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Finally, your child is exactly three. He is already almost independent: he walks, runs and talks … He can be trusted with a lot of things himself. Your demands involuntarily increase. He is trying to help you in everything.
And suddenly … suddenly … Something happens to your pet. It changes right before our eyes. And most importantly, for the worse. As if someone replaced the child and instead of a compliant, soft and pliable man, like plasticine, he slipped you a harmful, wayward, stubborn, capricious creature.
“Marinochka, please bring a book,” Mom asks affectionately.
“Not Plyness,” Marinka replies firmly.
— Give, granddaughter, I will help you, — as always, the grandmother offers.
“No, I myself,” the granddaughter stubbornly objects.
— Let’s go for a walk.
— Will not go.
— Go to dinner.
— I do not want.
— Let’s listen to a story.
— I will not…
And so the whole day, week, month, and sometimes even a year, every minute, every second … As if the house is no longer a baby, but some kind of “nervous rattle”. He refuses what he always liked very much. He does everything to spite everyone, he shows disobedience in everything, even to the detriment of his own interests. And how offended when his pranks are stopped … He double-checks any prohibitions. Either he starts reasoning, then he stops talking altogether … Suddenly he refuses the pot … like a robot, programmed, without listening to questions and requests, answers everyone: “no”, “I can’t”, “I don’t want”, “I won’t”. “When will these surprises finally end? the parents ask. — What to do with him? Uncontrollable, selfish, stubborn .. He wants everything himself, but he still doesn’t know how. “Don’t Mom and Dad understand that I don’t need their help?” — the kid thinks, asserting his «I». “Don’t they see how smart I am, how beautiful I am! I am the best!» — the child admires himself during the period of «first love» for himself, experiencing a new dizzying feeling — «I myself!» He distinguished himself as «I» among the many people around him, opposed himself to them. He wants to emphasize his difference from them.
— «I myself!»
— «I myself!»
— «I myself» …
And this statement of the «I-system» is the basis of the personality by the end of early childhood. The leap from realist to dreamer ends with the «age of stubbornness.» With stubbornness, you can turn your fantasies into reality and defend them.
At the age of 3, children expect the family to recognize independence and independence. The child wants to be asked for his opinion, to be consulted. And he can’t wait for it to be sometime in the future. He just doesn’t understand the future tense yet. He needs everything at once, immediately, now. And he is trying at any cost to gain independence and assert himself in victory, even if it brings inconvenience due to a conflict with loved ones.
The increased needs of a three-year-old child can no longer be satisfied by the former style of communication with him, and the former way of life. And in protest, defending his «I», the baby behaves «contrary to his parents», experiencing contradictions between «I want» and «I must.»
But we are talking about the development of the child. And every process of development, in addition to slow changes, is also characterized by abrupt transitions-crises. The gradual accumulation of changes in the child’s personality is replaced by violent fractures — after all, it is impossible to reverse development. Imagine a chick that has not yet hatched from an egg. How safe is he there. And yet, even though instinctively, he destroys the shell in order to get out. Otherwise, he would simply suffocate under it.
Our guardianship for a child is the same shell. He is warm, comfortable and safe to be under her. At some point he needs it. But our baby grows, changing from the inside, and suddenly the time comes when he realizes that the shell interferes with growth. Let the growth be painful … and yet the child no longer instinctively, but consciously breaks the “shell” in order to experience the vicissitudes of fate, to know the unknown, to experience the unknown. And the main discovery is the discovery of oneself. He is independent, he can do anything. But … due to the age possibilities, the baby cannot do without a mother. And he is angry with her for this and «revenges» with tears, objections, whims. He cannot hide his crisis, which, like needles on a hedgehog, sticks out and is directed only against adults who are always next to him, look after him, warn all his desires, not noticing and not realizing that he can already do anything. do it yourself. With other adults, with peers, brothers and sisters, the child is not even going to conflict.
According to psychologists, a baby at the age of 3 is going through one of the crises, the end of which marks a new stage of childhood — preschool childhood.
Crises are necessary. They are like the driving force of development, its peculiar steps, the stages of change in the leading activity of the child.
At the age of 3, role-playing becomes the leading activity. The child begins to play adults and imitate them.
An unfavorable consequence of crises is the increased sensitivity of the brain to environmental influences, the vulnerability of the central nervous system due to deviations in the restructuring of the endocrine system and metabolism. In other words, the climax of the crisis is both a progressive, qualitatively new evolutionary leap and a functional imbalance that is unfavorable for the health of the child.
Functional imbalance is also supported by the rapid growth of the child’s body, the increase in its internal organs. The adaptive-compensatory capabilities of the child’s body are reduced, children are more susceptible to diseases, especially neuropsychiatric ones. While the physiological and biological transformations of the crisis do not always attract attention, changes in the behavior and character of the baby are noticeable to everyone.
How parents should behave during the crisis of a child of 3 years
By the one to whom the crisis of a child of 3 years is directed, one can judge his attachments. As a rule, the mother is at the center of events. And the main responsibility for the correct way out of this crisis rests with her. Remember that the baby suffers from the crisis himself. But the crisis of 3 years is an important stage in the mental development of the child, marking the transition to a new stage of childhood. Therefore, if you see that your pet has changed very dramatically, and not for the better, try to develop the right line of your behavior, become more flexible in educational activities, expand the rights and obligations of the baby and, within reason, let him taste independence in order to enjoy it. .
Know that the child does not just disagree with you, he tests your character and finds weaknesses in it in order to influence them in defending his independence. He checks with you several times a day whether what you forbid him is really forbidden, and maybe it is possible. And if there is even the slightest possibility of “it is possible”, then the child achieves his goal not from you, but from dad, grandparents. Don’t get mad at him for it. And it is better to balance the right rewards and punishments, affection and severity, while not forgetting that the «egoism» of the child is naive. After all, it was we, and no one else, who taught him that any of his desires is like an order. And suddenly — for some reason it is impossible, something is forbidden, something is denied to him. We have changed the system of requirements, and it is difficult for a child to understand why.
And he says “no” to you in retaliation. Don’t be mad at him for it. After all it is your usual word when you bring it up. And he, considering himself independent, imitates you. Therefore, when the desires of the baby far exceed the real possibilities, find a way out in a role-playing game, which from the age of 3 becomes the leading activity of the child.
For example, your child does not want to eat, although he is hungry. You don’t beg him. Set the table and put the bear on the chair. Imagine that the bear came to have dinner and really asks the baby, as an adult, to try if the soup is too hot, and, if possible, feed him. The child, like a big one, sits down next to the toy and, unnoticed by himself, while playing, eats up lunch completely with the bear.
At 3 years old, a child’s self-assertion is flattered if you personally call him on the phone, send letters from another city, ask for his advice, or give him some “adult” gifts such as a ballpoint pen for writing.
For the normal development of the baby, it is desirable during the crisis of 3 years for the child to feel that all the adults in the house know that next to them is not a baby, but their equal comrade and friend.
Crisis of a child of 3 years. Recommendations for parents
During the crisis of three years, the child discovers for the first time that he is the same person as others, in particular, like his parents. One of the manifestations of this discovery is the appearance in his speech of the pronoun «I» (previously he spoke of himself only in the third person and called himself by name, for example, he said about himself: «Misha fell»). A new awareness of oneself is also manifested in the desire to imitate adults in everything, to become completely equal with them. The child begins to demand that he be put to bed at the same time that adults go to bed, he strives to dress and undress on his own, like them, even if he does not know how to do this. See →