Modern children and their outdated parents. Preventive work of a psychologist at school Download modern children and their outdated parents

Irina Mlodik

Modern children and their non-modern parents,

or About what is so difficult to admit

Series "Parent Library"

© Genesis Publishing House, 2011

Time loop

This is a book for parents who are ready to take an honest look at themselves. For those who are able to see what, perhaps, is not entirely pleasant to see and even more so to admit. For those who are ready to deal with their past for the sake of a bright future for their child.

Parents often come to me for consultations. Many of them are sure that the problems of their children are the problems of only these children. Many are also convinced that time is linear and the past was in the past and the future is what lies ahead of them. And it can be difficult for me in one consultation to explain to them that this is not so. That their past unresolved problems create their child's problematic present, and how they react with him to this problematic here and now creates his perspective. That they have already created the future for themselves and their children with their formed, not always well-conscious attitudes, despite the fact that it has not yet come.

As I write this book, I feel like an embroiderer on the carpet of time: stitch forward, stitch back, loop, knot. Like all of us, I weave my own unique pattern, remembering past meetings, reliving it all again in the present, telling you about the future that happens after. However, while consulting and working with an adult or a child, my task is slightly different: to consider together with them this complex pattern of their life, discovering the bizarre path of threads, interconnections and knots that created their very present, with which they are so dissatisfied, from which they suffer. which they want to change.

Lessons of time

past future tense

When we, now in our forties, were small, we were promised that we would live under communism. Our childhood fantasy was excited and excited by an unfamiliar word. Communism in our dreams was something between an unexpected paradise and a fair reward for honest pioneering behavior. We firmly believed in a great future promised by the Central Committee of the CPSU itself, so it never occurred to anyone to doubt what lies ahead for us and what we need to be in order to definitely get into this future.

The code of a true pioneer included several unshakable rules, in which the main leitmotif was obedience, loyalty to the idea and selfless service to it. A true pioneer had to always put collective values ​​above personal ones, unquestioningly obey the elders, no matter how strange or absurd their instructions may be. Accuracy in everything, diligence, altruism and the ability to sacrifice oneself for the sake of the Motherland, which called you to some bright and global goal, were also welcomed.

We will not go deep and evaluate those times, the motives of the then politicians, because they are the same at all times - they need power, including power over the people they are going to rule. One thing is clear - we lived in a golden age, because we knew what awaited us in the future, and we knew what we should be. Our parents felt good too, because they knew how we should be brought up, because they imagined what should happen in the end.

Now imagine your future today. More precisely, not even yours, but the future of your children. There is no clear picture at all. There is not even an idea of ​​what will happen there, in this future. There is not even a word to describe this future. And then, if we do not know what can happen, what can happen, we have an anxiety that few parents dare to feel and realize. Since anxiety is an unpleasant and unbearable feeling, in order to get rid of it immediately, some kind of certainty is needed, a picture, at least a somewhat established idea. That's when we quickly draw all this in our heads, based not on reality - that is, not on the future, which we cannot recognize and imagine, but on the past, from which we ourselves have grown.

If you were brought up convinced that higher education is the cornerstone of a child’s future, then you will not only set up your children, but will demand that they also get a higher education, willy-nilly orienting them to your professional profile. There is a reason for this, and a child who is genetically very similar to you may be inclined to the same type of activity, but on the condition that this type of activity was chosen by you correctly. But if you have failed to understand and fulfill your destiny, or if your child has a bizarrely intertwined genetic set and his inclinations and character traits are barely visible in every family member, then the model from your past will not work and most often will not help your child in any way in his life. true self-determination.

What should we do if we know how to live, because we have already lived it? Our past was, is and will be (that is, it can continue and be embodied in our children). In order for all times to fall into place, it is important to recognize the baggage of your past and appropriate it to yourself in a unique personal and historical context. It happened to you, it helped you or crippled you, and this is your time. But it must remain where it belongs: in your inner archive, in the sum of your experience, in your memories. It made you who you are. And if you are now happy, successful and very proud of yourself, then, of course, you have something to rely on when your children ask you for advice. But if at the moment you, hand on heart and honestly looking into yourself, do not feel satisfied with the way your life has turned out, then perhaps you should critically, or even better analytically, take your past before broadcasting your own poorly performing models to their children.

It's Complicated? Agree. This book is to work with you to figure out whether your child should meet the demands of today. What future will he live in? How can one prepare him for this future, and should he be prepared for it at all? And is it possible? What can we, parents, do to achieve this, and what can we not do? And, after all, who really needs all this?

The future for us was not at all what we expected. No communism and no reward for diligence. capitalist economy. Socialist ideas seem at least naive, at most destructive. Former idols and monuments are overthrown. The old ideals are no more. The country, if it could, would feel shame and repentance for the years of repressions, wars, suppression of other states by the dictates of ideology. Black became white and vice versa.

At the same time, in order to learn something, you do not need to get a library card to the Lenin Library, just go to the Internet. You can talk to the whole world on Skype and, using your mobile phone, know where your child is every minute. Believe? Believe in whatever you want - in the party, in the Buddha, in the end of the world. Freedom of choice. To go? In any country, there would be money. Good handwriting and calligraphy are of no interest to anyone, more important is knowledge of computer programs and the ability to easily manage office equipment. From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs? Nothing like this. Everyone lives as he can and has the life he decides to live. Now everything depends on you, and not on what the party line is. Well, almost everything. Because parties still exist, and there are also world currency rates, hurricanes, crises, cataclysms, oil prices, all this is there. But you must admit that at present your own well-being depends to a much greater extent on yourself.

Could we have predicted all this in the early eighties? Of course not. And our parents in their sixties? Especially. We could not know what that future would be, and our parents were wrong in thinking they knew what to prepare their children for. They did everything they could for us, but they were unable to predict the future. And yet we survived! Yes, in the nineties we all had a hard time, but we survived. At the same time, it was a little easier to survive for those who had a broader view of the world, a more flexible psyche and the ability to question the seemingly obvious.

Five years ago, when our children were just entering institutes, there was a lot of competition for economic universities, everyone understood that it is profitable to be a bank employee in this country - it means prospects, a career, and money. Today they are graduating from their economic faculties, and what awaits them beyond the threshold? The crisis and significant difficulties in order to quickly build their career, especially yesterday's student without work experience.

Anxiety is a child of evolution

Anxiety is a feeling familiar to absolutely everyone. Anxiety is based on the instinct of self-preservation, which we inherited from distant ancestors and which manifests itself in the form of a defensive reaction “Flight or fight”. In other words, anxiety does not arise from scratch, but has evolutionary grounds. If at a time when a person was constantly in danger in the form of an attack by a saber-toothed tiger or an invasion of a hostile tribe, anxiety really helped to survive, then today we live in the safest time in the history of mankind. But our instincts continue to operate at a prehistoric level, creating many problems. Therefore, it is important to understand that anxiety is not your personal flaw, but an evolutionary mechanism that is no longer relevant in modern conditions. The disturbing impulses that were once necessary for survival have now lost their purpose, turning into neurotic manifestations that significantly limit the life of anxious people.

Our relationship with children exactly replicates our relationship with our "inner child", which, in turn, replicates the pattern of how adults treat us when we were children ourselves. And if parents during their childhood did not adequately live a certain age, did not solve some important age-related task, then they most likely will not allow their children to do this ... Unless, of course, they do not engage in self-study and work something that for some reason they could not do at the time. The book is about just that.

"More precisely, he doesn't want anything at all," they often complain. "Modern children somehow especially do not want to study," teachers assure me, parents convince me. I'm not surprised, because many families now have the opportunity to "help" the child learn.

Most of the parents who come to me with this problem are very involved in the learning process of the child. They practically learn from him. Keep track of all his homework, check or stack his briefcase. They check their homework, sometimes even do it together, looking tensely over the child's shoulder.

On the one hand, many parents think that how successful a child is at school, how happy and secure his future will be. There is some truth in this, but not all. After all, it is important not only what grades he will have in subjects, but also what skills, abilities and feelings he will have after he graduates from school.

If a child, while studying at school, is mostly in tension, stress, fear, if there he often feels unsuccessful, criticized, insecure, bad, if he still has the feeling that studying is what he hates, this is constant coercion , and what he will do exclusively "under duress" - then, having completed his studies at school, it will be difficult for him to like to study. He will try to quickly complete this process in his life, and never return to it. So by goading him, you can achieve unwanted goals. So many children never open the piano again after graduating from music school, they hate to read because they were forced to, they are not even able to write a letter, let alone an article or a report, because someone criticized them and forced them to rewrite compositions.

Studying in our modern schools is not an easy but feasible activity that your children can handle on their own. Of course, unless you have exorbitant parental ambitions, and you have not sent the child to a place where the educational requirements are higher than his abilities. Unless you are waiting for the child to jump above his head, realizing your once unfulfilled dreams or the dreams of your parents. And also if the teacher's ambitions do not exceed the child's abilities, and the teacher has not placed on the parent the honorable duty to bring the grades of your particular child to his inflated expectations, so as not to "spoil the picture of academic performance in the classroom." So, if you are ready for him to first learn how to study, and then easily, independently and as successfully as he can, comprehend the school curriculum.

Many, especially over-controlling parents, have a firm belief that all children are naturally lazy, irresponsible, and only think about how to have fun, mischief, get out of work, find adventure on their own. Their conviction is not unfounded, but it applies only to those children who, for a minute, for half an hour, for a day, escaped from suffocating parental control. These, of course, want to "break away" and do everything that they were categorically forbidden. Most children are actually ready to do business, quite reasonably combining it with leisure, they want to be successful, they are able to work and study with concentration when they understand that this is their business, that it is under their control and control. When all victories are theirs, and mistakes and defeats are also theirs. Children respond more easily and quickly to those activities that they themselves can organize, the result of which they can influence, in which they themselves can allocate their time and their efforts.

Now, mothers or grandmothers, who have the opportunity not to work, decide not to go on with their lives, but to "help" the child learn, which, of course, creates many problems: for themselves and for him. Most of them "help" based on such considerations: "He is so weak (lagging behind, inattentive, uncollected); he must be controlled, otherwise he will not do anything at all." Or one of these: "Nobody helped me as a child, and it was difficult for me. For my child, I will do everything in my power." Intentions, of course, are good, but not always due to the real needs of your child.

Most children are inattentive, disinhibited, not collected because during their preschool time they have not learned to control themselves. Most likely, because a lot was done and decided for them, because they did not set boundaries, or protected from everything, and he did not have the opportunity to do the job himself from the beginning to the end. In any case, the beginning was made before he went to school. The school most likely showed problems, and for the most part - problems not even of the child, but of the family system in which he grew up.

And how did the system react to the problems that arose? She strengthened her previous influences. If they overprotected him, they began to patronize him even more, if they controlled him, then they strengthened control. "He can't handle it, that's obvious!" And as if they do not want to notice that all these measures do not solve the problem in the root, on the contrary, it intensifies and consolidates. Then the force of influence increases even more ... they begin to punish him, without having achieved persuasion, they begin to do something for him. And he ceases to study, or, in any case, to want to study (and this is not so easy within the framework of our education system).

Parents are increasingly taking control into their own hands, respectively, it is less and less left with the child. They more and more show their parental will to him, less and less of it remains with him. More and more training and its assessments become their business, and the less - his. In addition, he develops a persistent and strong resistance to their pressure (like any person, otherwise someone's external pressure would destroy the personality, break it). Resistance can be passive and look like laziness, sabotage, endless trips to the toilet, drinking, playing, daydreaming, forgetting homework, postponing lessons for later. Or more active forms: whims, indignation, scandals, absenteeism, conflicts, open protests (usually in adolescence).

In this case, parents indignantly point a finger at the child, calling him a lazy person, a gouge, a bully, etc., depending on the breadth of the vocabulary and naive ideas about the special effectiveness of any epithet. They do not want to admit that he is not alone responsible for the problem in which he finds himself. They are sure that they are doing everything right, it is he who is just a lazy person and further down the list.

Gradually, the child has less and less strength and desire to try to cope with what he cannot cope with. Because with external vigilant control, a rather complex mechanism is formed in him. He loses his own motive to do something, and along with the motive, the energy that we all need in order to do something (especially what we don’t particularly want to do), besides, his resistance to this grows. external pressure. Because any psyche strives to survive and not be trampled and destroyed by someone's intentions, even if these intentions are "the best."

The more you push, the stronger the resistance (unless, of course, you have already “broken” your child and completely subordinated it to your will). If your child resists you, you should rejoice, not resent. This means that he has the strength and health to prevent you from destroying his personality. And your task is to try to understand what is happening, what he so violently resists and try to remove the root cause. Because so much energy is spent on resistance that your child becomes doubly weak: he has very little of his energy left to do something, because you took away his motive, and he is forced to spend even more energy on something, to prevent you from crushing him so hard and so immediately.

Imagine that you have to go to work and someone from your family is constantly checking you, whether you have taken the documents you need with you, whether you have written a report. And I would do it all the time, from time to time. It would quickly tire you, but over time you will get used to it and somehow, when your family forgets to remind you about the report, you will, of course, forget it at home. And with indignation: "Why didn't you remind me!" - quickly shift, for example, to your wife the responsibility for your mistake. And she told you this: "Am I supposed to think about your report?" And really, you don't have to. So it was not necessary to climb into your own business earlier. Who is guilty? Both. Everyone was doing their own thing. She once took responsibility, he gave.

And what will you feel if every day your loved ones, after you have just come from work, will tell you: "Sit down for your report, do your documents. Right here in front of me, sit down and do it. Which means I want to take a break , watch TV? And who will do your report for you? Well, I'm trying for you so that tomorrow at work doesn't fly into you!" If your wife did this, you would have left her long ago. If your mother, they would hate her, with all due respect, and began to look for options on how to disperse. It is natural to begin to hate the one who forces us. And would you like your children to feel the same towards you?

And if they (someone from your family) were still standing behind you, shouting at you every time you make a mistake in your report? Would you become more collected, more attentive and your enthusiasm would grow? What if they forced you to rewrite everything "because it's not written neatly enough" after you've worked out the first two pages? Come on, try it on yourself! And How? Pressing? A lot of anger, indignation, protest and no desire to work?

It’s easier for you, you’re an adult, you can still be indignant, send everyone on their own business and say that your report is your business, and catch up at work, if anything, is also your business. You can even shout, bang your fist, show who is the boss in the house. What about your children? They can not. They are forced to suppress their irritation with you, because they love, they are afraid to upset, or maybe they are simply afraid to disobey. And fear and energy to suppress anger also takes away their strength. No wonder they don't want to learn.

“What do you suggest?!” Parents usually exclaim indignantly at my attempts to explain their direct and lively participation in the problem that has arisen. “Stop controlling him? Then he will stop doing his homework altogether! Of course, I don’t want to tell them that you have already received your parental deuce. That would be rude...but true. Of course, if now, when he has been living under vigilant parental control for 8-9-10 years, to give him complete freedom, this would definitely set him up for failure. Especially if you give him two days to do it. In two days, he will definitely only have time to demonstrate the entire repertoire of his inability to manage himself and his own studies. At the same time, after these two days, his parent with hard-to-disguise gloating (!) will answer us: "I told you! He can't!"

Of course not. And who could? He has to learn this. And if other children learned this in their preschool life, and without risking any decline in academic performance, then it is he who now has to do this with the risk that the grades for some time will not even be what you would like. But you need to choose: either the grades (which, in the case of such problems, are usually low anyway), or the time for the child to develop the skills of self-management and self-control. The time during which, study would be his, not your business. The time during which he will first expect the usual "kick" from you, then, if he does not receive it, he will provoke you to it or happily abandon everything, then he will understand that he needs to study somehow and still be a loser in the class unpleasant. Then he will gradually learn to persuade himself, which will begin to come out with him first with varying success, and then, with the first, honestly earned good grades, everything gets better and better.

If he is very used to doing everything with you and is not ready to voluntarily give it up (which is an even more difficult case, showing that your child either does not believe in himself at all or is very afraid of making mistakes, or is quite infantile, psychologically immature), then try to start at least with those lessons that were always easy for him. And the rest, more complex, let him do it himself, but he can turn to you for help if he doesn’t understand something. It is very important that, if possible, he himself could plan his time, when to do what. So that if he doesn’t have time to do something, then he would go to school with his unlearned lessons and get his legitimate “deuces” there, get upset, correct.

You will achieve success faster if you celebrate every step of the child's ever-increasing control over himself, his every little success. If you react to failures not with notation and reproach "I told you that you will get a "deuce"!", but with an attempt to figure out together why this happened.

It is important to understand that it will be difficult for you to give control to the child if at the same time you do not find what you can do at this time, if your own meanings, needs and activities are not found in your life. For many mothers and grandmothers, over-care and over-control is just a compensatory opportunity to get away from their fears of being useless, unfulfilled, not being involved in a profession or vocation. Many of them are much easier to command in someone else's life than to manage their own. And some of them happily grasp at this straw. Only their child is here at what?

Similar information.

This article will be dedicated to all parents who are afraid of all innovations and consider themselves too old-fashioned. But with all this, they do not want to destroy the future of their children, who can be called too modern. So how can non-modern parents and modern children live under the same roof, and maintain normal relationships?

Be honest. The first step to progress in this matter is to admit to yourself that what was fashionable to wear twenty years ago is no longer fashionable and that you no longer understand something in this world. Go to the mirror and say to yourself: “Yes, honey / honey! Now the modern world, perhaps I do not understand something in the behavior of today's youth. But I will not put much pressure on my child, let him grow up sociable and cheerful, be able to quickly establish contact with any person, rather than I will constantly hide him at home and force him to study some rule 50 times.

Be sincere with your child. Make it a habit every evening, from the earliest years of the child, either in the kitchen or in some room to talk heart to heart with him. Ask him how he spent his day, how is school, how are things with friends and much more. But if you hear in response one word “Good” from your son or daughter, then do not rush to rejoice that you have done this item. On the contrary, if the child does not want to communicate with you, you need to think that something is wrong with the child.

It is best during a conversation, when a child asks to buy some next technical novelty, to say: “Maybe I don’t understand something in this life. Tell me what this thing is for, and what benefits it will bring. Then you will find out the sincere motives why your child wants a new prefix, and then you yourself can look for reviews from other parents on the Internet. But even if among the answers of the child you hear that “I want to be the coolest of all” - this is good. Because the desire to be a leader in today's world is highly valued.

Modern children and their non-modern parents photo

Let your child choose their own clothes. Yes, there is nowhere to hide the truth, often conflicts between parents and their children occur because of different views on the selection of clothes. Many parents want their child to be warm, that the jeans are intact and not torn, and that the blouse or shirt is the same color. But you must remember that now is a different time and ripped jeans, a paint-splattered T-shirt and creative shoes are exactly what your child needs. If you have a teenager, then he will choose exactly the same things that his peers wear. If your daughter or son is still small, then try to ask the opinion of the child, because this is how you will form a taste in the child and an understanding that his opinion is important to you.

Aggressiveness. In adolescence, signs of aggression may occur in a child. It is quite possible to direct it in the right direction, if you understand the reasons in time.

Modern children and their non-modern parents video

One of the reasons in relation to you is your actions and words that hurt the child. For example, perhaps you reproach the child that it is he who becomes the big reason through which you cannot improve your personal life or simply compensate him for all the negativity. Such children become aggressive because they cannot find their place in this society. And with such methods you only make the whole family worse. Remember that you should never, under any circumstances, blame your child for your failures in life.