The home world for a child is always a fusion of the object-spatial environment of the house, family relationships, and their own experiences and fantasies tied to things and people inhabiting the house. One can never assume in advance what exactly in the world of the home will be the most important for the child, what will remain in his memory and affect his future life. Sometimes these are, it would seem, purely external signs of a dwelling. But if they are associated with deep experiences of a personal and ideological nature, then they begin to predetermine life choices.
It turns out that almost all children tend to fantasize about their home and almost every child has favorite «objects of meditation», focusing on which he plunges into his dreams. Going to bed, someone looks at a spot on the ceiling that looks like the head of a bearded uncle, someone — a pattern on the wallpaper, reminiscent of funny animals, and thinks something about them. One girl said that a deer skin hung over her bed, and every evening, lying in bed, she stroked her deer and composed another story about his adventures.
Inside a room, apartment or house, the child identifies for himself his favorite places where he plays, dreams, retires. If you are in a bad mood, you can hide under a hanger with a whole bunch of coats, hide there from the whole world and sit like in a house. Or crawl under a table with a long tablecloth and press your back against a warm radiator.
You can look for interest in a small window from the corridor of an old apartment, overlooking the back stairs — what can be seen there? — and imagine what could be seen there if suddenly …
There are frightening places in the apartment that the child tries to avoid. Here, for example, is a small brown door in a niche in the kitchen, adults put food there, in a cool place, but for a five-year-old child this can be the most terrible place: blackness gapes behind the door, it seems that there is a failure into some other world, where something terrible can come from. On his own initiative, the child will not approach such a door and will not open it for anything.
One of the biggest problems of children’s fantasizing is related to the underdevelopment of self-awareness in a child. Because of this, he often cannot distinguish what is reality and what is his own experiences and fantasies that have enveloped this object, stuck to it. In general, adults have this problem too. But in children, such a fusion of the real and the fantasy can be very strong and gives the child many difficulties.
At home, a child can simultaneously coexist in two different realities — in the familiar world of surrounding objects, where adults control and protect the child, and in an imaginary own world superimposed on top of everyday life. He is also real to the child, but invisible to other people. Accordingly, it is not available for adults. Although the same objects can be in both worlds at once, having, however, different essences there. It seems to be just a black coat hanging, but you look — as if someone is scary.
In this world, adults will protect the child, they cannot help in that, since they do not enter there. Therefore, if it becomes scary in that world, you need to quickly run into this one, and even shout loudly: “Mom!” Sometimes the child himself does not know at what moment the scenery will change and he will fall into the imaginary space of another world — this happens unexpectedly and instantly. Of course, this happens more often when adults are not around, when they do not keep the child in everyday reality with their presence, conversation.
For most children, the absence of parents at home is a difficult moment. They feel abandoned, defenseless, and the usual rooms and things without adults, as it were, begin to live their own special life, become different. This happens at night, in the dark, when the dark, hidden sides of the life of curtains and wardrobes, clothes on a hanger and strange, unrecognizable objects that the child did not notice before are revealed.
If mom has gone to the store, then some children are afraid to move in the chair even during the day until she comes. Other children are especially afraid of portraits and posters of people. One eleven-year-old girl told her friends how afraid she was of the Michael Jackson poster hanging on the inside of her room door. If the mother left the house, and the girl did not have time to leave this room, then she could only sit huddled on the sofa until her mother arrived. It seemed to the girl that Michael Jackson was about to step down from the poster and strangle her. Her friends nodded sympathetically — her anxiety was understandable and close. The girl did not dare to remove the poster or open her fears to her parents — it was they who hung it. They really liked Michael Jackson, and the girl is «big and should not be afraid.»
The child feels defenseless if, as it seems to him, he is not loved enough, often condemned and rejected, left alone for a long time, with random or unpleasant people, left alone in an apartment where there are somewhat dangerous neighbors.
Even an adult with persistent childhood fears of this kind is sometimes more afraid of being alone at home than walking alone along a dark street.
Any weakening of the parental protective field, which should reliably envelop the child, causes anxiety in him and a feeling that the impending danger will easily break through the thin shell of the physical home and reach it. It turns out that for a child, the presence of loving parents seems to be a stronger shelter than all the doors with locks.
Since the topic of home security and scary fantasies are relevant for almost all children of a certain age, they are reflected in children’s folklore, in traditional scary stories passed down orally from generation to generation of children.
One of the most widespread stories throughout Russia tells how a certain family with children lives in a room where there is a suspicious stain on the ceiling, wall or floor — red, black or yellow. Sometimes it is discovered when moving to a new apartment, sometimes one of the family members will accidentally put it on — for example, a teacher mom dripped red ink on the floor. Usually the heroes of the horror story try to scrub or wash this stain, but they fail. At night, when all family members fall asleep, the stain reveals its sinister essence.
At midnight, it begins to slowly grow, becoming large, like a hatch. Then the stain opens, from there a huge red, black or yellow (according to the color of the stain) hand protrudes, which, one after another, from night to night, takes all family members into the stain. But one of them, more often a child, still manages to “follow” the hand, and then he runs and declares to the police. On the last night, the policemen ambush, hide under the beds, and put a doll instead of a child. He also sits under the bed. When a hand grabs this doll at midnight, the police jump out, take it away and run to the attic, where they discover a witch, a bandit or a spy. It was she who pulled the magic hand or he pulled his mechanical hand with a motor to drag family members to the attic, where they were killed or even eaten by her (him). In some cases, police officers immediately shoot the villain and family members immediately come to life.
It is dangerous not to close doors and windows, making the house accessible to evil forces, for example, in the form of a black sheet flying through the city. This is the case with forgetful or rebellious children who leave doors and windows open in defiance of an order from their mother or a voice on the radio warning them of impending danger.
A child, the hero of a horror story, can only feel secure if there are no holes in his house—not even potential stains—that could open up as a passage to the outside world full of dangers.
«I will look at her and … dare!»
Situation.
Three-year-old Denis settled comfortably in his bed.
“Dad, I already covered myself with a blanket!”
Denis pulled the blanket up to his very nose and furtively glanced at the bookshelf: there, in the very middle, there was a huge book in a glossy cover. And from this bright cover, Baba Yaga looked at Deniska, screwing up her eyes maliciously.
… The bookstore was located right on the territory of the zoo. For some reason, out of all the covers — with lions and antelopes, elephants and parrots — it was this one that attracted Deniska: it frightened and attracted the eye at the same time. “Denis, let’s take something about the life of animals,” his dad persuaded him. But Deniska, as if spellbound, looked at the «Russian Fairy Tales» …
Let’s start with the first one, shall we? — Dad went to the shelf and was about to take the «terrible» book.
No, you don’t have to read! It’s better to tell the story about Baba Yaga like I met her at the zoo and… and… won!!!
— You’re scared? Maybe remove the book altogether?
— No, let her stand … I will look at her and … grow bolder! ..
Comment.
Great example! Children tend to come up with all sorts of horror stories and themselves find an opportunity to overcome their fear. Apparently, this is how the child learns to master his emotions. Remember children’s horror stories about a variety of scary hands that appear at night, about mysterious aunts who travel in yellow (black, purple) suitcases. Horror stories — in the tradition of children’s subculture, let’s even say, an integral part of children’s folklore and … a child’s worldview.
Pay attention, the kid himself asked to tell a fairy tale where he defeats her, in fact, he wanted to live this situation — the situation of victory. In general, a fairy tale is a wonderful opportunity for a child to model his own life. It is no coincidence that all children’s fairy tales, which came from the depths of centuries, are inherently kind, moralistic, and fair. They seem to outline for the child the contours of behavior, following which he will be successful, effective as a person. Of course, when we say “successful”, we do not mean commercial or career success – we are talking about personal success, about spiritual harmony.
It seems dangerous for children to bring into the house from the outside foreign objects that are alien to the home world. The misfortunes of the heroes of another well-known plot of horror stories begin when one of the family members buys and brings into the house a new thing: black curtains, a white piano, a portrait of a woman with a red rose, or a figurine of a white ballerina. At night, when everyone is asleep, the ballerina’s hand will reach out and prick with a poisoned needle at the end of her finger, the woman from the portrait will want to do the same, the black curtains will strangle, and the witch will crawl out of the white piano.
True, these horrors occur in horror stories only if the parents are gone — to the cinema, to visit, to work the night shift — or fall asleep, which equally deprives their children of protection and opens access to evil.
What in early childhood is a personal experience of the child gradually becomes the material of the collective consciousness of the child. This material is worked out by children in group situations of telling scary stories, fixed in the texts of children’s folklore and passed on to the next generations of children, becoming a screen for their new personal projections.
If we compare the perception of the border of the house in the cultural and psychological tradition of children and in the folk culture of adults, we can see an undeniable similarity in the understanding of windows and doors as places of communication with the outside world that are especially dangerous for a resident of the house. Indeed, in the folk tradition it was believed that it was on the border of the two worlds that chthonic forces were concentrated — dark, formidable, alien to man. Therefore, traditional culture paid special attention to the magical protection of windows and doors — openings to the outer space. The role of such protection, embodied in architectural forms, was played, in particular, by the patterns of platbands, lions at the gate, etc.
But for children’s consciousness, there are other places of potential breakthroughs of a rather thin protective shell of the house into the space of another world. Such existential «holes» for the child arise where there are local violations of the homogeneity of surfaces that attract his attention: spots, unexpected doors, which the child perceives as hidden passages to other spaces. As our polls show, most often, children are afraid of closets, pantries, fireplaces, mezzanines, various doors in the walls, unusual small windows, paintings, spots and cracks at home. Children are frightened by the holes in the toilet bowl, and even more so by the wooden “glasses” of village latrines. The child also reacts to some closed objects that have a capacity inside and can become a container for another world and its dark forces: cabinets, from where coffins on wheels leave in horror stories; suitcases where gnomes live; the space under the bed where dying parents sometimes ask their children to put them after death, or the inside of a white piano where a witch lives under a lid.
In children’s scary stories, it even happens that a bandit jumps out of a new box and takes the poor heroine there too. The real disproportion of the spaces of these objects is of no importance here, since the events of the children’s story take place in the world of mental phenomena, where, as in a dream, the physical laws of the material world do not operate. In mental space, for example, as we see in children’s horror stories, something increases or decreases in size in accordance with the amount of attention that is directed to this object.
So, for individual children’s terrible fantasies, the motif of the child’s removal or falling out of the world of the House into the Other Space through a certain magical opening is characteristic. This motif is reflected in various ways in the products of the collective creativity of children — the texts of children’s folklore. But it is also widely found in children’s literature. For example, as a story about a child leaving inside a picture hanging on the wall of his room (the analogue is inside a mirror; let’s remember Alice in the Looking Glass). As you know, whoever hurts, he talks about it. Add to this — and listens to it with interest.
The fear of falling into another world, which is metaphorically presented in these literary texts, has real grounds in the psychology of children. We remember that this is an early childhood problem of the fusion of two worlds in the child’s perception: the world of the visible and the world of mental events projected onto it, like on a screen. The age-related cause of this problem (we do not consider pathology) is the lack of mental self-regulation, the lack of formation of the mechanisms of self-awareness, estrangement, in the old way — sobriety, which make it possible to distinguish one from the other and cope with the situation. Therefore, a sensible and somewhat mundane being, bringing the child back to reality, is usually an adult.
In this sense, as a literary example, the chapter «A Hard Day» from the famous book by the Englishwoman P. L. Travers «Mary Poppins» will be of interest to us.
On that bad day, Jane — the little heroine of the book — did not go well at all. She spat so much with everyone at home that her brother, who also became her victim, advised Jane to leave home so that someone would adopt her. Jane was left home alone for her sins. And as she burned with indignation against her family, she was easily lured into their company by three boys, painted on an ancient dish that hung on the wall of the room. Note that Jane’s departure to the green lawn to the boys was facilitated by two important points: Jane’s unwillingness to be in the home world and a crack in the middle of the dish, formed from an accidental blow inflicted by a girl. That is, her home world cracked and the food world cracked, as a result of which a gap was formed through which Jane got into another space.
The boys invited Jane to leave the lawn through the forest to the old castle where their great-grandfather lived. And the longer it went on, the worse it got. Finally, it dawned on her that she was lured, they would not let her go back, and there was nowhere to return, since there was another, ancient time. In relation to him, in the real world, her parents had not yet been born, and her House Number Seventeen in Cherry Lane had not yet been built.
Jane screamed at the top of her lungs: “Mary Poppins! Help! Mary Poppins!» And, despite the resistance of the inhabitants of the dish, strong hands, fortunately turned out to be the hands of Mary Poppins, pulled her out of there.
— Oh, it’s you! Jane murmured. «I thought you didn’t hear me!» I thought I would have to stay there forever! I thought…
“Some people,” said Mary Poppins, gently lowering her to the floor, “think too much. Undoubtedly. Wipe your face, please.
She handed her handkerchief to Jane and began setting dinner.
So, Mary Poppins fulfilled her function as an adult, brought the girl back to reality. And now Jane is already enjoying the comfort, warmth and peace that emanates from familiar household items. The experience of horror goes far, far away.
But Travers’s book would never have become the favorite of many generations of children around the world if it had ended so prosaically. Telling her brother in the evening the story of her adventure, Jane again looked at the dish and found there visible signs that both she and Mary Poppins had really been in that world. On the green lawn of the dish lay Mary’s dropped scarf with her initials, and the knee of one of the drawn boys remained tied with Jane’s handkerchief. That is, it is still true that two worlds coexist — this one and that one. You just need to be able to get back from there. While the children — the heroes of the book — Mary Poppins helps in this. Moreover, together with her they often find themselves in very strange situations, from which it is rather difficult to recover. But Mary Poppins is strict and disciplined. She knows how to show the child where he is in an instant.
Since the reader is repeatedly informed in Travers’s book that Mary Poppins was the best educator in England, we can also use her teaching experience.
In the context of Travers’ book, being in that world means not only the world of fantasy, but also the child’s excessive immersion in his own mental states, from which he cannot get out on his own — in emotions, memories, etc. What needs to be done to return a child from that world into the situation of this world?
Mary Poppins’ favorite technique was to abruptly switch the child’s attention and fix it on some specific object of the surrounding reality, forcing it to do something quickly and responsibly. Most often, Mary draws the attention of the child to his own bodily self. So she tries to return the soul of the pupil, hovering in an unknown where, to the body: «Comb your hair, please!»; “Your shoelaces are untied again!”; «Go wash up!»; «Look how your collar lies!».