This article is addressed to those parents who are not indifferent to their children and think about how to properly educate them. Throughout my parenting experience (I have three children, 4, 7 and 9 years old), I collected bit by bit information about upbringing — books, the Internet, stories of experienced parents.
Gradually, I accumulated a solid baggage of knowledge, methods and practical experience of interacting with children. It worked well for the most part, but there were occasional glitches that I couldn’t figure out. In this article, I want to talk about one very important discovery that happened to me after attending a training for parents.
I came to the training with a fair amount of skepticism. By that time, I had the feeling that I knew about education, if not everything, then quite enough. Behind him were a lot of books read — from the popular «Communicate with a child. How?» Y. Gippenreiter to A. Makarenko’s Pedagogical Poem. And, of course, seven years of experience in raising three children gave me confidence that I can find an answer to any pedagogical question.
At the same time, I had a desire to understand some of the contradictions that I encountered and bring my knowledge into a certain system.
Contradictions in parenting
For example, my children and I devoted a lot of time to discipline — I came up with all kinds of games, posters, competitions in order to teach them to brush their teeth, make the bed and put away toys. Every time I started a new story, I hoped that now I would interest them, they would get used to doing these things every day, and then they would do it themselves, without any effort on my part. But time passed, and as soon as I stopped stimulating them with games, everything returned to normal — in just a week, the children forgot how to brush their teeth, forgot to make the bed on time, and toys accumulated in the corners at a new speed.
At some moments it seemed to me that we were just marking time. Months, years pass, and we are still learning these basic skills! What am I doing wrong?!?
I was lucky that at the training I met an amazing psychologist Marina Konstantinovna Smirnova, who has great knowledge and warmth. I remembered her simple and wise words for a long time: “Your children are great at doing these things, but they don’t know how to remind themselves of these things.”
Indeed, all my games were aimed at ensuring that children did not need to remember. The poster hangs in the most prominent place, you will not pass by it. Mom is always there and will draw attention to the poster: first she will remind you of business, and then ask again about the implementation. Thus, for a long time I trained the skill of «do when you are told.» But the skill of “remembering what needs to be done” was not affected at all!
Consciousness after training
After this realization, I slightly transformed my games. First, we moved from small reminders to large ones. Instead of talking and checking every case, I simply gave the command “Do morning things!” or “Evening chores!”, and the children themselves remembered what exactly they needed to do.
I had to make great efforts to let them sometimes forget something — the habit of “reminding everything and controlling everything” was so strong in me. Then I began to encourage those moments when the child himself remembered and did all the necessary things (thus reinforcing the skill of “remembering things”).
To be honest, I was surprised that even the youngest three-year-old daughter could easily and with pleasure name all her five things, bending her fingers on her hand (brush her teeth, change into pajamas, fold clothes neatly, read a book, drink milk).
Training results
Now I can say that one of the most important results of the training for parents for me was the concept of the goals of education. In the past, most of my parenting routines were born out of a «that’s right» pattern or a desire to make my life easier. Now I look to the future. When I see the ultimate goal of education, it becomes obvious what needs to be done right now.
My goal is not just to instill in the child the habit of putting away toys. I want to instill in him a love of cleanliness. This means that my games will focus on the pleasure of a cleaned room, and not on the threat of punishment. At the same time, I do not want to cultivate an aversion to disorder. And this means that we will treat the moments of inevitable chaos calmly and with humor.
I urge all parents to think about your goals. What qualities do you want to instill in your child? What skills and habits to instill? Let this be your beacon in the abundance of parenting information.
And if you need an inspiring example of lofty parenting goals, come for a consultation with M.K. Smirnova. Her wise advice will help resolve any difficulties with children.