The Psychological Significance of Parent-Child Relationship

The parent-child relationship is the relationship between parents and children. Since children depend on their parents to raise them and rely on them after birth, the relationship begins with a vertical relationship, which is different from the relationship between husband and wife, which is always a horizontal relationship. However, the parent-child relationship is not always stagnant in the "vertical relationship". In fact, as the children grow up, the parent-child relationship gradually becomes a "horizontal relationship" when the children become adults; and when the parents become old and decrepit, the relationship becomes a "reverse" "vertical relationship", i.e., the children take care of the children. When the parents become old and decrepit, the relationship becomes a "reverse" "vertical relationship," in which the children take care of their aging parents.

The relationship between parents and their young children has several components. These include rearing, discipline and nurturing. The term "nurturing" refers to the raising of young children who are physically and psychologically immature, so that the infant can survive and develop successfully. "Discipline" refers to assisting children to learn, including teaching them what is right and wrong, what they should and should not do, and knowledge of life, helping them to develop good habits so that they can grow up to be healthy individuals. "Nurturing" refers to helping children to gain opportunities and experience in social activities, so as to equip them with the ability and confidence to adapt to society. In short, parenting, discipline and nurturing encompass physical, psychological and social adaptation.

Generally speaking, as children grow older, the parent-child relationship changes, which is called the "development of the parent-child relationship". When infants are young, they are very dependent on their parents, not only for feeding, care and protection, but also psychologically. Infants gain a sense of security and trust from their parents, and parents gain a sense of happiness and fulfillment as parents through their infants. When the child is a toddler, the parents not only continue to raise the child, but also begin to provide appropriate discipline, so that the child learns the basic knowledge needed in life and the rules of right and wrong, and gradually acquires the ability to manage and control his or her own desires and actions. As children learn to be self-disciplined, parents feel a sense of joy and relief.

At the childhood stage, parents encourage children to engage with the outside world and learn from life. Parents encourage children to express their opinions to their parents, to participate in family discussions, and to be able to function as part of the family. By the time they reach the adolescent stage, children are less dependent on their parents, have a distant relationship, and spend time with their parents in a flat horizontal relationship.

Adult children, in addition to pursuing their own social and marital lives, are encouraged to establish a relationship of mutual care and concern with their parents. At this stage, parents no longer need to raise their children, but they need to maintain a good emotional relationship with their children and interact with them in a "horizontal" way. When parents grow old, they learn to continue to live on their own while accepting their children's concern and necessary care as appropriate. In short, the parent-child relationship develops and changes dynamically with age.

Parents raise their children not only with strong feelings, but also with some expectations. Such expectations vary from person to person and from society and culture to time. In some societies, it is believed that raising children is a duty to pass on the responsibility of the parents, who are obliged to bring up their born children; however, once the children grow up, they should be separated and live independently from each other, and the parents have no expectation of their children. In some societies, on the other hand, it is considered to be a matter of course that children should be brought up for the sake of old age, and that parents who have taken the trouble to bring up their children should support their parents when the children grow up. In many predominantly agrarian societies, the parent-child relationship often falls into the latter category, where children are expected to be raised for old age. However, many industrialized and urbanized societies have tended to move towards the former, i.e., children are not necessarily raised for old age. The need for elderly parents to learn and prepare to live on their own, at least psychologically, without relying on the next generation for their old age, can be seen as a tendency in modern society.

The nature of the relationship between parents and children often varies dramatically depending on the social and cultural context. Some societies require children to be absolutely obedient to their parents, not to express the views of their offspring easily, and to maintain a strict and unidirectional vertical relationship. In other societies, children are encouraged to live with their parents in a democratic manner, allowing them to express their opinions in front of their parents at any time. In the past, traditional and conservative societies emphasized the need for children to be "filial" to their parents and to put their parents first, while modern and democratic societies tend to favor an attitude of "mutual respect and equality" between parents and children, which is clearly a change. This change in parent-child relationship with the changing times constitutes a psychological adjustment problem for many families.

Generally speaking, there are often some differences of opinion between the elders and the younger generation. The older generation is more conservative and responds to changes with no change, while the younger generation is more aggressive and tries new things, which makes a difference in their psychological attitudes. In addition, there is often a difference of more than 20 years between the previous generation and the next generation. From the point of view of time, their exposure to society and life experience is often different, and their values are also different, which often results in a gap in the way parents and children look at things, known as the "generation gap". This is a psychological phenomenon that is prevalent in ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign, eastern and western societies.

There are several types of problems that arise in the parent-child relationship. The most common is the difficulty in adapting to the developmental stage of the parent-child relationship.

Sometimes problems in the parent-child relationship arise from parents' special or excessive expectations of their children. Some parents transfer to their children desires that they have not been able to obtain and fulfill in their own lives and ask them to fulfill them, making it difficult for their children to accept them.