How Family And School Treat "schizoids"

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Many in childhood loved or at least knew the tale of the ugly duckling.

People usually rejoice at his magical transformation into a beautiful swan, nevertheless, when some indistinct and not very understandable creature appears in our "bird yard", society reacts to it in the same way as the heroes of this famous fairy tale.

In this article, we will discuss what sometimes happens when a schizoid child is born into a family of "normal extroverted parents".

Early childhood

Schizoid children are often not very emotional, or rather, they do not always reciprocate the demonstrative cheerfulness of adults and do not always "mirror" their emotions. And adults, seeing a baby looking at them indifferently, try as brightly and even exaggeratedly to demonstrate to him all the basic conventionally accepted emotions and feelings. And noticing that the child still does not respond to their efforts, they begin to laugh and hoot even more frantically, hoping that this gloomy little creature will finally smile at them.

Little schizoids with some indifference and even hostility to those familiar "developmental techniques" and educational methods that are common in our culture. For this reason, parents and relatives who have different temperaments and are not used to communicating with people "soaring in the clouds" and "contemplating eternity" begin to think that their child is not entirely normal or, at least, is lagging behind in development. And even worse, that's how they start to treat him.

Schizoid children do not like excessive expression of emotions and too loud, cheerful speech, but their parents, and even more often grandmothers, trying to turn their grandson or granddaughter into a “normal person”, try to “revive” them with their joyful exclamations. They clap their hands in front of their noses with exclamations of “okay, okay, where we lived with grandma!”, Shake noisy toys and start talking to them like little morons, using diminutive expressions and giving their speech an emotional, slightly corny, shrill character … At the same time, they do not pay attention to the fact that the child ignores them at best, and more often only withdraws into himself even more.

The idea that emotions are alien to schizoid children is erroneous, in fact, they are quite emotional and very susceptible to the manifestation of emotions and feelings that are directed directly to them, and in a form that they understand.

Schizoids find it more difficult than ordinary people to express their emotions and feelings. We can say that the grammar and syntax of their emotional sphere differ from those rules for expressing emotions that are approved in society. Many people notice that schizoids can think outside the box, but for some reason they do not admit that they also express their feelings in a somewhat exotic form. This statement is true even for those schizoids who show clear signs of autism.

Schizoid children begin to crawl, walk and talk later than everyone else. The same applies to many other skills that all normal children must demonstrate at certain ages. All this very often leads to the fact that parents and relatives begin to worry about the child.

But what is even worse - some even begin to feel disappointed in them or take offense at them for the fact that they do not respond to them with the necessary emotions for parental attention and love. This whole complex of conscious and unconscious anxieties and fears, feelings and emotions parents throw out on a schizoid child, which does not make it easier for him to socialize in this world "imprisoned" for other children.

Kindergarten and school

Later, schizoid children begin to experience quite expected problems both in kindergarten and at school. The fact is that our education system and our social norms are focused more on people with a different type of character. In order to "temper" the character of a schizoid child, parents very often send him to various circles and sections that are far from always interesting to them, or drag them to doctors and child psychologists, who sometimes diagnose and they have developmental delays and some emasculation of the emotional sphere.

In high school, schizoid children usually start to learn much better than in elementary school: there is more emphasis on understanding than on cramming. But this is on condition that they come across smart and sensitive teachers.

Schizoids often have poor peer relationships. Feeling their some “foreignness”, other children begin to tease and bully the “ridiculous weirdo”. Very often it comes to bullying. Teachers are also more fond of lively and quick-witted children, schizoids in their understanding are in the clouds and do not listen well to the teacher. And the public remarks made by teachers, barbs and ridicule very often strongly fuel the rejection of the schizoid by the class.

Consequences of stress and unfavorable family environment

Like all children, schizoids do not tolerate family scandals and aggression, just like disrespect or attempts to underestimate their dignity, as well as actions to devalue their efforts. And, among other things, schizoids more often than ordinary children are faced with situations of misunderstanding on the part of their parents.

And understanding is precisely the resource that they so desperately need. It is difficult for them to understand the complex world that opens before them in a slightly different light than other people see it. They need a translator who would understand both the language of the social world and their special "schizoid speech".

It is worth noting that the so-called "conventional world" is not so logical. Our social world can hardly be called “the best of all worlds”: there is a lot of stupid, unfair and illogical in it. But more often than not, "normal people" simply take all the rules approved in it on faith, as something self-evident, obvious. And schizoids cannot do this, they usually have serious problems with direct imitation - in order to reproduce something, they first need to understand it.

Family scandals and direct aggression against schizoids lead to the fact that they withdraw into themselves. And most often the “inner world” into which they leave is not at all the “secret reality” or “unusual world” that are open to their consciousness from birth. Instead of immersion in the world, openness to which makes schizoids "special" and provides them with "competitive advantages" in relation to other people, traumatized schizoids simply withdraw into their psyche.

Their special "schizoid world" with all its oddities is projected into the psyche of the schizoid, and that aggressive social environment from which they suffer. It turns out a rather strange mix - pretentiousness, hot temper, resentment and anxiety, in which the confused and suppressed Ego of a schizoid child dwells. The schizoid tries to protect himself from an aggressive and unfriendly world with a complex of bizarre, and therefore poorly working, psychological defenses. With their help, he manages to somehow save himself, to make him feel less painful, but from a social point of view, he becomes even less adaptive.

Schizoid children begin to live in a bizarre and depressive reality, which can be very difficult for them to cope with. In relatively successful cases, the schizoid's fantasy conquers the realities of social reality, and their inner (psychological) world is inhabited by various “magic helpers”, and their psyche as a whole is reborn into an “enchanted world” into which people from a hostile external world have no access.

Misunderstanding on the part of the parents leads to the fact that schizoids give up attempts to somehow express themselves and their perception of the world. They react especially painfully to ridicule, devaluation or socially charged criticism of their interests, fantasies and hobbies. In the most extreme cases, they themselves lose faith in themselves, and begin to consider themselves abnormal and crazy.

There are quite frequent cases when, having lost hope of establishing contact with their child, parents lose not only faith in him, but also love for him. However, submitting to the social requirement “to love a child”!”, They begin to experience a sense of guilt, which, together with all their emotions and feelings, they project onto their unprepossessing and unresponsive child. Thus, the child becomes to blame for not being loved.

These projections of parental guilt can be expressed in accusing the child of the lack of love on his part:

• "He will not smile, hug, or rush to meet you joyfully!"
• "She is harmful, always on her mind!"
• “He doesn't care what happens to me, what I tell him. I can explode or burst into tears, and he will melancholy twirl his idiotic toy in his hands, not paying any attention to me!"

Very often, the loss of love for the "insensitive" and inadequate child is transformed into something like "righteous anger." A child can be accused of both his own sins and the fact that he looks like his father or grandfather: "she is all in her father: he also does not care about everyone, just to rummage through his idiotic books or get into the computer."

All these stresses, attempts to turn a schizoid child into a normal person, misunderstanding and discrediting the value of his world, combined with ridicule and bullying from society, can lead to the fact that the “ugly duckling” remains an inferior lame duck or a dull dull drake and never turns into the "black swan". And in that “bird’s yard” that our society rearranges itself, any chicken or turkey will look at the “ugly schizoid” with superiority - and the worst thing is that the schizoid himself will believe in his inferiority and lose hope of finding himself.

Schizophrenogenic parents

Some parents, with their contradictory or, as they say, "ambivalent" messages and attitudes, can bring any child to a state close to schizophrenia. And in the event that they have a schizoid child, this task becomes much easier for them.

The first thing schizophrenogenic parents do is to "infect" their children with their own heightened anxiety and inner tension. They project their social fears onto children and actively make them believe it.

Well, the most sophisticated method of "splitting the personality" of a child is to send him conflicting demands and attitudes, for example: "Don't let your emotions go free!" - in parallel with the requirement to show love for the mother, as well as worry about those topics and issues that concern the mother herself. You can demand from a child to be a genius and at the same time insist that he not show off and “be like everyone else”. "A girl should be modest" - and at the same time, "Why don't you have any ambitions!"

The mother can demand that the child respect the father, and at the same time constantly brawl with her husband, scolding, humiliating and devaluing him in the presence of the child. Children tend to identify with their parents and internalize their images within their psyche. Having settled in the soul of a child, these images, on the one hand, acquire supervalue (the child can love his parents), but at the same time they are charged with harsh negativity. Internalized images of parents continue their "family scandals" already in the child's inner world, destroying his harmony and integrity.

Ordinary children have natural social reflection and more easily understand the “conventionality” of parental requirements, they can understand what is true in parental scandals and curses, and what is exaggeration. They intuitively understand the games their parents play with each other and in which they try to involve them as well. Schizoid children have problems with social reflection, and it is difficult for them to understand the conventions of "parental curses" - they can take them at face value, and in addition, they also develop what they hear to bizarrely sinister forms.

What you need to remember when having a schizoid child

1. People have different characters, and your child may not be very similar in temperament and internal structure of his psyche to both parents.
2. You should not try to make the schizoid "like everyone else." The schizoid child needs support in revealing his individuality. As a result, he will learn everything that other children intuitively master, but he will come to this in his own way. Parents should try to understand their child, tune in to his wave and hear the music of his soul.
3. It is necessary to gradually acquaint the child with the structure of society and be his ally in getting to know people who are not arranged like him and react to what is happening in a different way.

In fact, for the successful self-realization of the schizoid, it is important to learn to express in a relatively understandable language the vision of the world available to him and the ideas that visit him. He also needs to master the skills of social and interpersonal reflection. Schizoids do not always master these skills in a natural way, intuitively, very often they need help in this. Well, like any person, it is important for schizoid children to believe in themselves and in their uniqueness.