Crisis of seven years, early adolescence in children – psychologist

“This is something unbearable: she slams the door, is rude, shouts. If a look could kill, it seems to me that I would have died long ago ”- such a letter came to the editorial office of healthy-food-near-me.com.

Do you think this mom is complaining about her 13-year-old daughter? Alas. They are still far from the transitional age in its classical understanding. Now the girl is only in the second grade.

“I give her the floor – she’s me ten. I remark to her – she snaps, ”our reader worries.

Someone will say: the mother has dismissed the child, she does not know how to educate, so she is reaping the benefits. But in reality, everything is much more complicated. More and more parents are horrified when their elementary school students behave like teenagers during the height of hormonal storms.

Moms and dads unanimously say: children grow up early. Too early. Why is that? With this question, we went to a specialist.

You need to be prepared for the fact that adolescence now comes not at 12-13, but at 8-9. This happens for a number of reasons. Firstly, today’s children are influenced by a huge information flow, which is pointless to block. Secondly, nutrition: defective, genetically modified. It affects the chemical composition of the body, and hormonal changes begin earlier. Then the intellectual reason – early development, which parents love so much, affects the accelerated growth of children, including at the physical level. And, of course, there is a social reason: parents themselves include children in an adult social circle, sort out relationships with them, or include material and monetary values ​​in their upbringing. All this is neither good nor bad, but this is a reason for the parents of primary school students to keep their finger on the pulse now, to develop together with their children and be ready to adapt to them.

I myself have a seven-year-old son. It seems that when he went to school, he was simply replaced. Maybe he got the deceptive impression that he was already an adult. After all, he was told so many times that school is a new stage. Maybe it was we who treated him so friendly that he decided that he had the right to talk with us on the same wavelength. Be that as it may, his sense of subordination has been completely lost.

“Please clean up your room,” I ask politely and calmly.

“Why are you making me clean up all the time? – an explosion of emotions in response. – You do not love me! You don’t need me! “

And slammed the door in front of my nose. Let me remind you, first class. Seven years.

“Maybe you’ll go looking for another family? – I explode in response to another scandal out of the blue. – Well, since you are so bad with us.

“Maybe I’ll go!”

Of course, it all ends in tears and “Mommy, please forgive me.” He says that there will be no more, and I know for sure: there will be. Will ignore my requests until I start yelling and threatening punishment. And then cry again and apologize again. Groundhog day.

They seem to already feel like adults, but they do not understand: if I am an adult, then how should I behave. What else is cute and what is already impolite? Hence the rebellion and difficult questions (“Why brush your teeth if they are milky and will fall out anyway?”). Hence the difficulties with borders. The child has his own opinion, and, like any person, he defends it. If the parent shows a tough, rigid position (“I am an adult, and therefore I will eat nuggets, and you are a child, and therefore eat your broccoli”), then he will run into a negative response from the child. Including threats to leave home.

“I have the impression that she deliberately provokes me, – this is my friend complaining about my first-grader daughter. – Looking for any clue to make a scandal. As if pleasure gets from my powerlessness. I can’t compare her age and her behavior, and I don’t even know how to adequately react to it all. At the same time, she already speaks like an adult. If you close your eyes and do not see that there is a child in front of you, you can give her 12 years old by speech and reasoning ”.

A generation of spoiled children? Those whom you love? Have you thrashed with a belt? But, it would seem, goodness should bring people closer together. And it is the other way around.

“He’s like a rough teenager: he just breaks all our tenderness, and this boy is not even seven yet. But the parents are already in despair. We see a crumb in front of us, but we hear the speech of an adult guy. And sometimes even real anger. In the eyes – hatred and contempt. But we know that he is an affectionate child in himself. “

The psychologist says that there is also a physiological moment: not only the child’s consciousness is changing, but also the body. Moreover, he is already fully aware of these changes.

No wonder they talk about the crisis of seven years. At this age, the child masters a new activity, study. Physical changes also take place: he grows, his teeth change. And yet another important problem arises: he has exhausted the possibilities of children’s games, but he has not yet mastered new ones. Now he needs to understand more what and how it works, and he reaches out for this to adults. And if the adult is “closed”, the child develops jealousy and resentment: how does he miss all the important secrets from the world of adults.