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Dear colleagues!
I present to you some reflections on children-leaders and children-followers. As always, your opinions are important to me.
Child Leaders
Some children are leaders from birth. They do not wait for influences and do not obey them, they themselves influence parents and peers, leading their own line and subjugating those around them. Child leaders know what they want, they do not wait for someone — adults or other children — to tell them what they want from them, child leaders immediately declare their desires and their expectations. Children-leaders make those around them — followers.
It is not obvious that the prospects for a child leader are the brightest. Firstly, the child-leader often has conflicts with parents on the basis of the struggle for power. Secondly, if a child leader does not obey smart adults, this makes it difficult for him to get involved in the culture. He may remain an active wild wolf cub with problems in adulthood.
Children-leaders initially take seriously only those who are equal to them in strength or surpass them. However, sometimes they can be caught in manipulation, playing on their desire to prove themselves already big and adult: “Help me, small and weak!”
What paired character traits are usually inherent in child leaders
There is no direct rigid connection: a child-leader means a child-manipulator — no. The leader can be simple-hearted, and the follower can be crafty. At the same time, somewhat more often, child leaders still more often manifest themselves as manipulators: they have more activity and courage, it is profitable to manipulate, and moral guidelines for children come later.
Child leaders are more often Siloviki than Dushki. Follower children often learn to be Dushki.
Slave children
Some children are driven from birth. It is easier for them to get involved in what they are offered than to act as an organizing principle themselves. The led child is controlled either by self-confident adults or by other children, child leaders.
It is not obvious that the prospects of the slave child are necessarily sad, they simply depend largely on what their environment is like. If they are influenced by lazy and narrow-minded parents, the child learns their distant values. If such a child is included in his company by hooligan peers, he is followed by them. If parents teach the guided child independence and responsibility, he learns this and becomes an independent, responsible and culturally developed person. See →
Contrary to popular belief, free upbringing, giving the child complete independence does not at all lead to the development of independence. A child to whom you have given complete independence is just a child left to any other influences. And who is responsible for what they will be?
Independence must be provided in doses so that the child can cope with each portion of independence. And by providing conditions so that the child in a difficult situation does not go through psychological defenses, developing the position of the Victim.
One of the ways of upbringing independence worked out in culture is the army style of upbringing. The child is first taught to obey external orders, and then the leadership of himself is transferred into his own hands.
It seems that it was precisely such mechanisms of formation of volitional qualities that Lev Semenovich Vygodsky had in mind when he formulated the law of the formation of higher mental functions: “Any higher mental function appears on the stage of a person’s life development twice: first as an external, social function, as an interpsychic function, then — as an internal, regulatory function, as the child’s internal way of thinking. Initially, the HMF is divided between the child and the adult, and after that it is internalized, carried out by the child independently. At first, the adult commands, the child learns to follow the commands, then he begins to command himself.
Similarly, according to the conclusions of A.N. Leontiev, «genetically arbitrary actions arise … rather in social subordination than in subordination to objective objective conditions.»
Leontiev loved the anecdote about the officer and the batman. The batman is busy with himself and groans and groans all the time. The officer asks: “Ivan, what are you groaning there for?” — «I’m very thirsty.» — «Go, get drunk.» — «I don’t feel like going.» Some time passed, the officer in a service tone says to him: «Ivan.» «I’m listening, your honor,» the batman replies. «Go get a glass of water.» Runs, brings a glass of water. The officer says, «Drink.» He drank and calmed down.
If the officer achieves that the batman will obey him unquestioningly, then it will be enough for him to give the command: “Do not be lazy, be active and independent!” — and the batman will change his style of behavior. Perhaps for the rest of your life.
Once again, good luck everyone!
Sincerely, prof. Nikolay Ivanovich Kozlov