Читать книгу Your children are not your children - Павел Эрзяйкин - Страница 3

It’s easy to be right, relying on the past experience, other people’s recipes and their behavioral models. Doing so, we’ll be right in the eyes of other people, but unlikely we’ll be happy. We have two ways to live: either you are right or you are happy. People become happy when they clearly see and understand what they have to do here and now and they do it. Immediately, depending on what and with whom these people interact, they get response and reward. Using other people’s ready-made «right» models in any situation, not depending on the context, shows that people just don’t understand what is happening, what it means for them personally and how to react in order to be appropriate, essential and sufficient. Something brand new, just born, unique and unlike anything else is placed into an old, well-known pattern. This never happens without aggression or anger, and it gives temporal and insignificant effect. Therefore, life seems unhappy and useless, because all efforts bring no reward.

Many parents are looking for some «norm» and want to be «right» in the eyes of other people. But this is paranoia because other people don’t care about us – they do their own business, thinking about their problems and often just don’t see us. However, it seems to us that everybody is looking at us, so for some passers-by, we play our performance called «I am a good parent,» losing our children, their trust, losing the ability to be precise and wise.

It is considered that to be a parent is to comply with some norms and rules to meet the demands of society – the irrelevant demands god-knows-who created. But the second party of the child-parent relationship is not the society, but a child, never taken into account, because he/she is «little and naïve.» Parents try to look «good» in the eyes of other people and loose contact with children, therefore losing the ability to influence them. The drug addicts have «the best» and «the rightest» parents. Believe me, they have the most caring, attentive and sacrificing mothers. Once a woman came to me to consult. She was a very «correct» mother. Her husband committed suicide, her elder son went to prison, her daughter was a whore and her younger son was a drug addict. She was furious; she was stomping her feet, blaming school teachers, society, drugs, bad company in the street, movies and time itself. She was always right, but because of this, her husband «went beyond the veil» and her children went into the street. This mother was like a neutron bomb, because her rightness destroyed everything around leaving nobody alive and her family preferred being elsewhere, not close to her.

Sometimes I consult women who want to become mothers, but it doesn’t happen because doctors say they are infertile, though somatically they’re healthy. I ask these women, «Why do you need this child? Who told you that you need this child?» They get offended, considering this question a foolish one, «I need a child to take care of him/her, to spare the child, to educate, to nurse, to treat when the child is ill…» This answer demonstrates that such future mother has already projected a child as some helpless creature, demanding her permanent attention, yearning for the mother and missing her. Then I ask a question, «What if your child isn’t born disabled, but a healthy, quick-thinking, curious and creative person? What if your child doesn’t need your help and the attention you have got in store for him/her? Your child may disappoint you by such independence. Then what?»

Having been born individual, inimitable and unique, children immediately find themselves tied by their parents’ concepts of how it should be done «right.» Moreover, to this «right» parents add something they were eager to achieve, but failed. Something they regret, something they don’t have the courage to do, something they didn’t have time to complete or something their own parents were against in childhood. And now as adults, they still have no determination to complete something, trying to fulfill it with the help of their children. They want, let say, to see what will come out not taking any risk. They want to conduct an experiment: «What would have happened if I had done that?» For example, «I should have finished a language school. Or was I right not having finished it? I’ll send my son there, and we’ll see what will come out.» Then, education feels like trial, torture and pangs. You didn’t learn to dance in childhood – go and dance, you didn’t sing – go and sing, you didn’t play tennis – go and play. Your children have nothing to do with it! These are your wishes, your failed projects – implement them yourself if you want to do so.

Very often the woman, disappointed in her marriage, tries to bring up her son with certain traits of character she lacks in her husband, i.e., her husband didn’t turn out to be a prince, but her son is going to be the very prince she has been waiting for all her life. The father may also have some plans for the child: he wants his son to be a famous football player, and his daughter a polyglot. So children are born in the atmosphere of some demands and expectations connected with them. Sometimes these demands overwhelm parents to such a degree, that they hardly pay attention to the uniqueness of their children. Parents impose their ideas upon them not caring about their children’s abilities and desires.

Parents fancy a socially justified project for children: they want them to treat people or perform on the TV screen, to be involved in socially useful and socially acknowledged activity, so that the neighbors would come and say, «What a son you have raised!» However, if the son is engaged with something he enjoys, but the society doesn’t consider this profession prestigious and useful, parents start terrorizing him, «This isn’t the right job for you!» I don’t mean here that children shouldn’t choose socially aligned profession to preserve their individuality and uniqueness. I mean that parents shouldn’t impose their own ideas about the «right» and «wrong» professions: «If you were a doctor, I would be proud of you.» It’s not the main thing to become a doctor and treat people. More important is that your children put life into their work, do something sincere, not waiting for the praise, not hoping to earn parents’ love, but for themselves, because it’s impossible for them to live without their work. It doesn’t matter what your children choose, support them, be beside them and, if needed, protect your children’s choice from those who criticize them.

The desire to bring up «right» comes from the fear to make a mistake and possibly to be ashamed of bringing up somebody «wrong» for society. This isn’t because society can really judge us – we judge ourselves ahead, choosing to do everything right, according to the ideals (nobody knows who and when created) as the cornerstone of our upbringing. Parents get preoccupied by their own image – not to be guilty, not to be a looser. They want to have such a child so that everybody will see what a good mother you are. Then, your sacrifice and tortures won’t be in vain, and you will be able to justify your failed life for devoting it to your son: he has become such a «nice» guy – meaning that your denial of your private life and your failure to become a «friend,» a «lover,» a «wife,» a «specialist» were not in vain.

Children’s upbringing by mothers concerned with public opinion is perceived by these mothers as something ideally right. They don’t take into account the child’s potential and personality. The mother considers her child as something made of modelling clay, which can be shaped according to public expectations. Then these public ideals turn to be «dead» and not working, but the child filled with them entering the world becomes inadequate. Have you heard parents saying to their child, «Money is good. Look at businessmen – learn from them, open your own business, take a risk and start earning money.» This is never told. On the contrary, parents try to leave their children in the fairy tale, supporting their infantility and capriciousness. Because if children are weak, always cry and can’t step aside from their parents, these very parents start having the reason for life: «At least somebody needs us.»

Children, being dependent and feeling parents’ pressure, can’t decide to protest for a long time, can’t achieve anything and proclaim their individuality. Not being able to earn their living, to live separate, to be supported by friends, they are left face to face with their parents, grandparents – adults, having some rights and plans for their children. In his novel «The man who laughs,» Victor Hugo told about comprachikos (in Spanish – «children buyer»), who turned stolen kids into monsters (putting some parts of their bodies into blocks to break body proportions during physical development) and then sold them as entertainment (jesters) for the Royal court. Social upbringing reminds of the comprachikos’ actions: when we put some parts of children’s personalities into blocks, preventing natural development and somehow castrating them, depriving them of the internal harmony.

Сhildren may even die if they don’t have the environment, the ways and chances to fulfill their potential. Children understand it not at the intellectual, but at the natural level, and then they choose «not to live» – to die or fall ill. Only in the first year the child receives strong support from parents. First steps, first words, first using of the baby potty – everything is encouraged and causes a storm of emotions in adults, that’s why after birth children develop so rapidly. Then, when two-year-old children say that they will do everything themselves («I’ll cook myself, wash myself, sweep myself»), their development is slowed down by parents.

Children's willingness to take risks, crazyness, activeness and participation in life, the desire to influence, to build, to create frightens inert parents. They begin to forbid, talking about some stupid consequences, which they have never met or seen themselves. Immediately they get scared and start evaluating, «It’s bad,» «This is no good,» «You can get sick.» Parents fear that children will not need them and try to intimidate them – «You will break it!», «You don’t know how…», «You will spoil it.» Children insist – parents first bribe, and if it doesn’t work, start intimidating and punishing. This is how the Fear of Fear and Fear of Pain are formed. They paralyze children and make them passive. In addition, children grow with the feeling that things, food and neighbors – all external – are more important for parents than the manifestation of their children’s personalities.

«Good children» are «dead children.» Their parents succeeded in killing their individuality, intuition, creativity, joy, spontaneity, initiative and passion. These are scared children, having lost their childhood and the source of life. Children who are «alive» are always «crazy,» they are beyond the limits of our understanding of expedience, appropriateness and rightness and therefore they can’t be good – they will get in our hair, annoy us and bother with strange ideas and tricks. In fact, children are capable of doing absurd things (from our point of view): they can turn chairs into planes, paper into money and glass into diamonds. We don’t understand that, we don’t want to understand and immediately forbid, just in case, trying «to make an order in the dark room»: «You can’t! Boogeyman will take you up!» – «Why?» – «Just because…» – «But what have I done?» – «You mustn’t! That’s all! When you grow up, you will understand. Now you are too little to protest!»

I remember a woman came to me to consult, and I asked her to write an application for a «good son,» and she was absolutely serious writing that she wanted him to do this and that and to say so…

She wasn’t an exception – I often met parents, who «played» parents, then the «toy» broke down and they went to the psychologist: «Repair him for me. I was bringing him up, but suddenly he broke down and became unsuitable for use, uncontrolled, restless and a stupid parasite.» At the same time the mother was sure that everything was OK with her, it was only with a child that something was wrong. So first of all I consult this mother, and then get down to a child, and if the mother doesn’t understand, it’s useless to treat the child. When you communicate with these mothers, there is a feeling that their only desire is to kill children’s personality as quickly as possible and make them suitable for control, the so-called «handheld robots.» If you want to play – turn on the toy, if you lose the desire – turn it off. Well, luckily that mother quickly realized that she couldn’t get a child with the help of application. This would no longer be a child, but a doll.

I always repeat: learn to live from children. A man came to me: «I don’t know what to do – troubles are everywhere, nothing can be worth…» I ask him: «Don’t you have a son?» – «Yes, he is a year and a half.» – «Tell me about him. How does he wake up?» – «He opens his eyes and says: „Wow!“ – „How does he fall asleep?“ – „With a potato chip in his mouth. As soon as he reaches his bed, he falls asleep like a dead man.“ We all have such a little wise man and a life teacher. Unlike adults, children haven’t tasted meanness, intrigues, lies, pain, fear, betrayal, corruption – these are the only things they do not know about life. If you want to start living – look at your child and learn. He can live, but you have forgotten what it means. He doesn’t care, and you are within the limits. He lives and plays at full swing, whereas you’re dumb and lazy. If you have left your mobile at home – it can be now anywhere: in the washing machine or in the toilet bowl. This way our children try to make us conscious, responsible and included in life. It’s a perfect training for parents.

Children return us to life, but we beat them, because we don’t feel the ability to live – we have lost it, because we were beaten, and it seems we will never be able to live like they do. We shall. Learn to live from children until they become „dead.“1 30 per cent of children are „dead“ up to the age of five, 70 per cent – after school and there remains only 12 per cent of „alive“ children after college. Look, how many people are a success after their college or university experience? Where are the rest? We attended the same lectures, studied in the same group and listened to the same professors. Where have they gone? Where will your children go when they grow up? They will be OK if you don’t impose your philosophy of the norm upon them and tell them what kind of people they should be, right from their childhood. Then they will stay „alive,“ they will be able to surprise, to take part in life and to become successful.

Being a parent means to be present, to realize and clearly see your role and your place next to this miracle that was born, and to create conditions and space for their development and growth. There, inside, in our center we are born with a certain potential, inner strength. And all this potential, this project, the idea of nature we bear are looking for the ways to be implemented, but come across powerful obstacles – models and expectations of parents. Parents also felt this potential long ago, but they lost it under the same methods of upbringing they practice now on their children. And instead of starting to live, they remember what they had inside back then, they get afraid and scare their children, „Can they do what they want nowadays?“ „Never mind! We were suffering, so they will suffer too.“ „He is too little to want it.“ „This is too much he wants.“ „You haven’t grown up enough.“ „When you grow up, you will understand.“ Parents are afraid of the children’s creativity and unpredictability, they are afraid of children who have Their Own Life.

Start living yourself, living the children’s lives – get down on your knees and crawl together, look at them, watch them, feel them and join them. Just for a second try to forget about the project of „how it should be“ and start being, living, seeing, feeling and realizing. Not only feeding and getting dressed, but watching to see what my children are doing now, why they are doing it, and why it is important for them. If you spend some time not controlling, evaluating and harping on the same old theme, you will be able to see the process of life cognition, the discovery of the world by these little people. At that time, you just have to be there, supporting.

We become wise parents when we understand what’s happening: what is the child doing, what for, what will the consequences be? Then, we say „no,“ not because this is right for someone, but because we start feeling, seeing, realizing, that this is the only thing to do now. If the snake is crawling to the child, you have to push the child away from it with all your strength. The child can be hurt, can be afraid because of suddenness, can cry, but you have to do it. Let other people criticize you for being rude and violent. Let the child take offence and go into hysterics. The main thing is that you know what you are doing.

There is no „right,“ no „wrong.“ There is what is appropriate and what is irrelevant, what is necessary and what is excessive, what is sufficient and what is surplus, what is effective and what is purposeless. Relying on the obviousness of the situation, on „here and now“, I never think what is „right.“ Inside myself I feel if it’s worth interfering or not. When I feel it, I don’t care about other people’s advice, about how I look like in their eyes. Then, there is no pretense and formal upbringing for the public: I heard the noise, came to the children’s room, shouted, returned to the guests and they told me with respect, „How strict you are with them! Good job!“

You can’t please everyone. There is a nice story about an old man, a child and a donkey. They were walking down the street and the passers-by said, „Look! They’ve bought an animal, but they aren’t using it.“ So the child got on the donkey and they went further. Again they heard the words of disapproval, „Look at these young people nowadays – an old man is walking, but a child is riding.“ They got embarrassed, and they changed their places round the corner. Again people were displeased, „The young man has got all his life ahead of him, but he’s walking on foot wearing his feet to blood, but the old man hasn’t lived enough yet!“ And so on. You can walk all your life and listen to what is right and what is wrong. What is right for one will be wrong for the other. There is nothing absolute. They say it’s bad to kill people, but medals are awarded for this during the war. Everything is appropriate somewhere and not appropriate somewhere else. Somewhere it’s a cure; somewhere it’s poison. When doctors are helpless, mother takes a child and rushes to the sorceress, though it’s wrong and unscientific. But she does it because the result is important – the child must get well. There is no absolute good or bad. Everything works with relevant dosage, circumstances and situation. At the moment when you must do something, you don’t think about what’s right or wrong. You just do it, and then, afterwards, it may turn out that you were right.

I want parents to be investors, not users. Children aren’t expenses, but investments. You invest energy, money, time and emotions into children. Think, when is it not in vain? Why are you doing it? What do you want to get? When you answer these questions to yourself, what you do is purposeful. You want your children to be physically, psychically and socially healthy. What can be the problem? When there is no such health. How can you understand it? You understand through collaboration, friendship and support interacting with children, talking to and watching them. The norm is our active and creative part in life, relevant action that we do here and now, our inner willingness to be in touch with children, understand and realize what’s happening to them, what they feel, what is important for them and what they are engaged in. We are normal, wise and adequate parents, when we stop pretending inside and working for the public, when we set free a certain space for what Tolstoy was writing about: a person can’t be taught to love, you just can remove the obstacles along the way of manifestation of love.

Questions

My son started working, but having his own money, he doesn’t share with the family. I think he should take part in the family expenses, but he is of a different opinion. How can I make him change his mind?

Why do you think you have the right to command his money? Do you think that way he should pay for his happy childhood? Expectations don’t work anyway. If you expected your child to start working and giving you part of his salary, then you had to tell him about that at the beginning. Expectations not having been clarified always end up in an offence, „partisan’s war,“ revenge and fear. You should make the situation clear, „Why do you start working? What do you want? How much will you earn? Are you ready to support the family budget? Or will you live apart and earn your living?“ You didn’t clarify anything, the child started working, received his money and suddenly learned that he had to give it to you. In other words, his mother thinks, „I want a new fur coat. Where can I get money? I’ll take from my husband and my son,“ but she doesn’t notify anybody about that. However, the child has his own plans for his money. So it happens that there’s one wage, but two plans for it. You demand, he resists, and you start racketeering, threating and blackmailing. If you don’t talk to your child, don’t negotiate, but present him with a fait accompli, you deprive yourself of clarity, stay among your own illusions, and when you face the reality, you get stressed and start attacking your child even more furiously.

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My daughter is always asleep – she goes to bed early, but still it’s difficult to wake her up to school in the morning. When she comes back home from school – she naps for an hour again. I think this isn’t normal. Is she lazy, or has she had problems at school? What should I do?

Since it suddenly started bothering you, then it must have appeared quite recently. It may be connected with some hormonal disorders, but if doctors have already examined her and told you that somatically she’s healthy, we’ll have a look at the psychological part of the case. She might get too tired. School stress is considered to be average, so for some students it’s easy, but for others it’s beyond the limits. If it’s too heavy for your daughter, then sleep is the way to protect her brain from overload. I don’t think it’s a sign of laziness. Laziness is a social diagnosis, but even lazy people wake up when something meaningful and personally important for them happens. Maybe your daughter isn’t interested in what she is doing. Nothing in her life excites her, and that’s why she often sleeps. But we also can’t ignore the fact that the number of hours she sleeps, that seems too much for you, is her individual norm and need.

My child has to go to school next year, but he doesn’t like books, doesn’t want to learn the letters, while most children of his age can write, read and are ready for school. What should I do?

If he can’t read and write now – he will learn. There is the first school year for that. The majority of children learn quickly at school, because it’s easier to study in a group, than at home, alone, with biased parents, who don’t have teaching skills, relying on their own views about the child’s development at a certain age. In the kindergarten my daughter attended, they told parents, „We play and study with your children the whole day and they come home to relax. Please, don’t educate and don’t teach them anything. Give them some rest.“

In your case you need to sort out the problem. Watch your son. Isn’t he just „fishing“? It means that you need him reading and writing, but he doesn’t want to learn to make you „spin“ around him and worry about him. Maybe your child doesn’t care about his age-mates reading and writing. But he may be offended by your constant comparing him with somebody, and then, being offended, he blocks his own development. Anyway just leave him alone. When you stop worrying about him, he will start thinking himself how to learn to read, to write and etc.

I try to bring up my son free from stereotypes, but communicating with his peers, who have got used to following some dogmas, he becomes an outcast. I think it will end up in his losing his trust in me or his staying alone. How can I prevent this?

You’re right. You already feel that your child doesn’t trust you, keeps you at a distance, or you wouldn’t ask me anything. The purpose of our upbringing is to make the child adequate, teach him to be appropriate, essential and sufficient, but not shocking by his extraordinary looks and deeds. If we teach the child to shock, we leave him to be assessed, disapproved and finally becoming an outcast. One mother was proud telling me about her son criticizing pedagogical skills of his teacher of English right at school. The teacher said, „Either me or this boy!“ The principal chose the teacher, the boy changed schools, and at his new school he teaches his mathematician how to teach mathematics and his teacher of PE how to teach PE. This is a dreadful situation. The thing that frightens is that the boy uses his talents to make people hate him. If you know everything, and it’s too easy for you at school, pass all the exams without attending school and enter the university. You can use your abilities for your wellness, growth, development and for earning money. Or you can use your abilities for pampering your arrogance and self-importance and becoming an outcast.

All our classmates are engaged with some activity apart from school – they visit some courses, clubs or trainings. But my daughter still can’t decide what hobby to choose – she isn’t interested in anything. Is that OK?

It’s OK, if it’s the manifestation of her individuality and she is really not interested in anything now. But it may be the sign of „fishing“: I see that my mum wants me to be engaged with something, but I won’t do anything to spite her. However, fear may be the cornerstone for this situation. You might have criticized her when she was younger, when children fall in love with everything and want to do everything. You condemned something she wanted and forbade it, so now when you „push her out of the house,“ she is afraid to make her choice, because she is afraid of your negative reaction to it.

My two adult children haven’t spoken with each other for about two years. All my attempts to make them closer are in vain. I don’t understand how a sister and a brother can behave like that. The children of my friends are mostly close and friendly to each other. Why do they have so nice relations?

More often we don’t talk when we’re offended. Keeping silence we try to punish the person who insulted us, so that he/she would feel as hard, bad and lonely as we do. Your anxious taking part doesn’t become a cure, but something that makes this situation even worse and permanent. Keep out from the relationship between your children, stop worrying about them, and then they will take care about their relations themselves. Pushing and getting together feuding children won’t make it any better.

We bought a bicycle as a present for our six-year-old daughter, but she doesn’t use it. Although we had asked her before what she wanted to have as a present, she said – a toy stroller. We offered her a bicycle, because we wanted to buy something more serious. She agreed to buy the bicycle, but now it keeps standing in the corner. Why?

She hasn’t played enough with a stroller and she dreams about it, never mind what you think about her age and what she has to be fond of. She doesn’t ride a bike now only because the stroller is still more important for her now. She agreed to buy the bike, because she didn’t want to upset you; she wanted to please you, but not argue. After a while when she grows up, you will be surprised, „Why is she so secretive? Why doesn’t she tell us what she wants? Why doesn’t she share her plans?“ Because when she was six, she understood that her sincere dream isn’t so important for parents as their own opinion about what she should want and need.

If a girl became a mother at 20, when it’s early to speak about some maturity and abundance, what should she do?

Abundance is the feature and quality of a person, but not the age prerogative. A twenty-year-old mother can be „abundant.“ But at the same time a mature woman can be „poor.“ In fact there are a lot of stereotypes about age and about the time to become mothers. They call thirty-year-old women having their first child „old nulliparous,“ thus creating fear and forcing immature people having nothing in their lives to parturiate as early as possible – at 15, 16, 17. But other doctors say that it’s not safe to parturiate before you are 20. So, 30 is late, 20 is early2. Nobody takes into account the real readiness and maturity of the particular woman. The size of the coxofemoral bones, hormones and etc. are more important for the doctors, because they want to do everything „right.“ The same dishonesty is in the diagnoses, which are written just in case. If one doctor overestimates the disease, never mind, the other doctors will understand him and correct. When they don’t want to be responsible for the result, the doctors start shifting responsibility to the mother, to the father, to the vitamins, to the toxemia and to the violation of the diet. All this rat race has nothing to do with what is growing there in the abdomen. Meanwhile future parents having seen the half-page diagnosis get afraid of what they decide to do. The mother feels the guilt complex, because they said she did something wrong during parturition. Then this fear transfers to the children programming their further life. When the child is 30, they find excuses: he is so immature because of the birth injury.