When parents put pressure on their children

The parents of 14-year-old Kirill work hard to provide the family with a decent standard of living. Kirill’s father is a lawyer, his mother is an assistant professor at the university. For their child, they would like the same secure future. Therefore, Kirill is fully loaded: studying at school and extracurricular activities take up all his time. After school, the mother of a classmate gives Kirill a lift home, and this is the only period of time when the boy can take a breath and think about something other than the lessons. After all, homework awaits him at home.

The parents return for dinner, but before they sit down at the table, they carefully check his diary. Kirill knows that they are worried about him, and therefore lays out everything in front of them so as not to disappoint. At the same time, he admits that from time to time he “would like to do nothing”, but to invite friends over or even just lie on the couch hugging the cat. Nevertheless, even during the holidays, Kirill plunges into the abyss of textbooks, notebooks and contour maps every day.

Unfortunately, Cyril’s case is far from the only one. Children are often subjected to similar pressure from their parents. “Parents demand from their children a detailed report on their progress from the very first years of education,” says 28-year-old teacher Anna. “They even check the drawings, or worse, compare them with the drawings of other children.” What do parents want? So that their children learn to cope with competition, become the first. After all, this is what modern society requires of us.

The cult of achievement

On days when a child has extra-curricular activities in addition to school, the vise tightens even more. Classes can be two, three, even four times a week. It turns out that weekdays are packed to capacity, and even Saturday is scheduled to the minute.

“Occupying all the children’s time, parents do not realize that they are devastating this time from a spiritual point of view,” assures child psychotherapist Margarita Tozi. “Sometimes parents pass on to their child the difficult task of bringing meaning to their own lives. We are talking about adults who have few interests outside of work and for whom their child is the center of the universe.”

In this case, there is a risk that children will be so loaded with various kinds of activity that they will not have time to dream, fantasize, let their thoughts fly. In other words, they lose the time to project themselves into the future, the precious space they need to put together the mosaic of their emerging identity.

Stress from overwork

In times of crisis, the specter of unemployment constantly looms in the distance. To secure the future of their children, some parents put a lot of emphasis on studies and extracurricular activities. “It’s true,” admits Alexei, 49, father of eleven-year-old Misha and eight-year-old Agatha. They come in the evenings tired.

Sometimes it seems unfair to me to wake them up on Saturday at 7:30, but I do it for their own good: this is the only free morning to go to the pool. In life, you need to set yourself goals, and in order to achieve them, you need to overcome obstacles, sacrifice something. If they don’t learn this now, they won’t be ready for adulthood.”

“Most often the victims of this cycle are boys. The burden of commitment is unbearable for them, and because of this, some of them break down: among my young patients, there is a strong increase in the number of pathologies associated with anxiety, such as hyperactivity and inability to concentrate, ”warns Tosi.

The myth of the prodigy

The agonizing drive to succeed at any cost is fueled by the modern myth of the ideal child, which is experienced by parents as a narcissistic extension of themselves. So, they begin to plan the future of their child during pregnancy.

However, these hopes often turn into mania, and everything ends up with an unconscious mission assigned to the child: to atone for the failures of the parents and to realize those goals that they themselves could not achieve. Did the child bring a bad grade? Parents are hysterical, because in this they see a reproach to themselves. “Don’t experience your children’s wins and losses as if they were your wins and losses,” Tosi advises.

Despite this, 46-year-old Daria cannot change her mind. Her son Philip does not like the classical lyceum, and he asks to be transferred to a regular school. “But I think that a solid general cultural base will be more useful for him and will open up a wider range of opportunities,” Daria insists. Result? Her relationship with her son is no longer based on trust, and teachers are increasingly calling her to school due to numerous absences. However, Daria does not give up, although she admits: “Obviously, this is my fault.”

According to Tozi, in most cases, the root of the problem lies in the insecurity and dissatisfaction of the parents: “Today’s children have too many responsibilities, and they are always expected to perform to the maximum.” And the children have no choice but to endure these tests, demonstrating perfection and strength.

Freedom to do nothing

Such behavior is not without risk. Living according to the desires of the parents blocks the growth of the desires of the children themselves. How can one not lose contact with one’s own inner world when all life energy is spent on pleasing and not disappointing? “We have a generation of “gaseous children” who, like gas, hover around and cannot gain a foothold,” Tosi assures. Under pressure, focused on catering to their parents’ expectations, children don’t always find the time and energy to look within and understand who they are and what they want.

When this pressure risks breaking them, children react to it with behavior that is the opposite of what is expected. For example, 13-year-old Julia is used to being an excellent student. “When she comes home after writing “excellent” work, she feels the worst,” says her mother: after all, Yulia, despite her good grades, perceives every school test as if it determines her entire future.

And the 11-year-old fifth-grader Leva, on the contrary, has shown complete indifference from the very beginning of the school year. “He seems to flaunt the number of remarks that are pouring in on him, and he is proud of how he is silent during exams,” his mother complains.

“These are the types of behavior that signal that children are uncomfortable,” notes Tosi. In this case, she advises to “slow down” a little and suggests the following: “For students who are having difficulties, it is advisable to revise the daily routine, reduce the number of obligations, remove the most energy-intensive extracurricular activities.

This advice is also relevant for elementary school students who are prone to apathy, impatience, sadness. Children need to be alone with their thoughts, give them free rein, allow their desires to come out of the emotional magma, in order to then begin to pursue them and eventually achieve goals that come from the heart.

Parents of a student or just parents?

“One day I had something like an epiphany. Marta was sad, she is in the second grade and tries very hard to study well. She got an A in math, and I wanted to comfort her. “It’s not that important, don’t scold yourself, next time it will be better,” I repeated, says 37-year-old Roman. – The only problem that I saw at that moment was a deuce in mathematics, and nothing more, until Martha cried and said that classmates laugh at her and call her fat. How could I be so blind? How could I forget that my daughter is first of all a girl, and only then a schoolgirl?

Since then, Roman has continued to monitor his daughter’s progress, while not forgetting about everything else. “Now, as soon as we leave school, I immediately ask her how she is doing. Only then do we calmly move on to a discussion of her academic success. I’m still pretty strict and demanding because school has to work hard. But now she knows that I love her regardless of whether she will be the first student in the class or not.