The editors of the Psychologos distance themselves from the ideas, style and conclusions of this article, which is given only as an example of a great confusion in concepts. Negativism and inflexibility of parents is one thing, but accustoming to order, instilling good breeding and good manners is another. Attentive, warm and cheerful, and most importantly, qualified parents can quite achieve obedience from him, while maintaining contact with the child, developing his self-confidence and conveying to him a sense of the joy of life. An obedient child with reasonable parents, growing up, becomes an adult, independent and creative person.
So, while reading the article, be careful!
We all strive to be good parents. But here we implement it in different ways: someone lets the process of upbringing take its course, trusts his intuition and life experience, while someone treats his parental role as a serious, responsible mission. It would seem that there is nothing wrong with this, but any extremes are fraught with trouble, and excessive zeal in the matter of education can result in childhood suffering, and sometimes tragic consequences.
The hypersocial type of upbringing in the family does not cause bewilderment among others, on the contrary, it is supported and approved in every possible way; popular rumor will soon give them the honorary title of «decent family.» Neighbors, educators, relatives will admire a well-bred child: he will always say hello and will not forget to say goodbye, give a chair and readily read a poem, he will never bother screaming and running around, and white socks worn in the morning will remain the same until the evening.
Only a few, having assessed everything with the experienced eye of a professional or having listened to their own feelings, will think: “Something is not right here, it is painfully “correct”, as if not a child at all, but a little old man.” The parents made the child so, driven by «good intentions» and knowledge gleaned from numerous books. Even before the birth of the child, a “plan” for his development was prepared, in which the parents clearly defined the main “milestones”: “swim before walking”, a nursery from a year and a half to get used to the team, circles, sections, those that are more prestigious and in life will come in handy, a gymnasium with foreign languages and preferably an external student, a university … The plan may be different, depending on what falls into the area of life values of parents — sports, business, politics, art, a healthy lifestyle, but it always exists.
Many parents do this (“Well, why not dream!”), but few are obsessed with fulfilling their plans.
The life of a child from the very first days is subject to strict rules. The regime and discipline are strictly observed, much attention is paid to instilling norms of behavior. The methods of upbringing are not too diverse: control, encouragement, punishment, but within the framework of this, parents can be very inventive. What are the obedience grades, behavior schedules, points, money, gifts and their deprivation, the summation of misdeeds and the requirement of public repentance. All this applies not to a teenager out of hand, but to a still small child who is not psychologically ready to be “correct”.
The child is deprived of the right to choose, and his own inclinations and desires are not taken into account. Very soon the child begins to understand that in order to be loved, one must be obedient. Feelings of anger, resentment, fear fall into the category of forbidden. Yes, and you can rejoice only within the limits of what is permitted, not very noisy and adhering to the norms of behavior. The most tragic in its consequences is the manipulation of the child’s feelings of love: «If you love your mother, then you will not do this again.» Love becomes a bargaining chip: if you eat porridge — you love it, if you don’t eat it — you don’t love it, and so it goes in everything.
Kindergarten attracts hypersocial parents by having all the same rules and disciplinary norms. The institution is chosen carefully, preference is given to one where there are many additional developmental activities and children have almost no time to play. The educator must also «correspond»: be strict, but intelligent, have education and work experience. If everything fits together, then the relationship between teachers and parents can be considered ideal: complete control over the child and mutual assistance in his upbringing. The same pattern will be repeated when the child grows up to school. With other teachers, the family of this type of upbringing is unlikely to get along. Especially do not favor the parents of young, emotional or democratic-minded educators.
Valeria from birth was only Valeria. No abbreviation of the name or its affectionate forms were used. The girl was brought to the nursery very early and the teachers were immediately warned how their daughter should be called. The girl’s mother is a doctor by education, she continued her studies in residency, her father made a rapid career as a lawyer. Parents, despite their young age, were distinguished by tough views on education, adherence to principles and emotional restraint. In the nursery, Valeria behaved aggressively, was stubborn for any reason, was capricious, but as soon as one of the parents appeared on the threshold of the group, she calmed down, shrank all over and immediately began to straighten her clothes, for which she often got hit. The manifestations of love and tenderness on the part of the mother and father were very restrained, the girl was sometimes kissed on the cheek and stroked on the head. But on the other hand, self-service skills were instilled with enviable persistence. If during the time allotted by adults the girl was distracted and did not have time to get dressed, then her parents left and returned later, just before the closing of the garden.
Educators very soon realized that parents should only say good things about their daughter: the slightest problems were taken too seriously and measures were immediately taken. Valeria was not beaten in the family, they did not shout at her and did not put her in a corner, they brought her up with a strict look, suggestions and deprivation of love. Soon, one more problem was added to the problems of upbringing — the girl developed «bad habits», with which her parents immediately began to fight. At first — bitten nails, a finger in her mouth, later the girl began to bite her lips until they bleed, an obsessive sniffing appeared. When Valeria went to first grade (from the age of six, a prestigious gymnasium with a complicated program), her parents had to seek help from a neurologist and the girl began to be treated for neurosis.
The consequences of hypersocial upbringing do not always end so tragically. But people who grew up in such families often experience problems in building relationships and communication. Their categoricalness and the presence of firm principles, acceptable in a business environment, do not allow building warm family relationships.
An adult man turned to a psychologist for help because his wife had left him. His speech was full of the words “should”, “should”, “necessary”, “must” and looked more like a list of slogans or a set of rules than the thoughts of a person who had an accident. He brought the rigid attitudes learned from childhood (father is a military man, mother is a teacher), without change, to his family and sincerely believed that rules like “the child should go to bed at 9 o’clock” or “the wife is obliged to wash the dishes immediately after eating” cannot be doubted. Sometimes the desire for obedience and obedience leads to the fact that an adult continues to look for «parents» — in the family, at work, among friends, giving preference to principled and authoritarian people. At the same time, he can complain about life and even try to change something, but instead of one tyrant-boss, he will choose another, no better. If you know the history of his upbringing, then everything becomes clear.
The reason for the hypersocial type of upbringing, in addition to the ancestral family, may be an individual tendency to rationalize and such qualities of character as purposefulness, vanity, perseverance, exactingness and rejection of feelings as an obstacle that interferes with work, dependence on the opinions of others.
It is not necessary that all teachers, doctors, lawyers, military men bring up their children this way, but among hypersocial parents there are many people of precisely these specialties. It is hard for children whose parents are «in sight», and, therefore, the child must also «correspond». Such diligence in education can be observed in young parents who, by all means, want to achieve the approval of others and confirm to themselves: «We are good parents.» Over time, they can calm down and reconsider their views on education, and what completely fell upon the firstborn may not happen again with the second child.