Control, is the most common harm within the family.

Whenever mentioning control, there is always someone will say:

Without proper parental control or discipline, children are unlikely to study well.

Without parental supervision over their routines, children are likely to fall into disorganized habits.”

I used to take our discussions seriously, but I came to realize that they were just surface-level arguments that never addressed the core issues.

The real key is that people with strong control tendencies often impose too many trivial and unnecessary forms of control

Managing children’s studies and daily schedules is simply finding a seemingly reasonable excuse to validate their need to control.

Once you examine those trivial forms of control, you’ll discover that they are absurd, ridiculous, and hurtful.

One of my male friends once shared a story with me.

One day he put his water bottle on the table as he got home.

His Dad walked over and said:” why did you put the water bottle there? You should have put it here.”

As he predicted, even if he put the water bottle at the position that his Dad wanted, his Dad would still came over and correct him.

Even if it was off by just 0.1 millimeters, his father would come over and adjust it, as if he were addicted to it.

And my friend was nearly 30 years old at the time

Does it sound ridiculous?

But similar things happen everywhere.

I posted an interview of mine online a while before, a lot of people shared stories of their own in the comments—

“I just had a fight with my Mom, because I changed my wechat headshot into a hamster. She doesn’t like it.”

“Lol I am over fourty now, every time I did the ritual to worship the kitchen God, to put incense into the pot, my mother-in-law had to take out the one I put, and redo it again.”

“When I was young, my mom would force me to eat when I was full, even when I start throwing up and cried, and scold me seeing me crying. I brought these up when I grew up, she said, I was hungry when I was a kid, so I want you to get full.”

“The elderly in my house thinks dish detergent are all full of chemicals, using it with dishes will trigger shoulder pain, they stand next to me while I am washing dishes and nagging about me using it, I tried reasoning with them with science, no luck, they have to keep talking until you stop using it.”

Control is a form of narcissism on the part of caregivers —-。

‘I’ have an idea and attempt to impose this idea onto ‘you’.

Firstly, this represents a lack of boundary awareness, blurring the independent boundaries between me and you, constructing a codependent dynamic.”

Secondly, it’s about overvaluing one’s own thoughts, even treating them as gospel truth, when in fact, much of this control is simply creating problems where none exist.

Utterly pointless,  yet they use it to harm their closest relationships.

In psychology, there’s a fundamental principle called ‘life energy’ and ‘death energy.’

What does that mean?

Each of our desires represents a form of energy.

When this desire is fulfilled, it becomes ‘life energy’; When this desire cannot be fulfilled, it becomes ‘death energy.’”

Take children’s daily clothing choices, for example.

When a child follows their own wishes and puts on clothes they like, this becomes a form of life energy for the child;

If parents insist that the child is cold and must dress according to their requirements, this becomes a form of death energy for the child.

At this point, the harm caused by excessive control becomes very clear——

If parents have strong controlling tendencies, when children have their own desires but cannot make choices according to their own feelings and wishes, being forced to comply with their parents,

this means that parents are constantly creating ‘death energy’ for their children.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that parents should never guide their children at all.

The key lies in the overall parenting style:

Whether a child grows up in a style dominated by life energy, or in a style dominated by death energy

The two will lead to enormous differences——

People who continuously experience life energy will have a strong, resilient, and authentic sense of self.

In contrast, people who grow up in controlled environments accumulate too much death energy, causing their sense of self to become fragile and prone to various problems.

They increasingly lose confidence in themselves and the world, because in their accumulated past experiences, they deeply feel that their desires will basically always die.

Many children who suffer from academic aversion and depression have accumulated too much death energy.

Furthermore, the harm caused by excessive control also lies in this— A child who grows up being controlled may unconsciously replicate this relational pattern with their own children, forming a kind of intergenerational transmission.

Take the water bottle incident, for example.

If the child can become aware and say to his father: ‘Why are you moving my bottle? I feel like you’re controlling me,’

then when this child grows up to become a parent, he would actually be less likely to control his own children.

But if the child accepts his father’s behavior, suppresses or erases the discomfort in his heart, and convinces himself: ‘Dad has it hard too, he’s doing this for my own good, I’ll just endure it,’

when he repeatedly rationalizes his father’s logic

then after becoming a parent, he will very likely use the same approach with his children, perpetuating this cycle generation after generation.”

Psychology tells us that the relational patterns a person constructs are often a reproduction of their childhood relational patterns.

That is, the way we interacted with our parents as children becomes internalized deep within us, forming our ‘internal relational model.’

When we’re in relationships, this pattern unconsciously emerges. When we have children, it will also shows between us and our children—and this is what’s truly terrifying.”

So I often share this saying:

The greatest blessing a family of origin can give a child is allowing the child to live according to their own feelings;

while the greatest curse of a family of origin is constantly telling the child

‘Your feelings are wrong, you must listen to me.’

Many people are constantly focused on what others are doing, always trying to control their children and partners, precisely because they know:

Self-control is too hard, so they redirect that need toward controlling others.

which means: why controlling people often focus so intensely on relatively trivial things (like the water cup placement) – because these external things feel more manageable than their own internal chaos or insecurity.

For example, many parents who struggle with their own careers and are mediocre at housework become extremely confident when managing their children, speaking with absolute certainty.

Why do they have such confidence in managing their children when they can’t even manage their own lives well?

There’s a major reason for this— When people try to control themselves, they have ‘bodily awareness,’ but when controlling their children, they lose this ‘bodily awareness.’

For instance, when controlling themselves—trying to quit smoking, quit drinking, or change sleep habits—they discover that actually managing themselves through action is extremely difficult; but when controlling children, there’s no bodily awareness involved, only mental analysis and imagination, which creates an illusion: as long as the child follows their guidance, the child’s life will go smoothly.

This kind of controlling desire is the source of much suffering in life.“

Those being controlled feel suffocated and angry, falling into self-doubt

Those doing the controlling feels that their efforts are not understood, and then also feels wronged;

In the end, the relationship becomes tense and distant because of this, even heading toward breakdown.”

We often view ‘doing something’ as love, but in many cases, parents ‘not doing something’ is actually love.

Far too often, parents need to remind themselves to control their impulse to intervene in their children’s behavior, because too much intervention is unnecessary. Especially for parents who can’t control themselves well,

Less control over your children can lead to victory.

When parents give their children ample space,

allowing children within this space to explore the world according to their own spontaneity, developing their passion and creativity,

then children can gradually learn to respect and trust their own feelings, and gradually move toward the path of becoming themselves.

This journey appears slow, but it’s incredibly worthwhile.

Human beings don’t exist to be enslaved by others’ will, not even their parents’.

So parents must realize that love isn’t about shaping children into your desired image.

Real love means accepting them as they are, respecting children, and trusting that they have their own power to confront their own life lessons.”