Family Test: Sick Child

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

Most parents take care of their child like the apple of their eye, and it is difficult to imagine what could be a greater misfortune for them than his illness. A child's illness is always a test for the environment in which he lives, for his parents, and for the whole family as a whole. The child's illness reveals and crystallizes all the unknown, hidden and compensated.

The disease affects the child not only physically, but also harms his spiritual world, as well as the spiritual world of his family members. These factors form an indivisible whole.

The state of stress caused by a child's illness, in some cases, does not find a positive resolution. Tension, severity of emotional reactions, grief and depression, accumulating over time, are included in the emotional pattern of the parents' personality, leading to its neurotization, accentuated severity of individual psychological characteristics.

A child's illness is a reliable test of strength, loyalty, and reciprocity of all family members. This is also a chance. A chance to get to know yourself, each other, your child better, and, in the end, to know life itself deeper and more fully. This is an opportunity to give your child what absolutely all children need, and children with poor health are even more and more acute - unconditional parental love, which only psychologically mature individuals are capable of. If a sick child feels unconditional positive attention, then the conditions of value will not develop, attention to oneself will be unconditional. This attitude of the parents forms a sense of self-worth in the child, regardless of whether he is physically strong or weak. Unconditional positive attention to oneself reveals the natural tendency of self-actualization that is present in every person, regardless of the state of health. Some parents, however, cannot do this. I really want to see my child "in the ranks", bringing excellent marks, having leadership qualities, a favorite of teachers and classmates, the soul of all companies and the winner of all kinds of Olympiads. Such ambitions of parents are not uncommon. A sick child is unlikely to be able to live up to such lofty ideals, or even some of them. Parents regard some diseases as “shameful” and try to hide them from others. One can only imagine how painfully this heart of a sick child hurts.

In general, a preschool child does not have an attitude towards himself as a sick or healthy person (except for the negative emotional tone of painful sensations), the attitude towards the disease is formed under the influence of parents.

The problem is that with the same illness of a child, parents establish different attitudes towards him and his illness, which can contribute to both ineffective and more effective treatment.

In addition, signs of emotional distress, disharmonious attitude to the child's illness on the part of parents can be risk factors for the development of misunderstanding, conflict, disharmonious relations between specialists and the child's parents during treatment during the period of the child's stay in the hospital.

In some cases, children feel guilty for not being like everyone else and not being able to fulfill the ideals of their parents. All this contributes to the alienation of the child from his parents, and in some cases from himself. These are cases in which children do their best to compensate for their shortcomings, only to earn praise and at least minimal recognition from their parents.

Many parents of children with health problems are characterized by high anxiety, which leads to the development of anxiety in almost all children.

Even in cases where parents try to hide their anxiety and consciously control it, an unconscious anxiety infection occurs in a child who is very sensitive to unconscious communication. Uncertainty and fears are expressed in the intonations, gestures and looks of the parents. Fear is noticeable because of the parents' unwillingness to go beyond the usual stereotypes. As a result, children with health problems may lose the spontaneity characteristic of childhood, emotional brightness and liveliness. Instead, some children become adultly reasonable, dogmatic, anxious, others - infantile, shy, fearful of communicating with people, establishing friendly contacts, defending their interests.

Negative consequences for the treatment and recovery of the child have a lack of faith in recovery, exaggeration of the severity of the disease, guilt, anxiety, the transformation of the child's treatment into the main goal of life, irritation, indignation.

Some parents, frightened by doctors' predictions, perceive their child's illness as something terrible and unforgiving. In panic powerlessness, they give up, since the disease is a terrible demon, many times superior to the strength of medicine and parents in its power. Panic impotence is transmitted to the child, he has a feeling of doom, he does not make efforts to resist the disease, which turns him into a victim. Such parents contribute to the fact that their child is deprived of prospects and future.

The exclamations of the parents: "Lord, why do we need this!" The result is, in one case, a dependent attitude, where the health problem plays the role of a means of rental activity. In other words, in the future, a person seeks to parasitize at the expense of others, completely taking no action to improve his life. In another variant, the result is a sense of their own responsibility for all the hardships of their family. Feelings of guilt are definitely not a companion to the fight against diseases; this feeling will only exacerbate the already weak health of the child.

You should not lament and ask too often: "For what?". A sick child is not a punishment. Perhaps a test. But the abandonment of the position of the victim in this case is necessary. This will not only benefit the state of mind, but also positively affect the physical well-being of everyone.

In some cases (and I must say, they are not so rare), it is easier for parents to “close their eyes” to the real state of affairs, not to notice the symptoms of their child's illness. Parents have a strong desire to hide the disease from others, as if its recognition could undermine the reputation of the parents themselves. The child suffers from the fact that his requests, complaints of fatigue and difficulties in learning are left without due attention from the parents. With this type of relationship, the child feels lonely, guilty and forms unrealistic over-optimistic expectations.

Emotional isolation most often stems from fear and rejection of the child's illness. Emotional isolation manifests itself in the form of overt or covert rejection of a sick child by the family. In the first case, parents emphasize the child's social failure, experience feelings of annoyance and shame for the failure and ineptitude of the sick child. In the case of latent rejection, the parents in the depths of their hearts feel their negative attitude towards the child and do their best to compensate for it with emphasized care. In some cases, the lack of close emotional contact with the child is accompanied by excessive parental requirements for teaching and medical personnel, or they are maximally involved in the permanent search for the best specialists and advanced treatment methods.

Emotional rejection by parents will result in a wide range of psychological disorders in children. Such children do not value themselves, which is often masked by various types of defenses (perfectionism, aggression, regression, etc.). Acting in their own interests, they are tormented by feelings of guilt, even though they do not in any way affect the interests of others. Their sense of shame is also exaggerated. In relationships with other people, they also have a whole tangle of closely intertwined problems. It is difficult for such children to believe that someone can feel love, sympathy, and friendly disposition towards them. Deprived of parental warmth, they look for it on the side. Fearing of offending or losing friends, they continue to be friends even with those who mock, offend and betray them. With all their might, for fear of losing relationships with others, they strive to maintain relationships that have outlived their usefulness. As adults, these people are likely to continue to seek parental love in other people and experience a series of emotional dramas.

Another common type of parental response to a child's illness is “heading into the illness”, “nurturing” it. The whole family life revolves around a sick child. Parents strive to do everything instead of the child, even what he is quite capable of doing himself. Parents reduce their professional and social activity in order to spend more time with the child, help him in everything, treat him, support him. In this case, the relationship between mother and father is reduced exclusively to the roles of "mother-father". The disease justifies overprotective behavior of parents, especially mothers. The dangers of this type of relationship are obvious. The child gets used to living in a "greenhouse" atmosphere, does not learn to overcome difficulties, does not develop self-service skills, and so on. In an effort to help their child as fully as possible, in reality, parents limit his development. In such conditions, the personality of the child is formed on the principles of overprotection, indulgence of weakness, low exactingness. When such a child becomes an adult, the problem of independence comes to the fore. In this case, there is a high probability of the formation of infantility and egocentrism in the child.

It will negatively affect the development of the child and the contradictory attitude towards him. So, with the mother, the sick child can be in a symbiotic fusion, getting the maximum pleasure from being in the mother's paradise, while the father can be harsh, or even cruel towards the sick child. In some cases, an adequate attitude on the part of both parents towards a sick child may conflict with overly indulgent attitudes on the part of grandparents living in the same house. In some cases, contradictions can coexist in one of the parents. For example, a typical reaction of mothers is pity, the desire to take care of, control a sick child, but at the same time, mothers may show irritation, a desire to punish the child, ignore his interests.

The developmental stage of the child should always be taken into account. Approaches to sick children of infants, preschool, school, early and mature adolescence and adolescence should be completely different.

A frequent phenomenon that accompanies childhood illnesses is not only a stop in development, but also regression, as it were, a return to a younger age. Smart parenting helps prevent regression and more beneficial and effective treatment. It is important to remember about the leading activities within which the child's development takes place. For preschool children, this is a game, for a schoolchild - learning, in adolescence - this is the development of the personal and intimate sphere of the personality. With this in mind, parents must provide the sick child with the necessary space for his or her development.

It should not be forgotten that childhood and adolescence have different crises of psychosexual development and ways to overcome them, which can be canceled out by the presence of the disease and the attitude of the parents, in which the motives of infantilization and asexuality of a sick child may dominate. All the characteristics of ontogeny are not only age-related, but also sex-role, since the very first category in which a child perceives himself as a child is precisely his belonging to a certain sex. Most often, feminine qualities are preferable for sick children, from the point of view of parents.

Treating a sick child as asexual can lead to a number of psychosexual problems in the future. Often, parents ignore the need for sex-role education and do not think about the questions that mature sexuality originates from the stages of psychosexual development in childhood.

A sick child needs special attention with regard to gender psychohygiene. Girls should be girls and boys should be boys. Since the disease is associated with passivity, which is a traditionally feminine quality, it is more difficult for boys to adapt to the conditions of the disease and at the same time develop typically masculine qualities. For the normal development of a boy and his introduction to the "male world", he needs male participation, the opportunity to speak on male topics and share male values. Girls need to be provided with all "girly". Girls should wear bows, ruffles, beautiful handbags, regardless of whether they are sick or not. And dads should be proud of their girls, and tell them about their love. Mothers should accept the girl in the female world not as a “unfortunate baby”, but as a future woman with equal rights of female realization.

It is necessary to dwell on the well-known phenomenon of "benefits from illness". In one case, the disease is a way to fill the emotional deficit in communication between the parents and the child. A negative attitude towards the child is repressed by the parents, but in the subjective experiences there remain feelings of guilt and anxiety that require justification. In this case, the disease makes it possible to get rid of them: the parents, devoting all their time to the treatment of the child, unconsciously seek to justify themselves. The child, in turn, also “grasps” the illness as the last straw, which allows him to somehow compensate for the cold attitude on the part of his parents and communicate with them (about the illness), to attract attention to himself. Thus, the disease makes up for the lack of communication, and therefore becomes conditionally desirable for both the child and the parents (more often for the mother). The destruction of the existing situation (recovery of the child) for the family as a whole may have undesirable consequences due to possible intra-family conflicts, the disintegration of the family is not excluded.

In another case, illness becomes a way of maintaining a symbiotic relationship between mother and child. At the same time, the child is a source of satisfaction of the need for love and emotional warmth, which is not realized in a relationship with her husband. The mother seeks to make the child dependent on herself, she is afraid of losing him, and therefore she is interested in the disease. The child is indoctrinated with the idea that he is weak, helpless, as a result, a corresponding image of "I" is formed in him. The biggest fear in such a child is the fear of losing his mother, and the disease helps to keep her, to receive affection and attention.

In both cases, the disease is likely to be resistant to treatment.

Often the father is removed from education and any "live" participation in the fate of the child, and this often suits him. Over time, the father removes not only from his child, but also from his wife. Thus, in fact, in such a family, the father exists, but psychologically he does not. This state of affairs forms an especially close relationship between mother and child, in which the space for the development of a sick child is closed to the mother.

About six months ago, I had a chance to consult a family in which a child has been ill for a long time. The father claimed that he was doing "everything that he should." The man was too identified with the role of “breadwinner”. The breadwinner and no one else. When the man saw the full depth of his wife's feelings, when he realized how little he knows about his own child and how little his child knows about him, he launched a decisive and brutal attack. The man accused that he was “turned” into a breadwinner, that he was almost “fired” from the position of both father and husband. Each of us bears his own personal responsibility, and if we are “transformed” and we do not grumble, then it is not “they” who possess “secret magical knowledge” who are responsible for our “transformations”.

The father is responsible for his child as much as the mother. And the removal from this unfortunate triad: "child-illness-mother", most often only plays into the hands of the father. For the sake of fairness, it should be noted that there is a certain type of women who really do not need anyone other than their child, who seek to perversely capture the child. Most often, the mother wins in a woman if she suffers from the inoculated correctness, if it is important to be respectable and respected. And even then, when a man who is nearby, throws her one on one with a terrible test - the illness of a child. This state of affairs is very dangerous. And it must be realized by both mother and father.

Even if a man loses interest in his spouse as a woman, he must be present in the child's life, regardless of the sex of the latter, acting as a separator that prevents the manifestation of the extreme state of maternal love and care. If a sick child and mother are constantly together, if someone else does not appear in this space, then there is a risk of a vacuum between them. Reckoning is the loss of the woman's ties with her environment, the father with the child, and the child with the outside world.

The most acceptable type of reaction is acceptance of a real situation and activity in overcoming it. At the same time, parents understand well the physical, psychological, and behavioral characteristics of their child. They know its capabilities, take into account the limitations associated with the disease. They do not wishful thinking, do not force the child to be healthy, contrary to the real state of affairs.

Parents need to closely monitor the child and learn to help him overcome the disease. It is necessary to look for ways to train that the disease has weakened, to come up with special games, activities, to use joint work, family holidays. Be sure to include the child in activities with which he can play off.

When a child learns with his family to make additional efforts to achieve what he aspires to, his enjoyment of small and big victories increases self-esteem and builds self-esteem. The task of the parents is to maintain the courage and resilience of the child in the fight against the disease. This brings the family together and turns it into an important healing factor.

A test is what some external (in relation to "I") situation presents, sometimes it is the organism of one's own child. This is something that can be treated in different ways. There is always an alternative: accept / reject. Acceptance of the test, i.e. the determination to act in the absence of a guarantee of success is a significant part of the set of personal characteristics called "resilience." The reaction to the test can lead to completely different not only psychological, but also somatic consequences.

I will refer to P. Ya. Halperin, who argued that a person does not have a biological, there is only an organic, which, unlike the biological, does not uniquely determine the forms of life, but can fit into human forms of existence. The attitude to corporeality as to biological, determining development, is illustrated by the well-known radical practice of Ancient Sparta of throwing "weak" babies off a cliff, who, at first glance, had no prerequisites to become valiant warriors, as well as the horrific practice of destroying biologically defective people in the Third Reich.

It is important for parents of sick children and children themselves to remember that luck is unevenly distributed. But this unevenness is subsequently largely compensated for. An initially disadvantageous position may ultimately become more favorable than an initially more favorable one. Those who face a problem or challenge early in life may ultimately become stronger, more responsible and motivated. Those who are initially in a more advantageous position, on the contrary, are more relaxed and because of this they soon lose their initial advantage.

There is one well-known truth that a healthy person differs from a neurotic in that he transforms a problem into a task, while a neurotic transforms a task into a problem. There is only one way: accept the test as a task, refuse to consider yourself and your child different from others, and use your resources, find support in yourself and live filled with true meaning.

In a number of cases, parents, being in a state of tension, depression and emptiness, are not able to independently cope with the oppressive situation of their child's illness, then it will be quite justified to turn to a psychologist who will help to set priorities, help to find the most effective ways to cope with the current situation, to establish intra-family communication channels.

Health to us and our children

Literature:

1. Galperin P. Ya. Psychology as an objective science.
2. Isaev D. N. Psychology of a sick child.
3. Makarenko A. O. Typical father's position to a child (child) with chronic somatic pathology and psychosexual development (theoretical and methodological aspects).