Читать книгу Your children are not your children - Павел Эрзяйкин - Страница 5

Parents, who are happy living their own private life, are happy if the child begins to live independently and has an inner center, supporting point. Сhildren are responsible for their life and do not need "crutches" in the form of assistance and support from parents. In this case, you, as a parent, know exactly that all the terrible things that scare anxious mothers will never happen to your child, because they have the courage to think with their brains and rely on common sense. You are sure that they will be winners, successful and lucky people, and all that remains for you is to be proud of your child, and you are not even slightly worried about where they live. You know that no matter where they live, it’s the best possible life out of all the opportunities in the world.

There are people who are fine under any conditions. There are people who demand special conditions to live. You have to make your child understand that he or she is the main condition to live. You are alive, then live. If we take the universal purpose of parenthood on a planetary scale, it is the same as that of a lion or a dolphin or a dog: to teach a baby to be responsible for his/her life. This quality doesn’t appear by itself at a certain age – it needs to be formed and created.

You can’t teach responsibility with fear. Fear is a stimulating, not motivating factor, and it works as a temporary measure. Parents are unable to forbid anything. Even if you forbid now, you won’t be able to run after a child for all your life and watch, forbid and control. At that very moment when you are not near, the child will do what he/she wants and you will never know about that. You have taught your child to give "right" answers, you’re calling home and asking: "What are you doing, sonny?" – "Homework," – he’s saying, but in reality he’s watching daily rebroadcast of the movie you forbade to watch yesterday.

Children should have a supporting point to choose themselves what they like and what they don’t like. When there is no such point, children have to rely on what’s "right" and "wrong," but these values are changing constantly. Back then, if you had sex before the wedding, it was a shame. Now if you don’t have sex before the wedding, it’s a shame as well. If you instill the stereotypes about the norm, you make your children vulnerable for the changing world, for assessment. They start believing in the absolute, but then suddenly everything turns head over heels and they get confused.

I am doing homework!..

When children start believing in the absolute assessment, they become silly, dependent, extremely vulnerable and turn into "social sheep" telling their mom, "I’ve seen this chocolate commercial on TV, and I need this chocolate. I can’t live without it!" The life of such children depends on who they will meet today. If they meet a member of a sect, they will become sectarians. If they meet a thief, they will become thieves. If they meet a drug addict, they will become drug addicts. Mothers usually do not see the root of their child’s problems in themselves and lay the blame on school and TV. However, millions of people watch TV and go to school, but not all of them become drug addicts.

Once I talked to the mother of a drug addict. As soon as she entered my office, I told her, "Do you want me to tell you what kind of son you have? Irresponsible, weak-willed and purposeless." – "Yes. How do you know that?" – "Because you are very responsible, decisive and purposeful." If some traits of character are hypertrophied in the mother, the same traits are absolutely atrophied in the child – the child doesn’t need them. You have to delegate something to a child – responsibility or honesty; then, it will become his/her individual quality.

Mothers having no private life start taking it away from children. They are anxious, if their children has eaten, whom they meet, what they are doing, have they had enough sleep. The parents all need to attend my grandma’s courses. Two of her children died of hunger. In our time of abundance, she was absolutely indifferent about my satiety. The child didn’t ask for food; that was good. They called me to have lunch, I refused – "well, if you don’t want to eat, it’s up to you." My granddad prayed to God, they ate and cleaned the table. If I was not in time – I was hungry. So, filling in my stomach became my own problem and responsibility.

Parent responsibility is also to teach children to accept somebody’s opinion, if the children need it themselves, or not to accept, stay independent and uninvolved, knowing that they personally don’t need it. For example, the child comes home from school and says, "The teacher doesn’t like me." Prior to passing a sentence or diagnose, ask the child, why it happens. The inventory begins. It turns out that the teacher doesn’t like the child for some actions. "First, the teacher doesn’t have to like you. She has to teach you. Second, why do you provoke the teacher to start the conflict? Are you defending anything so important to you that you are ready to spoil relationship with the teacher? Do you think it’s worth behaving this way in the future? If it’s worth, then don’t complain. Do I get it right: you spoil the relationship for me to go to school and restore them?"

There are three questions that work magically with children:

The first one: What are you doing now? It gives them an opportunity to realize, where they are, what they are and what their activity is aimed at – a kind of a "stop" signal.

The second one: What do you think?

The third (control) one: When?

Thus, we form responsibility. Children quickly learn to give the "right" answers to parents’ questions, but their individuality isn’t revealed through "right" answers. The first time you ask your children what they think, they will try to say something you’ll like. We ourselves provoke children to lie: say something to your mummy, so that she would calm down; say something to your daddy, so that he would leave you alone.

The most important thing for parents is to ask not waiting for a certain answer: you ask, but you don’t correct. By asking a question, we give children the chance to find the answer themselves. So, what they say doesn’t excite or disappoint us. I have heard the answer and accepted it. Only then, without the external assessment, approval or condemnation, the children’s answer is accepted as their own. "What kind of friends do you have, son?" – "Good friends." – "Why do you think they are good?" and leave him with this answer. If there are no expectations, the child’s answer will be objective; the child will answer himself. Thus children learn their own lessons, which are the most important. When we don’t give answers, children start looking for them inside and, if they confirm that they are right, they gain confidence in themselves, a supporting point. In other words, children gain the courage to use their own brain (to reflect, to create and to manifest) and gain confidence: relying on my own opinion, I’ll get what I want.

You don’t have to answer the question when the answer is obvious. Sometimes children ask just because they remember being praised for that as little kids. They ask only to attract attention, but sometimes because they don’t trust themselves. For example, my daughter enters the kitchen where I am drinking tea. She asks, "Dad, what are you doing?" – "What do you see?" – "You are drinking tea." – "Exactly." And she learns to trust herself in what she sees. When children keep asking about something obvious, it means they are not self-confident.

Because we are arrogant, it takes a lot of time before we start delegating the responsibility for their life to children. At first, we enjoy thinking for them; we like being asked for advice, but then children stop thinking for themselves and we have to save them from various trouble. Despite the fact that we created this situation ourselves, sooner or later it starts being a burden.

Questions

How can I understand that my child is ready for independent life? For example, my son is 16 and he wants to leave home. Are there any criteria helping to forecast what will come out – independence or failure?

Why do you have such a question? You have been watching your child for sixteen years. Haven’t you seen him? Haven’t you kept an eye on him? Have you been enjoying the fictitious image of him? I recommend diagnostics, i.e., to ask him a question, "Why do you want to leave?" However, it will become diagnostics only if parents have no fear, judgment or condemnation. Sometimes the idea to live independently appears not because something is due, but because the person wants to run away from something, for example, to get rid of parental control, to watch TV 24 hours a day.

Examine yourself. Why are you afraid of your child living independently? Maybe you haven’t played dolls enough? Then fear appears: if the child leaves, whose life will be under my control because I don’t have my own life. Jealousy and fear don’t allow you to do diagnostics honestly. The child says: "I want to try to live alone." – "OK. If you fail, come back home."

A wise decision is an adequate decision. It is taken when everything is clear and obvious for parents. The absence of clarity is replaced by the concept "right or wrong," "early or late," "has to be this way or doesn’t have to." Say "stop" to yourself. What kind of person is my child? Does he have his own opinion? Does he use his brain or is he guided? Can he "put his hand to the plough" and bring it to a close? Is he determined? How does he behave having troubles: does he solve them or run away?

My friend was telling me that he bought a house, but his children didn’t want to live in it. They stayed in the apartment in the city. One was 16 years old; the other was ten. Parents were waiting for children to call and ask for advice someday, but it didn’t happen. The father called, "How are you?" – "OK." —"Aren’t you late for school?" – "No." – "Are teachers satisfied with you?" – "They are." – "Are you doing your homework?" – "Yes." So, the father felt that the children don’t need him anymore and paranoia began, "Isn’t it too early for them to live independently? Am I depriving them of childhood, making them carry a burden of adult life?" Who told you that it’s a burden? Your experience? We are jealous of children having their own lives, and this makes us inadequate.

What should I do if it’s obvious that my son can’t cope with the independence he undertook, but he doesn’t ask for help?

Then, it’s only you who think he doesn’t cope. You had an expectation of how it should have been. He should have called you, asked for something and then returned home. However, if he doesn’t ask for help, he can do without you. You notice that it’s difficult for him, but he doesn’t complain. Obviously, he is not in despair, he feels he can cope, keeps on working hard, strains to build his life by himself. It seems to you that he fails, because he doesn’t live the way you want him to. But there are other ways to live. The child only eats Chinese noodles, but he could eat meat at home. Who told you that noodles are bad? If he doesn’t ask for meat, then he likes noodles. Leave him alone.

Instead of waiting anxiously for the child to fall flat and come back home, it would be nice to think that he will succeed. There are difficulties, and everything happens. Nothing works on the first try, so let him attempt over and over again. Even if he fails, it’s not the reason to give him up as hopeless and say, "Well, now stay with your mommy for the rest of your life. Do you see how dependent you are?"

I will tell you more: even if the child asks for help, don’t rush to help him. Judging by your question the only thing you crave for is his asking you for help, then, you will become important and meaningful, responsible for his life thus proving his dependence. Let the child himself understand and realize: can he live alone? Don’t push him with your commentaries.

Children mature this way – alone, without friends, face to face with life, "I keep on acting and doing. Not for approval, not for applause, but to survive."

Should I raise my child with the feeling that she is exceptional, different from the rest of the children?

We are all exceptional, not like other people, and unique. This is called individuality. Every person is born unique – just don’t kill this feeling in children. It often turns out that parents first let the child feel a complete zero, but then start instilling the feeling of self-uniqueness. This is a very difficult process – to destroy first, and then restore. Don’t destroy from the very beginning. There is a wonderful anecdote about a woman who came to visit a vet with her dog. She was complaining of her dog’s sudden urination. The vet asked the woman to ask her dog to do something. The woman furiously shouted, "Sit down!!" The children are born "crazy," brave, ready to take risk without fear or anxiety. The need to believe in their power appears if it has been taken away before.

How can I make my child understand that his parents’ house will always be his back-up, but at the same time I want my son to solve his problems by himself and address "back-up" only in case of emergency?

Your anxiety proves that you already know: your child is dependent. Your hypocrisy is that you say his requests are felt as a burden, whereas you really enjoy them. This is some kind of a game: "I would help you, not every day, but every other day…" Unless the child becomes independent, unless he is responsible for his life, he comes to ask for help. If he needs help, he will come every day. Maybe it has become a burden for parents, because they have finally started to live their own lives. They haven’t had it before and they liked their son asking them for advice, for money, but this dependence has become a burden. Your control over a child turned to be his control over you; his dependence became your dependence.

Can I rise my child’s supporting point, refusing him in pocket money (making him earn money himself), not leaving a ready-made lunch (making him learn to cook) and so on?

You can learn if you are taught. We grow up, become smarter and more courageous when we solve problems and overcome difficulties. Creating these difficulties may either be a good training or the purposeless exercise. Refusal is not the method of upbringing. If you have tamed your child, hooked him on full provision, be responsible for that. "You can’t earn money – be poor. You can’t cook – be hungry" is ridiculous. Any load created for a child has to be adequate to his abilities. When you reject, what do you want? Do you want your child to start earning or pleading you for a tip? Is your child aware were money comes from? How do you happen to have it in your pocket? You can refuse to provide money only in case he knows where and how to earn it. If he only knows that money is from a pocket, having received parent refusal, he will get into the only place where the money "lives" – the pocket. It may be their parents’ pocket or somebody else’s.

The child is asking you to give him 300 rubles to go to the disco; you see that there are some bottles, which he can hand over and get 10 rubles, so you say, "I’ll give you 290 and you’ll find 10 more yourself." Thus, you check if your child is able to see these 10 rubles in this world, and having seen them do something to have them in his pocket. He may not see them, but to start blackmailing, threatening and getting capricious, "Then, I will not go anywhere!" He is what you created. Depriving such child of money to make sure he is good-for-nothing is pleasing your vanity.

When I was in the seventh grade at school, I also had various "desires" – a tape-recorder, Lewis jeans, etc. My mom made everything clear at once, "Our father works alone. The money he receives is for basic needs. We don’t have extra money." I was under 14, but with my father’s connections, I got a job at a construction site where I earned 180 rubles for two months. The tape-recorder cost 220 rubles, but my summer holidays were over and I could not make more money. Then my mom added the rest of the sum. This was "support." In the following year I didn’t ask my mom – I knew I could earn money myself. I got the same job and made money to buy expensive jeans. Everything was honest – I was told that there was no money, I was shown the place to get it, parents didn’t take away my money, they respected my plans and supported (adding the rest of the sum for the tape-recorder), when they saw I couldn’t cope myself.

What should I do if my child is so independent that he doesn’t allow parents into his life, behaves self-sufficient and aloof?

It looks like a runaway from home. There was too much control, fear and nightmares, prohibitions and questions, examination and tortures, intervention, personality surgery and cutting off its pieces. Therefore, he ran away. It is not about independence. He may have really hard times, but he prefers to die than to ask his parents for help. He doesn’t let you in, safeguarding his life, because he is fed up with your intrusion. He doesn’t want to be controlled, disapproved, manipulated, helpless being a culprit at an eternal trial, where you are the chief judge and where sentences cannot be appealed. You are attempting to get into his life and be quasi helpful, but he doesn’t allow it, because he knows that it is dangerous for his life and for his life values.

The lack of respect and trust tells that you are not worth respect and trust. Respect appears, if you respected your child, trust – if you trusted him. If respect for other people's powers, the credibility of someone else's identity, the sanctity of personal space of each member were valuable in your family, you do not have to worry about anything – the child will come to you to share news, success and joy. If it was not so, there is nothing to worry about too – he will never return to the family home. Maximum, he will come to your funeral. But he may not.

My husband believes that we have to teach our son to be independent right from his childhood, but I don’t want to deprive him of his childhood preferring to pamper and support him. What will be the impact on the child if the parents have different views on his upbringing?

It will be a bad impact. Both parents betray their child. So, we can say that he doesn’t have parents at all. You are both so preoccupied by the concept of "right-wrong" that you don’t pay attention to the child himself. I have a question to you, "What does your child think about this? Does he want to prolong his childhood or be independent?" Unfortunately though, your ideas on upbringing have nothing to do with your child. Your mutual relationship is more important to you than your child is and you are using him as a trump-card. Each of you plays your own rightness. "I think he’s mature!" – "But I think he is just a kid!" You don’t have to think – here is your child, ask him. Most likely, you have problems with sex, or you failed in such roles as a "lover," a "friend" and a "professional."

When mom says she doesn’t want to deprive her child of his childhood, she doesn’t want to lose it herself. The child is ready to take up independence being a year and a half, when he says that he will do everything himself. He wants to carry a bag, but it’s too heavy for him. Don’t poke his nose in his weakness and enjoy his inability to help – support his initiative, suggest carrying a bag together each by one handle. Yes, the child may undertake things he can’t do so far, he will do it improperly, he may cut himself, break something, scatter, but if it doesn’t threaten his life, let him have this experience.

My son had guests and after they left we found the loss of a big sum of money, which was hidden. My son didn’t initiate the theft himself, but he was a silent witness while his friends were searching the house. Why couldn’t he defend himself, his family and our property?

Temptation is also a sin. It’s an old truth: If I don’t know or don’t see something, it doesn’t exist for me. Talking about hidden money, your passive son and his brassy friends, you are just fencing yourself off, because you feel being accomplices in this crime as you were provoking it. If you hadn’t talked about the hidden money at home and your son hadn’t known about it, he wouldn’t have boasted of his father’s grist in the street, and nobody would have broken into your house.

Are you displeased that your son didn’t rush to defend your money? Would you want him to act as a hero? Like in the movie "Pay the other guy," where "bad people" killed the "good boy," and his parents were then proud of their son not having wet his pants. Do you need that kind of a son suicide? Besides, your son didn’t accept this money as his money, which you spend on buying him clothes and food. So why are you surprised that he wasn’t heroically defending it? It wasn’t his money. He will fight for his favorite toy car, he will cripple anyone for a broken match he uses as a gun, he will not talk to you for a week for this match, but he doesn’t think of money as of the value. Does he have anything to do with this theft? How can he demonstrate something you didn’t raise in him? How can he possibly have it, if he doesn’t have anybody except you? If the child still thinks that money lives in your pocket, he will be careless with it. If you show him the mechanism of money getting into your pocket through earning, he won’t have the slightest thought to steal it.

Laying the blame for your foolery on the child is not unique. Parents, visiting my seminars, say, "We think there is something wrong with our son." The first question: "What’s wrong with you if you have such a son? If he is an apple, then you are the apple-tree. Do you want a pear? Become a pear-tree."

We often have sweets and cookies at home. While they are in abundance, my daughter’s friends come to our house. Once my daughter came home upset and I asked her: "What’s the matter?" – "The girls sent me for sweets again." – "Why have you made it your duty – providing everybody with sweets?" – "They don’t want to be my friends without them." I told her that this was not a friendship anyway, that she had to stand up for herself, not to do what she didn’t want, not to be afraid of being alone in some situation. Nevertheless, she is afraid of loneliness and loosing relations. How can I make her more self-assured, so that she could defend herself?

In this game your daughter is a "client" and her friends are the "prostitutes" who she buys. Such relationship between your daughter and her friends tells that you behave the same way with her. When she is good for you, you give her a candy, when she is bad – you punish her. Your daughter knows how to be good for you and how to buy someone for a candy. So, everything you say speaking about your daughter is, in fact, about you: you are afraid of staying alone, loosing relations; you can’t defend yourself; you are not self-assured. That’s why your daughter doesn’t have it – she can’t possess something her parents don’t possess. I would suggest doing an inventory control of your life: see what you have, get rid of something you don’t need and develop what is necessary. Then your daughter will possess self-respect, self-assurance, communicative skills, and she will trust herself.

I think if we listen to what the children want, indulge their desires, they will ride their bikes the whole days. What do you think?

What is wrong with riding the bike the whole day? You envy, don’t you? Do you have any other ideas? Then pronounce them, suggest your plan to children, ask about their plan for the day, then you will be in contact and will be able to deal. Don’t be afraid of children riding their bike the whole day. Try doing it yourself the whole day – you won’t cope. Olympic champions can’t ride a bike the whole day without a break. Don’t scare yourself, children will ride for an hour or two and will get bored. But if you wait for them to get bored, they will never get bored – they will ride a bike until a complete breakdown.

It’s quite clear that goofing off is more pleasant than working. I taught MBA students; they were adult, smart and serious business people. I suggested, "Let’s have some rest and have a barbeque party!" Everybody was for, I didn’t have to talk anybody into it. However, they were not extremely enthusiastic about doing some work. Why do children have to have enthusiasm? Don’t take away their bikes, better involve them in something. Start with what they want and what their dreams are. If you wake children up in the morning because you have to go to work, they don’t want to wake up – they don’t have to go to work. Don’t impose your plans upon children – help them create their own. Wake them up not because you need it, but because they will go to the kindergarten, bring their favorite toy there and play with friends there.

Would you agree that some children need to be guided, even pressed and forced somewhere?

To guide means to make the direction clear. Some children need to be guided – I agree, but you can press and force only in case you want to get their resistance and protest.