Tug-of-War with My Adolescent Son

My son was raised in a free-range way; from childhood he never went to training classes and finished his homework on his own. We did not interfere in everything he did, did not stop any of his attempts that were not life-threatening, and did not sweep away any difficulties he encountered in growing up. I would not give gifts to a teacher who disliked him in exchange for a change in that teacher's attitude toward him; my life experience tells me that not everyone in this world likes us, and one must learn from childhood to adapt to a life in which some people dislike you.

When he was very small I repeatedly emphasized to him: whatever parents and teachers say, you must listen in a dialectical and critical way. If you think you are right, you have the right not to accept any of our suggestions; but at all times you must also be responsible for your own words, deeds, and decisions.

When he was little and wanted to climb a tree in the park, he asked me if he could; I said yes, that is your decision, and I support you. But if you get hurt while climbing, you are not allowed to cry, and you have to bandage the wound yourself. He agreed. The child did indeed get hurt, and he indeed kept his promise: he did not cry, and he bandaged the wound himself.

In winter, when the river froze over, I took him to play by the river. He asked if he could play on the ice. The water was shallow enough not to drown anyone, so I said this shallow river was fine to play in; only if you break through the ice and fall into an ice hole, you still can't cry. He played like this a few times; twice he really fell into an ice hole, and as he had promised, he did not cry but went home by himself to take a hot bath and change clothes.

After he tried things and learned about danger, his character gradually became cautious; he learned to assess danger himself, and he would avoid things with great risk.

Our parent-child relationship is fairly good. From the time he was a little over one year old, every evening I told him all kinds of stories I made up, accompanying him to sleep in this way. The child, until he was five or six, still fell asleep every day with his arms around my neck listening to my stories. I don't remember exactly how many stories I told him, but there were several thousand. So even now I can still naturally show him affection, and he feels no discomfort when I touch his head or put my arm around his shoulder.

The stories I told him were not merely stories; I would set up plot points in the stories for him to guess what would happen next, and I would include parts requiring calculation for him to work out. So his logical thinking and calculation ability received this alternative training from an early age. When he was in primary school, his mother was a graduate student at Tsinghua University, and he could get every logic problem from her graduate studies right.

This year he is in the third year of junior high. His teachers are very satisfied with his academic performance and all kinds of conduct at school and speak highly of him; especially over the past year, he has made enormous progress. His head teacher thinks the child has a very gentle personality, is kind to others, looks after other classmates, and is also very upright and knowing of how to yield, so she thought our child would not have adolescent rebellion.

But she was wrong. Over the last two months, our son has begun to show strong adolescent rebellion. The string of confrontations he has launched against me caught me off guard; almost all of his aggressive words and deeds are directed at me. Over these two months my normal daily life and work rhythm have been disrupted, and I have had to wage a psychological tug-of-war with the child.

When he showed fierce resistance and aggressive words and deeds, I for a time became discouraged, lost confidence in myself, and suspected that the educational principles I had always stuck to were completely wrong. I suspected that this philosophy of mine had ruined my son, and then even doubted everything about myself—my own IQ, my own professional ability. My dejection almost led me to negate everything about myself.

The trigger for the disputes was electronic devices. I had previously confiscated his electronic devices for a while because I found he was overly addicted to them, so I took them away for several months. At first he was very uncomfortable; to help him stick it out, I myself basically stayed away from electronic devices to keep him company, and at the end of every week of persistence I rewarded him with 100 yuan. Using this reward system to calm his emotions, the child could endure it.

At the end of July we went to Shaanxi for a few days. The child's mother felt that, while traveling, if we did not give the child a phone and he got separated in a crowded place, it would be inconvenient to get in touch, so she gave him a phone. The morning after we returned home from the trip, I took his phone away. The child left a suicide note and ran away, resisting with his life; but after about four hours he came back on his own.

To be honest, this frightened me a little. After all, I have only this one child. So I gave his phone back to him and apologized to him, asking my son to forgive me, considering that this was also my first time being a parent and I lacked experience. That summer vacation he, emboldened by the fact that our threats scared us, played electronic devices recklessly and without restraint. Of course, he also completed his summer vacation homework on his own; we also visited a book city together, he bought a few exercise books, and besides his summer homework he worked through some exercise sets.

But his vengeful gaming was also a bit excessive; he secretly recharged thousands of yuan worth of equipment on gaming websites, and when we found out about this he was very nervous.

After I found out, I had a talk with him. I did not blame him; I just told him that at his age I myself had once been addicted to fishing, and the degree of my obsession was no less than his current obsession with video games. I told him that everyone goes through such a stage in growing up, and that this stage will eventually pass. I will not blame him, and he need not blame himself, but he should recognize that this behavior is wrong and needs to change.

The child, knowing he was in the wrong, volunteered that from now on he would use the phone for only one hour a day, putting the phone in the nightstand in my room for the rest of the time, and said he would never again steal money to buy gaming equipment.

But recently our relationship has become a little delicate; it is no longer as close as before, and the child feels somewhat suppressed at home. To clear away these shadows in his heart, I decided to take him to talk with a well-known psychological counselor to help ease his inner discomfort. At the same time I am changing myself, pulling myself out of workaholic mode, taking more time to watch the movies he likes with him, going with him to buy basketball shoes and running shoes, and supporting him in developing some sports hobbies.

After we met the counselor, she assessed the child's psychological state and told us that the child has a very high degree of mental health, with no psychological problems at all, and high IQ and EQ. She also thinks our child is an outstanding child who, at a young age, already has his own goals and life plan. On the contrary, we parents are the ones who are overly anxious; she thinks we should allow the child to relax and happily play video games, and not make him play as if he were a thief.

The child's mother immediately relaxed, because before that she had been walking on thin ice, always worried whether our child had a serious problem, whether he had depression, or whether some careless word of ours might upset him and lead him to suicide.

We negotiated with the child about electronic devices. The child also realized that he needs to develop self-management, needs to moderate his time on electronic devices, and agreed to read more paper books. We also accepted that the child's upbringing environment is different from ours, and accepted the reality that he may moderately play video games at his current age.

After each side gave way a little, the negotiation result made both sides feel very happy. The long-absent family atmosphere of a loving mother and dutiful son, of a kind father and respectful son, returned; the aggressive words and deeds disappeared, and the child began to show a self-disciplined, restrained side. He became less obsessed with games and instead turned to working hard to get into his ideal high school.

And I finally regained my confidence in the child, regained my confidence in the educational philosophy I believe in, and regained my confidence in myself. One never understands how much effort one's own parents put into raising us until one becomes a parent oneself. In handling the parent-child relationship, my understanding of my own father has also deepened a great deal.

Family education is, in the midst of a messy life, about holding on to some things and letting go of others. I do not know what kind of person my child will grow up to be; I do not use my own will to limit the child's self-development. I only hope he can feel safe, confident, and happy in the company of his parents. The boundary between managing a child and not managing him is very hard to draw, and I also need to constantly reflect on my own thoughts and actions to ensure that I do not deviate too far.

I once read a passage said in an interview by a fellow townsman of mine—a former Olympiad contestant from Huanggang, Hubei, now living in the United States—and I deeply agreed with his words.

He said that on the question of educating children, he does not dare say that he is necessarily right or successful. We parents, he said, can only approach it with humility, constantly exploring and reflecting, if we are to provide our children with the most suitable family education to the greatest extent possible.

The love and harm a child's original family gives will affect the child's whole life. The child's physical and mental health certainly has a genetic component, but it is also the result of parental effort. Every parent hopes his beloved son or daughter will grow up healthy and happy, but not every parent has the ability to make his child grow up healthy and happy. Whether I can make my child grow up healthy and happy only time and the child's future will tell.