Raising children is not easy, it takes knowledge, patience and love. To know the key to understanding and connecting with your child, and the right communication skills in a family environment, let’s find out the sharing of psychologist, Master Coach Duong Thi Thu Ha below!
Causes of children’s psychological difficulties
Reality has shown that, besides physical diseases, mental health is also a factor that needs to be taken care of. Young children have psychological problems that lead to disturbances in living and learning, and can even cause physical pain.
Therefore, parents need to grasp the thoughts and feelings, recognize the psychological difficulties of their children in order to promptly support their children when needed. So, what are the causes of children’s psychological difficulties, such as:
- Psychological and physiological changes during puberty: During puberty, especially from 11 to 14 years old, there are changes in hormone levels inside the body. Hormones produced by the brain and sex organs affect behavior and psychology. For example, changes in thyroid hormone or cortisol levels increase the risk of depression.
- Family environment: In fact, a child raised in an unhappy family, indifferent parents, quarrelsome grandparents will make it more difficult for him than his peers. In addition, the fact that parents have ideas to impose, use negative words, treat their children as “mental trash” or argue in front of their children, criticize and judge their children, etc. are also very worrying.
- Learning and playing environment: Currently, school violence is on the rise. Most children who suffer from school violence or have to study and play in a negative environment tend to suffer on their own, feeling resentful and angry but can’t share it with anyone. This affects the child’s psyche.
- The social environment: Development-oriented society, children are more fully cared for, have more advantages, so they are easily dependent on their parents. Many families overprotect their children, not giving them the opportunity to experience lessons to grow up. This is easy to create for young children psychological dependence, fear, shyness and easy psychological difficulties.
The “key” to understand and connect with your child
Understanding is the most useful “key” for parents to grasp their children’s difficulties and help them overcome obstacles in each stage of development. Understanding children will help parents grasp what their children really think, want and need.
1. Accept the necessary stages for your child to develop
The first thing to remember is that no matter what happens, parents will always love their children and accept them unconditionally. Loving you unconditionally is that no matter what you do, your parents still love you. Conditional love means that children do well in school, parents love them… Learning to love unconditionally is one of the best things to understand and connect with your child.
To do this, parents need to understand their children’s age and developmental stages, why their children behave and have such attitudes. Accept and love your child as “I am”. Acceptance is a wonderful gift that parents can give their children every day and children will feel their parents’ love.
2. Spend more quality time with your kids
Modern life is busy, parents always have to divide their time to send their children to school, take care of housework, etc., but they forget that spending time playing and sharing with their children is equally important.
However, parents do not worry too much about how many minutes each day can be spent with their children, the important thing is to turn those moments into memorable moments. Be wholeheartedly when you are with your child so that you can listen to them, share with them to understand what they are thinking.
If possible, parents should also teach their children necessary life skills, help them be more confident to develop and perfect themselves, and make them feel loved and protected. This close time also helps parents and children get closer to each other, easily removing unnecessary conflicts.
3. To understand and connect with your child, love them scientifically and rationally
Loving children scientifically and rationally is not easy. Especially in the current situation, everyone is busy and does not have enough time to share, understand and be patient with each other. Therefore, parents should use both emotions and reason to love and raise their children.
Parents also need to keep the right principle: Sacrifice for their children properly, with understanding. Parents help their children realize their responsibilities, goals and how to achieve their goals and values in life, rather than relying on others. This will be the most solid luggage in your future.
4. Building common interests between parents and children
Shared interests and interests are considered a great connection between parents and children. For example, fathers with their sons watching a football team or girls with their mothers learning to cook and bake cakes for everyone also create frequent moments of conversation and enjoyable experiences.
If there is currently no common interest, that’s okay, we can explore and build it slowly. This depends on how parents spend time with their children, listen to them and share with them.
5. Interested in friendships and studying in school
When entering puberty, because more friends and social relationships appear, it becomes more and more difficult to maintain a connection between children and parents. Therefore, parents still need to actively care and participate in school activities with their children if possible.
Parents should approach their child’s relationships as closely as possible because the more they understand about their child’s world, the closer the bond of communication becomes. It brings great meaning, parents can guide their children to handle difficult situations or difficult choices that their children are facing. This also shows that parents always have a positive influence on important decisions in their children’s lives.
These sharings were made by psychologist, Master coach Duong Thi Thu Ha during group therapy session in Hanoi number 09 of NHC Vietnam Psychotherapy Center. The program is held weekly on Saturday afternoon with many different topics to help participants solve common difficulties in human life.
Hopefully, through this useful information, parents will know how to properly love their children, connect with them more, and help them achieve their goals in the future.
