Children's mental health is far from simple as imagined

As parents, how much do you really understand about your children's mental health? Children's psychology is complicated. We need to show more care and love to them and understand more about their psychological and emotional changes. Only then can we make their psychology healthier and full of expectations for the future.

1. What is psychology?

Many parents understand "mental health" as whether a person has a good temper and a cheerful personality. Such an understanding is too narrow. A person's psychology can be divided into two parts: psychological processes and psychological characteristics. The psychological process includes three parts: cognition, emotion and intention. "Zhi" stands for cognition, which is a person's understanding of the world, his feelings, intuition, memory, representation, thinking, language, and imagination; "qing" refers to his emotions and feelings; "yi" refers to will. The psychological characteristics include: 1. Motivation, that is, needs and motivation; 2.

Suitability, that is, ability; 3. Personality, which can be understood as his temperament and character. With this analysis, a person's "psychology" is the most core and essential part of this person, which is everything except the body.

In addition, psychological development is not entirely a matter of upbringing. A person's innate genetic characteristics of the brain and nervous system, and his innate temperament type, will affect the way he is raised, as well as how he absorbs and processes information provided by the environment. The most advanced part of the cerebral cortex, the prefrontal lobe, is not fully developed until around 21-23 years old. In other words, the process of human psychological development involves the mutual influence and promotion of innate and acquired factors. If the acquired parenting methods are inappropriate, it will not only affect the child's emotions, behaviors, personality, etc., but will even affect the brain development and other physical manifestations.

2. Cognition.

A child's cognitive development is closely related to his or her innate genetics. For example, intellectual development. Many parents pay attention to "developing their children's intelligence" when they are very young. The fact is, the development of intelligence has its own rules. Insufficient external stimulation will certainly cause developmental delays, like the wolf boy, children in orphanages who lack care and activities, etc., but those are extreme examples. In many cases, parents are too anxious nowadays and provide too much and too strong stimulation, which will also have a bad impact on the child's intellectual development. Parents should be able to correctly assess their children's situation and not force their children to grow too fast.

3. Emotions

Emotions are innate. Animals all have emotions such as joy, anger, sorrow, and fear. When we see a new environment, when we meet strangers, when we complete a task independently, etc., we will be affected to produce specific emotions. Emotions will affect (note, not determine) our cognition, decision-making and behavior. When we draw conclusions, form strategies and take actions, new emotions are also generated. Therefore, we cannot underestimate the impact of emotions on us.