Contents
family climate
How should you raise your child? As a rule, parents are waiting for a specific answer to this question: to bring up strictly or condescendingly? to punish or not to punish? educate authoritatively or comradely? feeling or mind? These and other similar questions, of course, have the right to exist, but it is now becoming clear that these questions are not the main ones. In addition, these questions are associated with the emergence of parents’ fear that they do not know how to educate, that they are doing something badly, something has already been irreparably spoiled, and this uncertainty itself has a bad effect on the upbringing of children.
Education in the broad sense of the word is not only a deliberate influence on the child at the moments when we teach him, make comments, encourage, scold or punish him. Often, the example of parents has a much greater effect on the child, although they may not be aware of their influence. A few words, which the parents automatically exchange among themselves, can leave a much greater mark on the child than long lectures, which often cause nothing but disgust in him; an understanding smile, a word thrown in passing, etc., can have exactly the same effect.
The results of the research showed that there is not much difference between children who were brought up in strictness (with punishments) and children who were brought up more gently (without punishments) — if you do not take extreme cases — there is not much difference. Consequently, the educational impact of the family is not only a series of purposeful educational moments, it consists in something more essential.
What, in fact, remains in our memory from childhood, when we have already become adults, when individual cases that happened to us during this period are already forgotten? Obviously, something remains in our memory that shaped us first of all: some special atmosphere of our home, associated with many daily insignificant events, or the fear that we experienced in connection with many events incomprehensible to us. It is precisely such a calm and joyful or tense atmosphere, full of apprehension and fear, that most affects the child, his growth and development, leaves a deep imprint on all his subsequent development.
Today we know that the nature of this family atmosphere is determined primarily by how family members communicate with each other. There are close-knit families in which no one is left behind, where there are no those who suppress the initiative and activity of others. An atmosphere of emotional warmth reigns in the family, where thoughts and experiences are shared with each other. Consent reigns here, contradictions are not hidden, but are tried to be resolved. It is customary to speak openly in the family: here what they say is what they think, nothing is hidden, no one needs to dodge and lie. Everyone here speaks not only about their own experiences, but also knows how to listen to the other. In such families, they love laughter and humor, there is no evil prickly sarcasm, they do not hear indiscriminate condemnation of everything and everyone. Parents here respect and support each other — they do not denigrate each other in the eyes of the child, they do not undermine authority. And what is important — in these families it is customary to tell truthfully about their experiences outside the family. The family thus turns into a world in which all life is reflected and where all difficulties are overcome with the help of all family members.
It goes without saying that the family climate is changing; it reflects the difficulties with which people meet, that here there are not all the time sunny days. Much changes as the children grow up, and the strength of the parents decreases, they grow old. As in nature, for example, the weather changes, so does the family atmosphere — one day can be clear and sunny, and the other cloudy, sometimes a thunderstorm can break out. And yet we can talk about the existence of a certain climate characteristic of a particular family, it is the main thing that largely determines the emotional, social and other types of development of the child.
Methods of education
We have already said that the family climate, determined by the relationships of family members, plays a decisive role in the upbringing of a child. However, one cannot completely deny the importance of educational methods and techniques with the help of which parents purposefully influence the child. The different positions from which adults approach the upbringing of their children can be characterized as follows: first of all, this is a different degree of emotional involvement, authority and control over the upbringing of children, and, finally, this is the degree of participation of parents in the experiences of children.
A cold, emotionally neutral attitude towards a child adversely affects his development, it slows him down, impoverishes, weakens him. At the same time, emotional warmth, which the child needs in the same way as food, should not be given out in excess, flooding the baby with a mass of emotional impressions, tying him to his parents to such an extent that he becomes unable to break away from the family and start living. independent life. Education should not become an idol of the mind, where feelings and emotions are forbidden to enter. An integrated approach is important here.
It is necessary to dwell in more detail on issues of authority in the upbringing of children. Even at the beginning of the last century, the upbringing of a child boiled down to the fact that the baby had to learn, first of all, to obey his parents, to obey unquestioningly, he should have obeyed his teachers, master, boss in the same way, unquestioningly observe the laws that were in force in his society. This spirit of absolute blind obedience has now completely or partially disappeared from our families. Today we are witnessing a respectful attitude of parents towards their children, a greater democratic relationship between them. The democratization of social relations naturally contributed to the development of democratization within the family.
However, we should not forget that the family is a special social institution, where there can be no such equality between parents and children as between adult members of society. And although we believe that today the child should be given more freedom, so that he is more independent, able to act with greater responsibility, nevertheless, we should not forget that the life experience of the child is still too limited. Therefore, he must know that there is a certain area where he is free to act freely, but there is another where he must submit. In those families where there is no control over the behavior of the child and he does not know what is right and what is not, his own unsteadiness, and sometimes even fear, follows from this uncertainty.
Socially, a child develops best in a way that puts himself in the place of someone he considers authoritative, wise, strong, gentle, and loving. The child identifies himself with parents who have these valuable qualities, tries to imitate them. Only parents who have authority over their children can become such an example for them. It is important, however, that it be a natural authority based on great experience, wisdom, strength and kindness, so that the obedience of the child is voluntary and conscious. For a baby who spends most of his time with his mother, she is a natural and necessary authority. An older child already understands the structure of the family and is able to understand the complementary roles of parents. So, the most important thing in family relationships is the relationship between spouses, their complementary roles and their common line in raising a child, when neither of them undermines either the authority or the love of the other.
From the foregoing follows our view of the role of punishment in the upbringing of children. The child learns to understand many things in such a way that he is clearly given to know what is right and what is not: he needs encouragement, recognition, praise or other form of approval if he does the right thing, and criticism, disagreement and punishment in case of wrongdoing. Children who are praised for good behavior but not punished for doing wrong tend to learn things more slowly and with difficulty. Such an approach to punishment has its validity and is a completely reasonable component of educational measures.
At the same time, one should not forget that positive emotional experiences should prevail over negative ones in the process of raising children, so the child should be praised and encouraged more often than scolded and punished. Parents often forget about this. It sometimes seems to them that they can spoil the child if they once again praise him for something good; they consider good deeds to be something ordinary and do not see how hard they were given to the baby. And parents punish the child for every bad mark or remark brought to them from school, while they do not notice success (at least relative) or deliberately underestimate it. In fact, they should do the opposite: for every success of the child, they should be praised and try not to notice his failures, which do not happen to him so often.
Further, in the question of punishment, one should not forget that it should immediately follow the misconduct. If the child does not know why he is being punished, then the punishment does not make any sense and may even harm the child.
Naturally, the punishment should never be such that it breaks the contact between the child and the parents. Physical punishment, except for the rather symbolic spanking of a very small child, should not be used, most often they indicate the impotence of the educator. Physical punishment causes in children a feeling of humiliation, shame and does not contribute to the development of self-discipline: children who are punished in this way, as a rule, are obedient only under the supervision of adults, and behave quite differently when they are not around.
The development of consciousness is more likely to be facilitated by “psychological” punishments: if we let the child understand that we do not agree with him, that at least for some moment he cannot count on our sympathy, that we are angry with him, etc. Feeling of guilt, awakened by us in the child, is a strong regulator of his behavior even when the child is left without adult supervision. It must be remembered that the feeling of guilt can be too strong, which is why any activity of the child begins to suffer. Whatever the punishment, it should not make the child feel that he has lost his parents, that his personality has been humiliated and rejected. So, it can be said that although punishment plays a certain role in the upbringing of children, it should be resorted to with great care.
In addition to love and authority, the success of education is also determined by the degree of empathy of parents in relation to children’s actions. Parents share everything experienced, their joys and sorrows with their children in different ways. Some parents know a lot about their children, others know almost nothing. There are also such parents for whom the heavy emotional upheavals of their children remain imperceptible, and in the event of a tragedy unexpected for them, they never cease to be surprised. On the other hand, some parents almost force the child to trust, and if the child hides something from them, they consider it ingratitude and take offense at him. The child, forced in this way to fully open his inner world, begins to feel deprived of the right to have something of his own, personal, intimate, belonging only to him. This feeling was well expressed by one girl, when, on the offer to draw her family, she chose her mother kneeling in the girl’s room and rummaging through her desk as the subject of her drawing, under the drawing the girl wrote: “How my mother rummages through my personal things.”
Children in general very faithfully depict the behavior of their parents and the whole family climate with the help of typical situations of everyday family life. Some guys on the proposed topic: «Family rest on Sunday» draw a scene of family rest, where everyone is happy and holding hands. Other children depict a family sitting together at the table, where everyone is doing something interesting together. The theme of other children’s drawings is manifestations of the mutual goodness of family members, beatings and threats. Not uncommon are the drawings in which the child depicts himself as lonely, isolated from all people, or the drawings where there are no people at all, where the home is empty, it looks like some kind of rooming house where people come only to spend the night.
Relationships between siblings
A family with one child used to be an exception, today there are a lot of such families. In some way, it is easier to raise one child, parents can devote more time and effort to him; the child also does not have to share the love of his parents with someone, he does not have a reason for jealousy. But, on the other hand, the position of an only child is unenviable: he lacks an important school of life, the experience of which can only partially fill his communication with other children, but which cannot be fully replaced.
In a family with several children, the situation is usually more difficult than in families with one child. However, this complexity of relationships in large families is very important for the social maturation of children, and under certain circumstances contributes to the growth of a sense of satisfaction in parents, favorably affects the development of their personality. Growing up with his brothers and sisters, the child acquires a lot of value for life: he learns mutual assistance in the process of communicating with creatures as weak and dependent as he is, he gets used to not only taking, but also giving, learning to teach others — those who is smaller and weaker than him, he learns the benefits of cooperation compared to constant rivalry and quarrels, he uses not only the word «I», but also knows the word «we», learns to share not only toys, but also attention from adults, which , despite their love, does not now belong to him alone. The Big Family School is a great school where children learn not to be selfish.
However, the influence of brothers and sisters on the development of the child is not so strong that it can be argued that the only child in his social development must necessarily lag behind the child from a large family. The fact is that life in a large family brings with it a number of conflict situations that children and their parents do not always manage to solve correctly. First of all, this is the mutual jealousy of children: observations have shown that in large families this is a common occurrence, that there are simply no such brothers and sisters who would not be jealous of each other. However, most children are able to overcome this feeling, find a way to resolve their relationship, although maybe not immediately.
Problems usually arise where parents unreasonably compare children with each other and say that one of the children is better, smarter, cuter, etc. Very often, quarrels between brothers and sisters are tried by parents in such a way that responsibility for them is usually shifted on the older child, who, from their point of view, should be more reasonable, who is to blame for everything, no matter what happens. If a child is constantly and not in his favor compared with his brother or sister, if the blame is constantly blamed on him, he has a feeling of injustice, bitterness, anger against the one who treats him this way.
Sometimes parents believe that there will be no jealousy between brothers and sisters if they fairly share everything between the children and give each of them the same share of tasty things, toys, gifts, etc. However, things and objects are more likely a reason for dispute and envy than their direct cause. Obviously, it is not so important to divide things fairly as to do the same with regard to sympathy, praise, recognition and admiration, just as well as scolding and punishment. The disadvantageous position of the eldest and youngest child in the family also brings with it a number of problems. Of course, the older child should have more responsibilities, but adults should not forget to praise him, recognize his authority, which will strengthen his sense of self-worth.
However, care must also be taken to ensure that the duties that are assigned to older children are within their power and not to the detriment of doing other interesting things. Older children, comparing themselves with their comrades, often hold a grudge against their younger brother or sister, whom they have to “drag along,” and left alone with him, they can offend them. Younger children in this case, in retaliation, begin to roar louder than usual, complain about every trifle.
Parents who have to resolve minor children’s disputes should behave diplomatically. They should also draw the attention of children to the fact that some disadvantages associated with the existence of brothers and sisters are compensated by many advantageous points. Worst of all, of course, if disputes between children develop into a conflict between parents, who begin to reproach each other for inability to educate, for being too condescending towards the child, as a result, hostile groups arise within the family. To accuse a person of doing something badly is to cause a feeling of bitterness or a sharp reaction on his part, which usually does not lead to anything good. Parents who know how to live in peace and harmony are the best model for good relationships between children. So, family relationships teach the child the ability to find a way to coexist with other people in a spirit of friendship and cooperation.
The role of grandparents in raising children
A family is not only parents and children. Grandparents, and sometimes other relatives, often play a greater or lesser role in it. Whether they live with their family or not, their impact on children cannot be overlooked.
First of all, it should be said about the help that grandparents provide today in caring for children. They take care of them while their parents are at work, take care of them during illnesses, sit with them when their parents go to the cinema, theater or visit in the evenings, thereby to some extent facilitating their work for parents, helping them relieve stress. and overload. Grandparents expand the social horizons of the child, who, thanks to them, goes beyond the tight family framework and gains direct experience of communicating with older people.
Grandparents have always been distinguished by their ability to give children some share of their emotional wealth, which sometimes the parents of the child do not have time to do either because of lack of time or because of their immaturity. They say that there is some kind of “mystical connection” between old people and children: the fairy tale told by the grandfather is much more interesting than the same one told by the father. Grandfather and grandmother occupy such an important place in the life of a child, and therefore they do not demand anything from him, do not punish him or scold him, but constantly share with him their spiritual wealth. Therefore, their role in the upbringing of the baby is undeniably important and quite significant. However, it is not always positive.
Often, many grandparents spoil children with excessive condescension, excessive attention, by fulfilling every wish of the child, showering him with gifts and almost buying his love, pulling him over to their side. There are other “underwater reefs” in the relationship of grandparents with their grandchildren. The fact is that they undermine the authority of parents when they allow the child to do what they have forbidden. It happens that grandmothers take on the role of mother, obscuring the real mother of the child. Sometimes grandparents demand that everyone share with them, they want to be aware of all family affairs, decide everything themselves, interfere in everything, etc. The main difficulty here is that they sometimes have a decisive influence on the child, but they no longer bear responsibility for it, and when something goes wrong in upbringing, they blame the parents for it.
The difficulties associated with the influence of grandparents on children, of course, are different in each family, a lot depends on the proximity of the relationship (joint or separate living), on the period of the family’s life (the most serious is the period of initial adjustment), on whose parents they are (mother or father), from the social maturity of the family and from many other circumstances. For the young and the old today, the “close relationship at a known distance” model seems ideal: the young family lives separately, but visits and uses the services of old parents, in turn, the young help the old people survive illness and loneliness.
However, in any case, the coexistence of generations is a school of personal maturity, sometimes harsh and tragic, and sometimes bringing joy, enriching people’s relationships. More than anywhere else, people here learn mutual understanding, mutual tolerance, respect and love. And the family that managed to overcome all the difficulties of relations with the older generation gives children a lot of value for their social, emotional, moral and mental development.
modern family
Not only the child himself, but also the family as a social unit in its development goes through some difficulties, sometimes experiencing serious moments of crisis. In some cases, the difficulties observed in the development of the child are a reflection of family problems, a sign of a violation of normal family relations. And in order to help a child, one must first of all help his family.
The modern family is very different from the family of the past. Much is said today about its precariousness, vulnerability, crisis situation. Too often today’s families break up, and among those that still survive, many experience internal collisions and conflicts. Of course, the impact of family conflicts, the breakup of families on a child can be very strong, especially if the parents cannot protect the child from quarrels and mutual insults. You can often hear that today’s family has already outlived its usefulness and that it should be replaced with something.
But, despite the losses and crisis situations that the family has to endure and overcome, adapting to new social conditions, its significance does not disappear, but rather even increases. There is no doubt that the family is usually the best environment for raising children, and often the strongest emotional «refuge» for adults. Efforts to help the family in solving its economic, social and other problems are now more appropriate than talk condemning the family as an obsolete and obsolete institution.
However, one cannot pass by the heavy moral damage inflicted on the child by constant quarrels, gossip, reproaches, mutual accusations of parents. Keeping a family together for the sake of a child at all costs is not always the best solution for children. Divorce with an agreement on mutual contacts between parents and the child can be a reasonable way out of a difficult situation, and often the child becomes calmer in such cases. An incomplete family or a family that has undergone changes faces more difficult tasks in matters of upbringing, many problems here are, as it were, raised to a power. But if she succeeds in creating a calm environment for the child, satisfying his most elementary emotional needs, then this family can provide him not only with a happy childhood, but will also be a good example of the correct performance of parental duties, which will be useful to him in his future life.
At present, the tasks of education have become more complex. The fact is that drastic changes are taking place today in all areas of life. During the life of one generation, the way of life of people has completely changed. If earlier parents prepared their children for entering into a world that they knew well, which was the same as the one in which they lived themselves, where the same laws and requirements were in effect, then today’s parents are preparing their children for entry into life. which they cannot know, the requirements of which they have no idea. It is not enough today to give children only ready-made knowledge: in twenty or thirty years they may not have any value; the instilled skills and abilities are also unlikely to help them out, tk. all production and the whole way of life will change radically; obedience will hardly help them — who will they listen to as adults?
It seems that there is only one way out: to teach a child from an early age to independent, creative thinking, which helps to find new solutions in new situations, to teach him to be critical of other people’s views and opinions, to be tolerant of the opinions of others, but principled and demanding of himself . Raising a child today should become something more than a simple transfer of ready-made knowledge, skills, abilities and behavior. Genuine education today is a constant dialogue between the educator and the child, during which the child increasingly masters the ability to make independent decisions, which will help him become a full member of society, fill his life with meaning.