“There is no wrong upbringing”

Swaddle – do not swaddle, take the baby to your bed at night or lay it separately, put it in a corner or conduct soul-saving conversations until victorious … Attitudes on how to educate are constantly changing. It is difficult not to get lost in them, but it is possible.

Psychologies: How to choose parenting methods that will help us and children?

Ekaterina Murashova: A child comes into this world not knowing where he is. And he can get into the palace of the English aristocrats, and into the yurt to the nomads. It is clear that the little aristocrat will sleep in his own bed. And the nomad is on a felt mat with his parents. How does an aristocrat eat? Knife and fork on schedule. And the nomad? By hand, whenever you want. Or when mom and dad get some food somewhere. The little nomad stays alone in the yurt for a long time. Parents leave to graze cattle, they leave him a dog so that he would not be bored. What about the little aristocrat? He is definitely not alone. If mom and dad leave, nannies, governesses and a whole house of servants are at his service …

Education is completely different!

But this does not mean that some have it right, while others do not! It’s just that some bring up the future aristocrat, while others bring up the future nomad. Of course, we are not aristocrats or nomads, we are somewhere in between. But whatever we do, it will be right. We just need to figure out where the baby went. Where will he sleep? What is? What to play with? Will we leave him alone? The most reasonable thing is to do what is convenient for us, parents. And the child will adapt.

Many do not know how they actually feel comfortable …

Yes, there are a lot of people missing right now. They don’t know if they love to sing, or dance, or feed the ducks in the park, or maybe learn English. So they give birth to a child, place themselves in its reality and interact with themselves – what else can I do with myself? If a mother knows for sure that she loves to sing with her child in the morning, then, in fact, she has found herself. And the question of whether to do it or not to do it does not arise.

Leisure is understandable. And lessons with the child to do?

One generation did homework with children, the other did not. I don’t know what the next will do and what to call for – maybe the lessons themselves will be canceled there. Once again: the parent must decide what is convenient for him. If the mother takes pleasure in solving problems together with the child, if he understands her better than the teacher, then this should be done. Another mother, having listened to this one, also begins to study with her son. But she has an explosive temperament, for the fourth time she starts yelling at him, then she drinks valerian, apologizes, thinks that she has caused psychological trauma to the child. Should she take lessons with him? Probably not. It’s better to hire a tutor.

What if the older generation intervenes?

You need to understand that grandparents, no matter what they say, are absolutely right, because, as we have already found out, there are simply no wrong models of upbringing. Moreover, according to one of these models you were raised. But you should not be afraid to tell them: “Thank you, dear ones, for your opinion, but this is my family and my child, and he will do as is customary with us.”

But when we walk out the door, they make their own rules.

There is no problem here. I will give an example from my own life. At the age of five, my daughter was an independent being: she could get dressed, take a shower, cook dumplings. She was easily left alone. On the weekends, I took her to my mother and grandmother. They were looking forward to it. And so we enter the Stalinist apartment with a dark corridor, the daughter lies on her back and says: “You, Galya (this is my mother), take off my shoes. And you, bula (short for “grandmother”), bring buns. I said: “Maybe she will first undress and wash her hands?” And the grandmother answered: “Well, what’s wrong if a child eats a bun in the corridor?”

What could I say to the woman who raised me? All I had to do was close the door behind me. When I picked up the child every other day, the last buttons were fastened on her, and she had the last bun in her mouth. She stepped over the threshold and fell into other rules. The main thing is that they are known to the child and remain the same.

How to explain the rules to a child?

Nothing needs to be explained. It is necessary to inform: “Bunny, you ended up in a place where ice cream is not allowed to be eaten at the stall. Yes, this boy is allowed by his parents, but it is customary for us to eat him at home, with clean hands on a beautiful plate. The conditions are set, sooner or later the child will follow them (if you yourself do not forget about them and do not change them). Or you are going to the store. You know that they will demand cookies or lollipops from you. Tell your child: “This is the situation. We only buy milk, bread and lollipops. Nothing more”. The child needs to know this in advance. I always say at the reception – you have an obligation to inform the children about how the world works.

Some experts believe that in modern families, parents do not have authority …

Specialists see what fits their concept. In fact, everything is as it was, and remains. I remember, as a girl, I rode in a reserved seat car. An old woman was sitting opposite me, and on the second shelf was her son, such a hefty fellow. He addressed his mother as “you”, beautifully … At some point, the old woman did something that he didn’t like, and the kid barked: “Mom, are you crazy ?!” And then there were, and now there are families where the authority of parents is very high. And there are those where below the plinth.

And what is better for a child?

Looking for what. To preserve traditions, a sense of stability, it is better that the authority of the elders be high. To move forward, to develop creativity, it is preferable that authority be in question. And since society needs both, the question “Which is better?” becomes meaningless.

But relations between parents and children have become more democratic?

What is actually happening is blurring the difference between generations. Previously, adults owned not only material resources, but also information. The child came to school to study, he knew that he could not get knowledge anywhere else. Where is all the information now? In the Internet. Children can find the answer before the teacher finishes the question. And a 50-year-old man and a 9-year-old child can play computer games on an equal footing. And more often the child plays even better, and the man can ask him for advice.

Usually we find out about our mistakes when it’s too late: the child fights, runs away from home … How to understand if we are doing everything right now?

If a child actively explores the world, communicates, he has friends, interests, he learns something, brings it home… If he quarrels and fights, but knows how to put up… That is, if he behaves like a young active animal of a collective species – that is, he not alone, but together with others, frolics on the lawn, which means that at home this “animal” is more or less in order. And that means that even a drinking father and a mother screaming because of deuces do not greatly unbalance him. Now, if he doesn’t have friends, if he comes from school and says: “Everyone is idiots there,” if he is offered a million circles, but he doesn’t want anything … In this case, you should look at yourself.

What mistakes in education are fatal?

I haven’t seen one of those. That is, even cruelty, which I not only do not approve of, but which makes me shake, does not always lead to some fatal consequences. Perhaps the most malignant thing for a child is to declare him the meaning of his life. When a parent says: “I live for you”, “I put my whole life on you”. This setup is crippling. It’s just that no one can be anyone’s meaning of life – this is too much responsibility. Unbearable burden. If I live for you, you must answer me with something, meet your expectations. You cannot do this, and at some point I begin to feel guilty. If a woman assigns the meaning of life to a man, he wants to run away. However, he can do it, and the child has nowhere to run.

Previously, children were the meaning of life, but now?

One hundred, two hundred years ago, a woman had five or six children and several dead babies, and she lived in order to put the survivors on their feet. The children took it quite calmly, because her self-sacrifice was shared by everyone. Now often not only the mother who lives for him falls on one child, but also grandparents on both sides, who have been waiting for him for a long, long time. For a child, this is very difficult psychologically. The setting “I live for you” provides neurosis in 90%.

In fact, this is a controversial issue what a child needs. Some say: “A child needs only parental love, but material things do not.” Others: “Yes, this is all nonsense, the child needs material things, because we live in the material world.” Still others assure: “You know, and this is not so important, but you need to have a complete family – mom and dad, and, you know, even better brothers and sisters, and even better grandparents.” What if you’re a single mother?

Single parents don’t have much time for their kids…

Communication between mother and child is not a quantitative, but a qualitative indicator. You can spend 24 hours with your son or daughter and it will be empty 24 hours. And you can 20 minutes, and they will be remembered for a lifetime. If a mother comes home from work at seven, and she still needs to go around the house, and at nine the child is already put to bed, you should think very carefully about what they will do for half an hour or an hour, what to talk about. What will she tell him? If she enters and asks: “Why are you again without slippers? Why didn’t you come up to Mary Petrovna, as I told you? I have to cook dinner, and you are here … ”- nothing good will come of it.

We’ve been doing research. I counted how much they communicate with teenagers in prosperous, complete families. 11 and a half minutes a day! And it’s a lot, actually. Bad is another. At the beginning there was a survey: “What would you like to talk about with your child? And what would you not like to talk about categorically? So, ¾ of this time, these 11 and a half minutes, the parents talked and asked about what they absolutely would not want to. So – what do you miss there for a child? 11 minutes is not enough? The answer to your question is that mothers should think carefully about how to spend this time correctly.

Parents, raising us, made more mistakes or less than we do now?

In my generation, as in any other, there were families where children were beaten, humiliated, they were not paid attention to. There were families where children were strangled with love. If you are asking specifically about me and my parents, then I believe that there were two mistakes. I was not taught English – well, then no one could have thought that someone would need it. And they didn’t buy me a microscope, although I really wanted it (and then I became a biologist, it would be very useful to me). Everything else was not so important.