The desire to give the child more of everything, and the best — toys, clothes, knowledge, entertainment — often leads to the fact that he is capricious and quickly tired. Parents are perplexed: why their love does not bring joy? Sometimes the best thing to do is leave the kids alone.
Less toys, good and different
I recently visited a young family in Switzerland. Their daughter is a year and a half old. I was struck by how few toys she had. And those that are are mainly the legacy of parents or even grandmothers: a porcelain doll, wooden cubes, a Teddy bear, a couple of animals, three or four books.
Such a family vintage at a special price, careful attitude to it is naturally transferred to the girl. And she is quite satisfied with her set, with interest distributes roles in a simple home performance, happily hurries to her corner, barely waking up.
In fact, the abundance of toys exhausts the child. Is it necessary to make a choice all the time? And it’s almost impossible to concentrate. Attention dissipates, dissatisfaction accumulates, whims and the demand for more and more new things become the norm.
Parents often overestimate the needs of children and underestimate their ability to play with what is available, to enjoy the game itself, and not from endless options.
“An excessively large number of toys in the nursery speaks of the need to replace them with emotional participation in the child, the care of parents.
Another option is to compensate for the lack of such abundance in us, adults, ”says child psychologist Irina Mlodik.
If toys accumulate, you can sort out those that the child has outgrown, broken ones, or temporarily remove repetitive ones. And then they «update» the assortment to everyone’s pleasure.
Safety first
Sometimes it seems that you can make life easier if you do not think about the rules. Today we sleep and eat three times, tomorrow how it will turn out, because circumstances change so quickly! If our children are involved in such a kaleidoscope, then we should not be surprised that they experience anxiety, become shy and absent-minded.
Without noticing it, we deprive them of a sense of elementary stability. Especially when it comes to life «in two houses» in the event of a divorce, when the child spends time either with his father or with his mother.
Taking into account the interests of the child does not mean building a world in the center of which exclusively he, it means that the child must be privy to the rules of this world, and the task of adults is to observe them.
“Children are part of our family system, important, but a part,” explains Irina Mlodik. — And in this system there must be a place for all adults. They ensure that the traditions and rules of the family are respected, which protect the child, giving him the opportunity to grow and develop safely.
The simplest family traditions can bring the right rhythm, a sense of security into the life of a child.
Once we were vacationing with four-year-old Martha, my husband’s granddaughter. She missed her mother very much, but, oddly enough, it was not the creative “happenings” that we vyingly offered her that consoled her, trying to guess her childhood desire, but her usual home rituals.
Martha would not go to bed without preparing her clothes for tomorrow, from underwear to hair ties. After a shower, she asked to be smeared with cream, and after breakfast she carefully collected all the dishes — and at that moment she calmed down.
“Children really do not need connivance with their momentary desires, but discipline, traditions and rules that help them learn to regulate themselves, their day, so they understand how life is regulated in principle,” confirms Irina Mlodik. It is important for children to hear their desires and respond to them. And not necessarily consent, it can also be refusal, because it is important for children to learn to experience frustration next to significant relatives.
The simplest family traditions can bring the right rhythm and a sense of security into a child’s life.
Waiting for a book before going to bed is not so much a passion for stories, but a confirmation of home peace and the promise of tomorrow — just as prosperous, with mother’s unchanged bedtime story.
Long live boredom!
Little Emelyan will soon be three — and he still does not master a single musical instrument, does not go swimming, dances and does not learn French. What do his parents think?
Parents think that Emelyan has a normal childhood. That he would learn to swim at sea, that he would learn French when he went to France, and that he would learn music whenever he wanted.
A first-grader Daniil goes to English, tennis, drawing lessons and also to a speech therapist. In his mother’s car, between all this, he can watch a cartoon on the iPad. The main thing is not to get bored!
Parents look tired, but satisfied: the child does not have a free minute, he is constantly developing. In essence, the child is constantly engaged in one thing — to satisfy the ambitions of the parents.
In order for the child to develop his own interests, he needs free time
“Indeed, this is a newfangled trend — to try to give everything to children, to surround them with total care, to make them the center of the adult world,” confirms Irina Mlodik. “Children need our attention. But this attention lies in our personal involvement and readiness to respond, and not in a set of various loads that we are able to provide.
In order for the child to begin to develop his own interests and the ability to critically think about his affairs, he needs free time. In the most literal sense, free — neglected and, perhaps, unlimited.
“Boredom is one of the attributes of a thinking being,” said Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. A person should find activities for himself without external instructions, let it be reflections, wallowing on the sofa to music, chatting on the phone with friends, sorting through the collection of airplanes. This is one of the important conditions for the slow but steady development of personal self-expression.
Parents, by the way, can set a good example by putting aside their smartphones or abandoning overly busy weekend plans. Boredom in the sense in which we avoid it, that is, time spent without visible results, can be very fruitful.
You have been heard
Once, my friend and I were discussing family and non-family problems in the kitchen, and next to us, her five-year-old son was going about his business. When we fell silent, the boy, not looking up from the plasticine, summed up: «Yes … trouble has come — open the gate.»
We are touched by adult thoughts through the mouths of babies. And we do not notice how we begin to draw children into the stream of our own experiences. It can be difficult to build gateways between the adult and children’s world.
“Of course, we must share our emotions with children, including negative ones, but the information must be passed through certain filters,” insists Irina Mlodik. “We should not share what constitutes our sexuality and discuss someone else’s love affairs.
And if we voice some problems, we must tell the child how we are going to cope with this, so that he understands: there may be difficulties, but they can be overcome.
In addition, it is in our power to at least turn off the TV, radio and … be silent ourselves. In silence, it is much easier to hear your own child, and he is much calmer without the disturbing conversations of adults.