The arrival of a baby brings joy to young parents. The babbling and toddling slowly grows up, which also makes parents work hard and happily, enjoying the happiness of being a parent.

But as the children gradually grow up, parents gradually find that the little ones are not so obedient. In the eyes of adults, this kind of disobedience is often seen as troublesome and disorderly.

Parents face the first difficult problem in parent-child education: What to do? Let him alone, for fear that he will go his own way and do whatever he wants in the future; forcefully change the child's personality, suppress the child's personality, and cause psychological shadow on the child, which is not good either. Dilemma. Parents feel troubled and confused at the same time: Why do their children become disobedient?

1. What does it mean when a child is disobedient?

When a child is born, he can only cry, eat and sleep. Then you teach him to learn various skills. You teach him to eat, drink and poop, teach him to identify various things, teach him to read, draw and so on. He has always been "obedient".

You seem to have gotten used to it, and you are also very proud that he has grown up according to the way you trained him. He has become more and more like a little person from a lump of meat that can't do anything when he was born.

But suddenly one day, you find that he doesn’t do what you taught him. He has his own opinions and ideas. This stage shows that he has entered the "first resistance period" of growth, which means that at this time he has mastered the basic ability to survive by eating, drinking, and eating, and has begun to form his own self-awareness. Before that, he was basically no different from a small animal that could only eat and sleep.

In fact, when humans are born, their ability to survive is far inferior to that of other small animals of the same age, such as ponies and calves. They can stand within a few hours of being born, and then have the ability to walk alone. . Babies, on the other hand, cannot roll over before three months and are completely dependent on adults for support before one year old. During this period, humans had no concept of themselves.

When did humans begin to have a clear understanding of the concept of "I"? Moreover, how do you know that the child is indeed aware of himself? You must know that children cannot express themselves in words as clearly as adults.

Psychologists used a very clever method. Here I will briefly introduce the famous experiment in developmental psychology: the red dot experiment. The content of this experiment is to put a red dot on the child's nose when he is unconscious (while sleeping), and then show him a mirror when he is awake to see whether he will touch his nose in the mirror or not. Wipe the red spots off your nose.

If he can, it means he knows that the person in the mirror is himself. Otherwise, he would not know that the mirror person is himself.

How old do you think a child can be to pass this red point experiment? Don't underestimate this ability. Apart from humans, only gorillas have this ability in the animal world.

The answer is: Only infants and young children aged 18-24 months are fully equipped with this ability.

Children at this stage often start to say "I want..., I will do it myself". In the eyes of adults, they begin to become "disobedient", but in fact they have just learned that "I want to do it myself". "Existence, just want to show off "self".

Disobedience means the awakening of personal self-awareness, which means that the child is beginning to become a real person. As a parent, you should be happy.

But having said that, he is always disobedient, and parents are very busy. The small problem is that the mess at home needs to be cleaned up; the big problem is that he often receives complaints from teachers and other parents. , to help him deal with all kinds of butt wiping. Worried.

So the usual thinking of parents is: I hope he will be good, so that I can worry less, and it will not be so strenuous to take care of him. I still have a lot of housework and work to do. Self-awareness and other things will naturally form when you grow up. Don't think about it now, okay? Is there any good way to make him be obedient and good?

2. Is it really good for children to be well-behaved?

This... let's not talk about whether there is any way. Let's talk about what will happen if a child always behaves well, or what are the consequences.

You may have heard my subtext: being obedient is actually bad.

Of course nothing is absolute, and if you can’t be obedient, it will definitely be bad. I can only say that it is not good to be too obedient.

From the perspective of personal growth rules, there is a certain truth in "when something happens to a well-behaved child, it will be a big deal." Why? Let’s look at two incidents first, and then talk about the reasons behind this sentence.

The first incident was the recent verdict of Wu Xieyu, a top student at Peking University, in his mother-killing case. Wu Xieyu was sentenced to death.

Wu Xieyu has been what people call "other people's children" since he was a child. He has been so good that he can't find any shortcomings.

Ranked first in the school in the high school entrance examination, and was admitted early to Peking University in his senior year of high school. After entering Peking University, he continued to excel academically and was one of the top three students every year. In Peking University, where top academics gathered, he still received scholarships. Not only is his academic performance excellent, but his character performance is also perfect.

In the eyes of his teachers and classmates, he is calm when things happen, does not argue with others, is self-disciplined, has clear goals, is popular, loves sports, and is a standard sunny boy.

But all of this was created by his mother. His mother was a middle school teacher. Others rated her as strong, aloof, rigorous, perfectionist, and highly principled. She had always followed her own strict training. and mold their own children to the pattern required.

Under the strong influence of his mother on him, he himself also showed similar perfectionism, and his evaluation of himself, others, and rules... were all molded into an image that was approved by the mainstream values ??of society. Behind never breaking the rules is the suppression of oneself. If this kind of suppression exceeds the limit of endurance, it will collapse.

The second incident is that Zhu Xiaodong, the criminal who killed his wife and hid her body in June 2020, was executed.

After strangling his wife Yang Liping to death, he hid it in his freezer for four months and overdrafted his wife's credit card by hundreds of thousands so that he could squander it.

In this case, Yang Liping is a good girl. From childhood to adulthood, her life was smooth sailing and she followed the rules. She was admitted to university according to the route designed by her parents, and became a people's teacher after graduation. She has not experienced the growing pains and rebellion that young people have.

The parents are very satisfied with their daughter's good behavior, and she herself seems to recognize her own good behavior. But all this was broken by the man she met. She thought she encountered love, but in fact she just found the "bad" part that was missing in her growth experience: breaking the rules, being cynical, taking risks, chasing illusory goals, etc.

So she devoted herself without hesitation. She felt that she had found this "love" by herself. Nothing could better reflect the existence and value of "self" than the "love" created by herself. You used to make the decision for me, but this time I want to make the decision myself.

So it is useless no matter how much the parents try to stop the marriage. But it is a pity that the man she chose led her into a path of no return.

When a child grows up, he must grow according to his own nature at first. He has not yet accepted social rules in his mind.

Whatever the original desire is, he will do it. Therefore, selfishness, mischief, and naughty are the nature of children, and rebellion in adolescence is the nature of teenagers. It is their nature to feel confused, experience conflicts, make various actions against the wishes of adults, and show their control and control over their destiny.

Can you see it? When a child grows up, it is not his nature to be "good", but it is his nature not to be good.

3. Why are some children so well-behaved?

There are several possible reasons:

1. Self-repression.

Children in this category generally have delicate emotions and become sensible too early. Knowing what your parents' requirements are, you will also restrain yourself to live the way your parents want. But at the same time, it is accompanied by the suppression of one's own personality and the abandonment of one's own needs.

But your own needs will not disappear for no reason. Sooner or later, they will find an outlet.

For example, in the previous case of Wu Xieyu, he first killed his mother, then used her mother’s mobile phone to borrow a large amount of money from her relatives and friends to squander it. He also worked as a male model in a nightclub and lived with a sex worker. .

Lived a life of complete indulgence.

2. Self-awareness is worn away.

These children often have no independent opinions from childhood to adulthood. Their lives are completely designed by their parents. Under repeated indoctrination by their parents, they also recognize that they will have a stable life if they follow the path designed by their parents. future.

But for this kind of life that can be seen at a glance, they usually wonder when they grow up: Is this what my life should be like? I have always lived for my parents, not for myself.

The continuous result of this situation is doubt about the meaning of life and depression; or suddenly there is an opportunity and he discovers the meaning of living for himself in life, such as the "love" found by the good girl in the previous case. ".

3. Disguise.

This type of child is very smart, knows how to seek advantages and avoid disadvantages, and has a strong ability to deal with others. He will be very well-behaved when dealing with people who are stronger than him, such as teachers and parents, and gain a good impression. But when dealing with his peers or those who are weaker than him, he will show his ugly side such as selfishness and arrogance.

If such children are not handled well, they will develop into schizotypal personality in severe cases.

It must be said that the children educated by our Chinese conventional education model do not encourage children to develop their own personalities, but cultivate good children who meet unified standards.

Therefore, the child's self-awareness, the child's behavior, and the parent's attitude towards the child are inextricably linked. Misbehavior is the awakening of self-awareness and a normal phenomenon in children's growth. How to deal with their "misbehavior" is a question that every parent must think about.

Why do some children become better and better as they grow up? Some children turn into unreasonable little bullies, or timid and cowardly mama's boys?

What a child will grow up to depends on whether parents can continue to learn and reflect on themselves, whether they can remain patient, and whether they can get into their children's hearts. Parenting cannot be accomplished in one session. It is a long-term process of cultivation and communication.