Under inherit the wind's filial piety dogmatism, children will not directly express their inner anger, disappointment and sadness to their parents after being hurt, but will hide those gloomy feelings that have never been understood and accepted.
All parents are not perfect parents, all have shortcomings and may make mistakes. They will lose their temper with their children, be too strict with them, and even hit them. We can't conclude that they are not competent parents.
But we can't deny that many parents have various problems in the process of educating their children, which have directly or indirectly caused serious adverse effects on their physical and mental health.
Susan Forward, a famous American psychologist, called those parents who hurt their children intentionally or unintentionally repeatedly "toxic" in the book "Home of Origin: How to Repair Their Personality Defects".
Healthy parents give their children love, respect and independence, while toxic parents give them fear, responsibility and guilt.
Susan Forward, through a lot of clinical psychotherapy, found that adults who suffer from family origin usually come from three kinds of toxic parents.
① Abusive parents
The most common harm that toxic parents do to their children is physical abuse and verbal abuse.
Physical abuse: Many parents have the impulse to hit their children from time to time in the process of raising their children, especially when their children are disobedient, confronting them will cause great trouble to them.
Most parents know that it is wrong to hit their children, and they can successfully resist the impulse to hit their children. Unfortunately, there are also many parents who make the idea of beating their children come true because of their lack of control over impulsiveness.
It is not so much that adults beat children because they are naughty and disobedient, but rather that adults just want to vent their fatigue, stress, anxiety and unhappiness on weak children.
Parents who have been physically abusing their children for a long time have serious personality defects, and they may grow up in violent families themselves.
When they enter marriage with serious emotional defects, they will unconsciously repeat the same mistakes and "copy" the pain they experienced in Origin and Death to their children. For example, violence is regarded as an inertia against pressure. As long as you are in a bad mood, you will be rude to your child, and your child will become a tool for them to vent their emotions.
They are extremely selfish parents, because they pay no attention to the great harm these practices have caused to their children, and only care about meeting their uncontrollable or even morbid psychological needs.
It is difficult for children who have been abused by their families to gain a sense of trust and security in the world and others. Their childhood is full of great anxiety, tension and pain, and this bad feeling will not only accompany them into adulthood, but even become a shadow that they can never erase.
For example, some time ago, the news reported that an 8-year-old girl in Baoan, Shenzhen was beaten by her biological parents. The girl in the video was beaten by her angry mother, but instead of crying, making trouble, resisting or begging for mercy, she returned to the table very cleverly. It can be seen that the little girl is completely numb to being beaten, which just shows that her inner trauma is bottomless.
Verbal abuse: Many parents have verbally abused their children. They will use very direct, open, ugly and vicious language to belittle their children, such as they are stupid, useless, incompetent, disobedient and unlovable.
Even as an adult, when I hear adults insult, reprimand, condemn and belittle children, I can feel their obvious disgust and dissatisfaction with children, not to mention those children who are very sensitive and still in the process of self-cognition.
Some parents do not abuse their children directly, but verbally abuse their children through hidden teasing, sarcasm, nicknames, or indirect humiliation.
Parents will also put on "gorgeous coats" for these behaviors, such as saying "I'm just joking with you" or telling them "I hit you to help you grow into a better person".
But for children, they don't have enough mature cognition and experience to distinguish jokes from facts, ridicule and threats.
The only thing a child trusts and can rely on most is his parents, so he will believe and fully accept his parents' evaluation of himself indiscriminately, and they will turn their parents' "negative projection" into reality.
Unfortunately, many parents don't realize that their aggressive language has caused great pain and long-term harm to their children.
Children who grow up in an atmosphere of verbal abuse for a long time will be extremely sensitive to negative comments such as criticism and negation. Their self-evaluation will be extremely pessimistic and their hearts will be very inferior.
Even if someone praises them and loves them, they will be skeptical about it, because they have heard too many bad comments about themselves since childhood, dare not trust others easily, and even distort others' comments, thinking that they are satirizing and belittling themselves.
② Absent parents
Absent parents are incompetent parents. In such a family, the roles of children and parents are confused or even directly reversed. It is not parents who take care of their children, but children who take care of their parents, and children bear the heavy responsibility that parents should bear.
For example, the little boy in the movie How to Go Home praised his parents for being seriously "absent". Zan didn't get the slightest love from his parents. He couldn't go out to play ball like other friends his age.
He needs to stay at home and help his parents take care of his younger brothers and sisters, or go out to work to earn money and help his parents supplement their families.
His parents often abuse him. As Zan said in the movie, the best sentence I can hear is "Get out, you garbage".
For children who are deeply involved in role inversion, there will be great powerlessness.
Because their parents will demand them by the standards of an adult, but they are just children, not real adults, so they often do wrong things, are often accused by their parents, and bear a strong sense of guilt and frustration.
These children have lacked companionship, love and care since childhood. They only know how to give, they have no ego, or they have low self-esteem because they were not valued since childhood.
③ parents with strong control.
Controlling parents are parents who have no sense of boundaries. Their biggest problem is that they always control their children too much and interfere too much.
Although they have been cunningly claiming that "it's all for your own good", in fact, what they are most concerned about is not the needs and growth of children, but whether their inner desire for power can be brought into play.
When children try to resist their own control, they will "force" their children to obey their wishes through some threats, intimidation and humiliation. For example, parents will say, "Don't ask so many questions, just do as I say", "Do as I tell you, there is no such thing as nonsense" and "You are too selfish and careless to even listen to your parents. Will your parents harm you? " .
Parents who like to manipulate their children, even if their children grow up and leave home, will control their children thousands of miles away by phone or text message.
The more obsessed parents are with manipulation, the more helpless their children will be. Under the excessive control of their parents, these children will feel that their needs and wishes are irrelevant.
They can't be independent, they can't have their own choices, and they feel that they are dragging two heavy chains and can't get rid of them under the bondage of their parents.
For example, in the case of Wu Yimu, a Peking University student who shocked the whole country, Wu's mother Xie was a very controlling person. She is very strict with Wu, as if she is in charge of everything, completely depriving her son of the right to speak and choose.
Swiss psychologist Jung put forward a "shadow theory". Simply put, personal inner needs and desires, if not publicly presented and expressed, will be hidden in the shadow. Although you can't see them, this power will be manifested in other destructive ways.
The more helpless a child is, the larger the shadow area in his heart will be, and the easier it is to make some anti-social behaviors. Some people analyze Wu like this. "He felt that in order to be a real man and gain his freedom, he had to kill his mother."
Generally speaking, these three kinds of toxic parents will cause great emotional harm to their children.
Most poisoned children, without exception, have a similar "commonality" in adulthood, that is, their self-esteem is seriously damaged and accompanied by corresponding "self-destruction" behavior.
They all have a negative self-image. It is difficult for them to feel their own value, and even feel that they are worthless and useless. They are always overly sensitive to criticism and negation, and feel that they are disliked and unworthy of being loved.
It takes a long time for these adults who have suffered from family background to really heal their wounds. To this end, Susan put forward some suggestions in the book:
Don't force yourself to forgive.
Many chicken soups for the soul tell those who have been hurt that only by choosing to forgive, tolerate and let go can we really get rid of those unforgettable pains.
Susan Forward found through clinical psychotherapy that many people did not bring essential and lasting changes to their lives because of forgiveness.
This kind of forgiveness only makes sense when parents realize their mistakes and try to ask for our forgiveness.
In fact, many parents don't admit what happened, and they don't want to take responsibility, let alone make compensation.
They will still trample on their children's self-esteem, shirk their responsibilities and manipulate them with their own will. In this case, choosing to forgive and forget is actually a kind of self-deception. Instead of making our life better, it will increase our inner anger and resentment.
As the author said in the book, "I think God wants me to get better, not to forgive me".
(2) change ideas.
Psychologists have found that there is a great connection between thoughts and emotions.
If you find it difficult to change your mood, then you can try to change your mind.
For example, you stubbornly believe that your parents will never realize their mistakes. You can't "beat" your parents. They will only bring you harm, helplessness and trouble. You can only choose to yield, yield and obey.
If that's what you think, then you hold the belief that you give your life to your parents and let them control your life, and you give up the right to choose. In this way, the pain of being born in a family will become a nightmare for your life and you will never get rid of it.
To put it another way, "although my parents have hurt me, I have grown up and can have my own ideas and get rid of my parents' control." "My parents' ideas are not necessarily correct, especially their evaluation of me. "
When you question your parents, respect your feelings and imagine yourself in a good direction, it means that you begin to regain the choice of life, which is an important step out of the pain of being born in a family.
3 set your own boundaries.
It's not enough to just change your mind. You need to carry out your ideas constantly in your daily life. The most important thing is to know how to set your own boundaries.
The boundaries mentioned here are not only physical boundaries, for example, parents can't just enter your room and tamper with your things. , but also the boundaries of feelings.
For example, you choose to work in a foreign country against your parents' wishes. This behavior makes your parents very disappointed and even angry. You may feel guilty and blame yourself for this, but you should realize that it is your right to choose what kind of job to do and who to marry, and your parents can only provide advice.
When your choice runs counter to your parents' choice, your parents will be hurt, but you have no obligation to change your life plan and take care of your parents' mood. What really needs healing is themselves. As adults, they have the responsibility to find ways to comfort themselves.
The purpose of setting boundaries is to set aside the indoctrination and influence of parents and have their own beliefs, feelings and behaviors.
Any behavior of setting boundaries is not so comfortable, but it can really help you regain your choice and free space.