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When we have them, we just want to love them. And it seems that the strength of this beautiful love is enough for education. Although it soon becomes clear what an illusion it is … Two years, six and ten years: our correspondent talked about how children taught her to be a mother – in every sense of the word.
I would like to succumb to the temptation and start to allow them everything. “Are you too tired to sit down for lessons? Don’t worry, I’ll talk to the teacher.” “You only want the second one? Okay, I’ll put the soup in the fridge.” “Are you embarrassed to say hello to your neighbor? Okay, another time.” Probably, very soon I would be accused of letting everything take its course and spoiling the children. And I would brandish a Donald Winnicott book and justify myself by saying that “I am in a special condition that is very similar to illness, but at the same time completely normal” *. Oh, how grateful I am to this person who realized that immediately after the birth of a child, the mother goes crazy (which is quite natural) and begins to identify herself with her baby: “this allows her to look at everything through his eyes and respond to all his needs with accuracy , which no automaton can master – and which cannot be learned.
And everything would be fine if the madness of the first days did not give such long-term complications. Already today, when that time full of fears and uncertainty has long passed, it declares itself with bouts of guilt at the sight of reproach in children’s eyes … Yes, I just wanted to go on a visit! But no: I begin to seem to myself a traitor who puts her own interests above the interests of children, I cancel the meeting, I stop forbidding them anything at all, which involuntarily strengthens them in the feeling of that same childish omnipotence, which Winnicott called the logical consequence of our child-worship.
Unattainable hardness
If you are going to educate someone, the problem is that you can not give up slack. But everyone is only capable of what they are capable of. My mother, for example, always said: if the children frolic, then everything is in order with them. And I can only admit that I lash out at them much more often than my husband. But I’m easy to understand! Just imagine this wonderful picture: just a second ago, they tenderly kissed me (beloved mother) before going to bed, and once in the nursery, they instantly turned into monsters. One jumps at the bottom of a two-story bed, the second hangs from the top floor and beats the bottom floor with a typewriter, and the third laughs and throws pillows. The whole house is shaking from screams and squeals …
So, having achieved silence, I, torn between the desire to love and the need to educate, fall into a chair and open the book by Julia Gippenreiter “Communicate with a child. How?” . I read: “Rules, that is, restrictions, requirements and prohibitions, must be in the life of every child. Children not only need order and rules of behavior, they want and expect them. This makes their life understandable and predictable, creates a sense of security.” And here is one especially for me: “This is especially useful to remember for those parents who strive to upset their children as little as possible and avoid conflicts with them. As a result, they begin to follow the lead of their own child.”
Be consistent, confident, reasonable in your parenting decisions … However, I have something to object: since I spend too much time with them, it is difficult for me to be both the one who gives and the one who refuses. Family psychotherapist Inna Khamitova supports me in this: “A child really needs both: love and acceptance, on the one hand, an organizing principle, on the other. If children, for example, are brought up by one mother, she has to take on both these tasks.” From the point of view of psychoanalysis, the father has an even more subtle mission: to prevent the mother from merging with the children into a single whole. Not forbid them to be together and love each other, but to strengthen them in the idea that a child is not an extension of the mother, but a separate, full-fledged being that must grow up and one day leave.
big slap in the face
When Ilya was born (later Kirill appeared), I really thought that I would never raise my voice at him. Everything was perfect until, at the age of one and a half, Ilya began to beat me on the cheeks – literally. He was having fun, and I was crying. This went on exactly until my husband saw this disgrace. He already had a son (Vanya – from his first marriage), and he calmly applied “legitimate authority”: he made comments, and sometimes – oh horror! – sent my baby to the corner. Then it was easier for me to accuse him of cruelty than to gain courage and establish the boundaries of what is permitted in relations with my son.
It’s good that by the time the youngest, Kirill, was one and a half years old, I already had some experience. Education, in my opinion, really begins at this time. Before that, you have to deal mainly with the health of children and try to make their rhythm of life gradually cease to subjugate everything else. Life really becomes more complicated when they start walking (and running), and then they say – what are these eternal “why”, “I don’t want” and “I won’t” worth. “As soon as a child begins to move actively, we seriously think about his safety,” comments Inna Khamitova. – We remove everything fragile, close the sockets, block the drawers … And these are the first restrictions. Then we begin to put him on a pot – we accustom him to cultural norms. And the older the child, the more boundaries and frames become. In essence, they all fall into two groups: not to do what is dangerous for you, and not to do what is harmful to others. Everything else is possible, and here it’s better not to limit it, otherwise we slow down its cognitive activity.”
Movement to the touch
Yes, it is true – our freedom ends where the freedom of another person begins. I spent a lot of time explaining to Kirill that you can’t do whatever you want (for example, beat another kid in the sandbox with a shovel, take away toys, run out onto the road), and trying to teach him to replace animal forms of behavior (banging his head on the ground, throwing toys …) human. The problem is that Kirill is my youngest, and I’m unlikely to dare to give birth to another one … So I take him in my arms, even when I have to walk twenty meters, I give in if he whimpers and begs for a toy … The only thing I already know for sure is capable, so it is to be polite and friendly when I insist on something (and this must be done). I’m not just asking you to “say in words”, but I’m asking you to say “please” (“paa-lu-sta”) and “thank you” (“si-bo”). I make sure that we have a good, calm relationship; I want him to take into account the needs and emotions of the other; I try so that, looking at me, he learns to yield, to reckon with others and respect the rules. And when it’s hard for him to do what he has to do – like picking up our toys in the sandbox before heading home – we do it together.
WE AND OUR CHILDREN ARE EQUAL, BUT NOT EQUAL: WE HAVE MORE RIGHTS AND MORE DUTIES TO THEM THAN THEY HAVE TO US.
But let’s get back to Ilya – my firstborn (the second oldest in our family). When he was just born, I sincerely sympathized with my neighbors in the maternity hospital: they didn’t get such a wonderful child! And it was with him that I messed up the most firewood: admiring his genius, I believed that I should not interfere with her with some absurd rules (“Do you want to wear a T-shirt inside out? What a creative approach!”). Then I began to feel guilty for rewarding him with a little brother. And I let him behave like a little one … There is absolutely nothing to be proud of here, but it’s true: I was nervous and didn’t know what to grab onto. Now Ilya is six years old, he can read and write. Passionate about insects and plants. The question that worries me most now is how to combine the desire to teach him everything in the world and his real inclinations? Is education to force or to motivate? “The eternal question is what is better: permissiveness — so that the child grows up creative, free, but knows no boundaries, or rigid limits and rules,” says Inna Khamitova. – Bad and that, and that. And we, parents, are forced to walk on a thin bridge that separates one from the other. Education is always associated with coercion. Because we still force children to do what they do not want. Although, of course, it is more pleasant to live on the principle of pleasure. But that’s called being spoiled.” However, when Inna Khamitova refers to Schwartz (“Children need to be pampered, then real robbers grow out of them” **), I immediately recall Nabokov: “I was a difficult, wayward, spoiled child to a beautiful extreme (spoil more children, gentlemen, you you don’t know what’s in store for them!
Eternal parents
Vanya, my stepson, is now ten. When we met, he was very small, and it was with him that I went through a baptism of fire. He taught me a lot, just because I did not endure him and gave birth. This is what allowed me to know what my parental role can be in its purest form, without the harmful admixture of maternal intoxication. But a new test awaits me ahead, when the storm of adolescence will cover the family. “Parents and children are equal, but not equal: we have more rights and more obligations to them than they have to us,” explains Inna Khamitova. – However, relationships change over time: the closer puberty, the more equal they should become. After all, it is assumed that when the child turns 18-20 years old, we will turn into friends, into two adults dear to each other. Therefore, as he grows up, we need to become different parents. So, for starters, I have to find the courage to change and be ready to endure everything that my growing children will present me. Do not leave them to be torn apart by their own confusion. Just be around. Our task is not to protect them from life, but to bring them into this world. And decide to leave them there.
* Donald Woods Winnicott is a British pediatrician and psychoanalyst who has written books for parents, including Little Children and Their Mothers (Klass, 2011).
** E. Schwartz “The Snow Queen” (Book on demand, 2010).
*** V. Nabokov “Other Shores” (Azbuka-classic, 2012).
PSYCHOLOGIES Poll: Can you do it?
Is it easy for today’s parents to build relationships with children? Do they feel that their children respect them and listen to their words, or does their upbringing cause them tension and anxiety? 48% of respondents are sure that they have authority in the eyes of the child, and 39% doubt it. 79% believe that today, in general, it is difficult for parents to raise children. However, to the question “Is it personally difficult for you to do this?” Only 43% answered in the affirmative, while 20% could not decide. For a comment, we turned to the family psychotherapist Inna Khamitova.
“The breakdown of the traditions of education is a reality in which we all find ourselves. Today, the authoritarian style (when adults can do everything, and children can do nothing), adopted in our country for many years, is dying out. This is especially true in big cities. But the new system – democratic, when parents and children communicate on an equal footing – does not have time to take root. In addition, it is not always clear to adults what rules the “new” family lives by. As a result, they act intuitively and are often not sure that they are doing the right thing. This can explain the most remarkable figure of the survey – 20% of parents do not understand at all whether they know how to raise their children or not. Democracy in the family does not mean freedom, friendship. Such a family has its own laws, they just apply to everyone, not only for children, but also for adults. If adults yell at children, why can’t they respond in kind? If a father smokes, why is it forbidden for a teenager? But there is no equality in a democratic family: parents are above the child, they have the right to educate him, developing him, caring for him, participating in his life. Not judging and criticizing, but helping – patiently and condescendingly.