Читать книгу Your children are not your children - Павел Эрзяйкин - Страница 4

Feedback disturbances between parents and children begin right from the moment of birth. Parents try to please other people, listen to their advice and keep their advice like old stiff photographs, paying no attention to their own children. When children grow up and get out of control, parents are surprised, "But we were bringing them up correctly – all the relatives and neighbors approved of us." The thing is that bringing up children you shouldn’t rely on the morals and what other people do, but on what you see "here and now," relying on what you feel when you contact with your children, understanding what your children say and how they do it.

What is most important is that we want our children to hear us. But if they were able to accept what was told, if they understood, felt and changed after that, it would not be of particular interest. Their consent and acceptance of our rightness is what is important. We change upbringing for self-admiration,"Look, I’m a strict parent! What correct words I tell my children!" But children aged 6 or 7 don’t hear what we say. Firstly, because we repeat one and the same thing. Secondly, because we ourselves don’t implement what we teach them. So our connection is unilateral – from an adult to a child. I’m the parent, so I’m right, I know how it should be, and you’re little, you must listen to me. We don’t think what the child feels about that. I’ve planted a seed, will it grow? It’s important that I’ve planted it, that I was raising it, that I was repeating the same thing a hundred of times … But what’s the point of it, if it doesn’t work?

In childhood children don’t fully trust themselves; they don’t strongly rely on themselves and always look back at the adults’ opinion. Look at this situation through the eyes of a child, "I do something and my parents start worrying, get afraid and frighten at once. They have no idea why I do that, but they start influencing." Children don’t get a proper feedback from parents for the actions, receiving only their attitude to what they are doing. Therefore, children start attaching more importance to the attitude of other people to their actions, than to the importance of such actions personally for them.

Feedback is neutral information about what is happening. For example, the height above the sea level is 100 meters – is that good or bad? It is neither good nor bad, just 100 meters above the sea level, that’s all. The temperature is 3 degrees below zero – is that good or bad? If it’s in the fridge – it’s good, if you’re outside wearing shorts – it’s bad. The same is true with bringing up children. It happens that in the supermarket the child pulls his mother by the hair, beats her on the face, but she smiles, keeping calm, pretending that it’s OK. She sacrifices herself, endures shame and pain, doesn’t give the feedback to the child, thus deceiving him. But at home she will punch him for some insignificant misbehavior – for pouring water on the floor. Here, she will splash all her sacrificing endurance, and her reaction won’t be adequate. Her aggression will be the reaction, but not a feedback on what the child had done. She will punish him not for pouring water, but for everything, she forced herself to endure during the day.

If your children have a fit of hysteria, if they are screaming – you start screaming in the same manner, without fear, startle or anxiety. This will be the feedback. If we feel uncomfortable to scream when people look at us, the child begins to understand: when there are witnesses, mother yields – and children start using it. They scream – you scream. You show that you can behave the same way too. Once a beggar with a lamentable face came to me, "Grant for Christ’s sake!" I responded with a lamentable face, "Grant for Christ’s sake!" I gave the feedback, showing that I could do the same and the person changed something in his actions. Reflection is the feedback. In this respect, cats and dogs are more adequate teachers than parents are, because they are more honest. They don’t care what somebody will think about them, but many parents do care about that.

If children hit me – I hit them as well, but there is no anger, no fright, no fear, no pity or wish to look like somebody in the eyes of the witnesses, in my blow. My blow is emotionally neutral – I’m not trying to revenge or stop children’s action to prevent them from repeating it again. My blow is of the same power as the children’s ones, – neither weaker nor stronger. A 5-year-old daughter of my friend once hit me on the head – I hit her in the same manner; she hit me once again but weaker, I also hit her weaker, then she patted my head and I patted her head. This way life becomes a game. I feel every moment, how the environment reacts, I choose the manner of behavior depending on the expected reaction. Animals "bring up" their babies like this. When a kitten bites a cat, the cat bites it back, and it doesn’t mean that the cat doesn’t love the kitten – just makes the kitten understand how she feels. There is no punishment in this bite – she doesn’t bite the kitten stronger, there is no pity – she doesn’t bite it weaker. She bites with the same strength as the kitten does. The point of feedback is to make you understand how I feel about your actions.

We have changed life for dead toys for children. You can do whatever you want with these toys – beat them, cut with scissors, jump on them, tear away their legs, but toy creatures will still be smiling. It’s one of the illusions we instill into our children, and they grow up not taking responsibility for their own actions. Toy producers can write "ecologically harmless," but I think all toys are "ecologically useless." No porolon cats and plastic dolls provide the children with the most important thing – feedback. If you sit down on a live chicken – it will die, if you sit down on a porolon one – nothing will happen. If you break a real flower – it will dry and die, if you bend a toy flower – it will stand upright again and that’s all.

Children tore apart the doll’s head; it will neither cry of pain nor laugh. How should children understand if they were tender or violent? Children watch the parents’ reaction, and it’s really important for the reaction to be adequate to the children’s deed. If looking at the mutilated doll, parents laugh, this laughter is the feedback for children, the reaction to their deed. If adults laugh, then I do everything fine. But adults often behave completely inadequate, that’s why it’s essential for children to have live toys, which will provide them with a reaction. A real cat will never endure humiliation – it will spit and run away. So, children will start realizing the truth: if you torture the animal – it runs away, if you stroke it – it sits on your lap and purrs.

I remember as a kid I had a baby owl, which we brought from the scouts’ camp. In the daylight, my brother covered the bird with a piece of cloth, but one day he forgot to do it and stepped on the bird. The owl died – it was a factor of feedback for my brother. He then buried the bird, cried, but at the same time, he understood: if you behave the same with a living creature and a toy, the living thing dies.

At first, my daughter couldn’t measure her power with the result. Back then we had a cat, Matilda, who didn’t accept Vasilissa’s inadequacy and ran away each time she saw my daughter. So Vasilissa had to follow the cat and catch her in the corner to stroke, but still Matilda was struggling out of her hands and scratching. Then there appeared a second cat, Kefir. If my daughter did something to spite him and ran away, the cat ran after her, scratched her leg from behind, she stumbled, fell down and cried. Kefir became the best teacher for her.

If you don’t want to buy a cat – buy a plant. Let there be something living next to the child, then the child will see the reaction for action: you water the flower – it blossoms, you forget about it – it dies. Interacting with living beings, children understand that things don’t happen as quick as they want, they realize: I become hysterical, but nothing changes. The flower grows as fast as it can and demands patience and care.

I suggest parents to support their children. Let your children be much more important to you than all these strangers in the supermarkets and in the street. Anyway, be on the children’s side, no matter how they behave. There will always be some "granny," who can say that your children are brought up badly. Don’t take her side, take your children’s side. The world will wait; it will outlive the children’s whims and won’t collapse because of a scream and a cry. The society will wait. Children will grow up and sort it out with the society, find their place in it, become somebody. Now children are little, they don’t understand the social models and other people’s expectations, they don’t know meanness, betrayal and other "nice" things.

I ask you not to be mean and not to betray children, because you are the only source of information about the world for them, and this information has to be adequate. Make children the main people for you, and then your reactions will always be natural and only possible. Treat your children the same way that any stranger would treat. If children break racks in the supermarket, don’t allow them to do that, don’t crawl on all fours for them, picking the scattered bags. Because if your children do that again and you aren’t near, nobody in this world will crawl and pick things up for them.

Getting adequate feedback from parents is a great advantage for your children. They begin to understand that different behavior with different creatures leads to different consequences. Children start choosing the manner of behavior and playing with the world. Children realize that they can "rule" the world: I do evil things – I receive aggression, I do good things – I receive good attitude. Children feel that they have a number of behavioral models, but at the same time they learn to be responsible for their actions, because now they know what consequences appear after certain actions. If children get used to their aggression turning to more parent care at home, then outside, receiving aggression for aggression, they will run back home. It will seem to children that only parents can understand them and they can survive only within the family. That is how we form parent attachment, because it is only with us that our inadequate children feel safe.

Questions

Should I buy toys with genital organs for my child? In general, should toys imitating people have vivid sexual characteristics?

Genitals are the same parts of the body as legs and hands. There is nothing special about them – they are parts of the body. They are natural; unnatural is the attitude to them as to something dirty, indecent and bad. Today all political and religious bodies try to control, limit and portion affection and sex. There is one mystic in Moscow, Andrey Lapin, who observed, that everything in this world aims at harmony, and the absence of genitals in dolls doesn’t solve the problem, but creates a profitable business – the absent toy genitals are made separately and sold separately in the "Intim" stores (chain store for adults).

Parents consider toys with genitals and "adult" films, spied by children, provoking an "unhealthy" interest in children. But the "unhealthy" interest is exactly provoked by what we hide, forbid, punish for and are confused of. For example, if children see parents making love – for them, just getting to know this world, this is only an event, which they see for the first time in their lives, and the relation is the same as to the first observation of the falling snow. If the mother becomes confused, and the father shouts at children, they thus create a certain attitude to this event. If it’s forbidden, the interest appears, the desire to understand, watch and try comes up. That’s why I say, that animals are better than dead toys. You can’t hide animals’ genitals – they exist. Children see that dogs have them, cats have them, and they have them. So, children don’t have questions to the world, they are logical and consistent. However, when children take off doll’s pants and there is nothing there – it provokes interest. "Why do I have it, but the doll doesn’t?" – children ask parents such questions and parents become confused, shout and punish raising the degree of interest.

Should I punish the child in public? Or should I postpone it until we come back home, but the child may forget everything by that time. So isn’t it more effective to point to the mistake immediately?

We dose our own reactions – put forward or hide – depending on the attitude of other people. But where is your child here? If you want to stop some action your child is doing, just do it. Restraining this desire, you’ll feel weak, dependent and unable of immediate action. In this case, you’ll definitely fly off the handle and shout at your kid if not in the supermarket, then at home, and this will be inadequate feedback.

Punishment for the past action is revenge. It’s always inadequate. If you want to stop something – stop it at once, if you can’t – accept this fact and leave everything as it is. Somebody else will stop – the shop security or the salesperson. If you can’t leave the situation as it is, because you have to act – then act. For example, you stand on the pavement waiting for the green light, but your child rushes to cross the street on the red one. Just take the child by the jacket and hold. The most important thing is not to feel uneasy, if the child is screaming and breaking loose from your grip, and the passers-by are looking back on you. When I realize that this is the best thing to do now, I don’t have to be ashamed or justify myself in the eyes of other people.

How do toys influence the formation of the child’s personality? Should we buy plastic knives, handcuffs and cudgels for the boy?

If your child asks for knives and cudgels, then he wants to be like some film character. Treat it as a symptom – the child starts losing himself, doesn’t understand who he is. If the child wants to be like Schwarzenegger, then little attention is paid to the personality of the child in the child-parent relations. Watch your kid. If you like somebody shown on TV and the next day your child starts to imitate this character, then he isn’t sure if the parents love him. Then the child tries to match some stereotypes. If mum calls Schwarzenegger a real man, the son wants to be like Arnold at once. Give your child love and attention, so that he wouldn’t doubt if parents love him, if they are proud of him, then your child won’t need to copy anybody.

I think it’s much better when the child doesn’t imitate life with the help of plastic knives and hammers, but cuts something with a real knife and hammers real nails. I had a real scythe as a child – the first time I cut fingers with it, but nobody paid attention, nobody released me from responsibility and, therefore, I learned to be more attentive with sharp things.

Should we buy adult cosmetics imitation for girls?

It’s well-known that the best client is the one who became a client in the childhood. That’s why restaurants have "children’s days" – they are both parent care and work for the future forming children’s demand and taste. Thus, restaurants bring up a future clients, people eating out when they grow up.

We live in a society where consumption plays the main role, and it’s important for the society to have people consuming nonstop. Children’s cosmetics is said to be harmless and even useful – it is conservation, multiplication and maintenance of the tradition to make up and "tune" the face. There is no simple answer to this question – should you buy or should not, allowed or forbidden. Think, why do you need the role of a "mother" and a "father"? How do you see your child in the future? When is this all not in vain? When will you be proud of your child? How important are the games she plays for the success of your project? If your daughter does make up to find her style, to look how it matches different clothes – this is one thing. If she does make up to get some attention, to be noticed by people, if this is the only way for her to feel beautiful – this is another thing. My daughter likes to dress up, draw, invent images, stage performances, do make up to my wife and her friends, besides she dreams of having a beauty parlor for animals. Any games of your child can build up future professional skills.

They sell "Little chemist," "Little physicist" kits, etc. What’s your opinion of such games?

The first question: who do I want my children to be? Independent or dependent, responsible or stupid, consumer or people with merit? When I have answers, it’s easier for me to decide what will be useful and harmful for my children. I will choose toys not because "doctors recommend" or "people usually buy," but because my children need something and it will be better for them. In this case I will take into account the children’s opinion, not mine. If children are interested in such kits, they gradually may fall in love with this activity to such a degree that it will become their profession.

What should I do if my son brought a stray cat or dog home? Can I make him bring the animal back to the street or should I indulge him supporting his care about weaker creatures?

The first reaction of the majority of mothers when they see such a nice couple – the son and a puppy, is to feel pity for themselves. You haven’t cleaned after this puppy yet, but you already start suffering ahead – you’re so busy, you’re so tired, you can’t cope with the duties you have, and there is that puppy, and you have to do everything yourself, only yourself. Before taking your decision, sort out the problems; "have an eye for the ground" as military people say. Don’t start lying like "this is somebody else’s puppy, somebody might have come to pick it up, somebody is crying and looking for it; bring it back." Look at the child: how does he speak about the puppy? Has anything new appeared in him after meeting the animal? Why is it so important for him? Upbringing doesn’t start with punishment and prohibition, but with revision and clarity. So far, all animals are toys for your child. He only knows that dogs are good, kind and soft, and he has no idea that they urinate, bite and can crunch his favorite books and toys.

Start by asking, "Where will it live? How will you feed it? How will you walk it out? Do you know that the puppy is alive, so you will have to clean after it? Why is it important to you? What do you feel? What will you do when the puppy grows up?" By the answers you will understand what is happening with the child. Questions teach to plan, to think about the future and to see the perspectives. Answers are certain promises, which the person gives and after some time of getting the experience, it will be possible to see if he keeps his promises or not. Even if you feel that the child is now lying a bit and making up, let him do it. Let him be inspired and believe that he will really be able to fulfill all his promises. Sometimes by their questions parents wait for the obvious answers, "Will you clean?" – "Yes." – "Will you be a good boy?" – "Yes." There is no curiosity and sincerity in such questions. You make your child take responsibilities he has no idea about. Prior to taking a promise to "clean after a puppy," wonder if your child knows what it’s like. Because if he is not ready to face that the puppy will crunch his favorite toy, the child can take a hammer and beat the animal to death. We think that children are cruel, but they just don’t see the difference between a porolon animal and a real one.

If a child misbehaves in the supermarket, but I absolutely don’t want to fall down on the floor next to him, is there any other way to get feedback?

If you don’t want to fall down, providing the feedback, leave your child alone – let him play a fool, let him broil with anger. Accept that you can only influence through a contact. If there is no contact – there is no influence (see the answer to the second question).

Together with my husband we don’t let our 10-year-old daughter watch action movies on TV, criminal news etc. For a certain age we don’t want her to know how much violence and cruelty there is in this world. I’m sure that in this case she will grow up free, more open to interaction, to communication with people without fear for this world. Do you agree?

When parents create a fairy tale for their child, where there is no grief, poverty and death, this becomes an excellent ground for further frustrations. One day the child will come across the reality and will get to know that there are empty pockets and sufferings. This happened to Buddha, who didn’t know that there were diseases, senility and death for 16 years, so when he left the palace he was shocked. While your child is just a kid, you can defend her and create absolute goodness for her, but one day she will step out into the real world and will be inadequate, not ready for defense. On the other hand, if you start speaking about the cruel dangerous world, full of criminals you will jump into another extremity. Such frightening will make no sense; because we don’t have another world and you shouldn’t cause fear and rejection of this world in children, bring them up in illusions, because you will have to cure it after a while. Do not hide anything from children. Just explain that the world is much more than they show in the news. News is not the life of the planet, but something that is interesting to some people; life is not only murders and theft, life is successes, orgasms, birth of children, excellent marks for exams, etc. Ask your child, "You have lived a day, have you seen any of the things shown on TV in our town?"

Fight against drug addiction creates drug addicts. Fight for peace starts new wars. If you don’t interfere, the TV interest will soon fade. Nothing will have to be forbidden, if we don’t watch it ourselves. We have to forbid, when we watch ourselves, but we forbid to the kids only, "Now there is an adult program, it’s high time for you to go to bed." I remember my parents telling me so, and I then was lying under their door trying to peep at what they were watching. Prohibiting, parents create something in the child’s head; interest arises and energy is evolved – until it is implemented, interest remains.

Don’t you deny the influence of the "street" on children? If they grow up in the context of drug addiction and criminal behavior, they may get under control of this environment and it will be hard for parents to get them out of there.

When I consult mothers of the drug addicts, who (the mothers) tell me what kind of television, schools and society we have, I understand that these mothers are looking for the party in fault, because they feel authorship and direct participation in the trouble happened to their children. Such mothers create the "Committee of soldiers' mothers," the "Committee of drug addicts’ mothers," and soon will probably create some other committee to fight against the society that is killing their children. These children perished in the army or died in some situation only because they suddenly were left alone without the mother and couldn’t survive without her. The heads of these children were stuffed with false ideas about the world that mothers had invented to shield their children from reality. As long as they could, they kept their children in these illusions, thought for them, suggested answers, worried about them and when the children grew up, went out of the parents’ nest, the world turned out to be a shock for them. But they couldn’t live another way, so they started playing fools and insisted, showed their whims and told other people "how it should be." But the world is unlikely to bow and scrape before somebody’s whims. Then the only thing left to the child is to return to the mother, or, if it’s impossible, to step out of life. Either you accept everything as it is or you die – a very simple formula of life. Because if you accept, you start interacting, you are in contact and only this way can you influence, create and change. But if you are not in touch, there isn’t any other chance.

It’s impossible to unglue my child from watching cartoons – he can watch them for hours, though they are stupid and futile. Shall we wait until they bore him?

If real life is interesting, if parents have partnership relations encompassing love, respect and support, if something happens at home, if the child takes part in family events, talks, if there are discoveries and interest every day – in general, if there is life in the family, then cartoons will "go off-stage." But if in the real life the child is positioned as a "nobody, a freak or a loser", then he will crave for the world of illusions, where he isn’t guilty, where he won’t be punished.

What about the bad quality of contemporary cartoons, I’ll tell you about a talk between a children’s psychologist and the parents of children attending the same kindergarten as my daughter. She was telling us about the harm of contemporary cartoons, which form the matrix of a cruel woman. As an example, she took the cartoon "Shrek," where there is a scene, when the girl hits the face of the main character with her legs. The psychologist said that a woman can’t behave like that, because she’s, well, a future mother with plump cheeks and so on. However, women can be different, the sooner a child gets to know it, the better. Don’t create fairy tales and myths, don’t impose the stereotypes about "real women" and "real men" upon a child. The less you lie, the more adequate your child will be.