Whims And Stubbornness

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

Children are not born capricious or stubborn, and this is not their age feature. Such behavioral manifestations cannot be justified by heredity of character, because character is not innate and unchanged, but is formed throughout a person's life. The child becomes capricious as a result of the mistakes of education, due to excessive indulgence and satisfaction of all the desires of the child. Stubbornness is also inherent in spoiled children, accustomed to increased attention, excessive persuasion, but it can also arise when children are often pulled back, shouted at them, and protected with endless prohibitions.

Thus, as a result of an incorrect educational approach, children's whims and stubbornness act either as a method of pressure on others in order to realize their desires, or as a defensive reaction against an excessive stream of "educational" measures.

It is necessary to distinguish manifestations of caprice or stubbornness by children.

Children's whims are a feature of a child's behavior, which is expressed in inappropriate and unreasonable, from the point of view of adults, actions and deeds, in unreasonable opposition to others, resistance to their advice and demands, in an effort to insist on their own, sometimes unsafe and absurd, in the opinion of adults, demand … The external manifestations of children's whims are most often crying and motor excitement, which in severe cases take the form of "hysteria". Whims can be random, episodic in nature and arise as a result of emotional overwork; sometimes they are a sign of physical ailment or act as a kind of irritation reaction to an obstacle or prohibition. At the same time, children's whims often take the form of persistent and habitual behavior with others (especially close adults) and can later become an ingrained character trait.

Normally, it is natural, (although not mandatory), to increase the frequency of whims during periods of developmental crises, when the child is especially sensitive to the influences of adults and their assessments, and it is difficult to tolerate inhibitions on the implementation of their plans. During the period of preschool development, the child experiences 4 age crises:

• crisis of a newborn (1 month of life - adaptation to the outside world); -
• crisis of the first year of life (expansion of living space);
• crisis of three years (separation of oneself from the outside world);
• crisis of seven years ("transition to civil society").

With respectful attitude of adults to the intentions and increased demands of children, children's whims are easily overcome and disappear from the behavior of children without a trace.

Stubbornness is a feature of behavior (in stable forms - a character trait) as a defect in the volitional sphere of a person, expressed in the desire to do his own thing at all costs, contrary to reasonable arguments, requests, advice, instructions from other people, sometimes to the detriment of oneself, contrary to common sense. Stubbornness can be situational, caused by feelings of undeserved resentment or anger, anger, revenge (affective outburst) and constant (non-affective), reflecting a person's personality trait. In childhood, stubbornness can become more frequent in crisis phases of development and act as a specific form of behavior in which dissatisfaction with the authoritarianism of an adult is expressed, suppressing the independence and initiative of the child. This is especially true during the crisis of 3 years, along with the symptom of negativism, stubbornness is noted in children as a peculiar form of building their own idea, which is reduced to a simple opposition to the plans, every initiative emanating from an adult.

Overcoming the negative behavior of children requires adults to clearly define the reason that brought it to life, and accordingly change the style of communication with the child. The most common mistakes of adults that provoke whims and stubbornness are:

1. authoritarianism or overprotection, suppressing the increased initiative and independence of children. In this case, there are "whims of the offended", "stubbornness of the humiliated";
2. caressing the child, indulging all his whims in the complete absence of reasonable requirements ("the whims of the darling", "the stubbornness of the tyrant");
3. lack of care necessary for the child, indifferent (low-emotional) or indistinctly expressed attitude towards positive or negative patterns of behavior and actions of the child, lack of a consistent system of reward and punishment ("whims of the neglected", "stubbornness of the superfluous").

Determining the reasons for the change in the child's behavior helps the adult choose the principles and methods of his own educational influence and behavior in this situation. These include:

• a manifestation of respect for the personality of the child, expressed in an individual approach to him; pedagogical tact in expressing the requirements for a child based on the child's consciousness, pride and its strengths (pride, human dignity);
• promoting the creation of a unity of requirements in the approach to the child by the family and the children's educational institution through conversations and the establishment of constructive contact and mutual understanding;
• reasonable and consistent exactingness of all adults: parents, relatives, teachers, as the ability to be consistent in requirements, as well as to know methods of indirect influence;
• maintaining a calm, favorable psychological climate; the child is more susceptible to pedagogical influences when he is in an atmosphere of positive interpersonal relationships;
• the use of play techniques and humor in everyday practice - as the main ways of correcting children's behavior;
• priority use of incentive methods in correcting children's behavior;
• the use of punishment - as an extreme measure of influence along with other methods of influence: explanation, reminder, censure, showing, etc.;
• the inadmissibility of using physical measures of influence and "methods" of bribery, deception, threats, i.e. achieving obedience at the cost of fear;
• awareness of the inadmissibility of typical mistakes in the practice of family education in the use of polar methods of influencing the child: the absence of requirements - overestimation of requirements, excessive kindness - severity, affection - severity, etc.

The most frequently used methods in pedagogical correction of children's behavior are:

1. IGNORE, i.e. deliberate indifference to manifestations of whim or stubbornness by the child.
2. PEDAGOGICAL DELAY, i.e. calm, clear explanation to the child that now his behavior will not be discussed with him, "we will talk about it later."
3. ATTENTION SWITCHING, to switch the child's attention from the situation that caused the conflict behavior to something else: “look at the bird that flew past the window…”, “do you know what we are going to do with you now…” and so on.
4. PSYCHOLOGICAL PRESSURE, when an adult relies on public opinion and collective pressure: "Ay-yay-yay, just look at how he behaves …" or uses a verbal threat: "I will be forced to take tough measures …", etc.
5. INDIRECT EFFECTS, i.e. exaggerated use of techniques for emotional assessment of a child's behavior; telling psychotherapeutic stories, fairy tales "About a bad boy", "A sloppy girl", "Travel to the land of lazy people", etc.
6. DIRECT CONCUSSION of the child's actions, the expression by an adult of a value judgment about his specific undesirable behavior.
7. PUNISHMENT, in the form of limiting the child's movements: "sit on the chair and think", etc.