Who Is The Present? - Society

I have a rather difficult attitude to giftedness, if by this term we mean a child's ability for some kind of creative activity is higher than the average for the quarter. The criteria for giftedness are very vague, and the temptations to "raise a star" from parents in our culture affected by malignant narcissism are above the roof.

Victims of parental ambition

Yes, it so happens that the baby shows an absolute ear for music or the ability to rhyme. Or a girl of "ballet build". Or the boy adds up the numbers without any training or effort. So what? Is this really a reason to condemn a child to a completely unchildish life, with harsh studies, constant training, performances, competitions?

You read the biography of Mozart, who is always cited as an example as a realized child prodigy. It's just horror, nightmare and "where is juvenile justice looking ?!" Moreover, his daddy, Leopold, did not hide his extremely ambitious and materialistic plans in the least bit. "Yes," he wrote, "little Wolfgang will improve my career and financial affairs, since God has given him such a wonderful gift." And we all remember what a tragic life Mozart lived.

Let's not climb so high, let's just look at children in whom parents and teachers have noticed some kind of talent. From the age of three - a schedule of classes, a constant race, training for victory and a record, through "I can not", not paying attention to the real state of health, their own desires and needs of age. Because it is very flattering and attractive for both parents and teachers to be near the "star". Honestly, honestly, you have no idea what a delight it is: modestly lowering your eyes and even as if lamenting, say: “Well, what to do, God has awarded a talented child, you have to comply, but how? At the competition, she easily took first place, so we need to grow further."

I have had such children in practice, a lot. Pianists, gymnasts, mathematicians, poets. Usually these are children with hypersensitivity, slightly out of this world or too involved in connection with the mother. Except that I haven't met artists with problems, it seems that they manage to work out their internal conflicts in their work. Well, you can't get them on stage, they sit in their room, draw. So, about the included mothers.

In 100% of cases, there must be an adult next to the child prodigy who has not realized his ambitions

Otherwise, no child prodigy will work, but there will be just a boy or girl who loves to write stories, draw pictures and move to music. And that's right, that's fair.

It is one thing to take the child to the studio closest to the house, so that it is interesting and fun for him there, where he can go himself from the age of eight, where friends are safe, and quite another is to immerse him for many years in a highly competitive environment where there is a constant struggle, intrigue, passion. Mom, especially if she belongs to the demonstrative personality type, cook in this cauldron only for pleasure. All this movement with contests, performances, costumes is cool! And the feeling of belonging to something great, important, real! What happens to the child at this time? If this is not a "bell girl" like little Natasha Koroleva, then he is most likely suffering.

Giftedness is extremely rarely accompanied by hysteria. This is a property of rather schizoid natures who prefer solitude and concentrated creativity to any social contacts

Masha - expander

I observed one such girl from the age of three, from that unfortunate moment when she was found to have perfect pitch. By an absurd and tragic coincidence, at the same time, my father had a second family. The girl's proud mother took her "to nowhere" and began to mold the baby into a world-famous star. Best violin preparatory group. Admission to the music school at the conservatory. Additional classes with renowned teachers. All this was interspersed with curses addressed to the cattle-father, constant lamentations that there was nothing to live on (this was just the truth, because it is impossible to fully work and raise a genius), reproaches that my daughter is doing little and not diligently enough.

The girl did eight hours a day. She was brought to me complaining of enuresis, "incomprehensible" tics and tearfulness. A ten-year-old girl could “suddenly” burst into tears. Mom also complained very irritably that from time to time Masha mutilated herself: either she would collapse from the escalator, then she would pinch her hand with the doors (and this is her main wealth!), Or she would bring a concussion from school.

When a child is born, adults think that their task is to grow up. No, it is not. The meaning of his life is just to be a child. There are creatures in nature that live only one day. The blessing of life in its course, in the present moment. Each person, each of us has only "now"

Tom Stoppard

I persistently recommended to reduce the load, I was just as persistently explained that this was in no way possible: Masha had to work, otherwise … The picture of the impending deafening failure was so monstrous that it was absolutely impossible to describe it in words, she had to dramatically raise her eyebrows and shoulders. I pretended to be a non-entry bast shoe and bent my own line: the child has depression, it needs to be treated, taken out of school for at least a year, it does not pull the load. Mom stubbornly refused, then Masha scratched a mosquito bite on her leg and rushed to the hospital with an extensive abscess for as long as a month. Then she was sent to her grandmother, to a tiny town in the Volga region, from where, apparently, her mother was so eager to enter the world.

During the remaining two summer months Masha recovered, plus or minus rosy cheeks, sparkling eyes and a normal childish smile appeared. Enuresis disappeared, as did the tics. “My grandmother always follows me, now with milk, now with compote, now with pancake, makes me sleep during the day, I’m on the river all day, now in the forest. I haven't touched the violin for a month, as I look at the case - it makes me sick. And when I stopped feeling sick, I started playing,”Masha told me before school.

All adults were children at first, only few of them remember this

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

But Mom was unstoppable. Masha was returned to the Central Music School, exams, tests, screams and scandals began again, all the Machine symptoms also immediately took their rightful place … She graduated from the Central Music School, then the conservatory, then graduate school. Plays in small ensembles, sometimes performs at competitions. Her salary two years ago was - just don't fall! - one and a half thousand rubles a month. With all the performances and part-time jobs, she cuts out about fifteen thousand from the violin. There is no personal life, although the girl is very beautiful. Lives with mom. Awfully sad story.

The result is a complete depletion of the resource

A difficult, but very typical case, when the child becomes a "narcissistic extension" of the parent, a tool for achieving the mother's goals, and not his own. All three-year-old Masha wanted was to sing children's songs in the choir, go to the kindergarten to her girlfriends, and visit her grandmother in the summer. In her picture of the world there was no world stage, no footlights, no expensive contracts. Her mother dreamed about it, a bright, selfish, not too sensitive woman who lived in the confidence that the world owed her a lot. But her talents were not enough to break through to the very top ("After all, I deserve this!"), So she appropriated the gift of her daughter, began to exploit it in the best traditions of the invaders and occupiers. Until the resource is completely depleted.

I do not like mother tigresses. All the time I want to say: “Dear, go to work. There you will receive recognition, a field for intrigue, admiration, and full-fledged enemies. Leave the child alone, let him live. " But working is hard, unsafe, and you can face depreciation and failure.

At first glance, sculpting a star out of a child is much easier. Only it still doesn't fill the void inside

Expert opinion

Wild indigo

In the scientific world, child prodigies are divided into three types: gifted children, geniuses, and guys with savant syndrome (or savantism). They are outstanding talents with developmental disabilities. But science was replaced by the fashion for "indigo children" - "a new race of people", as the author of the term Nancy Ann Tapp defined them. "Natural" indigos, according to her, are original creators who are immediately born with ready-made knowledge, and therefore do not show cognitive interest, do not strongly favor school and often behave asocial, demonstrating restlessness, low sociability, a tendency to withdraw into themselves.

There is a great danger in this myth: it is easier for parents to recognize their child as "indigo" in order to provide an explanation for obvious behavioral disturbances. It is unacceptable to attribute the child's inability to be in a team, hypersensitivity, attention deficit disorder or other more serious disorders to “genius”. It is important to understand that if a child is truly talented or genius, his abilities cannot be ignored. Just be considerate of your children.

Olga MITINA,

candidate of psychological sciences