LET'S TALK ABOUT EMOTIONS

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

Mom - tired, worn out by the boss's nagging, the tightness of the metro, another salary delay (which hardly deserves to be called so proudly) - returns home. An eight-year-old daughter meets her at the door, and immediately begins:

- Mom, everyone in our class has a computer set-top box. Only from me … Let's buy tomorrow! I just saw …

Throwing bags laden with groceries on the floor, the mother, in irritation - if not in a rage - expresses with all directness her opinion about her daughter's classmates, about herself and about computer consoles, adding to this a series of harsh words about the father of the family who is not involved in raising a child.

Tears run down the girl's cheeks, and through them:

- Mom, you are evil, you do not love me!

- Oh, I'm angry! I do not like! Well, thank you, daughter, I deserve it …

The sobs of the mother, the roar of the daughter, are accompanied by the indignant cries of the father.

GENUINE NAME

The situation, alas, is not uncommon. Family conflict as it is. What are its reasons? Who's guilty? Could this have been avoided? How to resolve? Questions that, of course, can be answered by considering all the nuances and aspects of the conflict. But now I would like to highlight only one point - misunderstanding. Lack of understanding of the emotional state of each other, the experiences that people are experiencing next to us.

In the situation described, the mother believed that her emotion was righteous anger at her daughter's ingratitude and callousness. An analysis carried out together with a psychologist showed that this is not the case. The main concern is resentment against bosses and colleagues and dissatisfaction with their position at work. It was these negative emotions that burst out, falling upon the innocent daughter.

And she, in turn, not being able to recognize the state of her mother, perceived this emotional outburst as a demonstration of disgust for her personally and also felt an acute resentment. The last phrase of the mother provoked in the girl, in addition, a feeling of guilt and shame for her words. Here is such a "bouquet" of negative experiences arose in two participants in the situation. And next to him is dad, insulted "for the company."

The correct recognition of an emotion, the correct naming of it provides not only a better understanding of the processes occurring in us - no, the matter is much more serious. The right, right word, unmistakably defining emotion, can fundamentally change all of our behavior. Truly, “having named the real name of an object, you get power over it”!

Let's give another example. The child refuses to go to school, stating that he is offended by his classmates. In fact, the emotion he is experiencing is fear. Fear of not meeting the standards and norms of a peer group. A misunderstanding of one's own feelings or their misinterpretation can lead in the future - in adult life - to serious life mistakes: you can take for love just a desire to assert oneself at the expense of another, or the desire to be taken care of …

I would especially like to talk about understanding those emotions that often become companions of our pedagogical influences on the child. These emotions sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously, we evoke in children, considering them extremely useful in education. It is about the emotions of shame and guilt.

SHAME

What is shame? In psychology, shame is understood as a negative emotional state generated by the mismatch between what a person should be in accordance with his ideas and the expectations of others, and what he is at the moment.

The emotion of shame at a certain stage of life plays an important and useful role of a brake that prevents us from committing unseemly acts. But how many psychological problems fall on an adult who has failed to overcome the infantilism of this emotion! How much unnecessary pain a child experiences, feeling ashamed: "I am ashamed that my parents are uncivilized (very intelligent)", "I am ashamed that I am so fat (so thin)!", "I am ashamed that I cannot swim (skate on roller skates, dance) "and so on.

The fate of a child is dramatic, whose teachers and parents, for reasons of their own convenience, manipulate his shame, forcing him to act even to his own detriment, if only he “conforms”. The result is a decrease in the child's self-esteem, self-dislike, perception of oneself as something inferior, defective, unworthy of respect and sympathy from others. A person who has “failed” in life can very often find the reasons for his failures in a sense of shame, shyness, but he cannot do anything about his emotional immaturity.

GUILT

Guilt is an emotion much like shame. It is generally accepted that the difference between them is as follows. If a child experiences an emotion, regardless of whether others know about his or her wrongdoing, then we are dealing with shame. If the emotional experience is connected precisely with a mismatch with the expectations of others, then this is guilt.

A person who is constantly experiencing a sense of guilt strives with all his might to meet the expectations of others. Not to mention the dangers of a “guilt complex” that can arise as a result of such behavior, it is worth remembering the statement of one of the American experts: “I don’t know the formula for success. But I know the formula for failure - try to please everyone."

Psychologists have repeatedly drawn attention to the fact that until now many educational methods are based on the techniques of causing the child to feel guilt and shame. For some reason, it is generally accepted that if the kid felt guilty, then we, the parents, carried out an educational influence, and our "object of education" realized everything and "will be corrected." The straightforwardness and naivety of this statement are equivalent only to its fallacy. Feelings of guilt and feelings of shame can have reasons that are completely independent of either our assumptions or the degree to which the child is aware of the wrongdoing. Moreover, it is hardly worth hoping that a child will be able to develop successfully, "spurred on" by negative emotions, in particular, guilt or shame (how can you not recall the sarcastic saying of the ancients: "Scourged by shame, they are attracted to virtue").

The feeling of guilt in a child is most often unconstructive: it can weaken, crush, deprive him of self-confidence and a positive self-attitude, and can include a number of psychological defenses in the form of rudeness, insolence, aggression or alienation. With their help, the child closes his I from external influences. As a result, the relationship of trust between the teacher and the student is destroyed.

POSITIVE ROLE

It is possible that the whip of guilt and other negative emotions will be able to keep a child from one or another reckless step, but it is highly doubtful that negative emotions will become a good ground for the development of a healthy personality.

Psychologists have been talking about this for a long time. As long as the school and the family use the emotions of guilt, shame and fear of punishment as almost the main levers of controlling the child, there will be no need to talk about any meaningful assimilation of values and moral norms, about any harmonious personal development of children. Even with animal training, positive reinforcement has a much greater effect. And for younger schoolchildren, a positive emotional attitude with a general natural background of a joyful and surprised mood is the key to success and motivation for educational activities.

It is unlikely that it will be possible to completely eliminate negative emotions from the lives of children. Yes, this, perhaps, is not necessary. Figuratively speaking, the range of "emotional waves" should be wide enough, but bright and pleasant experiences should become its central part.

In elementary forms of a child's behavior - reactive - the main controlling role belongs to emotions. Babies respond to an external signal with an action or a word, first of all emotionally, and not rationally.

If the child carries out purposeful actions, then motivation takes on the leading role. But it cannot be imagined without a powerful emotional stream. Therefore, psychologists say that motivation is emotion plus direction of action. If there is no emotion, then purposeful activity loses its energy and fades away. There is no direction - only pointless emotionality remains ("For a ship that does not know where to sail, not a single wind will be favorable").

EMOTIONAL FLEXIBILITY

Consequently, for the formation of a child's conscious activity, the development of the emotional sphere becomes an indispensable and extremely important condition.

If a child learns to recognize his own and other people's emotions, to understand their meaning and meaning, this will be a serious step towards mastering his feelings, to developing the skills of arbitrary actions and mental self-regulation.

For the purposeful development of the child's emotional-volitional sphere, the following can be useful:

- training of the necessary forms of behavior when playing out emotionally acute situations;

- elaboration of special techniques for changing one's own states;

- learning how to "release" negative emotions without harm to others (through drawing their feelings, through physical actions, through breathing exercises).

At the same time, you need to know that striving only for a "peaceful" way of expressing emotions with the complete exclusion of all other ways is not always justified. In life, there are collisions when emotional aggression is quite appropriate, and sometimes necessary. In general, we can say that a prescription, unambiguous method of working with the emotional sphere of a child is contraindicated. After all, our behavior should be flexible, appropriate to the circumstances, it is simply impossible to predict all the nuances of which in advance.

In no case should you be a slave to your emotions. We must be able not only to recognize, but also to subdue emotions so that the "flood of feelings" does not erode the foundation of our behavior and does not carry us away like a defenseless, pliable and weightless chip.

It is useful to develop the ability to "get out of the situation" while staying physically in it. A person seems to be looking from the side, from the auditorium to the stage of the performance, in which familiar faces, including himself, participate.

This ability to move away from the situation helps to break free from the grip of their own emotions. If you experience, for example, irritation, you do not need to fight it. Try to "separate" it from yourself. Observe yourself from the outside, find and analyze the cause of its appearance. You can easily see how petty and frivolous this reason is.

Again, we will make a reservation: what has been said does not exclude the possibility in some circumstances to make a decision intuitively, on an emotional level, which sometimes turns out to be more effective.

Igor VACHKOV, PhD in Psychology