Lyudmila Petranovskaya: "It Is Important That The Child Has The Right To Disobedience"

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

Many parents saw a video on the Internet: out of ten 7-12 year old children with someone else's uncle, only one seven year old boy did not leave the playground. Fortunately, this video was the result of a television experiment. Littleone correspondent Ira Ford asked Lyudmila Petranovskaya, a family psychologist and author of books for children and parents, how to warn children about the dangers, but not intimidate them?

"Risks to a child should be assessed by parents"

- Lyudmila Vladimirovna, many parents are worried about the questions “How to protect a child? How to prepare him for possible dangerous situations in society, but to do it so that he is not intimidated and does not shake with horror, imagining what could happen to him?"

- Act based on the age of the child. So, at 4-5 years old, the responsibility of the child includes safety in communication with the material world. The child must understand where to jump from, where not to, where to climb, and where not to; that before you climb on a stool, you need to check whether it is stable. As for the relationship of people and the dangers emanating from them, then we should not harbor illusions that we can explain something, and the child in a dangerous situation will behave as we said. A child 5-7 years old is easy to deceive and confuse. You can start talking about the child's readiness to somehow understand a bad intent or recognize insincerity from the age of 8-9, not earlier.

- That is, for example, a child under 8 years old cannot be left alone near the entrance to the store, even for a few minutes?

- Assessment of possible risks for a child always rests with the parents and adults. It is unlikely that in a crowded place at the height of the day, an eight-year-old child is in danger. But if you ask: “Is it possible to let a first-grader go out into the yard alone?” I will not give an unambiguous answer. It's one thing if the courtyard is more or less closed, and some grandmothers-neighbors are sitting there all the time on the bench, and another thing if the courtyard is a checkpoint, everyone who is not lazy walks through it and cars drive. If we let the child go for a walk alone, then either we ourselves assess this place as safe, or we expect that there are other adults next to the child who will look after him. And counting on the fact that the child will take care of his own safety is not worth it.

“It is important that the child has the right to disobey. You can and should break all the rules"

- Let's say a child has reached such an age when parents feel responsible for their safety and willingness to be alone on the street. How to prepare him for situations that may happen to him?

- It is very important that the child knows that there are situations in which it is possible and necessary to break all the rules: to scream, fight, scratch, do everything to protect himself. Our society does not like to interfere in other people's problems, and if the child shouts "I don't want to!" or "I won't go!", everyone will decide that there is no need to get into the situation, this is a parent with a child, and the child is capricious. Explain to the child exactly what words should be shouted in a situation if a stranger comes up to him, takes his hand and drags him into the car (“I don’t know you!”). In general, parents prepare the child for possible dangerous situations with their whole life and communication: discussing books, films, situations, reacting to other people. And if we are to answer this broad question, it is better to immediately pay attention to two mistakes that parents make.

First, there is a dangerous thought that parents often instill in their children: "Troubles happen to naughty children." It is clear that when adults say this, they do not mean a situation with an external threat, but want to influence the child's behavior right now and use this intimidation: nothing will happen to you. But if someone wants to offend the child, he will definitely not delve into whether this child obeyed his mother in the morning and whether he ate porridge well in kindergarten. A side effect of this parental thought is the distortion of the child's picture of the world: it seems to him that not only the parents care about whether he is obedient or not, but the whole world. But alas! - the whole world doesn’t care about obedience, the world cares only about the child’s caution and vigilance. In addition, an obedient child in such a situation is more vulnerable: if absolutely any adult approaches him and says in a firm voice: “Come with me!”, He will go. Because he is used to the fact that his teams "fall at his feet", and he is not used to being critical of them. It is important that the child has the right to disobey, to disobey.

The second important mistake that parents often make is to break the child's natural defenses against strangers. It can also be called shyness or even impolite. Parents often notice that from the age when the child begins to understand the instructions, he ignores the requests and / or orders of a stranger: this is an instinctive program of following one's own and not following a stranger, which over the years of evolution has been formed to ensure the safety of the baby. It is common for a child to be shy and shy of a stranger, to hide from him, not to smile, not to be nice and not to greet everyone he meets. And when parents want their child to be socially pleasant, they begin to shame him for being shy, and demand that he be sociable and contact with strangers. And … as a side effect of an obedient child, they end up with a child without natural defenses.

"It is important that the child understands that he is a value"

- Should a child practice martial arts to prevent dangerous situations?

- I think martial arts alone will not help a small child cope with an adult. On the contrary, they can create a certain illusion of invulnerability: "What others cannot, I can, because I am a cool karateka." But with a real bandit or a maniac, no steepest ten-year-old karateka can handle it. It is important that the coach does not lead the children into the illusion that since they can now do this with their feet, the devil himself is not a brother to them. And if this condition is met, then there are no contraindications to martial arts: they increase attentiveness, vigilance, self-control, and thereby reduce the child's chances of getting into trouble.

- Is it possible to somehow indirectly strengthen the child's self-esteem, increase his self-confidence, so that in a potentially dangerous situation he has enough strength and courage to behave differently from ordinary life?

- It is important that the child understands that he is a value. And in this sense, simply having a good relationship with a child and caring for him prepares him for danger better than anything else. Have noticed the neglect of children from dysfunctional families: "What is it?", "What will happen to me?", "Bullshit!" This is a direct road to doubtful situations.

But speaking objectively, the cases when children find themselves in criminal situations such as “a maniac came up, took the hand and took them somewhere” are negligible. Much more serious risks are the family, where parents (relatives) endanger children, as well as kindergartens and schools, where adults do not take responsibility for what they should take responsibility for.

When teachers do not know how to work with a children's group, are not ready to deal with group aggression, do not know how to sort out a situation of violence between children, but can only shake a finger and read the notation that doing this is not good (or, even worse, develop an idea that others do not offend, but offend you, because you yourself are to blame) - it would be good for the parent to think about the fact that the child's safety in this case is at risk.