We are used to the fact that grandparents pamper their grandchildren, forgive them for pranks and secretly feed them with sweets and ice cream, although they could be very strict with their own children. Why is this happening? The child psychotherapist Svetlana Krivtsova explains.
Grandparents themselves and their grown children often share similar observations. Perhaps the feeling of special warmth in relation to the grandchildren is due to the fact that this relationship has not yet had time to grow into conflicts, as happened with grown-up children? But does that mean more love?
“Of course not, it’s just that grandparents love in a different way: more consciously and with greater inner consent,” explains Svetlana Krivtsova. — In the beginning, maternal love in the foreground is care, the solution of security and regime issues. Didn’t you get sick? Not overheated? How to put him to bed, what to feed him, when to enroll in kindergarten and which circle to choose … «
Caring is a serious matter, and the child may even “interfere” with the mother in mastering a new role.
The way students interfere with a teacher who is teaching her first lesson: she tries to calculate the time and have time to explain the topic, she is not up to the children. Grandma does not worry about caring for a child, these skills have already become automatic.
If fathers encourage new things more, then grandfathers help to understand the failure and gain experience.
The confidence that comes with experience makes grandmothers more vigilant: they have a resource to be interested in the inner world of the child, to understand and share his feelings.
“And grandfather’s love is more like love-respect,” notes Svetlana Krivtsova. — If fathers encourage more new things, bring up courage in children, rejoice in victories and successes, then grandfathers help to understand failure and gain experience, «the son of difficult mistakes.» And make sure everything is going to be alright.»
Due to their age, grandparents are calmer, more perspicacious than fathers and mothers. They are able to pass on special wisdom to their grandchildren — the willingness to accept the world and not panic, anger when something goes wrong.
Love for grandchildren has fewer “competitors” than love for children: grandparents have developed careers, their life is quite stable. “A child not only does not interfere with the older generation, on the contrary, they are better off in his presence than without him,” the expert notes. “With their energy, openness, curiosity about life, small children make up for the deficiency of their vital forces.”
It does not matter from whom specifically the child will receive care, and from whom the belief that he is loved and valuable in itself
But is it possible to say which love is stronger, more important?
Love-care allows the child to survive, physically and socially.
Love-understanding develops his feelings and the ability to openly express them, helps to know himself, become a person and build relationships with others. In the rays of such love, children experience less pressure and feel accepted.
Of course, none of them exists in its pure form, and in all families, relationships develop in different ways. And grandmothers can be overly selfish and anxious, and mothers are often endowed with wisdom and understanding far more than their own parents. And there are families where there is no love at all …
“Ultimately, it doesn’t matter from whom specifically the child will receive care, and from whom the belief that he is loved and valuable in himself is from parents or grandparents,” concludes Svetlana Krivtsova. — The main thing is that this experience of love and understanding should be simple. And so that mutual understanding and harmony reigned in relations between adults close to him.