Where Do Difficult Children Come From?

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

Often parents come to me for counseling who consider their children "difficult", uncontrollable, selfish and ask for advice from "how to behave with him" to "fix him, please." Where do these children come from, and how do the parents themselves contribute to their behavior?

Practical example:

During consultations, a mother complains about her son that he became completely unmanageable at the age of 4. He knows no boundaries, does not respect elders, is constantly daring, conflicts in the kindergarten and on the playgrounds are already becoming the rule rather than the exception. I start asking about how their day goes, how the boy behaves at home, who is he still being raised by … It turns out that the boy (let's call him Misha) is being raised by his mother and grandmother. Mom two years ago went through a divorce from dad and now she has directed all her love to her son. He admits that there is a sense of guilt in front of his son (for a divorce from his father, for an incomplete family) and says that he is trying to replace his son with his father and be a mother at the same time. Therefore … when the son shouts that it is “not tasty,” “I want something else,” “from another plate,” that “it’s too salty,” and “it’s not sweet,” the mother runs and does as her child wants. If Misha cries, mom and grandmother give up all their affairs and run to help the boy out of trouble, be it a broken toy or just boredom … They do not want to upset their baby and make his stay with them as comfortable as possible. "Give!" - the kid reaches for expensive things, for a vase, glasses, an expensive figurine on the shelf. How to refuse? He will cry, he will be offended! Well, you can give a look just once and it doesn't matter that the glasses break, and the figurine can accidentally fall out of your hands. Mom doesn't say “no,” when the baby pulls the tablecloth and can break the dishes on the table, she doesn't tell him “you can't pull the cat by the tail, because it hurts,” or “you can't hit the boy on the head with a spatula.” Misha can do anything. Because he is still small. So mom thinks, trying to protect her son from such a big, unfamiliar world, which he will still be destined to get to know … All the tricks of mom and grandmother are tuned to the same wavelength: to distract with a toy, promise to buy a chocolate bar so that Misha does not behave like that … But with everyone year the child becomes more hysterical, demanding, tyrannical.

Perhaps this is an extreme example of a "difficult" child, but very illustrative. And now to the origins. When a baby appears in a family, no matter what he does, it arouses affection on the part of his parents and other relatives. While he is small, his manifestations seem insignificant, and the baby himself is unintelligent. Every minute of his life, this child imitates his parents, becomes like them because of his boundless love for the closest people. The child believes that mom and dad are the good, the smartest and the best, therefore, all the habits of the parents, their values, their character traits are perceived by the child as a role model. But time goes on. And what used to touch the parents becomes an annoying factor and turns into repulsive behavior. Of course, parents contribute to this behavior.

What behavior of the parents makes the child “difficult”?

Permissiveness, no prohibitions. Imagine that you are in a dark room where you cannot see anything and you do not know what is in it. You do not know how the furniture is located there, it is there at all, or maybe there is something dangerous or unpleasant for you. This uncertainty can be scary. This is roughly how a child feels without prohibitions, without boundaries. This is an overwhelming burden for him. He tries in various ways to determine himself in this situation and begins to test this world, the people nearby for strength and tries to find the limit that cannot be crossed. And if you give him this "freedom" he will test it for strength. The child needs boundaries, he needs the words "no". This is how he feels the love of significant people and knows that he is safe no matter what happens. He feels support in his parents, strength and reliability.

The absence of boundaries, prohibitions leads us to the second reason. The child has lack of self-regulation skills … That is, self-restraint skills. He has no experience of external limitations, and the child cannot develop internal limitations, which makes his life difficult. He does not know what it means to "be patient a little" for the sake of something, or to wait, or to think about someone else. Conflicts with peers appear, adaptation to school and kindergarten is more difficult, the child is constantly under stress and is often sick.

Lack of experience of independence and experience in overcoming difficulties. Parents try so hard to please their children that they do everything for them, believing that the child is still small, that he will still learn everything, which is easier (for parents to do than to teach the child something). As time goes on, the child begins to form dependence on his parents, who will do everything for him, and there is no need to strain. He has nothing to strive for, nothing to overcome. He has no problems, since his problem is the problem of the parent, and it is the parent who solves it. And this experience of overcoming is very important in achieving life goals (“I can!). It is also important for the formation of the correct self-esteem of the child, for his self-confidence.

Lack of attention to the child. I have seen children who, in order to attract the attention of busy parents, resort to bad behavior in order to somehow attract attention to themselves. At the same time, they received kicks, reproaches, criticism, condemnation in their address. But for them it was attention. Even in such a perverted, distorted degree.

And the last reason (it was not reflected in the example with the boy, but as practice shows, it is very common). This is lack of uniform requirements and uniform rules for upbringing in the family in relation to the child. When dad says “you can” and mom says “you can’t.” When the child was allowed to watch this program yesterday, and today suddenly my mother is in a bad mood and she forbade turning on the TV. When dad punished for an innocent offense, but at the same time ignored a serious one. When dad teaches me how to fight back, and mom says that fighting is bad. When parents cannot agree at all in their relationship on how to raise a child, and everyone pulls the blanket in their direction, considering only their own opinion to be correct. It is extremely difficult for a child to be in such a situation. Whom to believe? What is right and what is wrong? What to do in a given situation? The child gets confused and begins to behave badly, becoming somewhere "difficult", somewhere uncontrollable, and somewhere completely indifferent.