Lyudmila Petranovskaya: “When teenagers separate, they hit on the most painful places”

Can puberty go smoothly at all? Or does it have to “break” somewhere?

Lyudmila Petranovskaya: The essence of the teenage crisis is that the child ceases to be a child. Those dependency relationships that he had with his parents, when, on the one hand, he counted on their protection and care, and on the other, he recklessly trusted and obeyed them, must someday end. We cannot grow until we are separated from our parents.

In archaic societies there was no adolescence: when puberty set in, childhood ended and adulthood immediately began, and there was no problem. But in our society, social maturity does not coincide with physiological maturity.

Physiological maturity has not gone away, it comes at 12-14 years old, and social maturity is still far away. These few years turn out to be very difficult: parents and society as a whole expect the teenager to be as controllable as a child, but at the same time as reasonable as an adult. We send children a double message, considering them both small and big at the same time.

What happens from a physiological point of view at this age?

First of all, hormonal restructuring begins, which causes an emotional surge. You feel that your mood does not belong to you, you don’t understand why you feel so bad. Reason suggests that there are no objective reasons for this, but emotional pain can be such that you lost all your loved ones at once.

This makes many children feel that they are abnormal, crazy. It seems to them that it will always be so, that they will never control their mood and state.

In addition, there is a maturation of certain parts of the brain, during which an imbalance occurs: the parts of the brain responsible for decision, awareness and behavior do not work in a coordinated manner. Therefore, what a teenager wants to do, what he thinks and what he actually does is not always agreed upon.

Is it possible to prepare a child for this, to teach him to manage himself?

It may come in handy for someone, help out in a certain situation, but I would not flatter myself: a teenager still needs to “swim beyond the buoys”.

Setting such a task: a trouble-free adolescence, a controlled teenager who does what we want, we actually forbid the child to separate, do not allow him to separate from us and feel independent.

This is the essence of adolescence: everything that until that time was given to the child “for free” (values, ideas about what is good, what is bad), he must either appropriate it for himself, make it completely his own, or reject it. The old values ​​and principles were not truly his.

This is an interesting topic – the formation of conscience in children. Strictly speaking, before adolescence, we cannot talk about conscience, because there is still no free moral choice. Until this age, the child is guided by what the parents want. If it stays like this, then the child will not have his own values, he will not have a conscience. Something was loaded into it, as if into a box, and it lies there. It’s not his, he didn’t own it, he didn’t criticize it, he didn’t do anything about it.

So I wouldn’t aim for adolescence to be easy. But, of course, I would like that, despite the turbulent processes, everyone eventually survived it safely.

But when the child separates, he begins to defend his rights, provoke quarrels. How should parents behave in this situation? Usually it is advised to say a firm “no” more often, to set limits …

Without a framework, we will not succeed – from the point of view of the state and society, we are responsible for children. We understand that they have not yet reached social maturity, they cannot control their actions, so certain boundaries are necessary.

But it is very important not to enter into a protracted war, as many parents do. It seems to them that it is important to recapture as many positions as possible. Adults have a hard time: when teenagers separate, they hit where it hurts the most. But that’s where the kids need to separate.

Each family sets its own laws, frameworks. Does it work?

What are family rules? This is what it was before the birth of the child, what we establish with his birth. They are fair within the framework of our and his territory: not “you can’t”, but “we can’t”. Children feel good when it comes to their territory, and when – the territory of other people.

If the children have broken or lost your thing and you are stomping, tearing and throwing, then in their view this is correct: they have violated your rights, and you are outraged. At the same time, as soon as you begin to invade the territory of the child and resent that he did not do his homework, did not put things in order in his room, he begins to protest naturally.

But it happens in another way: we only think that we have agreed. Parents are indignant: “We agreed with him that he would take out the garbage!” In this case, I always ask how the negotiation process went. Parents answer: “I told him (a)”.

Very often we try to impose justice on a child, hanging this label on something that in fact has nothing to do with justice. When we negotiate, it means that the other person has the same voting rights as we do, that we agree on an equal footing, which means that he can refuse.

It is impossible to agree without the process of negotiation – otherwise it is called “I ordered (a)”. Then you have to say it. Then it sounds: “I’m asking you.” A request is a communicative act that provides for the possibility of refusal. If the request does not include the possibility of refusal, it is called an order.

It seems to me that nothing infuriates children so much as our hypocrisy. We say “please” when we don’t really expect the possibility of refusal. “We agreed” – although in fact no one agreed with anyone. Such situations are very explosive.

Is it always necessary to negotiate? Or are there situations in which it is necessary to say: “It is necessary, because I am a mother”?

Such situations exist, of course. And this is very good, if there is an opportunity to say so. Unfortunately, when it comes to teenagers, at some point we are convinced that we cannot do this.

Children, in memory of past love, try not to point out to their parents that parental authority is over. Some levers of influence still remain: for example, to deprive pocket money – but by and large there are not so many tools. Children delicately try not to emphasize it.

All this manifests itself in relationships with a teenager. The teacher calls the parents: “Take action, your son does not go to school!” At the same time, all parties understand that this is an imitation. What measures can a mother take if her son is head and shoulders above her? Everyone: she herself, the teacher, the child – know that there are none. But if we are not mired in a war, we have not severed relations, then we can come to an agreement.

Peace in the home is usually important for teenagers. It is important for them not to feel guilty, it is important that parents do not get upset. But, unfortunately, many families start a real war. In addition, many parents have a midlife crisis at this time: their whole life was subordinated to children, and now they have grown up and make it clear in every possible way that they no longer need your care, you don’t need you to think about them all the time. And the question arises: “So what to do now? Who needs me now?

If a parent has too many “eggs” in this “basket”, in raising children, then there is a feeling that he was left with nothing. Especially if at this moment the adult is not realized professionally or is dissatisfied with his personal life. Although, in fact, now you can finally afford all the joys that you put off while the child was small.

Letting children go, will we lose contact with them?

The more we try to protect children from the world, to secure them, the more it starts to eat them from the inside. Some things the child must realize and try for himself. Our task is to keep the channel of communication open so that he knows: if he gets hard or he makes a mistake and he needs help, you can come to us.

And if the family war has already broken out? You understand that it’s probably too late to build relationships – but something needs to be done …

It’s never too late. The kids are really looking forward to this. The main thing is that it is important to remove from your vocabulary such words as “fight”, “break through”, “achieve”, all this military vocabulary.

Just remember that he is still your child. He still needs to be loved for who he is. It is important to him that at least someone was on his side. Children are very grateful for this. No need to shower them with gifts – it is more important for them that we let them know that this channel is open.

In what cases is it necessary to ring the bells and take the child to a specialist?

Rather, it is not the behavior to worry about, but the state. If a child has anxiety, depression, outbursts of aggression, he may need help.

Behavior is something that is today and not tomorrow, but the condition (especially when a person feels bad) can have serious consequences.

The material was prepared on the basis of a conversation between journalist Lika Dlugach and psychologists, teenagers and their parents on the air of the project “Dear Mom! Being a Parent of a Teenager” is a joint initiative of the journal Psychologies and the UNESCO Regional Program for Health Education, implemented on the site of the Odnoklassniki social network.