Be Efficient! Child As A Parent Project

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

The modern world today is engulfed in the idea of success. "Be effective!" - this is the motto of our days. You must be successful always and everywhere: at work, in the family, in your love life, in spending your leisure time.

We also want to succeed in raising our children. And what in the matter of raising a child will testify to the effectiveness of parents? First of all, these are the child's achievements, they are visible to both parents and others. And today, any conquests become the goal, and sometimes the whole life of the parents.

Of course, the parent project has existed at all times. Every parent wants a good future for their child. But the fact that today the pursuit of success has turned into a tyrannical idea for many families is already an indisputable fact. A huge number of modern parents are investing more and more in growing up children. They invest energy, time, love. The child becomes a project, just like in business. Money is invested in this project, apparently in the hope of receiving dividends. But what else besides money are parents trying to get and how does this affect the child?

In this project, parents quite often try to find a solution to their problems. For example, it was not possible to fulfill the desired, and mom or dad wants their child to make their unfulfilled dreams come true.

When a child becomes the center of parental care, and I am talking about excessive care, the parents refuse to see a separate person in their child. Thus, the child is perceived as a part of himself. Undoubtedly, a child is to some extent an extension of his parents - he is similar to them, he is a continuation of the family, hope and support in old age. But a growing person is not only that, it is a separate person with his own desires, problems and his own solutions. At some point, the parent must be able to step back and give the child space, give the opportunity to find his desire.

Desire is hard to find if you are already someone else's project. And it is very difficult to defend it if you are an object of close control and attention. In this case, the child may simply not fit into the parental project with his desire.

Parents, driven by noble motives, always rational, decisively guide their son or daughter along the path they have chosen. And as children start to rebel, parents are forced to include tight control. In English-speaking countries, for parents who are too focused on their child, they even invented a special term - "helicopter parents" - "helicopter parents". Such parents literally hang over their children, checking, protecting and anticipating their desires. This total control and the absence of any kind of freedom, by the way mutual, hinders both the child and the parents.

I must say that today the project starts from a very young age, from early development. Then the field of care goes to school, and the learning of today's schoolchildren is akin to an ongoing battle for success. Feeling the anxiety of their parents who dream and demand excellent educational results, children from an early age unwittingly bear this emotional burden, which can affect their future. Further, parents are investing more and more financial savings, mental strength. This project includes everything - from participation in sports tournaments and music competitions to admission to a prestigious university - the achievements of children should confirm the effectiveness of investments, and therefore the success and effectiveness of the parents themselves.

The psychoanalytic position in relation to desire is as follows: the desire of the subject arises from and is determined by the desire of the other - primarily the mother and father. Desire is triggered in response to deprivation, frustration. The child must face a lack in order for his thinking to start. He should ask himself the question "what am I missing?" Today, in our practice, we meet with children who find it very difficult to say what he wants. It turns out that in life, despite the fact that the child is the little king of the family, when all his needs are fulfilled, he does not have his own desire.

When a child is a project of his parents, he becomes a narcissistic continuation of his parents. This is sometimes an unbearable position for both sides. For parents - because they live for the sake of their children, neglecting their lives, their desires, their happiness. And children - they are strangled and doomed to fulfill the requirements of their parents, or to correct their mistakes.

Children and parents become prisoners of this situation. They are literally merged with each other. In this case, the successes and failures of children are perceived as their own failures and failures. For many, this becomes a tragedy and leads to disappointment in the child. Alas, this growing man has not fulfilled his destiny. For the child, this becomes a prototype of the ability to survive their failures. It is the parent who teaches the little son or daughter to cope with the difficulties of life, to be able to survive failures, mistakes, not to be afraid of defeat and go forward.

Another feature of the parenting project is the inflated ideal self of the child. After all, from childhood, the baby is told that he is the very best. As a result of overestimated expectations, children develop a sense of their own exclusivity, dependence on success, and, as a consequence, fear of failure and error. The child becomes a hostage to the child's omnipotence, which is fed by adults.

The child has several strategies for getting out of this relationship. This is a protest that usually begins in adolescence. It is aggressiveness that helps to separate from parents, to push them aside in the literal sense. Then the teenager has the opportunity to work out his own project for the future.

The second strategy is depression, resignation, and as a result, the child says: “I can't. I am not capable. He refuses to try, to act.

And the third is the production of a symptom. A symptom is the ability to say something that cannot be expressed. For example, through behavior, which today is presented as hyperactive, aggressive, through the body or through study. Only in this way, through a symptom, can a child declare his disagreement, express his suffering. The task of the psychoanalyst is to be able to hear subjective suffering, to support the maturing person in an effort to find their desire and help parents hear their child.

It must be said that many parents overestimate their influence when trying to direct their child on the right path. It is impossible to forcibly "make" another person and the project may end in failure.

Fortunately, there are no ready-made recipes for raising children or living in a family. It is impossible to create the perfect child and therefore it is impossible to become the perfect parent. It is impossible to build a child's life without limitations, sorrows, worries. It would be nice for a parent to teach a child to cope with problems. Probably, this is exactly what the parent project should consist of. In any case, this remains a personal matter for each married couple, and let each parent, not succumbing to the trends of the times, seek his own harmony in relations with children.