help the child review
This step is usually forgotten by most parents, but it is a crucial step for children to grow up.
In such a review, there are three elements:
■What happened just now?
■What kind of emotions did this incident cause you?
■How do you let your emotions calm down?
In such a process, guide the child to clear up the context, understand that his negative emotions are not without reason, and how to deal with similar things next time?
05 Write at the end
Everything is easier said than done, especially parenting. Because he is not just a small child, but a person with his own independent mind and consciousness.
Parents cannot fully replace their children as parents, or achieve their own goals under the guise of empathy.
It should be recognized that empathy is not to solve the problem of children crying now, but to teach children how to manage their emotions. In this way, even if he grows up in the future, his parents can't accompany him, and he can still have the ability to be rational, peaceful and self-healing.
If there is a misunderstanding on this point, such fake empathy will not only not be effective, but will become an accomplice in opening the gap between parents and children.
So, start practicing slowly today! The next time your child becomes overly emotional, I hope you can truly empathize.