A cheerful company arrived at the boarding house. How good it is here! The sky is blue, the barbecue is smoking, you can all sit together all day, even after midnight: we have a rest!
In a cheerful company, only one is unhappy: a one-year-old child. Mom is busy, she really wants to chat with her friends and flirt with friends, and when the baby runs up to her, she is not up to him. She will smile at him sometime, sometime pat him on the head without looking, and sometime she will simply say “Leave me alone!”. Laughing at a child is fun, working with him is boring.
Morning, the company has breakfast, the child was given toys so that he does not interfere with adults to communicate. Mom occasionally remembers about the child and says something random to him, for example: “Show the letter A” — and immediately turns away: she is distracted by her friend. The child looks at mom, but mom turned away, and he turned to other toys. He didn’t do what his mom asked.
Someday, years later, mom will think: why does my child not obey me? I wonder if she will remember this situation, where she essentially taught her child not to listen to her, to ignore her mother’s requests and demands?
One of the friends turned to the child: he held out the letter. The child reached out with his hands to take it, but the friend, instead of giving the letter to him in his hands, put it on the child’s head: the letter fell. Everyone laughed, the child looked at his mother carefully: is this funny? Yeah, mom laughs. The child laughed too and immediately threw this letter at his mother.
With a cheerful cry: «Just don’t throw it!» mom turned away. The child does not yet know these words, but he hears intonations, they are cheerful and provocative. This means that everyone is having fun, and he throws the next letter into the glass on the table … The glass did not break, and my mother got angry: “Come on, stop it quickly!”
Schizophrenia? Uncle dabbled — everyone liked it. He threw — everyone liked it. And now for the same mother swears. For what? The child began to cry, and now the mother scolds him for crying: “What’s wrong with you! Everyone is laughing — you are the only one crying all the time! Mom is angry because the child is tearing her away from the party and friends …
The child looks at his mother through crying and, it seems, learns her displeased intonations. I wonder what kind of person he will grow up to be. And, in principle, will he grow up as a Human?
Unconscious reinforcement in parenting
Mom and son are walking in the yard on the playground, where many other children play. While running around, the baby is accidentally knocked down by an older child. The colliding children rise to their feet and are ready to scatter to continue their game further, but then the mother of the first baby runs up and begins to groan loudly and eloquently and examine her son, throwing angry glances at the other child. What happens next? The child of this woman begins to cry (Mom was frightened, which means that I am scared and hurt). The second child looks around (seeking support) and, seeing his mother, also begins to cry.
What are children learning? First: Most likely, something really terrible happened, since mom was so scared. Second: If you want to be caressed once again — pretend to be frightened as much as possible and start crying! Further see →