Читать книгу Cathy Glass 3-Book Self-Help Collection - Cathy Glass, Cathy Glass - Страница 46

Your child’s growing independence and self-reliance will become more obvious now, together with the development of his or her individuality. At this age your child’s peer-group friendships will be very important, and with these comes a growing pressure to conform to the peer-group norm. At the same time, this age group begins to see their parents as fallible human beings rather than awarding them near god-like status as younger children do.

Your child will be spending more time playing independently and away from you – in friend’s houses, sleeping over, possibly playing in parks, as well as at school, clubs and out-of-school activities. This widening experience and growing sense of self-reliance will encourage your child to make comparisons between what happens at home regarding your rules and expected standards of behaviour and what happens in the homes of friends. Some of what your child sees, and the comparisons he or she makes, will be advantageous to you, supporting and reinforcing your rules for good behaviour, while other observations and comparisons may not. These comparisons, together with your child’s growing realisation that you are fallible, will lead your child to question and challenge you, your ideals and how you run your household. And what is discouraged or forbidden in your house will seem very enticing and ‘better’ when your child sees it being allowed in the family of one of his friends.

This lure of the forbidden will continue, in one form or another, into the teenage years, as your child’s world widens further and he or she compares the differences in expectations he or she sees. It is healthy for your child to be noticing these differences, but clearly it doesn’t mean you have to change or adapt your way of doing something, despite your child’s forceful argument that you should. The fact that André is allowed a small glass of diluted wine with his meal, or that Melissa doesn’t go to bed until 10.00 p.m., or that Robert has twice the amount of pocket money Tom does, or that James calls his mum and dad by their first names, is not a sign you are stuck in a Victorian time warp: it just shows that other equally respectable and well-functioning families do things differently. There is no need for you to change your house rules, unless, of course, after consideration, you believe you could learn something from the way another family does something and your rules could be changed for the better.