It is quite easy and interesting to communicate with children of elementary grades. It is difficult with seventh-graders – they are no longer children, but not yet adults. Ninth graders and tenth graders are almost peers of all ages. Writer Nikolai Kryschuk talks about how important it is not to waste time and understand your children here and now.
In recent weeks, I have talked a lot with schoolchildren of different ages. Waves of Lermontov festivals are going around the country, I was brought to the schoolchildren. And this is what I saw and read clearly, like a doctor probably reads an ECG tape.
It is quite easy to communicate with children of elementary grades, besides it is interesting. These are simple-hearted cunning, vain players, they need to be trained to win and accustomed to love. They easily absorb non-boring didactics and easily turn it into rules of conduct – sincerely and with inspiration, as if they themselves came up with them.
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Fifth graders are different. These are ready to answer any question, meeting you with a forest of raised hands. Because everyone knows. The boys will start talking about lancers, cuirassiers and dragoons, the girls will tell why Lermontov has a blue forest in Borodino. In reality, little is known. But new information is grabbed on the fly. Their pride is satisfied by the activity of communication. There are affectionate and beeches, but most have not yet had time to put on the shell, a smile removes all problems. But the words “inner life” in their presence is better not to pronounce.
It’s hard with seventh graders. Writer Radiy Pogodin spoke about them: mediocre age. No longer children, but not yet adults. Ambition exceeds the possibilities of the mind and abilities. Someone by this time slowed down in development and ceased to be a visitor to the library. Sexual instinct distracts from everyday duties and disturbs vaguely. But nothing has yet taken shape – soul-rending desires, darkness, nervousness.
Ninth graders and tenth graders are almost peers of all ages. You can chat on any topic. Some, however, are overly trusting, others are super-distrustful. Reactions are contrasting – from adoration to sharp opposition. But they hear, even when they don’t want to hear. They tend to seek out formulas and aphorisms that resonate with their beliefs or experience and may contribute to them in later life. No longer an absorbent sponge – they have built up a shell in which you can hide, but the crack, just in case, is left open.
And so I thought: how many lives a person lives in his original time! Good teachers, for example, know the technology and psychology of any age. Whether they can do it is another matter. It is easier for everyone to communicate with any one age. By virtue of their own character and temperament, or because this age is more imprinted in their memory.
And what about parents? Memory for age is mosaic. We remember childhood better, but twelve or fourteen years almost fall out. Then again the memory returns, but in hindsight it seems that we thought better and knew more than our children. Hardly so. And we hardly remember our fleeting reactions at all: what especially offended, frightened, annoyed, what and whom did you fall in love with, what did you kill time for, what did you talk about with each other?
There is no autobahn in life where you can drive fast and fearlessly. We make our way along country roads, we do not want to learn from the mistakes of others. We jump on potholes, then we fall into potholes. And help is needed, sympathy is needed. You can go crazy from the fact that they do not understand us. Parents in this, according to adolescents, are not the first persons, but in reality they are the first. Maybe even the only ones.
Parenting, of course, is not a profession. For many, this is not a calling. But still a duty and a holy, yes, a holy duty. And in our country, at the time of the first third of the life of children, there is still its first half. And their knots are tied, which you want not to cut, but to unravel. And often not at all up to the children.
It’s so strange nature arranged everything. But at the end of life, it is precisely for this omission that we will be responsible in the first place, paying for it. It would be nice to come to your senses early. Be more attentive. Read memoirs and novels about childhood and youth. To understand. There is often more truth in them than we can remember. Books of psychologists and teachers are needed. They have the right to draw conclusions, make diagnoses and give advice.
My proposal is trivial, but following it requires considerable courage and diligence. Especially because we are not yet up to it. And then it will be too late, that’s the point. Grown-up children will begin to bitterly or viciously reproach and teach us. God forbid we learn this science.