Parental fears are varied. Parents, and most often mothers and grandmothers, tend to be afraid of everything in the world: the child will catch a cold, get sick, fall, break, have not eaten, look bad. It was already late, he was gone, something terrible happened to him. He threatens to leave, and without me he will surely disappear. What are parents afraid of? Fear of lateness, fear of the bad, fear of the incomprehensible … Between two hypotheses: “It’s okay” and “Horror-horror-horror”, such anxious parents will definitely choose the second hypothesis.
If the children do not call them and they cannot get through to them, 50% of parents are afraid that something terrible has happened to the children, 48% are afraid that something terrible might happen to the children, and only 2% can to assume that the cell phone may run out of battery.
Psychologist and humorist Leonid Kaganov wrote the best about parental fears, we give him the floor:
Parental fears are a subject of special discussion. They are so extensive and versatile that in this chapter we will only touch on the most typical of them.
FEAR OF LATE is perhaps the most common fear of a parent. It goes back to the times when primitive people lived in caves, leaving them at night was a very dangerous business. Therefore, even the ancestors of our parents were afraid for our ancestors when they went hunting and didn’t return by night — didn’t the mammoths gnaw them there? In our time, when mammoths have disappeared, the fears of parents remain. Therefore, most parents, with the advent of darkness and evening TV shows, begin to behave restlessly and sometimes do ridiculous things — for example, call your friends or the police. Why they do this, parents, as a rule, cannot clearly explain: “Well, it’s eleven in the evening, and you’re not there, what else to do?” — a typical answer of a parent.
Silly calls can be prevented. If the parent’s policeman’s phone is remembered from a very early age, then your friends’ phones can fall into their playful little hands only because of your carelessness — do not leave your notebook in a visible place when you leave home and leave your parents alone unattended. If your parent has a strong fear of lateness, sticks to your friends every time and you have to blush for him later — write down the phones in a special way, for example, swap two digits. Waking up strangers a couple of times with the words: «hello, I’m a mother machine,» and hearing in response the appropriate expressions on the same topic, your parent will quickly unlearn such a bad habit.
However, these are extreme measures. For the purposes of education, parents should be taught to be patient and calm. To do this, you must calmly say that you are leaving and will return late, at such and such a time. Name the exact time of return and the parent will immediately become more peaceful. If you are late, be sure to call and tell the parent about this, naming a new return date. Remember that parents are very curious, so tell them in advance where you are going. Even if you just go for a walk — name the names of the streets you will walk along and the purpose of the walk — for example, «see the illumination.» The goals and route may not be followed in full accuracy, but there is no need for obvious lies. A parent can also learn to lie and this will bring you a lot of trouble. Although sometimes you can’t do without it. For example, if your parent is restless — do not give the phone number of the place where you are going, say that you yourself do not know it or come up with some kind of fairy tale — say that there is a very pay phone, or that parents live there who go to bed early or vice versa waiting for an important call. To calm the parent, give him the word that you will call him yourself, and really call, talk to him a little. At the same time, the conversation should not be long, the brevity of the conversation should be explained as follows: “I can’t talk anymore, there’s someone else’s phone here.” Agree, the argument is rather strange, but it works flawlessly on parents.
FEAR OF THE BAD. Unlike the fear of being late, in this case the parent knows exactly the cause of the fear. He may be afraid that you will get sick, get into bad company, become a drug addict, a parent, drop out of school, college, graduate school. Fears can be very different, your task is to understand the parent and calm him down. Explain to him that without a hat you are already so warm that your friends are wonderful people, tell good details about them and their parents (parents love to hear about their peers), show unpierced veins (this will convince parents that marijuana is not smoked in your company) , explain that since you still have not left school, institute, graduate school, then you will not leave further. There can be no exact advice here — try to find your own approach to the parent.
FEAR OF THE INCOMPLETE. Parents are very impressionable creatures. However, they still know little about the world and are afraid of everything that they do not know. Parents always pay great attention to everything that is connected with you, noticing and thinking over various little things. At the same time, your hair, jeans, music, jewelry, posters on the wall, or your statements and thoughts can scare them. This is fine. Your task is to clearly and patiently explain to the parent that:
1) Everyone has the right to their own tastes, and at the same time it would be strange if your tastes completely coincided.
2) There is nothing unnatural in your tastes, now it is fashionable and everyone does it. For some reason, many parents are affected by the “everything” argument. Show your parent a nice, kind article from their favorite newspaper that talks about your music or your nose ring.
3) Your tastes are no worse than the tastes of the parent. This is difficult to prove, but possible. It is difficult because many parents naively follow the principle: «what is not mine is wrong.» When it comes to music, a typical parental argument is: “How can you listen to such disgusting things?”. Remember — «disgusting» is an epithet. And to answer with the epithet «no, that’s cool» is not reasonable. Be smarter, let the parent think with you and understand the absurdity of his point of view. Ask him to explain what exactly he calls «nasty», ask for clarification until the parent points out a specific detail to you, for example, «stupid words» or the «idiot-looking» singer. Ask what style of music the parent himself likes, and find among this music a song with even more stupid words or a singer with a weirder look — usually this is quite easy to do.
The entire book of Leonid Kaganov «Education of Parents» can be read here.
Anxious upbringing
Nothing torments the soul of parents so much as fear for their child. This feeling can manifest itself in different ways. Mom for three years was inseparable from her baby, got used to falling asleep and waking up with him, walking, playing, learned to do household chores and keep the child busy at the same time. And so the decision was made to send the child to kindergarten. Mom consoles herself with hopes that finally, without fuss, she can do something at home, calmly go shopping, take care of herself. But instead of the expected relief, she suddenly notices that she is not able to rest and relax, everything falls out of her hands and thoughts only about the child: “How is he there? Not crying? Have you eaten everything? Did the teachers forget to put on a scarf for a walk? .. ”Anxiety often ruins all mother’s plans, and she runs to the kindergarten to find out if everything is in order, watches from afar how the child walks and, completely exhausted, takes her child home earlier than planned . See →