How to raise a child so as not to harm him?
Your child is unique. He is not like anyone, including you. The child is not your copy, so you cannot demand that he implement the life script you wrote.
Your child is an independent person, with his own strengths, weaknesses, abilities, desires and preferences. Give him the right to choose in everything. Let him make decisions himself at crucial moments. Focus on his strengths and positive qualities. Accept him as he is.
The main advice is love and trust
Don't be shy about your love for your child and showing it. There is no need to be afraid that you will “fall in love” with him.
He should feel a reliable support in your life and understand that you will support him in any situation. Try to take your child on your lap as often as possible, look into his eyes, hug and kiss him. Affection is the best method of encouragement.
At the same time, do not allow permissiveness in education. It is necessary that your family has some boundaries and prohibitions that you need to strictly adhere to.
Advice No. 1 from child psychologist Yu. Gippenreiter
Before punishing, stop and think about whether the child really deserves punishment now. After all, you can first try to resolve the issue with the help of affection and requests. If the punishment is truly motivated, then it is necessary to clearly explain the reason for the punishment.
Don't forget what a huge role play plays in a child's life. It is in game moments that you can convey to your baby everything he needs to know. It is through the game that you can tell your child about life values and priorities. The game helps children and parents understand each other better.
Tip No. 2 from child psychologist Yu. Gippenreiter
You must not forget about the importance of communicating with your child; try to do this as often as possible. Teach your child to express their feelings and emotions. This will help the child understand other people and his own behavior.
The style of your relationship with your child affects not only the child’s behavior, but also his mental health. If your child feels negative towards himself, this can cause hidden aggression.
Tip No. 3 from child psychologist Yu. Gippenreiter
Remember that how you communicate with your child depends on his ability to empathize with others and feel emotions, both positive and negative. When communicating with a child, remember that the communication process requires understanding your interlocutor, his feelings and emotions.
How to love children
A child can be compared to a mirror. He reflects love, but does not love first. When children are given love, they return it. If nothing is given to them, they have nothing to return. Unconditional love is reflected unconditionally, and conditional love is returned depending on certain conditions.
The love between Tom and his parents is precisely an example of a conditional relationship. As Tom grew, he longed for a closer and warmer relationship with his parents. Unfortunately, his parents felt they had to constantly push him to be better and avoided praise, warmth, and affection unless he was actually doing great and they were proud of him. In other cases, parents were strict because they believed that too much praise and approval would spoil the child and dampen his desire to be better. They showed their love when Tom behaved wonderfully, but the rest of the time they were withdrawn and reserved. This may have worked well when Tom was little. As he grew older, he began to feel that he was not loved and appreciated for who he was, that his parents cared more about their prestige and appreciation.
When Tom became a teenager, his love for his parents was a mirror image of their love for him. He perfectly learned to love them with conditional love. He behaved in such a way that his parents were pleased with him, but only in those cases when he needed something from his parents that would give him pleasure. Of course, since Tom and his parents played this game, no one could express their love for the other because they were waiting for the other to do something nice for him. In this situation, each family member became more and more disappointed, embarrassed, and puzzled. As a result, an atmosphere of depression, anger and resentment was created in the house, which forced the Smiths to seek help.
How would you handle this situation? Some will begin to lecture their parents: they must demand respect, obedience, etc. from their son. Others will begin to criticize Tom for his attitude towards his parents, demanding that he treat them with respect. And some will even insist on severe punishment for Tom. What do you think about it?
Many children these days do not feel that their parents truly love them. And besides, I have also met parents who really do not love their children. So this is not just an academic question, so that, after thinking, you shake your head: “Too bad!” The situation is very alarming.
Dozens of religious sects or mysterious gangs and factions are capturing the minds of many beautiful teenagers across the country. How is it that these children are so cleverly brainwashed, turning them against their parents and all sorts of authorities and authorities, subordinating them to all sorts of eccentric doctrines? The main reason is that these teenagers have never felt the sincere love and care of their parents. They feel that they were deprived of something important, that their parents missed a chance to give them something vital. What is this? Yes, yes, it is unconditional, unconditional love. When you think about how few children feel that they are loved, comforted, cared for regardless of any errors in their behavior, then it is not surprising how far these gangs of teenagers can go!
Why does this terrible situation exist? When I talk to parents, I am grateful to find that most not only love their children, but are genuinely interested in learning what can be done to help all children. And again and again I am convinced: the problem is that parents do not know how to express their love for their children.
How to convey love
Let's discuss how to express your love for your child. Children are emotional beings who communicate on an emotional level. In addition, children (and the smaller they are, the more) show us their feelings through their behavior. Just by carefully observing your child, you can easily determine how he feels and what mood he is in. In the same way, children have an uncanny ability to recognize our feelings from our behavior, an ability that most lose as adults.
Very often my sixteen-year-old daughter would ask, “What are you angry about, Dad?” when I was not consciously aware that I actually felt that way. But when I thought about it and analyzed my feelings, it turned out that she was absolutely right. Children are designed that way. They can very sensitively sense how we feel by the way we behave. So, if we want our children to know and understand how much we love them, we must act accordingly by expressing our affectionate feelings in action.
The purpose of this work is to analyze how loving parents can put their tender feelings into action. Only in this way can they convey their love to the child, so that he feels loved, fully accepted and respected, and then he can love and respect himself. As a result, parents will be able to help their children learn to love others unconditionally, especially their future spouses and children.
But there is one basic premise that must be taken into account before all discussions about modes of expression. It must be taken for granted that parents really love their child and really want to put into practice what they learn here. There is a definite difference between a vague warm feeling towards a child and a deep concern and desire to sacrifice everything that is necessary for the maximum satisfaction of his interests. It's pretty pointless to continue reading the article if you don't want to seriously think about it, understand it, and apply its recommendations.
Ways of expressing love for a child can be classified into four types:
- Eye contact
- Physical contact
- Close attention
- Discipline
Each area is fundamentally important. Many parents (and authorities) focus on one or two areas while neglecting others. These days, the role of discipline is overemphasized, to the point of completely neglecting all other areas.
I have met many children from respectable families in which the children were disciplined, but did not feel surrounded by love. In most of these cases, parents unfortunately confused discipline with punishment, as if they were synonymous. Every day I see the sad results of this approach to parenting. These children behave quite well while they are still small, however, they are usually too quiet, a little gloomy and withdrawn. They lack spontaneity, curiosity and a childish excess of joy in full swing - everything that is characteristic of a child raised in an atmosphere of love.
It is those children who lack an emotional connection with their parents who become “difficult” teenagers. Therefore, we as parents must focus our attention on all aspects of showing love to our child. Let us first discuss the first way, namely eye to eye contact.
Eye contact
When you first think about eye contact, it may not seem like a big deal for your baby. However, as we professionals work with children, observe interactions between children and parents, and study the data obtained by researchers, we realize how significant a role eye contact plays. An open, natural, friendly look directly into the child's eyes is essential not only for establishing good communication interaction with him, but also for satisfying his emotional needs. Cm.
Physical contact
It would seem that the easiest way to express your love for a child is with a gentle touch. However, an amazing fact: studies have shown that most parents touch their children only out of necessity: helping them get dressed, get into the car, etc. You will rarely meet a parent who, of their own free will, without any reason, will take the opportunity to touch affectionately to your child. Cm.
Close attention
Eye-to-eye contact and physical contact rarely require true sacrifice from parents. At the same time, close attention requires time and sometimes even a lot of time. This can mean that parents are often forced to give up activities and pleasures that they prefer at the moment. Loving parents will have to face the fact that in some cases their child desperately, more than anything else, needs their undivided attention at the very moment when they are least inclined to give it. Cm.
Discipline
I often give lectures on the relationship between parents and children. I usually devote the first three or four lessons to how to love a child, and only then the issue of discipline is discussed. Inevitably, parents almost immediately tell me: “I actually liked the lectures, but when will we finally move on to discipline? We are having difficulty with this and would like some advice.” Cm.
