Careful Love! - Blogs

Now it constantly sounds: you need to love! Husband, work, children. "If you don't love, you don't live a fulfilling life." The universal recipe for upbringing is about the same: "The main thing is just to love the child." The feeling of love has acquired the status of a new moral norm. To love is no longer just an opportunity, but a prescription. We are asked all the time: Do we love enough? But is it possible to build relationships with children only on love?

Emotional hunger

We live in turbulent times. We are haunted by problems - financial, professional, personal. We feel exhausted from the high daily stress - emotional and psychological. The negative information background adds fuel to the fire, the media constantly bombard us with disturbing news. Truly warm relationships - both family and friends - are in great deficit today.

We begin to look for an “island of stability”, an emotional refuge that is not touched by social “storms and storms,” and we find it … in a child. Due to the love for the child and his love for us, we try to replenish, compensate for the lack of emotions, satisfy our emotional hunger. Therefore, the question “loves - does not love” is at the forefront, it is given great importance.

We do not allow the thought that we can lose the love and affection of children even for a while or that they will not love us strongly enough: “It seems to me that my son does not love me. He constantly takes offense at me. Am I really a bad mother? " And the question immediately arises: "How to make him love me more?"

Our love for children is not selfless - we demand reciprocity, we constantly expect confirmation of love from them. It turns out that we solve our own problems at the expense of children. On the one hand, we become dependent on children, on their feelings, on their attitude towards us. On the other hand, we make them responsible for removing this insane burden from us, compensating for the lack of sincere relationships with friends, with loved ones, with a spouse.

Love is an ambiguous feeling, the power of which can turn it into a double-edged sword. When faced with paradoxes in relation to children, we are convinced that love alone is not always enough. Creating a relationship based on love alone means walking a dangerous path, and you can pay for it.

Fearing "dislike", moms and dads begin to behave unparents: they try to satisfy all the child's desires, they do not dare to punish. After all, it is not easy to punish a child if you are afraid that he will stop loving you. The adult behaves like a child who seeks love and puts the object of love above himself, and the child takes the position of an adult. We forgot that strictness and obedience did not interfere with love, but, on the contrary, could feed it and did not allow it to go beyond the boundaries of what is permissible. The feeling of love existed in the old days, but it was not put to the fore without measure and was not endowed with the same meaning as in our time.

Do not make an idol out of a child: when he grows up, it will require many sacrifices

Pierre Bouast

In the center of the family

In recent decades, the position of the child in the family has radically changed. From the family "periphery" he moved to the center.

Now it is considered quite natural to plan a family, to decide in advance how many children we want in order to be able to surround each of them with love and care. And raising children is almost the main business of life. However, this was not always the case. Back in the 19th century, in poor families, a child was considered an "extra mouth", and he was not given much attention. Traditionally, the head of the family was in the center, and the rest of the household was around him. At the same time, each took his place. Parental authority was not questioned.

Today everything revolves around the child, everything is done for him and for him. For his sake, they marry when a woman finds out that she is pregnant. For his sake, they try to keep the family together: "We cannot divorce, we have children." Divorced parents ask their child for a blessing for a new marriage. It is good if he "gives the go-ahead." But if his relationship with the new parents does not work out, the adults are ready to part ways, just to “not injure the child”.

Many mothers create and support the cult of the child, putting their lives "on the altar of mother's love." They see the meaning of life in a child - "I live for the sake of children", and such sacrifice is considered in the order of things. The main thing is for the child to love her, to be attached to her.

Once in a Moscow restaurant I saw such a scene. A family I know came to dinner - dad, mom and two daughters. Mom had already sat down at the table, but one girl came running and drove mom out of her place. Then another ran up and also wanted to sit in her mother's place, and the woman unquestioningly obeyed - she got up again and sat down. I asked her: “You have taken this place, how can a child drive you away? First one, then another, and you obediently yield to them - why? " Mom answered: “Why am I going to quarrel with them because of some nonsense? They will start to be capricious, they will ruin the whole dinner. " Mom doesn't want to conflict, upset her daughters. She is afraid of their whining, complaints, aggression, especially in public, she is afraid that they will take her demands and restrictions with hostility, that they will reject her. And she wants to feel like an ideal mother, whom her daughters look at with loving eyes,and others admire: "How they love you!"

The surest way to make your child unhappy is to teach him not to know no refusal …

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Breaking the hierarchy

The "adult - child" hierarchy is based on physiological, psychological and social laws. It is an illusion that we can violate them with impunity. Observance of the hierarchy is vital for the normal development of the child's personality.

An adult, by definition, has more rights than a child and more responsibility. He knows how it is necessary, how it is correct, he sets a coordinate system for the child, sets a certain framework, he can allow, and can forbid. He controls and looks after, teaches and helps, evaluates and condemns. And it is he who is responsible for himself and for the child.

By pushing a child into an adult's position, we overload an immature child's psyche. The child does not understand the nature of power, does not feel the boundaries that cannot be crossed. For him, the very concept of "adult" disappears, is blurred - it ceases to carry the main semantic load and only means the age of a person.

But the “burden of equality” and the dependence of adults on it is beyond the strength of a child. Most often, children do not cope, their psyche does not stand up - they can become completely uncontrollable.

In such a situation, the child does not receive the most important thing: the core, the direction of further development. Like a young bindweed with its vertical support removed, it cannot climb up. The desire to become a truly adult does not arise when there is no inner feeling “here I grow up, and I will be allowed too, I will also have to …”. Hence the infantilization, which is now being talked about so much.

Children should not know how dear they are to those who bring them up

Robert Walser

Put the child back in his place

If the parent's function is to raise a child and raise him into an independent adult, it is necessary to determine the correct distance that will allow the parent to simultaneously live his life and raise children. Children should see that parents cannot devote all their time to them alone. We do not live for the sake of the child, but simply live - together and next to him. In one of the interviews I was asked about the relationship with my children. And I honestly said: I am ready to die for my children, but I am not ready to live for them.

When a child returns to the place allotted to him by nature, we are no longer afraid to refuse, conflict, punish, go to confrontation. We do not demand from the child constant displays of love, eternally shining eyes. Good parents are not those who try to win the favor of their children at any cost, but those who are ready to set guidelines and educate.

Of course, the “change of power” in the family is unlikely to be peaceful. Sometimes this process is accompanied by conflicts. We need to be prepared for irritation, protest, shouting, aggression, discontent, and sometimes even hatred of children. But this is a natural, absolutely normal behavior of a child at critical moments.

Children need our guidance, sometimes tough. We make demands that they may not like, but we have the right to do so because we act in their best interest. Of course, all this should be done in a warm atmosphere, in an atmosphere of kindness and protection. This is active love