The most hurtful knife in parenting is not criticism or scolding, but this sentence that parents often say
I went back to my hometown a few days ago and saw my nephew whom I hadn’t seen for many years. Now he is a high school student who is 1.82 meters tall.
To outsiders, he is no different from an adult, but to his parents, he is still the disobedient, naughty and rebellious child.
While chatting with my nephew, he told me that the thing he hated most about his parents was:
“I always compare myself to others and think I’m not as good as others.”
The nephew said: “Every time he hears this sentence, he wants to run away from home immediately. He really wants to tell his parents that if you like others so much, why not raise others!”
I think my nephew’s complaint is not an individual’s imagination. I have heard too many similar complaints during my years of education.
This sentence can be said to be the mantra of most parents. Whether it is studying, doing homework, living, or taking care of themselves, there is a “other people’s child” living in the hearts and mouths of parents.
So what’s the problem with this sentence? If you have to use “other people’s children” to motivate your own family, how can it be used effectively?
Let’s look at it one by one: Why is this sentence the most hurtful?
When I was a child, my mother always liked to use the neighbor’s children to stimulate me. One day, my mother said to me: “Look at Xiao Lu, he plays basketball so well, but look at you, you have no skills at all.”
With all due respect, basketball is my heartache. I have been practicing seriously and working hard to improve my basketball level.
My mother’s words not only did not increase my enthusiasm for practicing basketball, but triggered my strong resistance.
The long-term inner depression suddenly burst out, and I yelled at my mother: “If you like Xiao Lu so much, then you can be his mother. I don’t have a mother like you!”
My mother was silent for a long time when she heard this.
Lack of sense of family belonging
According to my experience, every child will have this idea. When parents often mention other people’s children and always use the advantages of other people’s children to beat themselves, their own sense of family belonging will become extremely low.
Positive discipline, which is popular all over the world, has a basic principle, which is that family education is most about unconditional love. With this as the foundation, other parenting methods of parents can be truly effective.
However, this kind of unscrupulous comparison by parents will obviously destroy this principle.
First, the child feels that what you love is not his person, but his good behavior;
Second, the child will feel that you do not love him, but someone else’s child.
These two points will make children think that the family is not warm and that the love of their parents is unsafe and unreliable. Such children lack a sense of security in their hearts, and their brains will more often work hard to gain a sense of security instead of For intellectual exploration.
Lack of sense of value in life
We always say that others are good and excellent, but what is the subtext?
We know that the antonym of good is bad. Since you often say that others are good, it means that I am bad. If you often say this, then I may really be bad. Since it is so bad, then I don’t have to work hard.
You see, parents’ original intention is to use others to motivate themselves, but the result is that they make their children feel more inferior, have a lower sense of worth, and are even less willing to work hard and try!
Why does this result occur?
There is a book called “Inferiority and Transcendence”, which is the masterpiece of psychologist Adler.
It points out that inferiority complex and self-confidence are two sides of the same coin. When we compare with others, we can easily get inferiority complex, because there is always someone better than you, there is no Xiao Wang, there is also Xiao Li.
Likewise, when we compare ourselves with ourselves, we usually gain confidence because we are usually more mature and better today than we were yesterday.
From this point of view, “other people’s children” are often the children’s enemies, even natural enemies. The reason is very simple. As long as there is comparison, there must be harm, because it is equivalent to using someone else’s hardest thing to attack one’s softest part.
Children who are often compared in this way have a very low sense of value.
They seriously lack self-confidence and even dare not believe that they can win. The behavior they often adopt is to escape or even give up.
Children will eventually leave their parents and go into society. They need love in their hearts, they need enough self-confidence, and they have to believe that they are valuable. However, what parents call “other people’s children” often destroys both of these. sharp knife.
So, from today on, from now on, stop saying that, stop understanding that.
How to use “other people’s children” to motivate?
In life, children need motivation and their morale needs to be encouraged. It is indeed necessary to find a reference object or role model to motivate.
The key is what should we do?
I think the key is to do the following two things:
Let children see their own success from others
Once I took my child to have dinner with a friend. The friend was very satisfied with his child’s abacus mental arithmetic and even let the child perform a performance on the spot.
Seeing this situation, I wanted to say to my son: Look at how awesome your brother is, you should work hard too.
However, I then thought about it again, what is the use of saying this? Apart from hitting my son and making him feel that he is not good enough, it has no positive effect at all.
Therefore, when I took my son to the bathroom, I told him, son, my brother has practiced abacus mental arithmetic for two months before he has the results he has today. Mom, I have watched you learn basketball for a month and you are playing very well now. This shows that we That’s great too, right?
When my son heard this, I obviously felt that he had a higher opinion of himself, and he was no longer in the state of looking up to me just now. Then I continued to ask him: Do you want to learn abacus mental arithmetic?
My son answered that there was no problem. After two months of practice, I will definitely be able to reach my brother’s current level…
Therefore, when praising others, children must not feel that they are belittling themselves. On the contrary, we must not only praise others’ success, but also affirm our own superiority.
The most important thing is to let your children see their own success in others.
Remember what I said earlier? Comparing yourself with yourself can create confidence.
And powerful parents who can compare with others can also generate self-confidence, and this self-confidence has a huge influence. It not only allows the children to perceive your love, but also makes the children feel great about themselves.
See your own path from the success of others
There is a very nice song with a line in it: “How can you see a rainbow without going through wind and rain? No one can succeed casually…”
You see, this is how the song goes, and this is how life plays out.
No outstanding person is born outstanding. What hardships did they experience, what setbacks did they encounter, and how did they get through it…
In fact, these are the most valuable things. Only by seeing the path you want to take next from the success of others can you truly learn and be truly inspired.
I tutored a junior high school student. For a while, he encountered a bottleneck in mathematics and developed some resistance to mathematics.
For this reason,
I took him to find another math master, just to let him see how others got through the bottleneck period.
The math master told him:
“Actually, the bottleneck period is normal. It happens every once in a while. This is actually a good thing. It means that the current level has reached a new height.
So the most important thing at this time is to persevere, forget about the previous results, start from 0, and start anew. Departing from the stairs…”
Soon, the junior high school student regained his form.
Therefore, it makes no sense to just discuss the results of success. If you succeed, you can brag as much as you like.
The key is that we let our children know how the other party succeeded, how they overcame difficulties, and how they were strict with themselves.
For example, when someone else studies very efficiently, then we need to understand how the other person concentrates. Another example, when someone else has good grades, we need to understand how the other person learns.
The words of parents contain the feng shui of a child’s life.
The most terrifying thing in a family is not being born without raising a child, nor raising a child without educating him, but failing to teach him properly.
Because we don’t understand, it’s easy for us to poke randomly. Because we don’t know, we can easily break down. A casual word from a parent may hurt a child’s heart.
Therefore, if you must use other people’s children to inspire your own family and use success to shape success, then your child will definitely succeed!
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