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The article is subjective and expresses the personal opinion of the author.
In every film where the psychotherapist’s couch appears, they enthusiastically explain to us that the roots of the hero’s problems (he used to strangle babies once a week) stick out from childhood: his mother didn’t make him wash very gently. Yes, we ourselves easily diagnose a person by casting a cursory glance at his parents: “Yeah, well, it’s clear why his career did not work out! Did you hear what bearded jokes his father tells? ”
When we do an analysis of our own assertiveness or shyness, difficulties with a husband or habits of fiddling with an ear, we recall our parents. And the illusion arises that if you do everything right, your children can already make life much easier. In any case, to save them from the need to tell the psychiatrist in tears after many years, with what words you taught them to ride a bicycle.
If you look at the history of civilization, you will notice that never before have people racked their brains on how to provide their children with emotional comfort and psychological safety. Children behaved much more modestly, they had enough mammoth meat and guide slaps: neither about the Lego sets, nor about the fact that the word "sleazy" would cause psychological trauma and add self-doubt, there was no question.
Now we are constantly tormented. Heck! Instead of organic beet tops, the child eats sweets from french fries. Instead of reading Baratynsky, he watches a cartoon where the characters hit each other with their heels on the nose. And dad and mom, instead of discussing in the evening what feelings had overcome their child, simply said: “Now go to sleep!” See where everything goes? To a neurotic guilt.
There is no truth in guilt: it is either an applied tool that helps us fix the bolts of our behavior, or (in the worst case) a heavy burden
Along with guilt, there is always an awareness of the gigantic responsibility for everything that happens to the child and for his future. Today you told him: ok, play the computer, and tomorrow they will not take him into the main cast of the choristers.
In fact: do we condemn ourselves just as severely when we miss in another area? Does anyone feel the despair for months because he was awkward with a colleague who poured compote on our keyboard? No, a colleague easily gets his own, and even the muddy, sad looks that he sends across the table cannot just get us crazy, like the incident with a child, a hacksaw and a mink coat. We easily forget our mistakes when it comes to career, fitness, education, friends, and even the ill-fated corporate performance. But we grieve for weeks, poisoning ourselves with the fact that the child was not sent on a sea cruise, but to her aunt in the garden "Light Beam".
Before we are given a person in a blanket in the hospital, we expect a lot from ourselves as from our parents. We believe that we will be smart and fair, generous and friendly towards the child. But it is worth two-year-old run to the father in the head with sand, all the grace somehow disappears. Notice, I do not say anything about adolescents, after graduation with them it’s not that friends, but it’s difficult to talk without tremor in the fingers. The more we expect from ourselves, the more ideal we draw our parenthood, the deeper we will have to fall with the inevitable “I didn’t finish it, I couldn’t restrain myself, I didn’t pay attention, and the wrong seal costume was sewn on the matinee.”
But if you are not tormented enough, here are reliable and tried-and-tested ways to bring experiences to life.
1. Believe that your every move fatally affects the development of the child
One successful and busy acquaintance of mine devoted one and a half weeks to choosing a pot for a one-year-old daughter: he had to be of some unprecedented anatomical form, while performing classical arias. It turns out that all past years people were put on irregularly shaped enameled products, they were treacherously silent and did not establish the emotional atmosphere in the house with singing opera. And how it all came back to shame - how many neuroses are now around! Each gesture can determine the fate of a person. When we try to put a child in a sling or pram, it’s worth 500 times to think about how to do this, facing you or yourself, because “trust in the world!” Is at stake. One awkward movement - and the pipe.
2. Carefully study the advice of specialists
Proper nutrition, the right clothes, the right diapers, the right cartoons, the right treatment, the right education - all have opinions of experts of various stripes, including those who simply accidentally untied the straitjacket's sleeves. But if all this is written, then someone needs it: it seems that we are the most insecure generation of parents.
“Mom, can I have a kinder surprise?” - “Wait a minute, son, I’ll read now, is it possible for three-year-olds to have chocolate after breakfast and what is the moral reference point for a Chinese toy in the form of a blot with eyes?” - Scream at the forum: “Help! What to do? The child asks for an egg with a surprise !!!!!!!!! ".
3. Follow the advice of others
The advice coming from acquaintances differs from the advice of experts in their importunity: “Is he still afraid of excavators? You need to be stricter! So we forced our to spend the day on the excavator, and how it took off! ” All people who “had the same thing”, but they smeared with fish oil / did not pay attention / danced with tambourines - they were wildly nervous when they tried to defend their method and lure you to their camp. It’s difficult for us to take comrade’s methods seriously, because my grandmother’s completely opposite methods also work, and a friend from Facebook posted instructions on how to teach a child the English alphabet even without fish oil. And all these guys are doing a great job. Unlike you.
4. Do not seek support
Feeling guilty loves silence. Superheroes can not admit that today they are not in shock. They don’t complain to friends at night, don’t cry to their mom’s phone, don’t turn to their husband: “Dear, today I’m kind of nervous. Let us lay the children, and I will lie on the carpet in the pose of a dying swallow. " In general, it’s very easy to kill guilt with this substitution: I’m not the disgusting parent who didn’t take the children to the playground today, but I just don’t have enough support and inspiration.
5. Boldly engage in self-incrimination
By focusing on what stupid and inept parents we are, we stop paying attention to children. Under the gaze and sensitive eyes, their own wounds grow, and each movement of the child brings new suffering. It is better to remove it altogether out of sight, which is also a wonderful way to launch self-flagellation into a new orbit.
In general, it is difficult to talk with a person who is overwhelmed by guilt. He is pouting for something, talking to himself and crying, even if he was only asked to give the salt.
A couple of comforting words after.
Perhaps children do not need ideal parents who are equipped with the latest developmental techniques and a perfect nervous system. The children learn from all kinds of experiences, including the failures and mistakes of adults. Surely they are encouraged to see that, despite misunderstandings and oversights, we do not stop trying, we still worry, suffer, and even try to learn the multiplication table with him in the form of suspicious ditties.
It is much more dangerous to lose contact with the child by wearing a superhero costume and forbidding doubts. It seems that gray hair, nibbled nails and the feeling that you gave a flap today are signs of a good and responsible parent. This reflection is the necessary work of all fathers and mothers.
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