Dislike of learning and refuse to learn, addicted to the Internet, irritable, lazy in life, unwilling to communicate... From the senior grade of elementary school to junior high school, many parents have found that the good kid when they were young has disappeared, and the children seem to have become "strangers" - some of them are rebellious and even hurt themselves in extreme cases.

  What should parents do when faced with all kinds of "abnormal" behaviors of their children? A reporter from Banyuetan interviewed Dr. Wu Ning, a psychiatrist at the 928th Hospital of the Joint Logistics Support Force of the People's Liberation Army, on this regard.

  "Abnormal" behavior during adolescence is not all disease

  Banyuetan reporter: Many children will have rebellious phenomena after entering puberty. Some lock themselves in the room and do not communicate with their parents, and even hurt their bodies.

  Wu Ning: Our outpatient clinic has treated many adolescent children, and the number of people is getting more than one year. However, from the perspective of behavioral characteristics, most of them are rebellious behaviors during adolescence and cannot reach the level of disease.

  Banyuetan reporter: What is the difference between rebellious behavior during adolescence and mental and mental illness in adolescents?

  Wu Ning: Adolescence is the peak period for teenagers with mental and psychological diseases. There are many clinical manifestations, common ones include oppositional defiance disorder and depression. Rebellious behavior during adolescence is a normal behavior and does not constitute a mental illness.

  Specifically, rebellious behavior is mainly manifested as not listening to parents' reasoning and emphasizing their own opinions. Some of them are more fiercely confronting their parents, but the confrontation behavior will not have a functional impact. For example, after the confrontation, they go to and from school as usual and make friends.

  When adolescent rebellious behavior develops to a certain extent, it will become an obstacle to oppositional disobedience. Oppositional defiance disorder is a relatively serious mental illness. Usually, children are at the age of 5 to 8, and puberty is even more serious. It has three characteristics: one is confrontational behavior, that is, a strong confrontation with the discipline of the main dependents and teachers, and pushing the responsibility to others. Second, you are angry and angry, and have aggressive behavior. Occasionally, some anger will hurt yourself if you don’t express it. Third, there are many negative emotions that cannot adapt to school life, cannot socialize effectively, and last for more than 6 months. These three characteristics are not accidental, but are scattered in life and occur across situations.

  Depression has many characteristics such as slow thinking, depression, social withdrawal, and slow behavior. The core symptoms are lack of pleasure, which lasts for more than two weeks, and symptoms such as insomnia, inability to concentrate, and inability to go to school normally. The negative emotions of patients with depression are passive reactions and rarely impulsive and aggressive. They usually do not attack others, but only attack themselves.

  This generation of children is more difficult to manage?

  Banyuetan reporter: Why do children experience rebellious behavior during adolescence?

  Wu Ning: After entering puberty, the emotional center of the child's brain (commonly known as the sensory brain) develops first, but the rational brain that controls emotions is still developing, and it will not have better self-control until the age of 25. Adolescence is a critical period for integrating sensibility and rationality. For children, an important psychological task is to grow up and live the life they want, which can easily trigger confrontation with parents.

  Banyuetan reporter: Some parents sigh that this generation of children is more difficult to manage than the previous generation.

  Wu Ning: Fighting against parents, disobeying discipline, and even being disgusted with learning and self-harm is a comprehensive response to stress based on the neurodevelopment and psychological development of adolescence. Parents should understand some developmental characteristics, psychological development tasks and behavioral characteristics of the adolescent nervous system.

  If a child has psychological illness, biological, psychological and social factors cannot be ignored. From a biological genetic perspective, these children may have some hereditary mental illnesses, which are manifested as poor control over impulses, etc. From a psychological point of view, this has a lot to do with extreme parenting methods. Many children who come to the hospital have similar growth backgrounds: their parents have a certain level of education and have high expectations for their children, but they are too arrogant and spoiled to their children in life and too authoritarian in their studies. Social factors are relatively complex, including fierce competition and frequent evaluations, which cannot be changed by individuals. The so-called "this generation of children is more difficult to manage, mainly because it means that the way of education and living environment are very different from the previous generation.

  Meet three children's needs

  Banyuetan reporter: What should parents do when their children refuse to study, show off their bad things, and refuse to accept their care?

  Wu Ning: When facing rebellion in children, parents should adhere to several principles. First, we must respond to children’s need for independence. Raising children should be like a funnel, and when they were young, they should be their nanny and take care of them in all aspects; when they were adolescence, the bowl should gradually open to give them sufficient space for independent development. Second, listen more and speak less. Don’t always tell your children about concluding things, learn to ask questions heuristically. When the child’s idea is obviously wrong, parents should not rush to step on the brakes unless they are irreversible. Frustration experience can help children develop error correction skills. Third, set boundaries for children’s behavior. Adolescent children do not have good control yet. Parents should set boundaries for their children's behavior, cultivate their awareness of right and wrong and rules, and help their children understand and improve their ability to be responsible for their behavior. During this process, parents should not be anxious, but should be gentle and firm, and take strong actions.

  Banyuetan reporter: Many parents are helpless when facing their seriously rebellious children and have the idea of ​​"let it go" and "accept reality". What do you think?

  Wu Ning: I have to admit that some of the experiences of the previous generation cannot solve the problems of this generation of children. Reducing expectations and accepting reality is a strategic helpless choice. But a child with low function and a child without competitiveness will not be happy themselves, and this is not the state we want. If parents lack abilities, they should learn or leverage their strengths, work hard to improve their abilities, help their children understand themselves and become better selves.

  Banyuetan reporter: Although most children will do some rebellious behaviors during adolescence, many children have smooth transitions. Is there any rule to follow?

  Wu Ning: A child’s healthy growth needs to meet three needs: autonomy, competence and belonging. Autonomy is the core of the struggle for rights for adolescent children. Parents should retreat from the main driver to the co-pilot position in a timely manner, give their children a certain amount of respect and freedom in terms of time, space, money, etc., and promptly inspire and guide their children to find solutions to the problem on their own. This not only satisfies children's need for autonomy, but also has a sense of competence after solving problems.

  Family is the soil for children to grow up. Those who have a stable transition in adolescence and a happy adult life often have a stable and harmonious growth environment in their childhood. If you live in a family full of conflict and indifference, your children will not be able to digest the troubles of the adult world, and some even correct the errors within the family in some extreme ways. Therefore, when a child develops rebellious behavior, parents should first reflect on themselves, their relationship with their husband and wife and their family atmosphere. For children in adolescence, parents should have confidence, correctly understand adolescence, and help them successfully overcome this critical stage of growth. (Banyuetan reporter: Zhao Yeping)

[Editor in charge: Wang Qi]