"I Have Bad News For You: Love For Children Does Not Exist As Such." How Parents Mutilate Their Children

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

“The youth went wrong,” the older generation grumbles. If we proceed from this message, one gets the impression that wherever we look, we are surrounded by effeminate men, “IT people” crouching in their virtual world, emancipated hysterics and girls who dream only of how to quickly marry a rich “sugar daddy”. Not to mention alcoholics and drug addicts. Is the nation degenerating? Of course not. But the question of how to raise children correctly is especially relevant today. Eyes run up from various "progressive" techniques. And parents go to extremes. Some allow almost everything to their children and then they are surprised that by the age of majority the child is not at all adapted to life. Others, on the contrary, make every effort to load it to the fullest, believing that the main task is to reveal the numerous talents of their offspring, without thinking about the fact that they are actually depriving him of his childhood. In either case, the intentions of the parents are the best, but they "love" their children so much that they do not notice how they are maimed at the same time. Is there a golden mean? Today we will discuss this difficult issue with the psychotherapist Andrey Metelsky.

Who is this?

Andrey Metelsky has been solving the problems of fathers and children for more than a dozen years. By education, he is a pediatrician, adolescent psychotherapist, sexologist, in addition to this, a gestalt trainer, a certified trainer at the INTC, a co-founder of the Institute of Modern NLP. You can list the regalia of our interlocutor for a long time. But is it necessary? The conversation with Andrey from the very beginning turned out to be difficult, inconvenient and a little scary. Try to try on his thoughts and experiences for yourself. We are sure that they will make you look at your life from a completely different angle.

Let's start with the main thing. Do we really maim children with our love?

- In order to understand this complex topic, let's define the basic concepts. I'm afraid many parents will find it difficult to accept them, it will probably be unpleasant. Parents do not like children. What is meant by the term "love for children" in everyday life and in psychology is attachment. Love is a kind of inner state that simply is, I can experience it, but it cannot be directed at anyone. This means that love cannot be for someone or something. Therefore, what we experience for our children throughout our lives is attachment, and it is akin to attachment to a bottle, a car, cigarettes, and so on.

Parents do not love the child, parents love themselves in the child. We all strive to ensure that our offspring become successful in areas where we did not take place. What toys do we give a child? Most often, those that they themselves did not play in childhood. In the same way, we love ourselves in a car, hanging spoilers on it, doing tuning and bragging to our friends: "Look, what a cool car I have!" In the same way, we love a spouse or spouse - not this particular person, but ourselves in him: “Look, what a long-legged blonde walks with me. She's not that cool, but I'm cool because she chose me. " I, of course, exaggerate, but …

In order to love a child, you must first learn to love yourself. This is partly a rather clichéd phrase, but most people don't understand its depth. The trouble is that we all do not love ourselves, and here we get a paradox: how can you love someone in this case, because you simply do not have a model of behavior! To love yourself is to be clearly aware of your needs and not to replace them with surrogates and addictions. For example, I now have a need for attention - and I will go to seek this attention, instead of having a smoke or a drink. If we start to squander money, this means only one thing - that we subconsciously feel a lack of pride and try to compensate for it - again, surrogate. If I love myself, I, by and large, practically do not need anything. This will be a statement that is very close to the truth. It was not in vain that Buddha said: a person from birth has everything he needs.

And here's another unpleasant fact for you: children are given birth because of one single motivation - the fear of death. If we were immortal, then most likely there would be no families or children. What for? After all, then there is no point in thinking about being remembered, there is no need to think about the "trace that you left."

So we give birth to children in order to continue in them, to receive a surrogate for immortality. That is why we begin to "love" our sons and daughters against their will: to give them to endless, completely unnecessary circles and sections, torturing them with total control. And we seem to want them to be successful, but in reality they are not. Because, if you look impartially, we try to replace their unique life with our vision. We cannot admit to ourselves that a son or daughter is a completely separate person, and we desperately want to see them as an extension of ourselves. We are ready to cripple the child's entire future destiny, if only for a little longer the existence of a particle of ourselves as a personality on the planet.

Somehow the topic we are discussing has grown from the start to a universal scale …

- Think about the scale with a simple example. When you come into any contact with a child, ask yourself a question: what am I doing now, is being done in order for him to be successful, or in order for me to be calm or to amuse my ego? By and large, this is the only question that parents should ask themselves when they are parenting. I think that 80-90 percent of us will find the strength to admit: first of all, we think about our own peace of mind.

Let's start with the simplest things. When our three to four year old toddler climbs the slides and swings in the yard, we constantly pull him up. Based on what? First of all, based on their own calmness. Yes, the child may fall and be in pain. But this is his life! How else can he get a basic and correct understanding of the world without getting bruises and bumps? Naturally, everything is fine within reasonable limits. Knowing from experience that certain actions are guaranteed to lead to injury, we warn them. If you respect the child, then there will not be many such prohibitions.

But what about the maternal instinct, the heart that aches for its child?

- What I'm talking about. You are not thinking about your son, but about your sick heart. And while trying to replace the child's life. The classic metaphor of modern education is shouting into the sandbox: "Senya, go home!" - "Mom, am I cold?" - "No, you're hungry!" Our parents know better than a child what he needs. But this is not so! Each child is born as a separate person, he has his own mission on this earth, his own destiny. We cannot know this mission, but at the same time we persistently "educate" the child. Rave!

Love for a child implies respect. I respect any decision he makes. Yes, I can assume that this decision may lead to not very good consequences, and I will warn him about it.

And let me choose?

- This is exactly where the main mistake is. Allowing choice is once again disposing of property. I repeat: I respect his choice. Linguistically, everything is reflected very accurately.

The child says: "I'm tired of school, I don't want to go there …"

- Let him not go!

Can you imagine the consequences?

- I had such teenagers. They deliberately refused school, and I advised parents not to hinder them in this. For example, here is a striking situation. The teenager studied in each class for two years, was a poor student, fought, was completely uncontrollable. After our training, the mother came home and gave him responsibility for her life. That is, she said: do as you see fit. He left school on the same day. A week later, he got a job, and a month later, of his own free will, he brought documents to the evening school. The guy earned good money, eventually became an excellent student, and today he is a fairly well-known director in Moscow. He was given responsibility for his life, and he built it the way he wanted …

That is, parents in vain think that they can act as a "deterrent"?

- I have been working with families - parents and children for many years. I can tell you: if a child is respected and understood that he must be given the right to his own development, he always grows up to be brilliant, creative, flexible. A smart parent should be very attentive, watch what the child wants. If at two years old my son liked to sit in my arms and count the passing cars, I stood with him for 20-40 minutes, realizing that in the future it would benefit him. When the son went to first grade, he was already adding two-digit numbers in his head.

Some of the parents are annoyed that the child runs around like a fool with a stick all day. Parents, this is great! Remember yourself as a child! A found stick for a child is a whole world: a spear, a machine gun, an airplane steering wheel and much more. Why do we force a child who finds a stick on the street to immediately throw it down? Thanks to her, he builds the world, creates, develops imagination and intellect.

The world of children's psychology is generally a very interesting thing. I'll even tell you that ghosts or non-existent friends with whom a child communicates are far from stupid. Why do we categorically declare that none of this exists? For a child there is, thanks to these "phantoms" he metaphorically develops, learns, gets rid of some of his fears. Even I, as a psychotherapist, do not always know what problem the child's brain is now solving by inventing some allies for myself.

Will not sooner or later develop respect for choice into permissiveness?

- In psychology there are concepts of internal and external reference - these are the polarities that we build in our value system, and the value system that affects us from the outside. The child needs to be taught internal reference. Having collected information from the outside, he must be able to make a decision on his own. He can learn this only in practice, when he feels freedom. Here's an example on your fingers, again from my personal life. I give my son pocket money. We went to a cake shop. I see that the child enjoys not only eating sweets, but also independently calculating the required amount, getting it out of the wallet. And then the saleswoman says to her son: "Look, kid, this cake is the most delicious, with cottage cheese!" The son looks up at her and says: "Thank you, but I, in fact, can read." At that moment, I realized that I was doing everything right, that he had an internal reference. Even if he is offered drugs, it is unlikely that it will work: he learned to make decisions for himself.

Internal reference gives a lot, sometimes completely unobvious things. For example, it allows us to stay healthy: we simply do not fall for flu “advertising”. When I was working as a pediatrician, I noticed an interesting trend: the flu epidemic begins a week after advertisements for anti-influenza drugs went on in newspapers and the subway. People without internal reference, reading the symptoms, are already ready for them, tune in to them. And now - the disease appeared!

Internal freedom, of course, implies a certain framework. Remember the basic rule of life that hippies preached in the seventies of the last century? "Do what you like without disturbing others." In my opinion, this is a very correct idea. The child should be explained that his freedom ends where the freedom of another person begins.

Nowadays, the Tibetan model of raising a child is very fashionable, which says that up to the age of five one should treat him as a king, from five to ten - as a slave, and after ten - as an equal. The time frame may fluctuate, but the general idea is clear. What do you think about it?

- It is worth understanding here that in some issues the child simply does not have a base on which to make decisions. Therefore, it is worth asking the question: before allowing everything, did you discuss what is right and what is not? Have you played around the situations, talked about the consequences of this or that act? Without this base, inner freedom just grows into permissiveness.

This is, in fact, a huge disaster. Parents often talk about problems in communicating with their children, while they do not talk to them themselves! My position in this regard is clear: with a child you need to talk on an equal footing, without lisping, from the first minutes of life. And don't tell me that lisping is tenderness. Do you know how children understand that they are loved? The only way is through the eyes. And now a question for parents: how often do you communicate with children, looking into their eyes with love? Most of the communication looks like this: the child mutters something, and we answer him over our shoulder. At the same time, we are physically at different levels: we are higher, the child is lower. What kind of equality and mutual understanding can we talk about? Why are you surprised that the child eventually stops hearing you?

Go ahead. Let's think about it: when do most parents look a child in the eye? That's right - when they scold. Like, you did something, now look into my eyes. The most important channel of communication turns into a suppression tool. It is logical that after that at my reception, on the street - yes, everywhere I see people who try not to meet your eyes. It comes from childhood! The channel has been blocked, moreover, a negative anchor has been created: "If they look me in the eye, then they will expose it now."

If you scold a child, turn away. No wonder they used to put them in a corner.

Now for some practical advice. How is the basis for a child's decision created? He asks a question, you go down to the level of his eyes (or sit him on the table) and conduct an equal dialogue

When I worked as a psychotherapist in a dispensary, children who stutter were often brought to me. In 80% of cases, I could help with virtually the same simple advice. As soon as the child turns to you, drop everything and listen to him carefully: there is nothing else in the world for you at this moment!

Stuttering - most often not fright, as the grandmothers say, who need to earn money, but the child's dissatisfaction with communication. He wants to convey a thought to his parents, to ask a question, but they do not hear him. Or they listen, but only the beginning of the monologue (which happens even more often). And now the child, trying to have time to speak, speaks faster and faster, but his vocal apparatus has not yet been fully formed. So he starts to stutter. And then it went in a circle like a snowball. The child stutters, speaks more slowly, the parents listen to him even less, and so on.

So in most cases, parents who had the wisdom and patience to fulfill this simple condition removed stuttering in a maximum of a month.

Children do not talk nonsense, they are wise, and I strongly recommend listening to them carefully. What kind of love for a child can we talk about if we do not respect his opinion, his thoughts, his world. Let it seem to us that everything a child asks about is commonplace, remember that for him the world is a series of discoveries. Do not make “teaching” the cornerstone, concentrate your energies on “listening”.

What signs in a child's behavior should make parents worry?

- Any. It scares me that in our enlightened age, many parents believe that nervous tics, enuresis and stuttering are diseases that have nothing to do with the psychological health of the child. I am sure that any illness of a child is a reason to ask questions: “What am I doing wrong? What's going on in our relationship? " The overwhelming majority of children are very healthy and strong creatures who "go into illness" primarily due to psychological problems.

Of course, they refer to anxiety symptoms and any behavioral things that go beyond the accepted rules in society. In short, if you just don't like something about your child, you should already go to a psychotherapist or psychologist and understand the situation.

By and large, it turns out that it is time to go to specialists for almost all parents?

- Yes. And all because in the country there is no institution of correct upbringing, we are not taught how to be parents. Therefore, all the "shoals" that were in the relationship with our parents, we project onto our children, adding our own. Moreover, in the overwhelming majority of cases, it is the parents, not the children, who should work with the psychiatrist. Over the many years of my work in a child and adolescent psychiatric dispensary, I rarely came across cases when it really was necessary to purposefully work with a child. More often than not, it was enough to correct the behavior of the parents. A child is a light bulb, an indicator that something is wrong in the family. There is no sense in treating him until the conditions in the family have changed. Otherwise, it will turn out as with the same text that I typed on the computer, printed out and found errors. Instead of correcting these errors, with the persistence of a maniac, I continue to output more and more copies to the printer in the hope that this will correct the situation …

Can a parent look at his actions impartially and adjust something on his own?

- Of course not. The system cannot change itself; it is changed only when it goes beyond the limits. The ideal solution is to work with a specialist. Alternatively, seek advice from someone you trust who is successful with their children.

How much do kindergarten and school help in raising children?

“They don’t help. We, parents, educators and teachers, have long been confused and forgotten two simple things. School and kindergarten teach, family educates. These two spheres should not overlap in any way. And personally, I am sure that the school has no right to raise your child, and you should not do his homework. When they explained to me at the parent meeting how to fill out this or that notebook, I was surprised: “Why are you telling me all this? Discuss with your son: he is a student. I distanced myself from the learning process, and, as practice has shown, this is very useful. The teachers were initially shocked by this attitude, but very soon they realized that I was adamant, and we find a common language.

I am not saying that I am completely indifferent to what is happening in the child's school. If he asks me for help with his homework, I will do my best. But only in this case. I do not check the diaries, at one time I explained to the elder how to forge my signature, and did not know the trouble. Not that I was teaching the child to lie, I just explained to him that in the modern world there are conventions that we are forced to observe. No matter how idiotic they are.

By the way, I generally think that if you go to parent-teacher meetings, then you must be with your child. This is his study, his life, his problems. How can you discuss them without the one for whom it is most important?

School and kindergarten, in addition to education, partly perform only one more function - the socialization of the child. It provides models of how to interact with other people, with society, with authorities. I do not consider the models that are sometimes built in our educational institutions to be healthy and normal. Therefore, compromises with the school should be as formal as possible.

Parents are very afraid that their child will fall into a bad company, as a result - crime and drugs. Are there any practical tips to mitigate the risks?

- If such questions arise, then you have already crushed your child, completely suppressed his personality. Remember what we talked about: if you bring up an internal reference in your child, then in any company he will be a leader, and fears that someone will influence him should not arise at all.

If there is no internal reference, the only thing I can offer is training with professionals. You need to learn to transfer responsibility for his life to the child, then, in my experience, everything will return to normal: the son or daughter will start thinking about the consequences, and in this case, as a rule, they leave bad companies.

And remember that drugs appear in a child's life when there is no mutual respect in the family and there is an attempt of total control on the part of the parents. After all, those who sell drugs are purposefully looking for such problematic teenagers and offer them "freedom." How are they being dragged into a drug addict company and into sects? A person is told: "Here you will be accepted as you are." Can you imagine how creepy it sounds to parents? That is, they do not perceive their child that way? It turns out that it is so.

For someone it will be news that after five years the child is formed and we can influence his character very indirectly. What to do? First, it’s completely useless to feel guilty about missed opportunities. Perceive the situation philosophically, I would even say karmically: everything that you could do, you did. Now pass on to your children responsibility for their own lives. Do it in stages if it’s scary right away. That is, if you transferred the responsibility for washing dishes, cups and mugs to your son or daughter, you no longer wash. If you have transferred responsibility for cleaning the room, then again you never look into it in order to check for a mess and never remind you about cleaning.

At first, there will be a mess in the room, believe me. The first time you will be checked: how sincerely have you transferred responsibility? And when the understanding that everything is serious comes (it usually takes from two weeks to two months), the child will decide how to live on. If the rest of the apartment is kept clean, and the dishes are washed, I can say with almost one hundred percent probability that you will see changes for the better in the child's room on some wonderful day. Perhaps this will be a different order, not close to you. This will be his order, and he will be comfortable in it. But this is exactly what we are trying to achieve?