The nature of resentment, or how children learn to be offended

Whether resentment is an innate emotion is a moot point; in any case, young children still don’t really know how to be offended and learn this vigorously. For children, resentment is a natural means of pressure on loved ones — parents, friends, brothers and sisters. Growing up, people begin to understand that resentment is not a civilized way of resolving disagreements, and they learn to live without resentment. However, not everyone grows up, and somehow you have to react to the insults of others anyway.

Resentments are not innate emotions, but a social tool, the result of social learning. Babies have in their arsenal an inborn, behaviorally quite simple, state of aggression, and they still have to master the complex behavior of resentment. Children quickly learn to be offended where their environment (primarily parents and grandmothers) expects resentment from them, they are already seen in advance and interpret their most diverse emotions and their behavior as an insult. Not as fears, not as pressure on adults, but as an unfortunate and bitter insult.

“My little one, come here, don’t cry… Who offended you?!” If parents are looking for reasons to sympathize with the child and pity the child, they will find these reasons, teach the child to be offended, and soon they will console the constantly offended child.

Surrounded by narrow-minded adults, it turns out to be offended — it is beneficial. Children try on offense and try to use it already from the age of one, but so far these are rare episodes. Seriously, thoroughly, children learn insults at the age of usually 2 to 5 years, adopting stereotyped or creative patterns from other children, sometimes older ones. Offended facial expressions and offended intonations are one of the easiest emotions to recognize, apparently due to their ubiquity. The traditional form of childish resentment: “If you don’t do this, I will be offended by you.” Resentment is usually used to accuse others of causing offense.

Situation. A girl of about five years old, at least on her tricycle, she rode freely, without hesitation. She stopped and, rising on her bicycle, calmly and loudly shouted to her friend: “I can’t stand seeing you!” — It seems that she heard this phrase in some series, the phrase seemed strong, effective to her, and she tried it on: will it have an effect? Her friend, however, turned her back on her indifferently. Nothing, our girl will learn resentment day after day, she will already know many phrases of resentment, learn the correct bitterly offended intonations for them and learn to stage all this situationally. In a year, you can be sure, she will already be a master of resentment.

Children begin to use resentment simply because resentment works. They react to them. Children use resentment quite arbitrarily,

From a letter from a reader: “My nephew Maxim is now three years old. And he has already mastered the offense remarkably. When he doesn’t like something, for example, how the adults around him behave, he lies down on the floor, face down, covering his face with his hands, while periodically peeking out from under his palms in search of an audience. If he sees that they are looking at him, he offendedly hides back into his hands. The face is unhappy — the lips are pouted, the eyes are sad. In such a situation, the most effective way is not to pay attention, the child is simply tired of showing resentment. You can also calmly explain why it is impossible / impossible to give what he wants to receive, and “rolling on the floor” will not help him in this case.

However, over time, differences appear between children. There are children who, from the age of two, are offended almost consciously and easily answer the question: “Who are you offended by? Why are you offended?» Their grievances have a purpose, they are grievances “in order to”. In contrast to such children-manipulators, there are simple children who rather traditionally react in the way that is customary between children. Their grievances may look like targeted and expedient, in fact, such children find it difficult to immediately answer the question “Why are you offended?”, Because they are really offended not “Why”, but “Because”: “Because he called me names! »

Over time, namely from adolescence, the feeling of resentment is already fixed as a largely involuntary emotional reaction. Note this: the feeling of resentment does not arise spontaneously, not naturally, society teaches resentment in the same way as knowledge of the language or the ability to cook.

Girls are taught what to be offended by and what not. Young people are taught which grievances of girls are legitimate, justified, and which ones you don’t need to pay attention to, it’s stupid. Look at what the boys are offended at, what the girls are offended at

Resentments are the result of habit and upbringing, and people who are used to being offended a little are called touchy. The touchy themselves are usually sure that the whole point is in others who treat them unkindly, while others see touchy people or naive manipulators, or poorly educated people.

Both men and women are offended, but more often resentment is characteristic of women than men, perhaps due to the habit of women to live with feelings. “Resentment has more power over a woman than love, especially if this woman has a noble and proud heart …” — this ironic remark reminds us of how women tend to defend their offense and present it as a natural, normal and worthy reaction. However, the more subjects with the psychology of a child among men, the more resentment spreads among men. Smart and adult people, even if they are once offended, realize they are wrong and try to unlearn this generally unproductive habit. Adult and successful people are not seriously offended by anyone. Instead of resentment, you can discuss a controversial situation with a person, make a request, and if pressure is necessary, warn about your next actions: “If you don’t do this, I’ll have to do this.”

Note that pressure is not the most effective means of influence, to live richer and more diverse. On the other hand, it also turns out to be wrong to completely abandon resentment: people understand the language of resentment well, and in some situations, resentment can be socially acceptable and quite effective means of managing interpersonal relationships.

Probably, all the same, it is more important to teach that being offended is stupid in principle, adults and civilized people have other ways to build relationships with each other. If you are an adult, mentally healthy and educated person surrounded by the same beautiful people, you will not need insults and you will not face them yourself. When you figure it out with yourself and basically stop being offended, start putting things in order with your children. The question «Why are our children offended?» it is better to replace it with “Why are our children offended?”, After which seriously ask yourself “Do I allow my children to be offended?” and “What other bad habits have I allowed my children to do?” If you love your children, then soon you will stop insulting your children: in their life they will interfere with them. We do not promise that everything will be easy for you, but later, in the future, your children will thank you. And you will begin a bright life — a life without offense.