2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
I often think during consultations, when a mother and a teenage child are sitting in front of me, about at what point in their relationship something broke? As from a beloved "sweet sun" and "blond angel", the child has turned into a "monster", "stupid", and "shame of the family." Where did the warmth, admiration and affection go from their relationship?
Why is mom, and not the child, ashamed of school grades, missing lessons?
How to stop and not control the child, and also stop performing his duties for him?
And, most importantly, is it possible to fix something else?
More often than not, school is the tipping point. Or immediately from the first grade, or after moving to the middle level. When, despite the efforts spent by the mother on early development and preparation for school, the child does not cope with the program, it is not a star from the sky that suffices, but two and three. When he ceases to meet his mother's expectations and has his own interests and hobbies, for example, watching passages of games on YouTube, playing an online game or just lying on the couch with a phone. When she starts to skip school (my mother never allowed herself this!) Or does not do her homework. But this is only a tipping point. The story begins earlier, when a mother, who in childhood was a good, obedient and independent girl, puts a lot of effort into making her son grow up like that. Or vice versa: I wasn’t a good girl at school, but now she corrected herself, became a good mother, and tries to make her son have a different destiny, so that he can study right away, become a prize-winner of Olympiads, the pride of teachers and mothers …
Listening to moms, I hear their fear. This fear sounds in two voices. The first voice screams that it is scary and embarrassing. It’s scary that I’m a bad mother, that I didn’t cope, that I didn’t bring it up so well, that I missed it, I couldn’t. I am ashamed in front of the world, in front of teachers, other parents. And I am also very ashamed in front of my parents, more often my mother, for the fact that I am a bad girl. And it seems like I am both a mother myself, and an adult woman, but a burning shame that again I do not live up to expectations, I do not hold out, not good enough … And this feeling is hard to worry and often even difficult to realize, to admit. And when the level of shame goes off scale, begins to overflow, the only way to cope with it is to "pass" it on to another: when the mother is ashamed, she begins to shame the child.
But there is still a second voice. And although he also speaks of fear for the present and future of the child, but in him I hear care and excitement, love and mother's warmth.
It is possible, following the parents' request, to follow the obvious path and "fix" the child, motivate him to study, force him, frighten him, scold him. Do everything that parents already do. And that does not solve the situation, but most often aggravates it.
There is another way: "turn down" the first voice, reduce the level of parental shame, exhale the irritation that the child does not live up to expectations. Parallel to this, "turn up" the second voice. Feeling your warmth and tenderness, look at your teenage child again. Understanding and accepting what is upsetting, learn to share somewhere that I am afraid of, and where the responsibility of a son or daughter for their own life and choices. When caring for the child, be willing to help, but keep out of control. Worry, but remain kind to the child and to yourself. To be glad that my child is growing, changing, becoming independent and now has his own opinion. Be in love.
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