Children's Mental Health Copywriting

The core criterion for judging a child's mental health is never "well-behaved" or "good grades", but whether he or she has spontaneous "psychological flexibility" - the courage to cry when it hurts, the courage to speak out when wronged, the willingness to ask for help when encountering difficulties, and the ability to turn around and find small things that interest you and make you happy even if you experience setbacks. When children have emotional problems, the last thing they need is the pressure of "You have to be strong" and "This little thing doesn't matter." There is no need to rush to seek psychological counseling immediately. Squat down and catch the child's emotions first, which is always the first priority.

Last month, I met a third-grade boy at a community psychological service station. When his parents brought him here, they were puzzled. They said that he had always been a "model child" in the eyes of relatives and friends. It was common for him to take double hundred exams. He would sit for 40 minutes in class without swaying, and he never caused trouble at home. But last week, because his deskmate accidentally knocked off the limited-edition eraser he just bought, he suddenly screamed and smashed his pencil case in class, which shocked the teacher. We gave him a week of counseling and evaluation, and finally diagnosed him with mild anxiety. When we looked back, we discovered that he had been biting his nails frequently six months ago, and his fingertips were bleeding. His parents only regarded it as a "bad habit" and scolded him several times. They did not change it and did not think about the psychological pressure at all.

Nowadays, the opinions about children's psychology are very mixed, and there are even many completely opposite arguments. In fact, when put into different scenarios, they may not be completely wrong. For example, many people of the older generation believe that "children are used to emotions, so just give them a beating." This is essentially a punishment mechanism of the behaviorist school. If it is used to correct clear behavioral deviations such as deliberately hitting people and grabbing things, it can indeed achieve quick results. However, if the child has already collapsed due to stress and continues to use this method, it will only block all his emotional outlets. There are also many parenting bloggers who advocate that "all problems can be traced back to the upbringing of infants and young children." This is a common idea in the school of psychoanalysis. It is correct to find the root cause, but there is really no need for ordinary parents to blame themselves excessively because they were busy at work and did not feed their children, or did not hold their children immediately when they cried. There is no "perfect option" in parenting, and the current response is always more important than dwelling on the past. There is also the most popular positive psychology "praise education", which can indeed help children build self-confidence, but if they shout "you are awesome" every day, it will make children fall into the misunderstanding of "I only deserve to be loved if I perform well". If they fail in the test or do something wrong next time, they will be more likely to collapse.

A report released by the WHO in 2023 mentioned that one in seven adolescents aged 10-19 around the world has mental health problems. More than half of these problems have appeared before the age of 14, but 80% of the signs are ignored by parents as "children throwing tantrums" and "it will get better when they grow up."

When I do my own intervention, I often tell parents that you don’t need to learn any complicated psychological skills, just change the first sentence you say when picking up your children from school every day. Don’t just ask “How many points did you get on today’s test?” and “Have you been told by the teacher?” as soon as you open your mouth, just ask “Is there anything happy about you today?” In several cases I have come across, with just such a small change, children were willing to say more to their parents after three months than in the previous year combined. A mother once told me that when her child came home and said, "I don't want to go to school," she would either rush to scold her, "What are you going to do if you don't go to school?" or she would panic and ask if you were being bullied or if the teacher was targeting you. But after listening to my advice, the child never said he didn't want to go to school. When she went to school, she first handed him a glass of iced Coke and let him lie down on the sofa and play Ultraman cards for ten minutes. However, before she could ask, the child said it himself. He made a mistake in reading the text in class and was laughed at by his classmates. He felt that it was just a loss of face and it was not a big deal.

In the past 6 years of doing children's psychological intervention, the most regrettable cases I have encountered have never been those with major trauma. The parents have been delaying and not taking it seriously, waiting until the child is no longer able to go to school or even exhibits self-harm behavior. The period and difficulty of intervention are several times higher than when the signal was first discovered. Many people's understanding of children's psychological problems is still based on "depression" and "autism". In fact, this is not the case. Children suddenly bite their nails frequently, pull out their hair, can't sit still in class, have good grades before and suddenly drop off a cliff, or even start wetting the bed frequently again after they have passed the age of bedwetting. These may be signs of psychological stress. Don't scold him "Why do you have so many bad habits"? Ask him if he has been unhappy recently.

Seriously, there is no standard answer to raising children. When you get home from get off work, check your mobile phone less often. Don't get angry whenever you see your child making mistakes. Keep your mood calmer, which is more useful than reading 10 parenting books. Sometimes you don't need to explain anything. You can squat on the ground with him for half an hour to play Lego, or take him to the park to catch butterflies all afternoon on weekends. You don't need to say anything more, and his sense of security will be greatly improved. If you are really in doubt, go to the child psychiatry department of a regular hospital or a qualified child psychologist. Don’t believe those courses on the Internet that “correct children’s rebellion in 7 days” and “raise self-disciplined children in 30 days” are all IQ taxes, really.