Those tough days—spending time with a depressed daughter (45)—confronting a child who loses his temper

Just read the article written by Tianya "When the child loses his temper, your first sentence is very important", I think it is very inspiring for the parents of children with mental illness.

Accompanying an adolescent child is like accompanying a tiger. Accompanying adolescent children with mental illness is more like accompanying a big tiger with a very bad temper.

In the face of a small thing, or a heartless word, or a hurt that can be recalled at any time, the child suddenly loses control of his emotions, or collapses and cries, or loses his temper, or drops something, or even hits people to vent his anger.

What should parents do at this time?

Be gentle and reasonable, or forcefully reprimand and punish your child?

Psycho expert analysis:

When reasoning, the child feels denied, "I'm doing this wrong, I should correct it." It means that his current emotions and needs are not being seen.

In order to seek to be seen, the child will continue to repeat the same trick in the future.

When reprimanding and punishing children, children will feel deep fear, "My true feelings are not allowed, they will be punished." ”

In order to avoid punishment, children often constantly suppress their emotions and emotions. In the long run, it may lead to depression. It could also erupt at some point in the future in an extreme, devastating way.

This sentence, I think the parents of children with mental illness must have deeply understood, those years of children to hold back the tears, tight small fists, swollen red face, frequently interrupted by the authority of parents, incomparably aggrieved and unable to distinguish the pain, at that time like a cloud scattered, no trace. But after years, it was excavated, and it turned out that it was these small wounds that converged into a rolling torrent, destroying the children's life energy and internal drive, and the small flame of life also began to become stormy.

Therefore, in the face of children's emotional loss of control, preaching and strong suppression will invisibly encourage the child's further loss of control.

Because his bad emotions have never been recognized, seen and accepted, the possibility of "transformation" has been lost from the surface.

The author Tianya tells a true story in the article:

A white couple in their forties adopted a seven-year-old girl, Tracy. Born into a violent black family, Tracy was abused from an early age. He was sent to a foster home at the age of 6.

One night, everyone was eating and chatting around the tableware. Tracy had just finished extracting her teeth and was inconvenient to chew, so she could only eat noodles.

At that time, everyone talked about an interesting thing and laughed.

At this time, Tracy suddenly lost control of her emotions, slammed the bowl to the ground with a "huh", covered her face with one hand and cried bitterly, and pointed at her adoptive parents to swear.

Adoptive parents began a textbook response:

Sat there quietly, looking at Tracy gently, without intervening.

Listening to Tracy's incessant insults, her adoptive parents gradually figured out the reason for her anger, because she had just pulled out her teeth and was experiencing physical pain, but the others were talking and laughing at the dinner table.

In Tracy's view, everyone's laughter is a disregard for her inner pain, and it is also a mockery of her "funny appearance" after pulling out her teeth. This evokes painful memories of her past when "a man was mistreated and no one cared." So, involuntarily, her emotions were out of control.

Knowing Tracy's true feelings, the adoptive parents did not forcibly correct them. Instead, he looked at Tracy firmly and gently, clarifying over and over again:

"We didn't laugh at you, we all loved you."

After more than forty minutes of continuous venting, Tracy gradually regained her composure and turned to lower her head and sobb softly.

Only then did the adoptive mother gently walk over to Tracy and gently put her hand to her.

At first, Tracy instinctively twisted her body to avoid her adoptive mother's gaze. The adoptive mother waited patiently, did not force forward, did not turn away. After ten minutes of stalemate, Tracy slowly turned around, gently patted her adoptive mother's hand with her small hand, and smiled.

The next morning, Tracy wrote a line in the guestbook at the dinner table, "Mommy and Daddy, I love you guys." Then, bouncing off to school.

Therefore, when the child's emotions are out of control, the best solution for parents is not to forcibly intervene, but to tolerate.

Last year, when I was hospitalized with my depressed daughter, we had a fierce argument because my daughter was discharged from the hospital. For the first time, I realized that arguing wasn't so scary and could be a good opportunity to show love. Yes, as long as there is love in the heart, not wrapped in anger, anxiety, fear, you can use fierce language, sharp voice, exaggerated body movements, loudly say: "Child, mother loves you." Love you very much. ”

Compared with the angry explanation, the daughter believes more in the theory of "vomiting the truth after drinking", and feels that the usual expression of the mother's emotional peace may be a false and helpless compromise under restraint, and the words without the brain during the quarrel reflect the mother's sincerity.

So, I actually won the quarrel. My daughter quickly calmed down, promised to continue to cooperate with the hospitalization, and from then on she became more intimate with me.

It turned out that my daughter had always cared about my shame, because she was sick, and for several years I cut off contact with relatives and friends. She felt that her mother hated her, her mother was ashamed of her, she herself had been her mother's pride, but now she had made her mother faceless.

I kept the fighting spirit of the quarrel and said fiercely, "Mom loves you very much, especially loves you." You are the dearest person to your mother, the most important person to your mother. How could your mother dislike you? Mom doesn't want to associate with relatives and friends, doesn't participate in classmates, just to protect your privacy. You know, Mom doesn't want to lie and she doesn't want to tell the truth. I had to avoid it. ”

Since then, the daughter has truly accepted her mother's choice not to interact with relatives and friends and zero out the real social circle.

Yes, this is by far the biggest knot in my heart. However, I allow it to exist, and I respect its expression.

Many local netizens said that they hoped to meet and talk with me. I politely declined. I said, my real social circle is almost zero now, and I am only willing to be a friend of your online meeting for a lifetime. The important premise for me to be able to express myself frankly and truthfully on the Internet must be that I, you, and he are netizens, who do not have to meet for a lifetime and become friends who communicate with each other through the Internet.

Of course, I thought, if, one day, I could use the "Hey, my daughter accidentally caught a cold." This tone told my relatives, friends, classmates, and classmates who cared about me the fact that my daughter was depressed, and I thought that I would definitely be able to live more relaxed and more comfortable. But not yet, I respect my own inner voice.

Really, be yourself, be the most authentic self, the best self, such a life is fragrant, interesting, energetic, and running. For the rest of my life, I allow myself and my daughter.

Regarding the child's hatred of relatives, I think it is advisable to neglect rather than block, and the reason is the same as mentioned above.

For my daughter's old account, my first reaction was to pretend to be amnesiac or justified, angry counterattack, moral kidnapping, which made my daughter more angry, the parent-child relationship broke down, and my daughter turned over more old accounts with a more intense attitude.

Later, I patiently listened quietly, like a movie shot, and switched the camera from myself to the child, to imagine the child's grievances, anger, and helplessness at that time. I try to recall decades ago, when I was a child, facing the same situation, that painful state of mind. I remember that I swore to be a gentle and good mother and give my child the best love in the future. Alive but still alive like a mother, let my daughter bear my original pain.

In this way, it is more likely to achieve empathy, sorrow and joy with the child.

After letting my daughter express herself safely and completely, I sincerely apologized and did not make any excuses, for example, I grew up this way, I was a parent for the first time. Then, I really want to go back in time, let my mother love you again, to modify, to repair, so that the wounds on your body will not be so many, and now you will not live so badly and so desperately.

My daughter's mood has obviously eased, and she said without anger, you are such a person, such a temper, through ten times you will only repeatedly hurt me ten times.

After such a conversation was carried out many times, the old account daughter was tired and almost out of breath, and since then, it has rarely been mentioned. Occasionally, I will praise my mother for being really strong, and it is not easy for my mother for so many years.

Listening to the "passing" teacher's lecture, I mentioned that in many families of children with mental illness, because children denounce their parents for being wrong, parents insist that they are not wrong, so that repeated tug-of-war can last for years, or even a lifetime.

Yes, are there real winners in the war between parents and children? Parents are big, children are small, parents can put down the authority of parents, bravely declare surrender, end the war. Let the child stop the meaningless confrontation with the parents, and use the precious youth to think about what kind of person they want to become in the future, what kind of life they want to live, and become a person with goals, dreams and actions.

Yesterday I listened to the lecture of the "passing" teacher, "Cognition changes emotions", emotions, cognition, behavior, for the golden triangle relationship.

Therefore, in the first half of life, parents "can't maintain emotional stability, can't talk well", have already misunderstood their children and themselves, do they have to keep being wrong, or even add mistakes to mistakes?

Therefore, it is very urgent and important for parents to have the courage to admit their shortcomings, actively strive to learn growth and change, adjust cognition, and improve themselves. It's not just for the sake of the children, but also for yourself, don't you have decades to live?

The rest of your life is expensive, don't waste it. Treat the rest of your life as a new life and live again.