Politeness — or spiritual sensitivity?
The author of the article is Simon Soloveichik, excerpts from the article “Should a child be taught politeness?”
You don’t need to be an expert to notice: habits (skills) and abilities come to people in different ways. Skills are taught, abilities are developed. Habit is associated with automatism, ability — with a creative attitude to life. What is useful for habit formation is most often harmful for the development of abilities, and vice versa.
You came to visit, brought a gift to a little boy. «What should I say?» Mom strictly reminds me. «Thank you,» the son grumbles. Having said this one «magic word», he seemed to have settled with the guest. He seems to have no need now to express gratitude with a smile, joy. The habit of courtesy has become stronger, the hearing of the heart has become dull… A hundred or a thousand such exercises will leave no trace of this precious natural property.
It seems to me that not every child can simultaneously learn to be polite and develop heart hearing. For the rules of politeness are precisely designed to ensure that a person, for example, expresses gratitude, even if he does not feel it. By prematurely teaching a son or daughter to express feelings in words that he does not yet experience, we can drown out these feelings forever.
Why do we, for example, force a child to say «thank you»? I think, most often, to look good in front of people, to show the upbringing of a son or daughter.
Education of politeness is so similar to education! But I am sure: true education occurs when and only when we have to give at least a drop of spiritual strength.
In order for a child to learn to feel another, it is necessary to recognize this other in him. So mom decided to cultivate industriousness: “Give … Bring … Help …” Teaches love: “I’m so tired … Have pity on mom … Show how you love mom … Who do you love more — mom or dad?» What example does he see before him from the first days of his life? There is always a person in front of him (yes, such an authoritative one — mom!), Who constantly complains, gets tired, needs help, cannot go and take a thimble himself, does not consider it shameful to make trifling requests every minute. So, I can also complain, make it difficult for others and, if it hurts, loudly announce my pain — let my mother suffer too!
I think in such a family the child will never understand: complaining to those who love you is shameless. Do not complicate people in anything, do not upset them with your troubles, do it yourself if possible! This lesson should be taught by us adults. Well, if we ask the child for something, we will tell him not one, but ten “please”, so that he sees how difficult it is to ask, make it difficult, and therefore, so that he cannot refuse the request. If we make a remark to a child, we seem to be correcting his behavior, but sometimes we dull his heart hearing.
A female engineer told me about her two small children:
“I try to teach them to give back. They will learn to take…
And indeed, her four-year-old daughter comes to visit with her mother with nothing more than a gift in her hands: her mother managed to make it so that the girl is pleased to give, give and enjoy someone else’s joy.
In our usual view, a warm-hearted person is primarily responsive to the pain of others. It was hard for people to live, and in the language there remained: “compassion”, “compassion”, “sympathy”. But there is no “co-joy” in the language. More often I would like to hear a heartfelt: “I am happy for you,” rather than: “I envy you.”
We will teach the child to rejoice for others, and to rejoice disinterestedly, not correlating other people’s success with their own failures. If the daughter says that an excellent student has appeared in the class, we will be sincerely happy for an unfamiliar girl and will not rush to reproach: “You see? And you?» With examples in general, you need to be more careful. Setting a peer as an example, we most often arouse not a desire to imitate, but envy.
The cultivation of the hearing of the heart requires moral silence. In the boiler shop — what is the rumor?
A father with a first-grade son comes up to the house, warns: “We won’t call — mom is sick. Let’s open the door with the key.
Great lesson…
But the father did not have time to finish, as the son pressed the call button. And then: — Whom did I tell? Parasite!
Where there was enough grief, there is unnecessary irritation.
But for a well-bred child, the punishment is a barely noticeable surprise in the voice of the elder, a slightly raised eyebrow: “But what is the matter with you, dear?” If parents have to reprimand, make comments, condemn the child, then education has taken a dangerous direction. The child should hear the grief of the elders with his ear of the heart. When this grief pours out into words, into reproaches, into reproaches, the hearing of the heart becomes, as it were, unnecessary and, therefore, becomes dulled. If today I only reproached my son, tomorrow I will have to reprimand him for a long time. And every day he will hear me worse and worse. Then, after a small pedagogical set — “Don’t you hear? Deaf? Who am I talking to? Do you understand Russian? — a large pedagogical one will inevitably follow: clenched fists, cuffs, a belt — and so on up to the children’s room of the police. In my opinion, it is almost impossible to educate a child whose heart hearing has been beaten off. One has only to feel sorry for the teacher who will get such a child.
Rewarding a child with heartfelt hearing is the best thing parents can do for his happiness.
As for the rules of politeness, when a person grows up, he, endowed with a hearing of the heart, will master them himself — quickly and easily, following the example of the elders.
What example are we setting?
A source: http://adalin.mospsy.ru/l_03_00/l_030187.shtml
(excerpts from the article «When a child is ill-bred»)
Sometimes we do not realize how impolite we ourselves are with children. A funny illustration of this is one of the scenes shown on TV in the entertainment program. Four adults have lunch, talking to each other in the same way as they usually communicate with children. The hostess told her guests to wash their hands before sitting down at the table, and one of the guests pretended to be shocked by the host’s creepy behavior at the table, resting his elbows on the table. The dinner party didn’t just turn into a nightmare, it became a stark reminder of the lack of respect we have for our children.
Example. A friend told me about how recently her little nephew intervened in her conversation with her mother. She told him that it was impolite to do so, that he must wait until she had finished speaking, and then say what he wanted. The conversation with his mother was long, but the boy waited patiently. When it was over, my friend said, «Well, David, now it’s your turn.» But as soon as the kid reached the middle of his story, his grandmother interrupted him. “I made David wait for us to finish talking,” my friend reminded her, “and I think now we have to wait for him to finish his story.”