One of the most important tasks of parents is to teach the child not to be afraid to try new things, to believe in themselves. How to achieve this?
A colleague of mine, a good psychotherapist, once told me of the intense behavior of her client, a young woman whose son was suffering from the effects of cerebral palsy. This boy tried to dress himself, but he did not succeed well. Although the child did not cry and did not stop his attempts, it was clear from his face that he was in great pain.
His mother stood silently beside him and stared fixedly at him, biting her lips. She was completely focused on her son, on his efforts, but did nothing to help him. And my colleague, whose heart ached with sympathy for the baby, asked the woman with surprise and reproach: “Why don’t you help him?” She looked at her with an expression of deep pain on her face and replied, «Can’t you see that I’m helping him?»
And the therapist suddenly saw the whole situation the way she should have seen it from the very beginning. The mother was not just next to the child, she was all in him, she dressed with him, made all these efforts, overcame his awkwardness and helplessness.
In her look, in the fact that she did not try to do anything instead of him, there was a deep faith in her son, that he could manage on his own — and it was thanks to this faith that the boy continued his attempts to dress and did not even cry.
There are two types of parental behavior that are equally wrong. The first is when parents simply forbid their child any manifestation of activity that looks risky in their eyes and can lead to unpredictable and dangerous consequences.
The child really wants to act on his own, this increases his self-esteem and self-confidence
The second type of behavior is when parents immediately rush to help the child in everything, strive to get ahead of him in fulfilling his desires, assuming that he himself will not be able to cope and this will be a trauma for him.
When a small child tries to start something new for him, such as climbing stairs on his own, he often looks back at his mother. But he does not look at her so that she runs up and rearranges him to the next step — as it sometimes seems to her mother. And in order to be sure that he is not alone, that his mother is with him and is ready to help, and then he can take risks.
The child really wants to act on his own, this increases his self-esteem and his faith in himself. Each of his successes, achieved by his own efforts, which was not initially guaranteed, is a serious victory and a guarantee of further attempts to cope with difficulties on his own.
One of the main tasks of education is the formation of readiness for mastering new skills, for risky, search behavior and familiarization with the pleasure of the process of overcoming. And for this, parents should always be at hand, but they should not get in the way.