Childhood is crucial for human development, and childhood experiences profoundly shape individuals for life.Some individuals lack initiative, personality, and self-confidence, unable to make decisions for themselves. When faced with challenges, they become flustered and overwhelmed. This personality stems from improper parenting during childhood. Repeated criticism and humiliation from parents gradually erode a child's self-confidence, while authoritarian parenting strips them of their sense of self. Consequently, these children grow into adults who are indecisive and easily panicked.
So how should children be raised?
1. Appropriate Letting Go
Some overly indulgent mothers may adequately meet their child's attachment needs during infancy (0-8 months).
However, as the child grows, such mothers may become excessively protective, fearing accidents and overly restricting the child's movements.They constantly shout at their children: "Come back, you can't go there!" "Come back, you'll fall there!"
This approach often backfires: one outcome is that children refuse to return to their mothers, constantly seeking ways to maintain distance and escape maternal control. The other is that while physically returning to their mothers, they emotionally withdraw, keeping their feelings at bay.
2. Providing Affection
Some mothers exhibit persistent emotional coldness. Disliking their children for various reasons, these mothers are emotionally distant, rarely willing to embrace their child, and resorting to scolding or hitting is commonplace.
If this environment persists unchanged, the psychological traits formed during early childhood will become fundamental aspects of the child's personality as they grow. This manifests as an avoidant personality in interpersonal relationships, particularly in intimate ones. Just as in childhood, they deny their emotional and even material needs. Their character is typically indifferent or even cold, lacking interest or drive in life. Because they constantly avoid excessive intimacy, they appear seemingly independent.
3. Cultivate Patience
Increase patience with children. Avoid constantly urging or even pressuring them to prematurely embark on exploration and independence, while overlooking their psychological need to return to parents after separation to reassure themselves of safety. When children fail to receive emotional support after brief "adventures," their sense of security is undermined. Parents often say things like: "Go play by yourself!" or ""Can't you see I'm busy?" or "You're a big kid now, stop clinging to me."
Children raised in such environments will constantly devise ways to maintain intimacy with their partners. Like the anxious attachment style, the pursuing attachment style fears abandonment. The difference lies in the nature of the fear: while the avoidant attachment style fears being "pulled back home," the pursuing attachment style fears "not being able to find home."
4. Never humiliate your child
Chinese culture has always emphasized "family education," leading many parents to criticize, reject, suppress, or punish behaviors and personality traits that don't align with their expectations. Parents constantly tell children, "Good kids should act this way," or "Good kids should behave that way."
Consequently, the child's personality splits into two parts: one reinforced by parental and societal approval—the so-called "light side"—and another suppressed by rejection—the "dark side." Thus, the child develops a singular, fragmented personality, no longer possessing a whole self.
Children raised in such environments may develop rigid personalities as adults. These individuals tend to be stubborn, often self-centered, lacking flexibility, with little natural emotional expression and a shortage of empathy. They fear losing face above all else, overemphasize self-control, and believe one should not act on impulse but instead be rational. They hide their true selves deeply, appearing calculating and calculating.In romantic relationships and marriage, they exhibit strong controlling tendencies, stubbornly cling to their own views, and often resort to emotional withdrawal as a form of punishment.