Ekaterina Burmistrova: Irritability. Overcoming technique. The reasons for the manifestation of parental anger and the forms that it takes. "Emotional contamination" and "emotional retraining"
Perhaps, there are no dads and mothers who from time to time would not be annoyed by the behavior of their children. Usually, irritation arises and accumulates in those situations when mom or dad is unable to cope with some kind of everyday situation. And such cases in the conditions modern life- Not unusual.
Problem parental anger and its manifestations are truly enormous. So huge that it deserves a separate book, which was written by Ekaterina Burmistrova, a wonderful psychologist who has been dealing with the problems of family relations for more than fifteen years.
The book is designed to help parents deal with the problem of irritability in the family and contains practical advice.
about the author
Ekaterina Burmistrova is a famous psychologist. Graduated from the Faculty of Psychology, Moscow State University. Diploma work "Development of creativity at an early age" - a program of classes with children from one and a half to three years, on which I worked for ten years. Over the years of her practice, she has created 15 programs in family psychology. Author of the books Pregnancy, Childbirth, Motherhood and Family Time Management. The mother of ten children.
Instead of a preface
Perhaps there are no dads and mothers who from time to time would not be annoyed by the behavior of their children, and at the same time, almost every parent thinks that in terms of anger he has no equal. Everyone else, in his opinion, gets irritated much less often, and perhaps never at all. In modern society, the idea is that good parent should not be irritated towards children. Such opinions can seriously poison the life of the family and interfere with the upbringing process.
Usually, irritation arises and accumulates in those situations when mom or dad is unable to correct the individual characteristics of the child's behavior, to cope with some kind of everyday situation. If not enough conventional ways affect the situation, irritation is connected as a spare, albeit unnecessary battery. I have yet to meet people who enjoy their irritability.
Irritation should be viewed as a state of undoubtedly negative and, moreover, after the fact, causing feelings of guilt. In other words, irritation is not only unpleasant at the moment when you are at its mercy, it leaves behind an extremely unpleasant aftertaste. It is because of frequent outbursts of irritation that many parents, especially mothers, believe that they are bad, unsuccessful and incompetent.
How is parental irritation perceived by a child, especially a preschooler? Shouting, threats and spanking are often seen by him as a manifestation of dislike. The mother gets angry and swears, and the child concludes that she is angry and does not love him at all.
Of course, with age, this view of things inevitably changes. A recent child, who still well remembers the irritability of his parents and his own resentments about this and once sincerely promised in his diary: “I will never, for nothing, shout at children, be angry and annoyed at them!” Becomes a parent himself. Then comes the "moment of truth" for him, then comes the first, albeit superficial understanding of the reasons why his father and mother seemed so cruel and unjust to him.
It turns out that the parents were not angry at all because they were angry and bad! They just got very tired, not coping with their countless responsibilities. However, understanding why mom and dad were angry, as a rule, does not become a vaccine against their own irritability. The idea that it is necessary to throw out everything sore and depressing is only partly true.
Family is long term project, over the decades, anything happens to her: some periods turn out to be relatively simple and almost cloudless, while others become a time of real testing of feelings for strength. That is why the exchange of information between spouses is so necessary.
It is no secret that many young families are initially forced to rent a house and only eventually acquire their own homes. In this case, the apartment may be more spacious or more modest, better or worse. Matrimonial communication is built in a similar way: it is by no means always the ability to conduct confidential and sympathetic conversations about the most difficult issues comes immediately. During the courtship period, there is no need for this: the heads of the lovers are busy with completely different things. True communication is the prerogative of a mature family, whose members are well aware: each of them is a complex set of merits and flaws, which are in a constant and fierce struggle among themselves, where "the battlefield is the human heart." Communication skill is not a bonus attached to a marriage certificate, but the result of many years of painstaking and responsible work. However, it is the absence of this experience that gives rise to a large extent to spontaneous outbursts of destructive emotions.
Irritation is very similar to chronic allergies. At first, it is caused only by a certain amount of completely certain situations but if we don't deal with our anger properly, the range of possible causes expands over time.
Chronic irritability can be compared to a morbid addiction to alcohol or the habit of spending evenings in front of the TV. You can compare it with playing sports - the more diligently we “pump” our muscles, the stronger they become, or with a traveler wandering through the desert: the more water he drinks, the more painfully his thirst overcomes.
The more often we experience irritation, the more compulsive it becomes to pour it out on someone. However, we all need to remember: you cannot get rid of negativity just by throwing it out. So you can only "feed" and "lull" him for a while. At the same time, irritation will hide and will only wait the right moment in order to publicly declare themselves with renewed vigor. This is one of the "anger traps".
A kind of angry intoxication may arise when the level of mutual irritation in the family rises so much that its members have to agree on some kind of pause, about some kind of truce with each other.
The habit of letting off steam every now and then has the most negative impact on our relationships with children. Moreover, they inevitably transfer it to their peers, as well as to their younger brothers and sisters.
Eastern wisdom says: "An irritated educator does not educate, but only annoys." A parent in this condition can achieve his goal in the short term. However, he lays a vicious model in the child's soul emotional behavior: when something goes wrong, turn on your irritation, put pressure on your neighbor, "and you will be happy!"
The child easily masters this simple tactic and with its help really more and more often achieves that, for example, they turn on a "cartoon", even if at this time they have to do completely different things, buy a desired, but not at all necessary toy or add an extra a spoonful of sugar into porridge.
What can you recommend to parents in this regard? First of all, admit that you are annoyed, even if you absolutely do not like it. Likewise, the Alcoholics Anonymous program considers the patient's very admission of an addiction as the first and defining step on the path to recovery from addiction. To humbly admit the existence of an urgent problem means ten to fifteen percent closer to solving it.
Following this, you need to honestly answer the question: do you really want to get rid of this habit? If, being irritated, you feel quite comfortable, then there is no reason to talk, but if irritability really bothers you, you should make every effort to get rid of it.
Before you start fighting this habit, you need to understand its nature. What should we know about irritation? First, we must determine in what situations it usually occurs, where the keys are hidden, with the help of which anger penetrates into our souls. By carefully observing ourselves for two to three weeks and scrupulously recording the situations that provoked irritation in a notebook, any of us will be able to identify the factors that cause a negative emotional reaction.
We are talking about the so-called "normative conflicts", about the very "rakes" that we step on every day, or even several times a day. For example, every night when we try to brush our children’s teeth, they try to run away, and this behavior irritates us. Knowing this in advance, we can prepare ourselves internally by forming an anticipatory reaction that will prevent anger from taking over us unhindered.
The next step should be to observe when and how our state changes. For example, just now you were calm, you talked to everyone evenly and kindly, but after a minute you start to scream and tug on someone's ears ... Almost everyone can analyze the development of a situation in which irritation arises, but this requires a certain methodology ... I insist that it is necessary to record the results of your observations on paper, otherwise a mess will inevitably arise in your head.
It is important to understand how this process takes place. Usually the mind begins to take possession of an obsessive thought: "That's it, I can't stand it anymore!" - and now anger covers us with a turbid wave. For some people, the anticipatory sensation is certain physical symptoms - for example, their breathing and heart rate increase, their cheeks turn red, and their fists clench reflexively. Someone starts pacing excitedly around the room, touching the surrounding objects, or grabs a cigarette, like a lifeline.
In the fight against irritability, it is extremely important to fix the moment of "emotional transition". Having identified it, try for three to five seconds to hold and balance on the verge of a breakdown, be patient a little and, perhaps, hold your breath for a short time. If this technique works, then the emerging ability to mitigate irritation may well turn out to be the next step on the way to consciously aligning your behavior.
In order to get rid of bouts of anger, you need to realize their true nature, to understand if you have encountered something similar in your parental family. We must try to remember who often raised their voice at you - grandmother, father, kindergarten teacher or primary school teacher. Think, in whose voice your irritation persistently declares itself.
We all come from childhood, each of us at the level of memories captures the behavior of parents and people who are significant to us, and in similar situations tends to imitate him. For example, cleaning an apartment on a single day off was completely natural for our mothers and fathers, because they simply had no alternative. Of course, times have changed, but even those of us who have the opportunity to work remotely, at home at the computer, unconsciously copy this weekly routine, which has long turned into a ritual.
Mom may not even know why she is so annoyed by the forever untied shoelaces on her son's shoes or the semolina smeared on the table. Then the door to the nursery slammed loudly, a cup of milk fell and broke on the floor, a hole appeared in a school uniform, a notebook for written homework was filled with crossed out and blots - and emotions are already overwhelming the woman. Everyday life situations in which children find themselves can cause violent outbursts of irritation in her. And the thing is that she herself once turned out to be the object of such flashes.
Realizing that your emotional response clearly does not correspond to the cause that caused it, you can be sure: either unconscious childhood memories have entered into action (someone from your loved ones was inclined to get irritated in such situations; you remembered these outbursts of anger and now reproduce them diligently) or you are in a state of chronic nervous overload.
Our childhood was spent in nurseries and kindergartens, which means that most of the time we spent in the company of women, often lonely and, as a result, emotionally unrestrained.
Schools and kindergartens have traditionally used and are still using tough methods of team management. In families, however, this approach is not applicable. Look again your old photos, remember conversations with relatives. In order to make the reactions manageable, I advise you to activate childhood memories and relive them.
Irritation is very similar to chronic allergies. At first, it is caused only by a certain number of very specific situations, but if we do not properly deal with our anger, over time the range of possible causes expands.
Causes of parental anger and the forms it takes
Some people tend to get annoyed in situations involving certain physical conditions. For example, for many of us, chronic sleep deprivation is becoming the strongest provoking factor. An unstable, tense, nervous and unfriendly environment at work, dissatisfaction with marital relations can also become the reasons for increased irritability. Make every effort not to load your child with problems that have nothing to do with him. In such cases, it’s better to just say to yourself: “Today I didn’t get enough sleep again and I resemble a car that loses control on a slippery road, which means I should concentrate and be more careful when cornering!”
You can try to explain to teenagers: “Now I am completely and completely absorbed in work, I am very tired and, probably, that is why I am angry with you more often than usual. However, my condition does not at all indicate that I have stopped loving you. Believe me, it has nothing to do with you at all! "
Talk to your child more often, trust him more! Remember that irritation causes guilt not only among parents, but also among those to whom it is directed, according to the principle: "If my mother is angry with me, then I am bad, I am not worthy of love!" In the future, all this can lead to an unjustified decrease in the child's self-esteem. In addition, many children and adolescent problems parents begin to explain by the fact that once they yelled at the baby, spanked him unfairly, were unjustifiably harsh with him and as a result “pecked”.
This is not to say that any manifestations of our anger are completely safe, but the feeling of guilt generated by emotional outbursts prevents us from seeing the true reasons why a child grows up fearful, unbalanced or overly shy. Guilt distorts our awareness of cause and effect.
In fact, children are very stress-resistant creatures. One-off outbursts of parental irritation most likely will not do much harm to their psyche, but systematic manifestations of discontent will almost certainly entail long-term negative consequences.
If you often find yourself annoyed, try changing something about yourself. At the same time, do not expect rapid changes: the process may well drag on for many months, or even years. If you managed to take even a small step in the right direction, since you were able to determine the nature of your irritability and have learned to control it at least a little, then a good start has been made. However, until the possibility of your emotional breakdowns is completely ruled out, you should often repeat to the child: “Mom always loves you, loves you, even when she is angry, even when she screams! She raises her voice simply because she has such a character, but at the same time she sincerely wishes you well. "
The little man is not able to comprehend these simple truths on his own. After all, we ourselves came to realize them, only having matured ... No need to wait so long! The child should be explained everything in a calm environment. When the right words are found and pronounced on time, mother's or father's negative emotions will no longer, as before, poison and destroy their relationship with children.
To a certain extent, the splash of parental irritation can be compared with the safety function of a pressure cooker valve, which is absolutely necessary. It is only important to make sure that emotional outbursts do not cripple the child's psyche, do not destroy your relationship with him, do not undermine the calm and do not poison the friendly atmosphere in the family.
If your irritation was inadequate and you just wanted to let off the accumulated steam, and a child accidentally fell under your arm, then it's not a sin to ask him for forgiveness. Another thing is how often you have to apologize for your unmotivated outbursts. If breakdowns occur several times a day, such an apology will only indicate the inconsistency of your pedagogical position.
If you share your thoughts about your excessive irritability with your spouse, and possibly someone else, everyone will only feel better. The main thing in this situation is not to bend under the weight of inescapable guilt, not to indulge in self-hypnosis: "We get annoyed every now and then, and therefore, we are lousy parents, and nothing can be done about it!" In no case do not succumb to fruitless despondency and do not fold your hands helplessly! Remember, you cannot live without mistakes in family life, but it is important to track the dynamics of relationships. The very fact of realizing your own shortcomings and a firm intention to fight them indicate that you have entered the right path and, sooner or later, will certainly become the masters of the situation.
The splash of parental irritation can, to a certain extent, be compared to the safety function of a pressure cooker valve.
"Ladder of aggression"
Irritability can be driven deep inside by systematically redirecting it, avoiding sharp corners, and avoiding risky situations. However, in this case only the “tops” are cut off, while the “roots” remain intact. After waiting in fertile soil, they will give rise to new, even more powerful and poisonous shoots.
Sometimes, after we receive some useful information, there is a sharp improvement in family relations, followed by an equally rapid deterioration. Hopes give way to bitter disappointment: a scheme that seemed ideal and universal before suddenly does not work in your case. I want to warn you: here you are faced with a very common phenomenon. Don't count on daily and indispensable progress! The process of harmonizing the internal state can be characterized by the well-known formulation: "One step forward, two steps back." Only gradual, barely noticeable shifts can really change the situation for the better over time.
Remember some situation that seemed to inevitably throw you off balance, but for some reason this did not happen and you managed to stay on the edge without slipping. Out of your usual anger, you should have yelled at someone, and you just gritted your teeth, you should have been “supposed” to hit the plates on the floor, and you managed to do without excesses ... What happened is the result of your efforts, which should be sincerely rejoiced.
What to do, life teaches us to notice only our mistakes and failures, not celebrating even small, but nevertheless very significant victories. Unfortunately, the ability to gratefully rejoice in good things is not inherent in everyone. This state requires a certain emotional culture, which we are deprived of.
By the way, in this respect, both adults and children are alike. Meanwhile, praise is a much more effective method than punishment, and encouragement is much more effective than punishment.
We find it difficult to praise anyone, including ourselves. With half a sin, we still manage to encourage children, but even this is not easy for us until we learn to give due to ourselves and our spouse. We have to make a decisive choice, deciding for ourselves once and for all: will we fix our attention on our successes or will we focus only on failures and failures. Whether we prefer to "nag" each other or try to support and inspire each other.
Fixation on shortcomings, accompanied by endless reproaches, is an endless field for cultivating anger.
Negative emotions that have accumulated as a result of everyday intra-family friction are spilled out without any apparent reason. At such moments, even some insignificant, but recklessly hasty phrase may turn out to be the “last straw”.
Among psychologists, the term "negative reinforcement" is common. Let me explain its essence using a simple everyday example. Let's say you come home from work, walk into the kitchen and find your husband trying to cook dinner for you. At the same time, you annoyed: “The vegetables for the salad are cut too finely (or, conversely, too coarsely), but the tea, dear, you brewed the wrong one! Is it so hard to remember that in the evenings I prefer green and weak? "
You have fixed your focus on flaws. This is the very negative reinforcement that inevitably leads to outbursts of anger and subsequent mutual alienation. Unfortunately, in our daily behavior, remarks, shouts, sarcasm and notation are the very tools with which we somehow prefer to work.
Usually, negative emotional reinforcement expresses all the discontent that has accumulated over the years for a variety of reasons. At the same time, the phrases we throw out casually often turn out to be much more significant than the reasons that caused them. In the end, family relationships reach that “point of no return” when they no longer satisfy both spouses.
Let us reflect on our desire not to thank and praise, but to be ironic about each other. Let's think, did something similar happen in the families in which we grew up? "I copy my mom, although I never imagined that I would do it!" - we usually come to such a disappointing argument sooner or later. Between the second and tenth year of the family's existence, almost every couple goes through a period of re-enactment of the parenting scenario, and it is almost impossible to completely avoid this.
While the kids were growing up, the irritation went away like sand, because children are noisy creatures, but unrequited. When they finally got their own families and left home, the conflicts between the spouses escalated. In addition, increased irritability is often directly related to the specifics of female hormonal system... It is no secret that women are usually the main spokesmen for discontent in families.
What emotionally charged phrases come off our lips at the moment when we least want it, you need to know. Usually there are two or three, no more. Be sure to write them down and remember them. It is necessary to make every possible use of such psychological "markers" and, having found them, stop in time, interrupting contact with the opponent for a while.
It is helpful to use certain preliminary agreements with your husband, for example, "When I get angry, I leave the room." It would be nice to "mark" and the behavior of the spouse.
Verbal expressions of discontent are more common in women, while in men, discontent can develop into poorly controlled rage. For them, as a rule, actions are much more characteristic than words.
In psychology, there is a concept of the so-called "ladder of anger" or "ladder of aggression". At the very top are physical actions, in other words, assault. Below are rude, offensive shouts, and below them - irritation, discontent. Being on the lower level, we begin to treat a loved one as an outsider or, even worse, as a sworn enemy. If we don't pay enough attention to our irritability, our aggression will inevitably rush up this vicious ladder. Anger will sooner or later replace irritation, and physical violence will eventually take the place of anger.
To prevent this from happening, the joint efforts of both spouses will be required. If the apartment is not cleaned, it will eventually become covered with a thick layer of dust. If you do not follow the emotional coloring of marital relations, mutual discontent will increase, and conflicts will multiply day by day. None of those living in the same house, in the same territory, can consider themselves in isolation from their neighbors.
It should be remembered that if anger is characteristic of a family, then anger inevitably penetrates into all its subsystems. In this case, one can usually single out one or two of the most easily excitable "soloists", more often than others prone to outbursts of irritation. They may well be a dad, twitched at the service, or a mother exhausted by night feedings, or maybe a grandmother desperately defending "her territory." As a rule, both adults and children have their own "soloists". The ladder of aggression is linked to each other in a chain: one of them inevitably engages and entails the others.
An increase in the degree of aggression is a wake-up call! If earlier you limited yourself to sullen puffing, but now in the same situations you easily break into a scream, then you have to work hard in order to return aggression to the previous level, otherwise it will inevitably rush up again soon. At the same time, the possible deterioration you noted should not become another reason for despondency, but a serious mobilizing factor.
Often times, you receive a charge of anger outside the family and subsequently rashly unleash it on your children and husband. Anything can be a provocative situation: traffic jams, uncertain situation at work or at university,
rudeness in a store, clinic, public transport, fear of the neighbors below whom you have poured in, an unpaid loan or an onerous mortgage, chronic fatigue, problems with one's own parents or the spouse's parents, time spent by the husband outside the family, and much, much more. All these are stressors that fall on us from the outside, something that we cannot influence. We can only try to learn how to control our own reaction to them, and even then not immediately, but tirelessly working on ourselves.
Unfortunately, most of us bring negative emotions home like bags of groceries from the supermarket, but there are people who can shield their families with an invisible spiritual barrier. If you do not have such a skill yet, you should, without postponing the matter indefinitely, start shaping it.
If the apartment is not cleaned, it will eventually become covered with a thick layer of dust. If you do not follow the emotional coloring of marital relations, mutual discontent will increase, and conflicts will multiply day by day.
"Traffic light of emotions"
The concepts of "green", "yellow" and "red" psychological zones can also be attributed to the basic ones. You have to learn to relate your emotional states to them.
Under the "green zone" psychologists mean such control over yourself, in which you are fully responsible for your words and actions and foresee their possible consequences. The "green zone" is a territory of calmness, balance, comfort and mutual benevolence of people towards each other.
I want to note that there are couples in whose relationships there is no place for the "green zone" at all. Because these people did not bother to agree in advance about what exactly they should do in order to prefer joint stay separate, they did not determine how they would spend the evenings together and share the responsibilities associated with everyday life and raising children. If there is little green space, anger and irritation will only build up over time.
In a neutral, calm, conflict-free period of life, you need to formulate for yourself what your "green zone" looks like, because it is no secret that by the time a child reaches one or one and a half years of age, many spouses already forget how good they were just recently how they tenderly cared for each other and tried not to leave the house separately.
Instead of constantly fixing your mind on ill-managed outbursts of anger, it is more useful to think about how to expand the “green”, comfort zone. You can listen to good music before heading off to work, or you can indulge in a coffee in bed.
The incessant vain running around, the feeling that endless affairs are sucking in, interferes with our stay in the "green zone". It seems to us every time: soon we will finish everything, finish things and then we will finally live like a human! The fact is that we perceive our own life as a worthless draft, naively counting on one day to rewrite it completely, and sincerely hope that the real, "worthy of us" life will begin tomorrow, Monday, or, in extreme cases, from the new year. At the same time, our "green zone" shrinks like shagreen skin, and we drive ourselves further and further along the ladder of aggression ...
Once in the "yellow zone", you are still aware of the instability of your emotional state, you are still able to restrain yourself, even though you are already covered with a wave of anger. Consider how easily you can determine the exit point from the comfort green zone and whether your warning system always fires on time. Do you always feel like you are losing your peace and out of balance?
In relationships between adults, feelings of resentment and a sense of abandonment accumulate for a long time, and therefore the reaction to them can be very sharp.
It is necessary to know the individual "markers" indicating the transition to the "yellow" emotional zone. It is worth carefully observing how your condition changes. It is very important to let your spouse understand that something is wrong with you, but this requires a preliminary agreement, which is achieved only in the "green zone". If there is no "green zone" at all, it is impossible to agree on something.
As they say, the rescue of drowning people is the work of the drowning people themselves. TO married life this statement applies to the fullest. Do not try to start a showdown, being in an irritated state, be sure to wait until you return to the "green zone". In a hurry, you risk immediately ending up in the "red" zone. The main thing, however, is that all family members participating in the proposed discussion agree to recognize this time as neutral, because you yourself can consider it favorable only because you have been waiting all day for the opportunity to start a conversation and carefully prepared for it, and the husband, on the contrary, was preoccupied with completely different things. This possibility should not be forgotten either.
Being in the "red zone" means the inability to control your behavior. At the same time, our actions become inadequate, and we ourselves are "peddling". Being in this state, you will not be able to make an intelligent decision. Everything that you are going to say at the moment when you are overwhelmed with irritation will inevitably be directed not at creation, but at destruction.
Any words that come off your tongue in anger are not the truth, not the truth, not something that can strengthen your relationship. Offensive shouts only aggravate alienation: a black funnel turns, and irritation multiplies.
During emotional outbursts, nothing can be done, silence should be preferred to any action, although anger sometimes bursts out of the chest, and our state is beyond our control.
The extent of all these conditional psychological zones is different for each of us. Truly lucky is someone who is able to linger for a long time in the "yellow zone", but much more often for people prone to anger, this golden mean does not exist at all: at first they perceive everything that is happening around calmly and condescendingly, and then, unexpectedly for themselves and those around them, they suddenly break loose shouting and insults. In this case, you need to carefully and impartially observe the dynamics of your flares.
Relationships with children, especially young children, provide us with an excellent opportunity for such analysis. All children dream of loving and affectionate parents and are ready for a lot for this: they easily forgive our mistakes and willingly go to meet us. Marital connection in this sense is much more fragile, it is no coincidence that parent-child relationships more often become a valve that frees us from accumulated negative emotions.
However, our aggression, albeit provoked by something, should in no case be directed against the closest people, and even objective everyday difficulties cannot serve as an excuse for us. It's much more productive to take out your frustration on a punching bag or go to the nearest park for a run.
Let me remind myself of the notorious sayings: "the end justifies the means" and "the forest is cut - the chips fly." Think about whether you want to be guided by this "wisdom" in family life.
An outburst of anger is not only an involuntarily escaping cry or spontaneous, rash actions, but also the inability to immediately soberly assess them, the inability to see oneself from the outside. Usually, the anger subsides no later than thirty to forty minutes. It is helpful to keep this in mind if you tend to be angry with children. It is worth explaining this to the child, since the mother's cry lasts for him endlessly, because children have completely different relationships with time. Of course, you can talk about it only while staying in the "green zone".
In general, I recommend talking with children about all the events that they become witnesses and participants in, for example, explain that mom has an irritable character, and a tired and hungry dad can scream. The child will not grow up to self-awareness of these simple truths soon - it will take several years. You can say to a schoolchild: "We will have a lot of work in December, so better not touch me!" At this age, children are quite capable of understanding the meaning of such warnings.
The irritation we pour out on others is usually redirected from some other, much less unrequited object. For example, at this moment you are ready to tear to pieces your husband, but the cry "to the wrong address" unconsciously seems to you much safer. Or you have serious problems at work, but then toys scattered on the floor turned up, and anger is released at the child.
You should carefully monitor such redirects and, correcting your behavior, explain what is happening to the children. You can illustrate your words with some fairy tale story or compare what happened with a situation that is well known to all kids, for example: “Do you sometimes quarrel with your girlfriends in kindergarten? So we quarreled with our friends. Forgive us, we got excited, but we will certainly make peace with friends soon! "
The anger we feel towards our children and the anger we feel towards our spouse are of a different nature, they have a different tonality, although they play "on the same team." They reinforce, support each other and rarely compete with each other. Their goals and tricks can vary significantly, they are introduced into our consciousness in different ways.
The direct result of the defeat of the anger of the marital relationship is microcracks, which at first are easy to repair. However, if you do not pay enough attention to the problem that has arisen and do not take effective measures in time, anger can well destroy your family.
Intrafamilial and extrafamilial factors have different effects on the employed and non-working spouse. For example, a mother who stays at home is usually oppressed by social isolation, the lack of habitual contacts and the household routine that turns her life into an endless "Groundhog Day" - a fantastic comedy by American filmmaker Harold Ramis, which tells about a character trapped in a kind of time loop , from which there is no way out: the next day simply does not come.). External factors rather they will test the strength of a working father, however, and he can be negatively affected by the wife's bad mood and her sloven appearance.
And yet, the main reasons for our anger often lie precisely in intrafamilial relationships. We list just a few of them: health problems, misunderstanding between parents on significant issues, financial disagreements, the inability to be alone, lack of attention from the spouse, fatigue and chronic sleep deprivation, noise and disorder caused by children, inconsistency of the achieved result with high expectations, “crisis middle aged".
Of course, this list is far from complete. All of us are faced with countless such factors every day, and the only question is whether our violent reaction to each of them is always justified.
By itself, a sober, critical attitude to stress-forming collisions may well reduce the number and intensity of our angry outbursts. A person is so arranged that, after understanding and discussing a conflict situation with someone, he, as a rule, gets rid of anger, redirecting the excess of his emotions in a different direction. It should be borne in mind: the unwillingness of one of the spouses to discuss family problems- this is just the visible tip of the iceberg. Most likely, he not only does not want to speak, but avoids dialogue due to certain reasons... It is possible that in the family in which he grew up, any discussions inevitably ended with screams and swearing. Sometimes in order to destroy such a stereotype, it takes many years and a lot of patience of a loving partner. For those interested in this issue, I can recommend the book by Ron Teffel and Robert Israeloff "Parents Quarrel: What to Do?" ".
How to deal with outbursts of irritation directed at children? There are no general prescriptions on this score, and indeed there cannot be. If we are talking about a seven- or eight-year-old child, then relying on his fully adequate response is to indulge oneself with unrealizable illusions. Preschoolers cannot answer for their emotional manifestations at all, and therefore, we have no right to demand this from them.
If you understand that a child cannot become cheerful on command or, conversely, focused, if you treat changes in his mood as if the whims of the weather are beyond our control, then it will be much easier to accept them. At the same time, adults, especially those who are tired during the day, may well be irritated by childish stubbornness and whining, the reasons for which they cannot understand in any way.
When a child manifests himself in a way that is unexpected and undesirable for his parents, they often begin to lose their temper. Indeed: we read him good books, feed him tasty and healthy food on time, buy him good-quality and beautiful clothes, regularly take him to developmental classes, but it turns out that we cannot influence him properly!
Parents try to influence children, but these attempts are usually unsuccessful, as a result of which adults feel powerless and mentally empty. The culprit is a false attitude, according to which a good parent at any time can direct his child on the right path. This thought was correct, and even then only in part, two hundred years ago, when it never occurred to anyone to pay such attention to children that we give them now. The situation that has developed in our time, when only one child or, God forbid, two children is growing in a family, is incomparable with the previous one. Nowadays, a child is the navel of the earth, the center of the universe, enthroned by the very fact of his birth! All adult family members revolve around it, like planets around the Sun. Still: so many hopes have been placed on him, so much effort and money has been spent! It was our time that gave rise to a lot of the newest "super ideas" concerning children's education, which have not passed the test of practice.
In fact, it is not always possible to influence children, and anger in in this case is used by us only as one of the most accessible palliatives ( Palliative (from late Lat. "Pallio" - cover, protect) - a half-measure that does not provide a complete, radical solution to the task). However, you still need to control the situation and try to have a beneficial effect on it. For those wishing to learn more about this topic, I refer to Ross Campbell's excellent work, "Coping with Child Anger."
It is practically impossible to influence a child in a state of hysteria, since he is in his "red zone". Some children at such moments do not hear anything at all, and parents can only wait for the hysterical outbreak to pass.
It is necessary to clearly define which factors affect first of all on you, and which - on the child. If you, for example, slept less than seven hours or had a fight with your own parents, it will be much easier to get you out of balance. In this case, absolutely everything will be annoying. It is necessary to identify triggers, pressing which immediately throws you into the zone of anger.
Feeling that you are about to get out of control, alert the child of your intentions: "If you don't stop immediately, I will whip you!" Some of your fuse will inevitably go into words, and after a few repetitions of the situation, children begin to adopt your strategy and use it during conflicts with siblings and peers. Subsequently, this habit will be of great benefit to them.
The method of logical consequences also deserves attention: “If you don’t do this and that right now, then…” It is described in detail in the book by Katherine Kwols “The Joy of Education. How to Raise Children Without Punishment ”, dedicated to the reorientation of children's behavior. This method can be used in the “green zone” or on the way to the “yellow”, but if you resort to it when you are already boiling, your “that…” will most likely be incommensurate with the offense: “You will never watch cartoons again! "," You won't go to visit your grandmother! "," You won't go to a friend's birthday! "...
Parents who do not know how to reorient their child's behavior each time tighten up the punishment, but sooner or later, the "horse" doses of drugs stop working. A child sees a parent who is flaming with anger, who is trying to talk to him about something, but the children do not hear the words during a fire, this is not even possible for every adult. Remember how you yourself react to yelling and abuse.
In this case, we are not talking about any beneficial influence: the child simply ceases to perceive the incoming information. Before him is an adult who is three times his height and who for some reason screams heart-rendingly. From the point of view of a child, this adult is scary and disgusting, but it seems to us that this is how we raise our children. But this is a dangerous delusion: a child at such moments learns exclusively to throw out anger and nothing more. Applying such methods in our teaching practice, we lose the moral right to tell the child: “Don't shout!” - when he quarrels with his brother, sister or playmate.
Even if we broke down, we still have the opportunity to return to the “green zone” by telling our son or daughter: “I didn't want to shout at you like that. You know, this is not accepted in our family. Forgive me please!"
It is helpful to think of anger as something that rushes over us unexpectedly, but is not inherent in us at all. Describe your condition like this: "boiled", "blew off the roof", "the bar fell" ...
Even if you are characterized by frequent emotional outbursts, you should not distance yourself from children. Feeling guilty, parents sometimes begin to avoid them, stop walking and playing with them, fearing that they will be "covered" again. Distanceing seems to them to be the best way out of the situation, but in the memory of the children, first of all, the positive experience of communicating with adults is fixed: not when the mother screamed, but when she regretted and caressed them.
However, despite all that has been said, it should be noted that anger cannot be completely dispensed with. Righteous anger, anger without anger is the strongest energetic state that does not deprive us of peace of mind, does not overshadow our mind. We became very impatient, accustomed to the fact that everything that was conceived should be carried out "at the first click", in fact, many problems cannot be resolved with a wave of the hand. We have to wait and remember that all the most important, the best is done by us in neutral times, with a cold head, when we are in the "green zone".
A person is so arranged that, after understanding and discussing a conflict situation with someone, he, as a rule, gets rid of anger, redirecting the excess of his emotions in a different direction.
Our discontent and the culture of its expression
Outbursts of anger proceed according to the principle of an uncontrollable reaction: negative emotions flooded over you, and you, not at all thinking about the consequences, generously threw them out on others.
All known ways to deal with your own irritability are more or less based on the fact that you stop acting on the principle of immediate reaction. Before expressing the surging emotions, you try to consider them detachedly. Moreover, we are not necessarily talking about anger (a reaction directed outward), but also about resentment or depressive states that strike you from the inside. They are expressed not so loudly and loudly, but nevertheless they are difficult for the person who is testing them, and for the whole family as a whole.
Understanding the true causes of negative emotions is the key to the success of overcoming them. It's good if you also manage to clearly formulate these reasons.
The next step is to try to delay the manifestation of negative emotions at least for a short while. Sometimes ten or fifteen seconds is enough to pull yourself together.
The further development of events largely depends on our psychological attitudes. Behind the actions of people accustomed to a violent and even ostentatious reaction to what is happening, there is almost always some kind of ideological background. Someone is sincerely convinced that the feelings that own us must certainly be thrown out, otherwise they will simply tear us apart, the other believes that real love cannot but be accompanied by the manifestation of "strong feelings", because it was so accepted in the parental family and in general: "if he hits, it means that he loves" ...
Any emotional outburst is also a message to others about some informational message, for example, the child again did not go to bed on time, again forgot to wipe dinner table... However, in hot-tempered people, emotions completely supplant the information component. As a result, when the outbreak sooner or later fades away, and everyone sighs with relief, the true reasons why a person suddenly broke into a cry remain a mystery to those around him. The reason caused an overly violent reaction: emotions, like foam in a glass of warm champagne, overflow.
Only after years of living together will you learn to unmistakably recognize the true reasons for your spouse's irritation: perhaps he is hungry, or spent the whole day in new tight boots, or maybe the conclusion of a business agreement on which he had pinned great hopes fell through ... Such an understanding will come only with time, and while behind the thick foam you can not see anything. Find the right time to talk about all this (of course, provided that you did not have time to spoil each other's stomachs with this foam). If one person is ready to share his experiences, and the other is ready to take them with interest, this is already good.
Emotionally colored information is often not absorbed or absorbed poorly. Of course, justified anger is also possible, when, for example, your son is well aware that his "art" deserves a harsh reprimand, but stubbornly continues to bend his line. However, even the most violent reaction to what is happening should not replace the subsequent serious conversation.
It is better for the upset person to show emotions without addressing anyone in particular and, if possible, without resorting to words. This will avoid activating someone's defense mechanisms. For example, quiet crying usually evokes a much more sympathetic response than heart-rending cry: "You ruined my life!" Of course, you can easily demonstrate to others the intensity of your feelings, but if you add excessive emotions to the information, you will not achieve the desired results.
Sometimes women present to their husbands all the claims that have accumulated over the years. As a result, a communicative conflict arises: everything is said, but nothing is heard.
Family life is not complete without powerful emotional outbursts. The question is how to deal with these feelings correctly, so as not to involuntarily injure others, not to injure themselves and not to lay negative traditions, because in the behavior of even two-year-old children everything is expressed. emotional palette families.
Often times, people get angry with the best of intentions. They marry or get married in full confidence that everything will turn out as well as possible for them. Collisions with reality give rise to conflicting feelings, which, if mishandled, can ruin even the kindest relationships.
Dealing with feelings should be learned patiently. We learned how to maintain a relative order in the house, despite the vigorous activity of children, learned to cook no less tasty than our mothers cooked, learned to fit into the budget and at the same time dress quite decently! Likewise, intelligently confronting negatively charged and destructive emotions can be a good skill. Over time, you should have your own experience, acquired as a result of everyday practice.
For those wishing to study this problem in more depth, I recommend reading the books by Gary Chapman "The Five Languages of Love" and "The Downside of Love." How to properly respond to anger. "
Don't be afraid of your own anger; it should be treated detachedly, as an object of research, because our goal is to learn how to manage our emotions.
First, you need to recall the most striking example of irritated, angry behavior that you have ever encountered in your life. This can be both a child's and a completely fresh memory. Remember what struck, frightened, upset, or made you laugh the most at that moment. Think about what you would do if you were someone who allowed himself to get angry.
Can you confidently assert that anger is an absolutely uncharacteristic feeling for you, or is it a tool that you consciously use in your teaching practice and that from time to time you allow yourself to be controlled? Each of us must answer this question. Everyone must decide: whether angry behavior is completely acceptable to him, whether it is acceptable in certain situations or unacceptable in principle, under no circumstances.
In any case, increased anger is a character trait that is unacceptable for parents. Realization of this truth for the first time comes at a time when a person only dreams of children. Often at the same time, a solemn promise is made: "I will do my best to ensure that nothing like this ever happens in our family!" For the time being, this promise is not seriously tested by life, but at one far from perfect moment something happens that smashes all our best intentions to smithereens. You may suddenly get angry with a baby who does not give you enough sleep, or an excessively playful, ubiquitous and naughty three-year-old, or a first-grader who is not given the solution of elementary arithmetic problems ...
Needless to say, life will obligingly provide you with new reasons for anger every day! Having experienced it for the first time in relation to your own child, you will inevitably become disappointed in yourself, you will be burdened with a feeling of guilt for your intemperance. Following this, parents, albeit for a while, as a rule, dramatically change the style of raising children: uncritical connivance and permissiveness replace reasonable exactingness.
The number of conflicts flaring up with a child should be minimized. If the children turned out to be unwitting witnesses to a parental quarrel, it is necessary to tell them about the reasons for this behavior, explain why someone is angry and someone is crying. The child must make sure that what happened is not a catastrophe and not the end of the world, understand that this sometimes happens in life, but it certainly passes.
If you are mistaken, you do not need to become limp. Flip through this page and push forward boldly: mistakes that are corrected in time are at the core of human experience. If you regret your incontinence, you should tell your child about it, for example: “Dad and I didn’t want to quarrel, but, unfortunately, this happens in families. From now on we will try to treat each other more carefully ”. At the same time, you do not lose authority in the eyes of your son or daughter, but declare your right to make a mistake, which does not destroy the child's psyche. On the contrary, the willingness of adults to learn from their mistakes and correct their own behavior provides children with an excellent opportunity to understand: a lot can be corrected if you do not become bitter and do not get hung up on your own.
How is parental irritation perceived at different stages of growing up children? At least until the age of six months, the baby is happy with any manifestation of emotion. Dad grimaces, makes funny faces to the baby, and mom angrily stops him, not realizing that this is vital for the child. The preschooler is already becoming a hostage to parental emotionality. The irritation of adults scares the child, he has a fear for himself and for his parents, he involuntarily flinches, in some cases he may even have seizures.
Preschool memories are usually erased from memory. The child grows up, becomes a teenager, enters the world and evaluates other families, comparing them to his own. However, persistent anger can lead to deep crack in the relationship between parents and children, which in the future is fraught with their significant distance from each other.
Preschoolers, whose parents are characterized by frequent outbursts of irritation, begin to think that this is how human emotions should manifest themselves, that people tend to get angry, that screaming and spanking are as natural for people as, for example, barking for dogs or growling for tigers. If the parents are angry and shouting, then this is how the world works ...
Parental irritation can frighten the child, or it may not cause an immediate reaction, but lead to a delayed reaction. Every now and then, a mother screaming at her son suddenly makes him a remark on the playground:
Why are you yelling?
And I'm not yelling, - the son answers in bewilderment.
Indeed, what did he do special? If you allow conversations in raised tones at home, do not hope that the child will not reproduce your manners somewhere else, and, possibly, at the most inopportune moment and in the most inappropriate place.
Unlike primary school children, adolescents can discuss the defeats and victories of their parents with friends or on social networks, which, on the one hand, eases their state of mind, but on the other, leads to some detachment. A teenager who sees himself more and more self-sufficient person, it is important to formulate your own position on any issue. It seems to him that he is out of the situation, "above the fight", that he is an impartial observer and incorruptible arbiter who evaluates the ups and downs of parents. His conclusions are uncompromising and categorical, however, as a rule, immature.
Teenagers do not perceive shades and half-tones in relationships between people; the whole interpersonal sphere, in their view, is rigidly divided into "white" and "black". At this age, our children are extremely emotionally vulnerable, despite their seeming invulnerability. A growing up child can detach from you and become inaccessible.
One of negative consequences parental anger - raising the threshold of emotional susceptibility. Typical parental lamentation: “He (she) does not hear until you scream! He does not pay attention at all to what is said in an even tone! " However, there is nothing surprising in this: just as a person who unnecessarily resorts to antibiotics runs the risk of being defenseless in the face of a real danger, so a child accustomed to screaming ceases to react to ordinary parental emotions. Now it can only be stimulated by high-voltage discharges. From now on, only the most powerful, most radical means work.
Often rash, offensive and unfair words that escaped the tongue in anger are perceived by adolescents as a long-kept secret truth that suddenly burst out into the light. For example, a mother often and willingly praises her daughter, fixing attention on her best qualities, but one day she suddenly shouts: "You are a brainless, unfortunate ugly and you have always been like this, from the very birth!" Thus, an involuntary, accidental outburst of negative emotions cancels out the long-term fruits of responsible upbringing. From now on, no matter how the mother tries to make amends for her guilt, the daughter sees herself not as a “beautiful princess”, not a “golden mother’s girl”, but as a “brainless, unhappy ugly”. This is a huge misfortune, this is a mental pain and a catastrophe, because the word is not a sparrow, if it flies out, you will not catch it!
When you decide to deal with your hypertrophied irritability, identify and list both those situations in which you cannot do without anger, and those in which you would like to remain calm. You need to know in which cases you do not want to, and in which you cannot “turn off” your anger.
Start by highlighting the top three reasons why accentuated annoyance is unacceptable to your family, for example:
1) irritability is a manifestation of emotional sloppiness, and I do not like sloppiness;
2) anger is harmful to health;
3) scandals and screams negatively affect our marital relationships and alienate us from our children.
Observe the outbursts of emotions that do not correspond in strength to the reasons that caused them, because often the pretexts are insignificant, and the outbursts are the brightest, and this is food for serious thought. Move away from your own irritation, take a step to the side. Try to realize that you and your anger are not the same thing! Irritability, from time to time overtaking you, is by no means a defining feature of your personality, in no way characterizes it.
For some people, the understanding that they inherited their irritability makes them resolutely oppose it. They do not want to reproduce the shortcomings of their parents or caregivers, they do not want to copy behavioral models with which they do not agree. They dislike the use of forceful methods, and anger and irritation refer precisely to such an arsenal, it is just that in this case, not physical, but emotional strength is used. They absolutely do not want incontinence to lead to nervous breakdowns and bitter tears, so that rage provokes an explosive response.
When you get angry, you may well “fall out” of the adult state, emotionally turning into a child again and again. Try to honestly answer the following questions to yourself:
~ how old do you think you are when you are annoyed, what is your emotional age at times like this?
~ Are you starting to treat your children as peers?
~ Does your screaming sound like a quarrel in kindergarten or pioneer camp?
~ when irritated, do you continue to behave responsibly or is your irritation just uncontrollable hysteria, blinding you so much that you no longer adequately perceive others?
~ What are the exact thoughts that come to mind when you think about your own irritation? Does it bother you, are you ashamed of it, or are you just trying not to think about it?
~ How do you feel about the anger sometimes overtaking your spouse or children?
As long as the irritation is perceived by you as terra incognita ( Terra incognita (lat.) - unknown land), as a "black box" or an equation with many unknowns, it will not work with it. You should distance yourself from it, examine it carefully, study it and understand it.
Understanding the true causes of negative emotions is the key to the success of overcoming them.
Big city life
I would like to talk about how life in metropolitan areas, subject to modern urban rhythms, affects our emotional nature.
We often lose control of ourselves when we get tired or in a hurry. Only phlegmatic people, experiencing fatigue and overload, as a rule, do not fall into anger, but, on the contrary, slow down, becoming even more sluggish. This fully applies to both adults and children.
There are also those lucky ones who are not affected by haste and fatigue. We are talking about people who are very stress-resistant and very hardy, about those who have gone through a good school in their parental families.
According to numerous recent studies, the nervous system of the inhabitants of megacities is shattered to a much greater extent than that of those who still live in small towns and villages. This phenomenon is due to many negative factors. I will list just a few of them:
- the prohibitive population density and the associated constant invasions of our "personal zone";
- haste and unmotivated aggression of others;
- significant distances covered several times a day;
An overabundance of visual impressions;
- the dominance of cars and, as a result, an unhealthy, suffocating atmosphere;
- unacceptable noise level;
- increased electromagnetic background;
- bright night illumination of streets, annoying dynamic light advertising, which interferes with falling asleep.
Despite all that has been said, I would like to mention the advantages of a big city:
- facilitating the search for a suitable job;
- rich cultural life;
- the opportunity to give children a decent education;
— wide circle communication;
- quality medicine.
However, these favorable factors may also turn out to be stressors, although this is not obvious to everyone. I am deeply convinced that city life, saturated with vivid events and impressions and subject to the rhythms imposed on us, makes us much more irritable.
Over the past two hundred and even three hundred years, the psycho-emotional capabilities of a person have not expanded at all, while life has changed radically. Let us think how many unfamiliar faces a Russian peasant saw every day in the 18th or 19th century. Yes, not a single one! Around - only their own: neighbors and their children and grandchildren. Our ancestors came across strangers only once a year - at the autumn county fair. The choice of entertainment was also not rich: winter evening gatherings, festivities on Christmastide and fistfights on Shrovetide. Reading was available only to rare literate. Now, many of us spend two hours a day in a crowded, stuffy subway, commuting to work and then returning home. People are tired, they are annoyed, and each is concerned about his own things: one had a fight with his wife yesterday and is now replaying an unpleasant conversation in his mind, picking up more and more arguments, the other once again did not get enough sleep and suffers from a headache, the third is looking forward to a difficult explanation with his superiors ... Someone accidentally but painfully pushed you under the rib with an elbow, someone, on the contrary, you stepped on your foot ...
Negative energy is spilled in the air and falls on us from all sides, and we bring it to our families. But when we finally find ourselves at home, what are we doing almost first of all? We turn on the TV and begin to tensely follow the twists and turns of criminal or melodramatic plots, once again plunging into the world of strangers, this time already invented passions and adversities, as if we were missing our own!
The need to keep up always and everywhere becomes the cause of numerous stresses. Parents begin to live on the schedule of the courier train, forcing children to do so. In an effort to do everything at once, we do not give either ourselves or the children the opportunity to be with themselves, to get away from the hustle and bustle for a while and just play or drink tea for our pleasure, read a book.
Does this mean that you should limit the activities you take your child to? The answer depends on what you want to achieve and what price you are willing to pay for it. Of course, if you wish, you can put anything in the salad, but will it turn out to be edible?
Re-planning, overstimulation and overloading have become characteristic features of modern urban life. We constantly have the feeling that we do not have time to finish anything to the end: we didn’t finish it, we didn’t finish it, we didn’t finish reading it, we didn’t think it out ... The answer to emotional discomfort is anger.
Our nerve fibers are covered with myelin sheaths, which act as insulators. The nerve impulse flows faster along the myelinated fiber, and human reactions are accelerated. The speed of the child's reaction is due to how completed the process of myelination, which usually continues until the age of twelve. Parents often think that the child deliberately, "out of spite" does everything much slower than he can. In fact, children simply do not fit into the rhythms set by their parents and are not capable of prolonged concentration due to their neurophysiological characteristics: the process of myelination is not complete, and the frontal lobes are not ripe. This condition can be compared to low computer performance due to insufficient RAM.
However, one should not discount the play aspect of children's behavior. For example, a child dresses so slowly that you lose your patience, and this is due to the fact that he turned the tedious process of dressing into an entertaining game. The right hemisphere of the brain, associated with fantasy and intuition, works much worse for us than for children. Adults' abilities for creative improvisation receded into the background, allowing us to process huge amounts of information, while the child masters the world mainly through play. We are dealing with creatures of a completely different kind: preschoolers perceive the world differently than we do, and act differently. And this is wonderful, because a rich children's imagination is a prerequisite for the future of intelligence.
In addition, children do not have a clear perception of time, their "internal timer" is not turned on until at least seven years old. The child is not oriented in time and therefore cannot rush. An adult understands what the phrase means: “We have only five minutes left for the training camp!”; the child, on the other hand, perceives what he has heard something like this: "'Five minutes!" - this is when mom loses her temper. "
Children love to go out, but they hate getting dressed, because dressing up is the process of going from one activity to another. They love to play and eat deliciously, but it is not easy for them to break away from the game and go to the bathroom to wash their hands before eating. Children need proper rest, but try to get them to bed in time! Overcoming "difficulties of transition" is a separate art that we all must master.
Parental anger as a result of childish sluggishness arises because we are aware of the possible consequences of our lateness, but children do not think about it. Of course, we understand that it cannot be otherwise, but latently we still really want the child to share the burden of responsibility with us. However, the children do not know what the parents' "urgent work" is, they are unable to understand what it means: "All deadlines have passed!" and “The boss will kill!” - and it makes no sense to expect this from them.
In order to keep this kind of conflict to a minimum, we need to make our experience more accessible to children's perception... Try in a playful or fairy-tale form to convey to the child why now you have to do work instead of playing with him.
Usually for the New Year, Christmas, Easter or some other significant days, people strive to redo their long-standing tasks: to put the house in order, wash the clothes, prepare holiday treats, choose and buy gifts for relatives and friends, write and send many postcards ... For some reason, every time we think that in the week remaining before the holidays, we will have time to cope with everything that we did not have enough time and energy for during the whole year. At the same time, a list of planned cases, which would help to correlate our intentions with common sense, is not drawn up. It is being replaced by the so-called "Cinderella's list", the points of which are multiplying. But every time, setting ourselves deliberately impossible goals, we inevitably push ourselves towards nervous exhaustion, which comes imperceptibly, affecting both adults and children.
We are especially tired of futile attempts to simultaneously deal with several things at once. The consequence of inept planning and the inability to truly relax and rest is increased irritability. We fail to determine the moment when anger just sneaks up on us, we are missing precious time and now we are indignantly shouting at our loved ones and violently stamping our feet.
Another problem of recent decades is the significant property stratification of society, due to which many friendships weakened or even interrupted. In addition, young dads and mothers often fall out of their usual social circle for quite natural reasons: their life has simply changed radically. How soon a full-fledged replacement for old attachments will appear is in many ways a matter of luck. For someone, the parish community becomes such an outlet, for someone - the parent club, for someone - at the same time giving birth to neighbors in the yard, but in general, the circle of contacts, as a rule, is significantly narrowed. Unfortunately, in our country, the sphere of leisure and entertainment is focused more on adolescents than on family people.
A supportive and benevolent kindred environment could provide invaluable help in the fight against nervous exhaustion, but fewer and fewer modern grandparents are ready to selflessly devote the rest of their days to helping raise their grandchildren. And the point is not that they are eager to go to work, “while their legs are worn,” it's just that life itself and the economic situation in the country are persistently pushing them to do so.
City life, full of vivid events and impressions and subject to the rhythms imposed on us, makes us much more irritable
External aggression and anger in family relationships
Aggression that falls on a child from the outside every day often goes off scale, and its level is largely determined by the attitude of society towards children in general. If a baby begins to cry in a public place, discontent is usually directed at his mother, but if an older child is capricious, then at himself. The watershed runs roughly between four and five years. It is the harsh social reaction that makes parents angry more often and act harder than they would like.
Children are very flexible creatures. Once parents start to change, they quickly adjust to the changes that are taking place. Of course, the innate temperament of the child also plays a significant role, which any mother can easily determine, if only by the way the baby cries, with what intonation it requires attention to itself. The more demanding he is, the higher the likelihood of future outbursts of anger, if this factor is not compensated for by competent upbringing.
Consider the specifics of anger in a marital relationship. Direct manifestations of anger include raising your voice, changing intonation, irritation, irony, sarcasm, and direct, overt insults. You do not feel able to solve the problem quickly and constructively and use anger as heavy artillery.
Shouting at children or ignoring them, the desire to deprive them of something meaningful and desirable are indirect, mediated expressions of anger. At the same time, it especially often falls to the child who is more like her husband than others. You get angry with your spouse, but you spank the children or start beating meat so violently that scraps fly all over the kitchen. The husband is angry with his wife, but in annoyance kicks the innocent cat that has turned up inappropriately ... The irritation is redirected and goes inside, causing serious damage to the human soul. This form of response to stimuli is rather typical for people with a pronounced introvertive component, that is, for phlegmatic and melancholic people. ( Reference: Introverted (from Lat. "Intro" - inward and "verto" - turn, turn) - turned inward. Psychological characteristics of a self-absorbed personality, aimed at the world of his own thoughts and experiences. Moreover, such people are often distinguished by originality of thinking, good analytical skills and conscientiousness in work. The concept was introduced by the Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961).) Indirect forms of manifestation of anger need to be known, because, even without expressing it directly, they can gradually destroy family relationships.
The classic form of escape from anger is going to the Internet or television space, to a constructed, “other” reality. Someone prefers to play network games, someone scolds men on ladies' forums, someone enthusiastically shares the details of family quarrels with their own mother ... useful activities, no beneficial changes and advancements occur at the same time, and children grow up, and the more tense the marital relations of their parents develop, the more they suffer.
Remember, the frequency and patterns of anger are inherited. Irritability, irascibility, a tendency to fall into a state of passion are genetically inherited factors associated with excitability - an integral quality of the nervous system. On the one hand, in no case should you think that all this is irreparable, and on the other, you should take into account your psychophysical characteristics and make decisions based on them.
Dealing with your anger, first you need to determine the starting point, to understand where you are at the moment. The screaming allowed in the parental family is a risk factor. He will program your behavior according to the principle "where it is thin, there it breaks."
The insidiousness of anger also lies in the fact that it does not always manifest itself immediately. The irritability of one of the spouses may well infect the other, initially calmer and more balanced. This is how functional infection occurs. How does it look in practice? Two people begin to live together, while one of them grew up in a family where a nervous, unstable situation reigned. Over time, he begins to allow himself to demonstrate his irritability, trying with her help to solve some of his own problems. Irritation becomes the main argument in the dispute.
The second spouse, a much more balanced person, at first only watches what is happening, trying to avoid further conflicts and not accepting the rules of the game imposed on him. However, it should be borne in mind that this state of affairs cannot continue indefinitely. At some point, which is usually associated with everyday, work, parental stress, with any long-term stress, he also begins to raise his voice. At first, this behavior surprises him, but suddenly realizing that anger sometimes works, he increasingly includes it in his repertoire. Thus, all new aspects of family life are infected with anger.
You need to understand that marital relations are much more significant than the relationship between parents and children, because this is an interaction of equals. But can anyone be considered an equal partner when someone screams and shouts? Only if the other partner is also infected with anger.
Family relationships strive for homeostasis ( Reference: Homeostasis (ancient Greek "όμοιοστάσις"; from "όμοιος" - the same, similar and "στάσις" - standing, immobility - self-regulation, the ability of the system to maintain the constancy of its internal state through coordinated reactions aimed at maintaining dynamic balance. The desire to restore the system to reproduce itself lost balance and overcome resistance external environment ). If one of the spouses is angry, but the other is not, then either the more angry will calm down over time, or the second will follow his example, otherwise the relationship will collapse, because you cannot shout at some people with impunity.
It is very difficult to suppress irritability that has broken through to the outside, and sometimes it takes a long time, but if you don’t put your best effort into it, the emotional infection will affect your children too. Positive emotional traditions are difficult to assimilate, while negative ones are almost instantaneous. Once you use an expletive word in front of children, as swearing at others, especially brothers and sisters, will become a persistent habit with them. On the other hand, it is not at all necessary to demonstrate to the kids your “high relationship” with your spouse. Children are incredibly sensitive creatures, unmistakably distinguishing truth from falsehood.
We are used to thinking globally. Many of us grew up during the Soviet era, when rivers were turning back, building gigantic factories and lifting endless virgin lands. We have huge territorial spaces, and we mentally operate with exceptionally large-scale categories. The family is a space of micro-changes.
The problem with today's spouses and parents is, in particular, that, fighting their own irritability, they hope to overcome it with two or three radical efforts. Several days pass, but nothing works, because a deeply entrenched habit cannot retreat only at our will. A person strains and gives up: an emotional signal follows a decisive step. Before us is one of those cases when a seemingly good intention leads to the opposite result. We are talking here about a very long chain, each link of which is a small, barely noticeable step. It is very helpful to celebrate even modest successes that you and your children are making. Let's say that today you again got excited in a conversation with your husband, but this time coped with yourself faster than before, and your child again quarreled with his brother, but at least did not bite him ... Thankfully fix your attention on the positive dynamics, After all, to be honest, we often tend to overly dramatize the situation, thereby unwittingly reinforcing it. In family relationships, it is much more fruitful not to concentrate on periodic destructive tornadoes and tsunamis, but to remember about flowering valleys, crystal streams, shady gardens and fertile vineyards, about everything that makes you truly happy. It's a good idea to revisit old photographs that remind you of the brightest days of your life together.
Unfortunately, irritation and anger take up much more place in marital relations than the direct manifestation of these negative emotions, but since we do not have a culture of observing our own state of mind, we do not notice this. We just somehow feel uncomfortable, we feel disgusting and disgusting, there is no desire to talk to each other, we want to move away from each other, expanding our own "sovereign space". However, sometimes after an outbreak of cleansing anger, people, on the contrary, unite, experiencing a surge of tenderness for each other and elation. Irritation sometimes works in a paradoxical way, not moving away, but bringing us closer, and this happens because its outbursts are accompanied by the manifestation of the most vivid, heightened emotions.
Sometimes it is impossible to truly bond without going through a flash of anger, for example, overcoming hypertrophied focus on the child, the symbiosis of the husband with the computer, or postponing household chores for a while. All this is also a paradoxical consequence of irritation. So it’s not a matter of calming your anger out of the way, but of developing a strategy of small steps and persevering to follow it.
Having learned to suppress and overcome outbursts of negative emotions, we will teach our loved ones this. One of the main resources is the ability to be without children, even without leaving the apartment. "Adult territory" is ten minutes for tea, fifteen minutes of intimate conversation, half an hour of lying on the bed, when you can turn to face each other and look into the eyes of your loved one. The trouble is that parents do not use these invaluable mental resources, or they use them very rarely, and therefore they feel a lack of support from their spouse.
Calm, healthy sleep is also an important psychological resource. Women raising small children certainly need a day's sleep, and working men need evening rest and compensatory sleep on weekends. Often people drive themselves and each other, not allowing themselves to rest, and others to do what brings them pleasure. Sometimes a woman begins to devote all her attention to children, as a result of which her parenting role begins to dominate over the marital one. At the same time, fathers can go deep into work, and mothers will feel a lack of love, and two deprived people will begin to dislike each other.
When we fight our own anger, we indirectly teach this to our children. One of my favorite ideas is that parents are people too, and people tend to be wrong. The main thing is that we all learn from others' and our own mistakes and be able to ask for forgiveness, repenting for our actions.
In such a situation, you have the right to say: "Sorry, but now I am not ready to talk about this topic." If you say these words in a calm, benevolent tone, then the proper result will most likely be achieved. If, over and over again, a brutal housewife suddenly wakes up in you, it is possible that you will generally disaccustom your spouse to tell you about something serious.
The middle of the first decade of living together is a dangerous milestone: at this time, negative communication skills are often formed and the stereotypes of behavior that are embedded in us in parental families begin to operate. In such cases, I usually recommend giving in and taking a step to the side in order to maintain a respectful distance and realize that it is much more productive to behave with dignity and to say kind words to each other more often.
Answer yourself honestly to the question: are blows below the belt acceptable in your relationship, conversations about what will most likely “not leave indifferent” family members?
Getting to know our partners, we increasingly recognize their pain points, which should not be influenced under any circumstances. If a family can withstand the blows, this is already a sign of its relative health, but sometimes people in anger begin to do something that seriously injures others, working like a charge of dynamite. Such a "trigger" may well turn out to be the beginning of the phrase: "But your mom ..." - or simply disrespectful intonation allowed in relation to the spouse's parents, as well as the so-called "two-level communication" when the words you utter do not correspond to the provocative subtext that makes your partner explode with resentment.
Unfortunately, irritation and anger take up much more place in marital relations than the direct manifestation of these negative emotions, but since we do not have a culture of observing our own state of mind, we do not notice this.
Relationship with one's own parents and the spouse's parents
We often pay too little attention to our elderly parents. This is partly due to the fact that our own children are still the most important for us. However, until our relationship with our parents changes, so will our relationship with others. This law is immutable.
Children perfectly see how their dads and mothers communicate with their grandparents. These are hot coals that can later fall on our heads. Children unconsciously absorb everything that happens around and, starting from adolescence, they may well turn the acquired negative experience of communication against us.
Teenagers are trying in every possible way to demonstrate their competence, personal solvency and independence, to prove that their own opinion on any issue is much more reasonable and weighty than the opinion of their parents. At first, the confrontation is especially acute, while many for some reason consider it possible to behave at home as they would never behave elsewhere. Subsequently, the degree of confrontation usually gradually decreases, and yet we still want to prove something to our parents! First of all - to substantiate the correctness of the choice of a spouse, especially if the parents are not happy with him. Then it comes to the method of raising the children that have appeared, about the fact that you cope with your duties much better than grandparents. Some of us are beginning to actively oppose their "liberalism and connivance" ...
Remember: if you don't want to see your parents, then there is a tendency for an emotional breakup, which is only seemingly safe. Conflicting relationships with your own parents, as well as with your spouse's parents, will certainly affect the spiritual well-being of your family, if not directly, then indirectly.
A strong, reliable rear is necessary in a relationship. And we have behind us much more often - continuous potholes and bumps, all that negative experience accumulated over the years, which cannot be relied on. The only way to solve this problem is to sincerely forgive your parents. Grandparents have long deserved their own "inviolable territory" to which we better not claim. They certainly have earned the right to their judgments and assessments, and we should not argue with them.
To forgive means to feel the whole drama of their life and understand how difficult it was for them. However, the child, as a rule, does not take seriously the problems of the parents. It becomes easier to do this only with the appearance of your own children.
If parents do not talk to their son or daughter about their wishes, worries, worries and hopes, the child begins to treat dad and mom like some kind of omnipotent celestials. This means that we should talk about it. Understanding that parents are also people who can make mistakes, can dream about something, which are inherent in some imperfections, sets up the child to build positive relationships with them.
According to the hypothesis of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), which has been popular for about a hundred years, our parents are to blame for all our current mistakes, because it was they who showed us the wrong model, showed bad example... However, a significant error has crept into this theory, which is worth talking about. Yes, it is possible that our parents did not offer us the best role models, but they did it not maliciously, but because they got along in life without "advanced" scientific methods, specialized journals and countless webinars dedicated to family and parenting issues.
Having realized our inextricable connection with parental experience, we will be faced with a choice: to pass on this experience further, to the next generation, or not. The solution to this issue is determined by the measure of our responsibility. In any case, the behavior of parents directly affects their children, just as the chemical composition of the soil determines the health of plants. Until the motives that guided your parents become clear, the confrontation will continue, and the degree of its fierceness will depend only on the characters of the conflicting ones.
Record on paper the main ways your parents express their dissatisfaction with you and yours with them. Remember that anger directed at your parents boomerangs back to your family, and this is not surprising. Indeed, if we allow ourselves to relax somewhere, sharply expressing our dissatisfaction, then why should we limit ourselves only to the parental home? Sooner or later, control over behavior will be completely lost by us.
Irritation with parents always plays against us. In relations with them, in any case, we will remain children until their death. However, their departure will not fundamentally change the situation. That being said, being able to try on three roles - parent, partner, and child - can give you new strength.
Carefully consider how your relationship with your parents affects your family and whether it affects your relationship with your children. Have you become more forgiving or, on the contrary, have become more strict and intolerant?
Grandparents need to have a “dedicated connection” with their grandchildren. They also have the opportunity to speak negatively about their grown-up children.
It's great if you can easily tolerate criticism from your parents. Try to understand exactly how you react to it and what is happening to you at that moment. Which tactics do you usually prefer - defense or attack? What sediment remains in the soul after such discussions? It is helpful to determine how long you are able to stick with the pre-chosen strategy of behavior and how soon the dialogue turns into an unwanted channel.
During conflicting telephone conversations, it makes sense to time the clock at what minute you usually lose peace of mind and rush up the ladder of aggression. You should try to subtly break off contact before you cross this red line.
It is useful for a child to see good relationships developing between loved ones. If only for this, we must make every effort to harmonize our relationship with our parents. An older person is dear to his own parenting experience, even if he was burdened with many mistakes. If this experience (for example, ideas about how to raise children, how to dress them or how to treat them) are suddenly questioned, the result is likely to be disastrous for everyone.
Usually, a son or daughter, reaching adolescence or adolescence, experiences certain difficulties in relations with parents, primarily due to the fact that the time has come to separate from them and grow up, to become separate, self-sufficient people. From the age of twelve to thirteen, we develop overt or covert skills to reject and overcome the attitudes prevailing in parental families.
Memories of this are good for everyone, not just for those whose children are approaching adolescence. For example, couples who are celebrating the first decade of their life together or are facing any difficulties in marriage should look back on their own youth more often.
A person, as a rule, grows all his emotional claws, teeth and thorns in adolescence, defending himself from the possibly mythical attacks of his parents. It is the conflict situation in parental families or the separation from them associated with conflicts that equips a person with a powerful arsenal of self-defense.
One of the skills adolescents acquire is building walls between themselves and their parents. This can be avoided only under the condition of a symbiotic relationship, when people are very attached to each other, which is most typical for single-parent families. In this case, despite the fact that adolescence has long passed, the mother and son or mother and daughter still do not dare to part. The described group also includes inveterate bachelors who are up to forty years old. extra years do not dare to marry, because "mom will be unhappy." Sometimes the mother interferes with the daughter's desire to build her own family or destroys the already created family in order for the daughter to return to the parent's nest.
If a child has grown up in a symbiotic relationship, he will most likely strive to achieve a similar fusion in marriage. Such a model seems to him the only possible one. The disagreement of a companion or life partner to such a close relationship is perceived by him as hostility, dislike, coldness and even betrayal, which in turn will cause anger when trying even the slightest distance from the spouse. Irritation in this case will be caused even by such innocent manifestations of sovereignty, such as the desire of the husband to go fishing on Saturday with friends or the desire of the wife to chat with a university friend instead of spending all their free time exclusively together, in front of each other. And, paradoxically, for some unknown, mysterious reasons, alliances are more often formed by people with opposite charges: a person prone to symbiosis unites with a person whose main dream is to be a free hunter or a free Amazon. In this case, storms can rumble for decades around the problem of acceptable distance.
But even in such marriages, children are born sooner or later. Since the second spouse does not agree to symbiosis, persistent attempts begin to build this type of relationship with the children. Anger in this case will be associated with their separation, with their desire for independence.
There is another version of the relationship. We are talking about spouses who hardly communicate with each other, and any of their attempts to enter into a dialogue inevitably turns into a conflict. Children in such families very early begin to feel: they are on their own, they are responsible for themselves, because no one understands or loves them. The "personal zone" of a teenager acquires special value, his own opinion, independence and independence: "Do not dare to look into my compositions!" As much freedom as possible and as much secrecy as possible so that no one knows about anything! A person who grew up in such a family enters into marriage with the deepest conviction: for a safe, prosperous life, one should stay away from loved ones! In this case, problems are inevitable. From adolescence, a person can endure intransigence to any criticism, which will make living together with him an extremely difficult occupation.
Until you yourself internally forgive your parents, that is, you do not understand what exactly drove them, you are unlikely to be able to establish peace in your own family. However, one should be aware that, with the exception of some special, truly exceptional cases, all the mistakes of our dads and mothers are quite forgivable: we usually remember about reading our diaries without asking or, on the contrary, about, as it seemed to us then, cold detachment from us parents.
Sometimes a tired, conflicted person internally returns to his adolescence. This never happens to someone, because he has long outgrown him and made the proper conclusions many years ago, and someone walks in a circle until old age: you just touch him at the wrong time, and now the fragile shell flies off, and your eyes an offended teenager appears, furiously shooting back from everyone in a row.
In adolescence, we make many correct observations, but we do not have enough life experience to correctly evaluate them. Something similar happens in family life, when spouses, noticing some flaws in each other's behavior and trying to fix them, do it so awkwardly that they only harm their relationship. At the moment of conflict, the subpersonality of a person is especially clearly manifested: he speaks with a different intonation, with a different facial expression, gestures in a completely different way.
Many of us, falling into anger, mentally seem to be transferred back to parental families. In this case, four options are possible.
The parental family was extremely conflicted, but the current family is a quiet, safe haven, a zone of peace and peace of mind. However, even such a life can periodically illuminate with thunderous flashes, when our protection is weakened, when one of the spouses, and even more so both, are not in the best moral and psychological shape.
It also happens in a different way: advice and love reigned in the parental family, and the current one resembles a stormy sea. A person uses some external resources until they completely exhaust them. When it will happen, for example, when it will not wise parents, the new family may face a series of serious trials.
Ideal: it was good there, and here it was wonderful, and in general everything around is beautiful and amazing.
The most difficult situation develops if thunderstorms also happened in parental families, and the new one does not differ in calmness.
Usually during the period of inevitable lapping, the greatest emotional resources has a spouse who grew up in a more friendly, less conflict environment. In every couple there is such a person, but over the years of family life it is quite possible to turn him into a hysterical neurasthenic.
Unfortunately, almost no one in our country deals with the problem of old age. Recently, there has even been a widespread use of the cynical term “survival age”, which is seventeen for women and fourteen for men after retirement. This cruel phrase fully characterizes the attitude of our society towards old age.
We consider ourselves adults and believe that we understand life much better than adolescents. But everything related to the physiology, psychology and social aspects of aging is just as closed to us: we did not go through this at school, this topic is unpleasant for us, and we try not to delve into it. We know the specifics of the puberty8 or climacteric9 periods, since they are often written about and talked a lot about. ( Reference: Puberty(from Lat. "pubertas" - maturity, puberty) - the age from twelve to sixteen years in girls and from thirteen to seventeen to eighteen years in boys, corresponding to the period of puberty. The climacteric period is the time for the cessation of the activity of the female genital glands, which comes with the approach of old age.) However, old age also has a number of specific features that we do not feel, because we ourselves have not yet encountered them. This ignorance increases the level of our exactingness in relation to elderly and elderly relatives.
The social prospects of modern Russia are associated primarily with the family - only the age of possible childbearing is considered a resource. We have not developed in ourselves either an Eastern respect for old age, or a Western confidence that in his declining years a person has the right to deservedly enjoy the fruits of his labors, and over the past fifteen to twenty years, the situation in this area has only become even more depressive.
I will allow myself, perhaps, a somewhat declarative statement: there are not so many things that are unforgivable in family life, and one of them is tactless and ruthless criticism of the spouse's parents, even if the spouse himself is dissatisfied with them. Everyone should build relationships with their parents on their own, and no external arbitration is inappropriate in this case. If the mother-in-law seeks to direct the life of the young family in the “right” direction, God forbid the daughter-in-law to start a showdown with her, this is the prerogative of the husband.
If the mother-in-law seizes, the son-in-law should humbly keep silent - his wife should completely take over his protection.
Violation of these simple rules almost inevitably entails a destructive flurry of aggression from your "other half". No wonder: a person protects his roots. We should all remember this.
Irritation with parents always plays against us.
Unwillingness to grow up
Unwillingness to grow up is inherent in all people: by and large, no one wants to be responsible for their words and actions. Likewise, our children do not want to brush their teeth every day, make the bed, wash dishes after themselves and prepare homework. All this is quite obvious. On the other hand, the parental desire to somehow induce the child to fulfill his duties is understandable, which means that the emergence of conflicts is inevitable.
The parenting arsenal should contain several ways to respond to the reluctance of children to comply with your requirements. The main thing is not to be overly upset that the child once again does not want to put shoes in place or is in no hurry to collect toys. It also happens: the child reacts to your request with gloomy silence, and you have no choice but to do his work for him. Nobody seems to be raising their voices, but the tension builds up. In this case, we are faced with a so-called normative conflict. It is similar to the displacement of the vertebrae: you went to the doctor or massage therapist, and you seem to feel better, but after a few days the pain returned with renewed vigor.
In order to extinguish normative conflicts, to "outsmart" them, it will take certain time... Such problems are not solved in an evening or even in a week. On this path, both victories and defeats await you, for which you must be prepared.
Parents today are somewhat inflexible. For example, they heard or read about some new method of upbringing and immediately rushed to test it in their own family. I will not tire of repeating: all children are completely different, even close-aged brothers and sisters. What suits one of them may well turn out to be contraindicated for the other. Someone should be brought up in reasonable severity, and someone should simply be inspired or include a child's imagination, so that the same cleaning process from a dull nightly duty turns into addicting game... You will have to take into account the characteristics of the child's personality, on which the choice of the golden key to his soul depends. If the parents only stubbornly bend their line, one cannot count on a good result.
In addition, you must build a reward system and make sure that it is unprofitable for children not to perform their duties. How can this goal be achieved? There are a great many families, and each should have its own “signature recipe”. However, there is a general rule: for every unpleasant and uninteresting action that requires the application of certain efforts, something pleasant and joyful must certainly follow. In addition, mastering any good new skills is rewarded. However, once mastery is achieved and consolidated, you begin to encourage new children's aspirations.
If responsibilities are regular and well encouraged, they tend to be easy for children to learn. They are not assimilated only in two cases: when there are no rewards and when, unable to bear it, the mother suddenly breaks down. Then the children begin to cut coupons from our negative emotions. Oddly enough, some of them like the emotional reaction of their parents.
It is worth encouraging children to overcome angry outbursts only if the child has a habit of hysterical behavior. In such cases, you need to develop an individual reward system. Why am I not recommending encouraging overcoming childhood anger? The fact is that at the same time we run the risk of unwittingly provoking their repetition. The child knows that as soon as he cries, he calms down, he will be given candy, which means that encouragement is possible only in extreme cases and only in order to overcome the prevailing behavioral stereotype.
Before the evening shower, children should put together their toys and schoolchildren should complete their homework. Sooner or later a moment comes when the child declares: "I will not clean up, I will finish the game tomorrow!" - or: "Leave me alone with your math!" When there is a reaction of rejection of a daily responsibility, the child should be allowed to let off steam. If the emotional outburst took place, and you did not succumb to the provocation and did not allow yourself to be drawn into fruitless debate, then consider that you won a couple of points. Let the child scandal a little, but then you can tell him: “That's it? Are you finished? Now let's get down to business! By the way, I would also prefer to rest ... "
At the same time, try not to fall into excessive edification: “How can you not be interested in the Russian language? What will grow out of you? " - or: “Good girls always clean up their toys after themselves,” - this is not how you will achieve your goal. Rather, you will only start an argument about which of you is right and who is wrong, you can or must not want to do something.
There is a very specific set of children's responsibilities, and the child does not want to fulfill them and therefore is capricious. Such a confrontation begins at about the age of two and can soon come to naught if each family member has his own obligations and does not shy away from their fulfillment.
Let's say you missed an emotional wave and didn't argue with your child. You legalized his natural response to coercion: “Yes, really, reluctance! But daddy, oh, how neither light nor dawn wants to go to work, and mom is not at all thrilled that she has to scrub the stove and iron shirts every now and then, but adults are doing all this! " At the same time, if you manage to keep calm, the child will receive information about what his parents are doing, including what they would prefer not to do. But if you said the same thing to him in a state of irritation, the child most likely will not hear you, having learned only that his mother is cruel and evil.
Next, you should conclude an alliance with the child: there are certain responsibilities - pits or bumps, which in any case have to be overcome, while you prefer to act together. You understand that the child does not want to do the routine, and you are ready to help him in this. However, it should be obvious to him from the very beginning: you are not going to work for him, and this is non-negotiable! If such an understanding is not achieved, you cannot avoid endless scandals, because since the child knows that he should go to screaming and the toys will be assembled by his grandmother or nanny, he himself, of course, will not do this in any case. Likewise, if a student who gets the opportunity to skip school still manages to get a good grade, there will be no benefit. This duty should remain his duty: if a sock is not lying on the floor, and lifting it is the duty of a child, then this sock will not go anywhere, it will remain lying around until the end of the century.
Sometimes they ask: is it not easier to lay a negative reflex in a child's mind: for example, a candy wrapper is lying on the floor - get a slap on the head, a second appeared - don't get angry, another slap will not keep you waiting! But in this way you will not achieve much. This is a punishment or, in the words of Academician Pavlov, negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is much more effective: for a wrapper raised on time - candy or mom's kiss.
Another very common reason for a child's anger is inadequate relationships with peers. This is a special situation, and we must be extremely careful about the habits that children form. It is most difficult for a child to regulate his behavior in relation to brothers and sisters, but if we are talking about other children, then the task is greatly simplified. There is nothing surprising in this: it is usually much more difficult to control ourselves in our own circle, since at home we all go “without ties”. How a child behaves with siblings is largely determined by the emotional state of the family.
By the way, sons should be explained that girls are a kind of aliens and should be treated with special care, since they are fragile creatures. A good example is the behavior of a father who does not allow mother to carry heavy bags. If your family has a special relationship with the mother, it will not be difficult to achieve the desired result. While watching movies, it is useful to draw the attention of the sons to how caringly the prince gives the princess a hand, helping her to overcome some obstacle.
So there was an angry outburst. As in a fire, it must be localized immediately, that is, every effort must be made to ensure that it does not spread to everything around. To do this, first of all, you should determine the cause of the outbreak and normalize your own state so as not to feel like an inept parent who is not coping with the situation.
We want to suppress the child's angry behavior, but nothing comes of it, because we fail to look into his soul and turn off unwanted emotions. In any case, it will not work to calm down the child instantly, and only bitter disappointment awaits those who disagree with this statement.
Here are some of the most common parenting misconceptions associated with childhood anger:
~ children of good parents do not cry;
~ if a child screams in the cold, then he will certainly get sick, and therefore, I - bad mother(bad father);
~ crying shakes the already unstable nervous system of the child, which is why he risks turning into a neurotic (so, at least, the grandmother claims);
~ we disturb others with our noise. Ashamed in front of neighbors (social reaction).
All these opinions have one thing in common: they are absolutely not confirmed by practice and are based only on speculative ideas that there are some ideal families, perfect parents and exemplary children. Recently, there has been a fear of juvenile justice in society ( Reference: Juvenile justice (lat. "Juvenalis" - youthful and "justitia" - justice) - legal basis systems of institutions and organizations administering justice in cases of crimes committed by minors or directed against them) Moreover, in some cases, such fears, unfortunately, may not be unfounded. For example, a large family lives next door to my friend. One of the children is seriously ill, he often cries, and his four siblings pick up the cry. Another neighbor of theirs, not understanding the cause of the noise, wanted to call the police.
We very much hope that the decision to create juvenile justice in Russia will be canceled. How can you bring up children in our culture, with our temperament, without exerting any psychological impact, unclear. This is precisely the parental task, because we build the emotional essence of a person, we shape his soul! We love children and try to give them all the best, but in some cases we have to adjust their behavior. You cannot do without reasonable restrictions, because children are far from angels. Children from a very early age are extremely emotional, and they themselves usually cannot cope with their strongest negative emotions. It is we, the parents, who must teach them this skill.
In large families, it often happens that as soon as one child cries, his cry is readily picked up by the second, and meanwhile the troublemaker has calmed down. In the described case, we are faced with a kind of handover of the "baton". Have you noticed, for example, that during your quarrels with your husband, children behave somehow especially quietly? Part of this can be explained by the fact that they are scared, but much more of their exemplary behavior is due to the emergence of an alternative generator of strong emotions.
In order to localize an outburst of childhood anger, one must first of all try not to connect to it. If you become infected with it, you will no longer be able to help the child. You both fell into the swamp, who is going to pull you out?
A flash of anger is by no means evidence of your pedagogical failure, or the collapse of all hopes, or a formidable warning that your child will certainly grow up to be an emotionally flawed person.
Sometimes they say to mom: “What charming kids you have! You can hardly hear them! ”- while my mother is sure that it is not children who are growing up with her, but real monsters, and she herself is no better than them.
Do you manage to force yourself to stop thinking that you are a bad mother, what a little more, and the neighbors will call the juvenile justice officials that Orthodox people are obliged to bring up their children in a fundamentally different way? This tactic is somewhat similar to playing badminton. The thought is sent to you: "You are bankrupt parents if you find yourself unable to curb the whims of the child!" You have a choice - either to accept this thought, agreeing with it, or to reflect it, over and over again convincing yourself: "It's not true, I am a good mother and I know about it!"
I will not tire of repeating: while the parent, albeit with difficulty, but still keeps himself in a calm state, he is able to more or less successfully influence the situation. If he allows himself to "loosen the reins", if he allows his own angry response to turn on, there will no longer be any question of any responsible behavior; behavior will be immediately replaced by unconscious and uncontrollable reactions. In this state, he is not an assistant to the child.
Another problem that many dads and moms face is the emotional promiscuity of younger children. For example, the daughter remained "the youngest" for several years, everyone cared for and cherished her, then family situation has changed, but the girl continues to insist on her exclusivity. This danger really lies in wait youngest child... Remember: when he sleeps, all other family members are not allowed to make noise, but the younger one woke up, while the older children are busy with their lessons, and he does not at all think that he should not interfere with them.
Reasonable behavior correction of younger children is completely justified. It does not enslave the child's personality, but socializes it.
Now let's reflect on the anger our children show towards their peers. As you know, the child learns the basics of interhuman relations in the family. Problems in relationships with peers, as a rule, arise in those children who emotionally allow everything or too much at home. Usually, parents do not realize that they are allowing their offspring much more than would benefit his child's mental health.
In order to be friends with other children, the child must learn to perceive different points of view and listen to other people's desires. Do we teach this to our children? Unfortunately, this fundamental area of parenting is often outside the sphere of parental attention, especially while the child is the only one in the family.
You may not even explain to him that there are other people around who have their own preferences, however, this style of upbringing completely exhausts itself as soon as another baby appears in the family. Then parents begin to understand that when raising two, and even more so several children, such an approach to business is simply impossible. Maybe I would like to continue in the same spirit, but only now it just doesn't work out ...
If the child remains the only one, and the vicious practice of indulging his selfish aspirations continues, he will certainly have problems with other children, because they are not ready and not obliged to endlessly adapt to the desires and whims of your child, and he is used to it. He comes to the playground and declares: “I will be the king, and all of you - my servants” - and is extremely surprised that other children do not want to play with him on his terms. As a result, violent conflicts arise, and manifestations of physical aggression that you will have to confront.
However, do not forget: your persistence can, on the contrary, provoke a new assault. After all, usually in order to bring something to the consciousness of a child, we use only his hearing. They did this to us ourselves both in families, in kindergartens, and in schools, so we automatically first of all resort to verbal suggestions and exhortations, often limiting ourselves to them.
But words are what children usually learn worst of all. In order for the child to truly understand what you are talking about, try to draw a little man (how it will turn out, even if the drawing is the most primitive) and show in the drawing what can happen, for example, after a blow to the head or stomach. You can sculpt figures from plasticine. The image will help connect vision and imaginative thinking - exactly what is most developed in preschoolers.
Telling the child about our wishes, we essentially read him a book without pictures, and illustrations at this age are necessary to assimilate the meaning of the story. Every step, every action must be illustrated; in this case, if the child does not have pronounced neurological or psychiatric disorders, his behavior will definitely change for the better. This strategy will prove to be much more effective than any frequent incantations: "Don't you dare to fight!"
If we repeat the same thing to children many times, the phenomenon of "sound background" inevitably comes into play. Just as people living in the immediate vicinity of a congested highway stop responding to the noise of passing cars, just as we usually do not hear the ticking of a wall clock or a constantly switched on radio, in the same way, children simply stop hearing us.
In addition, one should not forget that seasonal and weather factors can negatively affect children, especially children with meteorological conditions, especially if they provoke an exacerbation chronic diseases... It is not surprising that a child does not take your admonitions if he has ear pain or a stuffy nose. It is important to understand the state of small man and in what state we are ourselves.
Try to use fairy-tale stories as illustrative examples. Russian folk tales are perfect (for example, about sister Alyonushka and brother Ivanushka, about two bears who could not share the cheese in any way, about frogs that fell into a crib with milk, "Geese-swans", "Broken unbeaten is lucky") - all these instructive stories teach children how to interact correctly. I recommend that parents familiarize themselves with three books: V. Ya. Propp. "Morphology fairy tale", Gianni Rodari. "The Grammar of Fantasy" (after reading these works, you can learn how to independently construct the structure of fairy tales) and Doris Brett. “Once upon a time there was a girl who looked like you…” - about how to tell stories to children based on the experience of parents.
By resorting to fairy tales and parables, we begin to speak the same language with the child, using his imagination and ability to empathize. Children are great at remembering family stories: even a child with learning difficulties learns the long family sagas told by their parents. A completely different type of memorization comes into play, which can be used in resolving conflicts that arise between children.
Dolls may well act as a kind of "intermediaries". They also include childhood fantasy. If a tired mother, when she came home from work, said irritably: "Again the toys are not removed!" - this is one thing, and here the scythe can quite find it on the stone. If she put on her hand not even a toy, but a simple mitten, and this mitten suddenly said to the child: “Wow-wow-wow! Again, someone scattered everything on the floor! " - the effect will turn out to be completely different, because the segment of the application of logic in relations with young children is extremely limited.
Children's competition bears good fruit, but only on condition win-win lottery: “You won the Most Agile Cleaner nomination, and you won the Most Thorough Cleaner nomination!”
It is important not to forget to put "plus signs" for yourself and your children and do not skimp on praise. Unfortunately, our perception of the world, as a rule, is such that we more often focus on the "cons" and flaws. Almost every parent at any moment is ready to start a long story about how many problems accompany the upbringing of a child, and almost no one mentions the joys associated with it. We were brought up in an authoritarian school system where all the attention was focused on shortcomings, and now we are transferring this attitude to our own children.
Always try to emphasize and encourage at least a timid, but positive tendency: “You move to the third level of mastering certain knowledge, and the arrow rushes up. Yes, this is not yet the fourth or fifth level, but nevertheless, as you can see, it is growing steadily! "
There is a popular myth among parents that there is some kind of magic remedy, after the use of which the child changes radically: he stops fighting and provokes a brother or sister to quarrels. Of course, there are ways to turn the tide, but you shouldn't count on their immediate effect. It is enough that by correcting your mistakes, you are moving in the right direction.
For example, if your little ones do not have “living zones” in the children's room and if they do not have personal toys, they will conflict more often and more violently. This is a systemic error, and it can be avoided, but children will not stop conflicting from this anyway. We are able to smooth out the severity and reduce the number of quarrels, but it will not be possible to completely eliminate them, and there is no need to do this, because in such conflicts the child acquires the necessary everyday skills.
Another problem is the child's hypertrophied feeling of his own importance: for example, you are talking to one of your children, but then his brother or sister comes up and, not paying the slightest attention to what is happening, begins to report his problems. In this case, impatient children should be stopped: “We are busy. You’ll tell me when we’re done. ” This is how one of the important social skills is formed - the willingness, stepping aside, to provide others with the opportunity to complete the work they have begun.
The child must be patiently socialized and not protected from any difficult situations in which he may find himself. The manifestation of anger in the sandbox is an emotional response to the conflict of children's desires. The whole point is that these desires should be considered as equal, and then the conflicts will turn out to be developing: “You want a spatula, but your friend also wants to, you want to play on the computer, but now your older brother needs it to study, you dream watch the movie, but your sister will be upset if she misses her favorite show! "
In kindergarten, toys are shared every now and then. It often happens that one child prefers to take away, while the other is forced to yield to the onslaught. Who exactly will be the giver and who will be the taker depends largely on the temperament, which is discernible already at the age of six months. Subsequently, education will be superimposed on the temperament. It is this combination that will determine the life strategy of your son or daughter.
Those inclined to give should be instilled with the ability to decisively say to the one who selects at the right time: “This time I will not give in to you. This is mine, and that's it! " In a sense, this attitude conflicts with our mentality. For example, in Germany it would never occur to anyone to force a child who does not want to give up their toys to share them, but here we hear much more often: “Give in, don't be greedy!” Such is the national specificity, such are the moral and ethical attitudes that are instilled in us from our young nails, such is our culture, based in this case on the words of the Savior: outerwear do not interfere with taking a shirt. Give to everyone who asks of you, and do not demand back from him who has taken yours ”(). However, let us not bend our hearts and honestly answer the question: are we always guided in life by this maxim?
Encouraging a child to put into practice what is in no way realized in the family is an almost hopeless activity. Actually, you can call for anything, but you cannot demand. The readiness and desire to follow the Christian commandments is largely determined by what a person faced in childhood in parental home.
If the child is not yet ready to share, then there is no need to force and break him. Such children should be offered a choice: "You will play with these toys, and you will carry others so that your friends can play with them." You can say, "When you grow up, you learn to share, but until that happens, you stay small!"
You need to understand that both the giver and the selector go through a certain school of building relationships and comprehend them.
principles. After all, it also happens that parents stop letting the child play on the playground due to the fact that everything was immediately taken away from him there, and wanting to protect their beloved child from unnecessary, in their opinion, negative emotions.
This behavior is fundamentally wrong. Children should be taught in time to deal with their property. Until such basic concepts as "mine", "yours", "someone else's", "give" and "change" are mastered, it will not work to move on to the next stage of socialization.
In order to extinguish normative conflicts, to "outsmart" them, it will take some time. Such problems are not solved in an evening or even in a week.
Brothers and sisters
Usually, children's fights break out over little things. However, such a conclusion can be made only by considering the situation from the point of view of adults. The child, after all, in fact has nothing - we have biographies and old friends, dear books and memorable photographs, wardrobes with our favorite clothes and shoes ... We are overgrown with memories and things, and the child has just a beloved glass ball that he hid under the pillow. We have flooded our children with expensive educational toys, but they have very few things with which they truly associate themselves.
In large families, toys are sometimes given to all children at once, without determining in advance what will belong to whom. After all, the child's desire to take possession of what “rightfully” belongs to another is regarded by adults as obviously provocative behavior, as actions taken “on purpose and in spite”. Parents are seriously afraid that the children, having quarreled, will cease to be friends forever, while the children themselves see the situation completely differently. For them, what belongs to another is a beautiful scarlet flower, something extraordinarily seductive and attractive. At the same time, the degree of rage of the offended "owner" directly depends on the importance for him of the object, which, in his opinion, was encroached upon. It is necessary to highlight things that are completely indivisible, for example:
~ a toy with which the child goes to bed every time;
~ things presented to him for his birthday, name day, New Years or Christmas;
~ collection.
All these objects are colored with special emotions, they are accompanied by a special attitude of your children.
First of all, parents need to figure out what exactly is the conflict: whether we are talking about something absolutely indivisible, about the notorious "unchangeable penny", or about a completely ordinary, ordinary thing from the point of view of the child. By the way, it is worth noting that what happens to children, as a rule, is a reflection of the relationship of their parents. If the wife does not give a penny to things that for some reason (often completely incomprehensible why!) Are especially dear to her husband, or, on the contrary, the husband allows himself to disparagingly judge his wife's favorite things, it will be difficult for children to instill respect for other people's property.
1. All toys in the house are common, but each of the children has an unconditional right to personal belongings. Sometimes the elder can be capricious: “This is my bear, I will not give it to anyone!” - although he has not needed it for a long time. This rule is not easy to follow, because older children remember how they were once given all this. They are seized by the thought: while I was alone, everything went fine, and then there was someone with whom I have to share, giving away my favorite things!
The problem also lies in the fact that about 70% of children's things were purchased specifically for the first-born! Then the relatives and friends gave the baby so much that the youngest didn't even need to buy anything. If you manage to smooth out the conflict - great, if your child turns out to be excessively "economic" and tight-fisted and treats his things extremely reverently, give him an empty cardboard box from under the TV or microwave and say: “Here's a box for you! Keep your bears and your cars in it, since you don’t want to let the kid play with them ”. You will stabilize the situation by demonstrating that all of these things are generally withdrawn from circulation.
Well, then various scenarios are possible. Some children feel ashamed, and they quite sincerely declare: "That's it, this is not mine, but they gave me something new!" - and easily cede ownership, it is difficult for others to part even with the clothes from which they grew up long ago. In fact, the question is whether the child associates himself with a thing or not.
In any case, such a reaction is not an empty childish "jump". Do not judge children from the point of view of experienced adults! Try to make sure that the "treasures" rightfully belong to their owners: you have yours, and you have yours. Property in itself does not make a child greedy, but its absence gives rise to endless quarrels between brothers and sisters.
As a rule, conflicts of this type arise when the younger begins to actively crawl, walk or talk, that is, he occupies a new niche in the family. At the same time, the elder feels that his space is being encroached upon, that the time has come to “divide the territory”, and he immediately becomes “vital” to everything that the younger is drawn to.
This is one of the age conflicts that recur in different forms at each stage. child development... For example, the youngest is sent to the first grade, and a new round of confrontation immediately begins: before, only the eldest was a schoolboy in the family, and now they have encroached on one more attribute of his "uniqueness" ...
Conflicts of this type should be smoothed out over time, but if they do not fade, then most likely the children are not sharing things, but your love. But in general, you need to proceed from the fact that sooner or later they will have to divide your inheritance (if, of course, you manage to leave it!). It is now that you are forming their long-term relationship and, therefore, must take this process with full responsibility.
2. When someone wants to play with someone else's toy, he should first of all ask permission from its owner. If the owner does not allow it, then this is how it should be. At the first request of the owner, the toy should be returned to him with gratitude.
By the way, the situation becomes much more complicated if there are just two children growing up in a family. This option assumes the highest frequency and intensity of collisions. It seems to everyone that his parents love his brother or sister more than him. With the appearance of the third child, conflicts, as a rule, lose their former acuteness: in this case, children form a kind of team.
Why are children fighting? As a rule, either due to the fact that they were not able to share something, for example, toys, sweets or parental attention, or when one child interferes with another's play, “breaks” someone else's game. In all such cases, adults are forced to be like a rope, which each of the children tries to pull over, or play the role of arbiter and mediator in the division of property.
There are many people who are immediately unsettled by the process of any section. Have you talked to your children about how difficult it is for you if you are of this type? I call this technique "parental self-disclosure" and I consider it a powerful pedagogical tool that works great for children who are already accustomed to listening. We tell them about a lot of different things, we try to cram an unimaginable amount of information into them, but sometimes we lose sight of the main thing. Keep in mind that at least until three years of age the volume of vocabulary perceived by children is extremely limited and, as a result, adults are deprived of their usual tools.
In the child's speech, the pronoun "I" should be present, and he himself should perceive himself as an actively acting subject. He should have an understanding of the relatively complex grammatical structures that you will have to use. In any case, you do not need to overwhelm your children with a sense of guilt for your condition. It’s just useful for them to know what you don’t like and why.
I will also mention another very significant point: you can talk with a child (and with an adult) about the same thing a limited number of times, otherwise even the most important things cease to be perceived as truly significant. Like a sports competition, you have a maximum of three approaches at your disposal, but not thirty-three, otherwise the words will inevitably turn into a "sound background". After the third attempt, you can return to the same topic only at the request of the child. Sometimes a favorite story helps, remembering which he behaves better (“Mom, tell me how my sister and I lived together at the dacha! ..”).
Nevertheless, repetitions are inevitable and even necessary. Unlike an adult who learns from the first time: it is better not to park in this place, otherwise the fine cannot be avoided, - in children, cause-and-effect relationships are formed for a rather long time. It really takes them some time to figure out where to park their bike and where to not.
At what age does a sense of ownership begin to manifest? The older child grows up "according to the calendar", but the development of the younger ones is often determined by the pace of development of the older ones. For example, the kids have not yet learned how to divide property, and your first-born is already ready to use force, and he obviously prefers the command “give” to the request “give” ...
Let's talk about a problem that almost all parents faced - about aggressive behavior one child (usually the older one) in relation to another.
You can isolate several situations when the tendency to hit a brother or sister is most often manifested:
~ the child is tired;
~ in the evening after school;
~ if they interfere with playing.
Considering all these provoking factors, in neutral times you can say to your son: “I know that sometimes you really want to beat Fedya. Well, there is nothing unusual in this desire, this happens to many children ... ”We are talking about the so-called technique of normalization: we admit that there is a problem not in order to legitimize its resolution by forceful methods, but so that the child becomes aware of the situation ...
The child's psyche is formed from the outside. In developmental psychology, there is the term "interiorization", which means, among other things, the assimilation of certain skills. ( Reference: Interiorization (from Latin "interior" - internal) - transition from outside to inside; psychological concept meaning formation mental actions and the internal plane of consciousness through the assimilation of external actions with objects and social forms of communication.) Children's awareness of their own motivation also occurs exclusively under external influence, no matter how strange it may seem to adults. This is how preschoolers and schoolchildren of primary grades differ from adolescents, who, due to some kind of inner insight, can sometimes feel and understand even more than parents are able to formulate. And a small child is aware of his thoughts and actions exactly to the extent that we have enriched his vocabulary with the means for this awareness. Therefore, by outlining the situation, we help him to become aware of it.
However, the recognition of the problem is immediately followed by a defining "but", which over time is designed to become a reliable barrier between the child's desire to achieve his strength and the fundamental moral, cultural and social norms... Yes, from time to time there is an insurmountable and often unmotivated desire to violate the moral taboo. In this case, it is not so important what exactly it is about: a blow, a sneak bite or a poke in passing. If the mother is not around, then the established standards sometimes do not work and one child offends the other. Parents are for children the primary carriers of those limitations, which must subsequently be assimilated. The child, in a rage, swings at his brother or sister, remembers the ban and stops a second before the blow would have been struck. It can be seen that some thought nevertheless entered his head. Of course, an external prohibition will turn into an internal one not from the first, not from the second or even from the tenth time, and parents should also be ready for this.
Girls face a different kind of problem: they simply don’t know what to do when aggression is directed against them. Of course, exceptions are possible, but they only confirm the validity of the general rule. How sharp and uncompromising the opposition of a brother and sister turns out to be depends on the level of testosterone or its precursors in the blood of boys and on how actively the girl manifests herself: sometimes it is her position that becomes dominant, as a result of which the manifestations of aggression become more frequent on her part.
It is worth remembering here the "ladder of aggression" that we have already spoken about. With regard to children's relationships, at the top of it are actions characterized by intentional cruelty associated with the awareness of the inevitable consequences of the act being done. A step below is simply hitting, pinching and biting as a result of spontaneous rage. Even lower - a demonstrative encroachment on someone else's property and space, as well as sneering and denunciations, then - verbal aggression (swearing and teasing) and finally provocative behavior, including prompting.
Any of the listed negative actions inevitably provokes a retaliatory aggression in a child, as well as in an adult. In this sense, children differ only in that, as a rule, they are not constrained by any religious or cultural restrictions. Their emotions are manifested "in their pure form."
In this case, the child's response to the manifestation of aggression can be formed according to one of three scenarios.
Faced with outright injustice, the child goes into a fierce counteroffensive.
The kid raises an unimaginable shout; "Tarzan's cry" is heard, designed to inflict an energy blow on the enemy. If the enemy also turns out to be vociferous, real Italian cinema begins. (Here we are already talking about active defense, but in both cases described, we observe a reaction of an extroverted type directed outward.)
The child openly gives in and shrinks internally, going into a passive "dumb" defense. (This is a reaction of the introverted type.)
Which of these options should be considered less destructive? Some parents, in all honesty, would prefer that their offspring, rather than fight back or scandalize, quietly went to sniff in the corner. But for the child himself, such a solution does not seem to be optimal. Moreover, the developed forced habit of concealing in oneself something that should be freed from as unusable and malignant ballast threatens with nervous overstrain, increased anxiety, night fears and even the emergence and development of somatic diseases. ( Reference: Somatic illness (from ancient Greek. "Soma" - "body") - a bodily illness as opposed to a mental illness.)
In any case, parents should remember: every hour they have to deal with little people who are not yet burdened by numerous socio-cultural norms, in whose souls the place of self-restraint and moral and ethical prohibitions is occupied by a mass of the brightest and differently colored emotions; and consequently, it will not be possible to avoid everyday collision with the notorious “ladder of aggression”. The main thing in this is not to get infected with negativity.
Usually, children's fights break out over little things. However, such a conclusion can be made only by considering the situation from the point of view of adults.
"Emotional contamination" and "emotional retraining"
In psychology, there are the concepts of "emotional contamination" and "emotional retraining." This is what usually happens to young children: a four- or five-year-old child, like a sponge, absorbs the emotions that are dominant at the moment. For example, one baby cried, and his roar was immediately picked up by another, although before that he did not want to sob at all. People who devote a significant part of their time to young children are likewise susceptible to infection with emotions: by the evening, many mothers are overexcited, because they spent the whole day with a child full of a wide variety of feelings.
Acute infections are usually transmitted by airborne droplets. In the case of emotional infection, we are dealing with something similar: if someone generates pronounced negative emotions (possibly positive ones that do not traumatize anyone), then there is a high probability that those around them will be charged with them. The second child is likely to join the capricious child. They will scream at each other, gradually drawing their mother into this emotional maelstrom. When the father comes to calm the family down, he gets into the same funnel, and to top it all off, a frightened dog starts barking.
Learn to switch your emotional state. It is much more effective to watch over, to anticipate an outburst of anger even before it occurs, by localizing it in the embryo. There is always a short-term latency, that is, externally not manifesting itself, the period preceding the breakdown, and it should be used. Parents often fail to do this, and this happens precisely because their life is passing at an excessively high pace and they feel “driven out”.
However, a flash is just behavior, albeit extremely unfortunate, and not at all evidence of your pedagogical failure. This is not the collapse of your whole life and not a harbinger that your children will grow up neurotic.
Adolescents are the sources of a specific emotional infection: we easily succumb to their provocations and begin to engage in tug-of-war with them, instead of maintaining peace of mind and clarity of mind.
Emotional retraining is more characteristic of marital relations. A more balanced and peaceful spouse can teach their partner the practice of finding peace over time. There are people who, in the early years of marriage, do not shout or get annoyed at all, since they were taught this in their parental home. However, over time, they can begin to explode and get irritated over trifles, and this is a very alarming signal.
It is useful to understand exactly who you live with under the same roof. There are people who are stingy with manifestation own emotions and at least seemingly little susceptible to the emotions of strangers. It would be a serious mistake to consider them pachyderm, on the contrary, they are often characterized by increased sensitivity and it is because of this that they strive for maximum distance. Such people, before responding to this or that emotional situation, need to properly comprehend it. They often become programmers, composers, or artists.
In psychiatry, there is a term - "schizoid type", but it does not follow from this that the owner of this type of psyche is a schizophrenic. It's just that his emotions are so strong that he is forced to carefully fence himself off from them. Such people often marry active choleric people in order to compensate for this trait of their character.
Our country has long been characterized by the problem of excessive, unrestricted manifestation of negative emotions. After the revolution, it was mercilessly destroyed and without that thin layer intellectuals and mores were radically simplified: emotional licentiousness penetrated from the streets into families. Often people who grew up in houses, somewhere and then flew down and feathers, trying to turn their families into a stronghold of peace and silence. They can follow this rule for as long as they want, but at the first breakdown they should immediately be on their guard.
Acute infections are usually transmitted by airborne droplets. In the case of emotional contagion, we are dealing with something similar.
Specificity of children's irritability
If you know what causes anger in your child, then you can at least sometimes predict his outbursts and, therefore, you have time to think about your plan of action. In this case, the chances that childhood irritability will not spread to adult family members is significantly increased. The reasons can be very different, and often very minor. Let's say a child is angry because he turned over a cup of juice, or maybe he is always in a bad mood in the morning.
There are factors that simply cannot be excluded due to the age-related development of the child. You will have to put up with them, consoling yourself with the fact that over time they will disappear by themselves, for natural reasons. If, say, a five-year-old child is naughty because he cannot assemble a model from Lego parts, you need to understand that he will not be upset about this all his life. This understanding makes parenting much easier.
Childhood annoyances that recur from time to time, day after day, week after week are called normative conflicts. They occur in similar situations or at certain times of the day and are accompanied by a violent outburst of negative emotions. Normative conflicts are usually played out in the "zone of proximal development" - this is the name of what the child is learning and is about to learn with the help of adults. Conflicts caused by insufficient skill arise in children during the crisis of three years of age, and at six to seven years, and in adolescence, that is, precisely when they master many new skills.
This is a special situation when a child should be supported in every possible way, because he is busy with a good deed: he is trying to create something with his own hands, even if not quite right. At this moment he is not ready to hear you: he is studying and therefore is nervous. You should wait until the children themselves ask you for help, but in no case impose it. In a child, even the most innocent question can provoke an outburst of anger. However, you can ask him: "Can I talk to you about this?"
This formulation of the question is especially fruitful for relationships with adolescents. It protects them from destructive emotional reactions. I repeat, the main thing is not to offer help to a child if for some reason he does not want to accept it and stubbornly repeats: "I myself!"
If you feel unable to stand nearby and indifferently observe the development of events, it is better to step back. Remember the golden rule: when faced with a difficult emotional state a child, teenager, or even an adult, you need to make every effort not to be drawn into this funnel of anger.
Any ways that help you keep yourself in an adequate, balanced state are good.
Sometimes in pre-adolescence, a child may be capricious in the morning: “Give me socks, give me pants ...” This situation can be beaten by asking him, for example: “Do you want to be small? Well, today I have time for that. But we won't behave like that every time. "
So, your child is learning something hard. You can move away from sin, or you can watch the learning process. It's great if you find the strength to be praised: "You are so great that you are trying to do everything on your own!" - although it can be difficult to pronounce. There is a magic formula: "Soon you will learn this, and learning is always difficult" - but it only works if the child hears you.
When anger accompanies overcoming inability, there is no need to try to turn it off at all costs. Remember how babies begin to crawl: at first, the child simply lies on his tummy and growls because he wants to move forward faster, but he just can't do it. At the same time, none of the relatives gets angry, knowing full well that crying in this case only gives the young traveler additional strength.
However, parents often try to turn off the annoying noise, suppress negative children's reactions. In this case, a secondary conflict is quite possible. For example, a child wants to learn how to put on tights or go downstairs on his own, but his plan does not work out. The zipper on the jacket does not work, and the child is indignant. Here the mother joins in: “Stop shouting!” - and the child begins to be angry no longer at the lightning, but at the mother, she is bad, she does not understand him! So one conflict is superimposed on another, which should be avoided in every possible way.
Usually a parent knows why his son or daughter is capricious, while the child himself does not know. In this case, you say: "You are upset because you cannot cope with this nasty lightning in any way!" You, as a sports commentator, are just talking about the current situation, not counting on the fact that the child is obviously causal. After your repeated explanations, such a logical chain in his mind will certainly arise.
Usually, the interpretation of behavior causes a temporary increase in crying - at first it does not get better, but worse. You should not be afraid of this: splashing out emotions and yelling, the child will sooner calm down.
We talked about situations that arise during the day, but there are also "night outbreaks". The kid woke up, opened his eyes, and immediately a whimpering begins, developing into a cry, and the child cannot calm down for a long time. We are talking about the physiological loss of one of the sleep phases. The child is screaming because he cannot truly wake up, but that is not anger. In this case, drugs that reduce the depth of sleep, which should be prescribed by a doctor, will help.
Remember the golden rule: when faced with a difficult emotional state of a child, teenager or even an adult, you need to make every effort not to be drawn into this funnel of anger.
Tricks of anger and how to overcome it
When a person begins to observe his negative conditions, they become less noticeable for a while. Let's talk about the tricks and tricks of anger.
Sometimes he rolls in a wave and sweeps away everything in his path, but he does not always use frontal tactics. He can use various tricks to get closer to us, to transform into our familiar, everyday state. Do you know how he sneaks up, turns around and captures us?
It often happens to me that, intending to rest after the completion of some important matters, I repeatedly postpone the onset of this blissful moment, persuading myself: "Now I will quickly finish something and then I will begin to be blissful!" So my strength gradually dries up, while my irritability grows.
The tricks of anger are varied. He can imitate pity, instilling in us gradually: “Look, everyone is using you! Nobody wants to support you by sharing work or responsibility with you! "
Before us is one of his signature tricks. Another trick is the total devaluation of our or someone else's achievements, the incessant lamentation that everything we have done, everything that we have managed to achieve in life is clearly not enough. Anger loves to deceive us by fueling high expectations.
What to do with outbursts of irritation, in the grip of which we have already found ourselves? In this case, I do not offer ready-made recipes that are suitable for absolutely everyone, because they are poorly suited to real life and do not always correspond to a specific situation. However, in any case, I want to warn you: anger separates people, its manifestations have never brought anyone closer. This is especially true for parent-child relationships. Anger dissipates our emotional forces, rather than concentrates them.
I'll also tell you about one of his little tricks. Anger loves to declare itself forced and righteous, persistently convincing us that only with its help we will be able to correct the state of affairs, only with its participation they will finally understand us and begin to truly reckon with us. He slyly repeats: "You must express everything to him without embellishment and right in his face, otherwise your family will collapse!" Remember, however, anger is not a show of strength, but an admission of weakness.
Most adults and even children who are seized with anger, deep down in their souls, are aware of its perniciousness, but the explosion occurs in a split second, and almost imperceptibly. In addition, you need to understand that as long as we agree to follow his lead, while we are deceived by his promises, any other means of influencing others will not work. During the massive intake of the strongest drugs, resorting to homeopathy is pointless.
I often receive consultations from people who practice physical punishment children. Internally, they do not agree with this "method", they categorically do not like it, but, in their opinion, nothing else, except for spanking, is able to change the situation. However, the situation can be completely changed if you stop spreading your hands, and this is not at all difficult to achieve. It is much more difficult to exclude any manifestations of anger from your teaching practice.
Having carefully observed himself for two to three weeks and recording his conclusions in a diary, a person will acquire the skill of accurately isolating the very irritant that will certainly cause a strong response. It is necessary to prepare in advance for the visit of an uninvited guest and, just in case, lay straws so as not to be taken by surprise.
Removing anger from its sudden effect makes it much more manageable. It is problematic to stop hearing the texts inspired by anger, but everyone can learn to record the first calls indicating his approach.
If you are angry, if anger has come and settled in your soul like a boss, try to say out loud: "I am in anger, in rage, in fury, not in myself, out of my mind ..."
From the age of four, the child learns to properly respond to your irritation. In a calm, neutral time, you should agree with him on a plan of joint action, which you should start immediately after you utter the key, sacramental phrases: “I'm ready to explode. I'm turning into Baba Yaga! " You can say: "Son, as soon as I get tired and scream, you will immediately leave the room, try not to make noise, but you can bring me an apple and say:" Mom, please do not be angry! "
But before you start to negotiate with the child, you should agree with your spouse and come to terms with yourself. It is important that when anger approaches, this plan is implemented through the efforts of the whole family. If your emotions get out of control, your loved ones will support you at that moment.
Children readily and willingly enter into and carry out such agreements. If the agreement starts to work, the child really tries to behave in accordance with the conditions prescribed in it. Even a toddler can help adult parents.
When dads and moms start to get angry, the child's behavior also becomes irrational and unpredictable - this is how his confusion and fear appear. He can enter into a stupor, a scythe can find on a stone. Parents, like all people, tend to make mistakes, although in this case we are not talking about a one-time mistake, but about systematic failures.
What else can we say to a child to get closer to him? Try to explain to the children that not all of the states you experience bring you joy. It might sound something like this: “I am angry, although I do not want to be angry. I am angry, although I try not to do it. " Being open will not diminish your credibility in the least.
Children under seven years old only intuitively understand the states of other people, since they are egocentric and concentrate only on themselves and their own feelings. It is still too difficult for them to mentally get into someone else's skin. Subsequently, having already gone to school, they will better feel the shades of the state of mind of their parents.
Children should be taught about human emotions as about natural phenomena: “In the spring, the buds open, and the leaves fall in the fall. This is how our world works. So adults get angry even when they don't want it ... "
If the child does not understand your emotions, try to clearly explain them to him, but in no case do not start this until you finally calm down, otherwise your explanations will not be heard.
Be sure to consider the difference in experience between adults and children. For example, when explaining that you’re in a bad mood with fatigue, you should be aware that the child’s perceptions of this condition most likely do not match yours. It's all about the lack of personal experience. In the same way, if a person has never had a toothache, it will be difficult to explain to him the specifics of this pain. Remember how you yourself perceived parental fatigue in childhood and how you felt at the same time.
You can use figurative comparisons, for example, to say that your tiredness is like a big, heavy bag that is about to slap you. Children's imagination and fantasy are meant to be your helpers. It can be portrayed in the form of a comic, as urgent matters are piled on my mother. In general, any method is suitable, including performances with finger puppets, but all this requires inner liberation and sincerity. You must reserve the right to make a mistake and honestly admit that you are not able to cope with many things at once and on a solid five.
Mom is not a meteor. She does not have a magic wand in her hands. People learn to walk for months, so she gradually learns to do everything.
Most adults and even children who are seized with anger, deep down in their souls, are aware of its perniciousness, but the explosion occurs in a split second, and almost imperceptibly. As long as we agree to follow his lead, as long as we are deceived by his promises, any other means of influencing others will not work.
For those who want to build a happy family
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Instead of a preface
Perhaps there are no dads and mothers who from time to time would not be annoyed by the behavior of their children, and at the same time, almost every parent thinks that in terms of anger he has no equal. Everyone else, in his opinion, gets irritated much less often, and perhaps never at all. In today's society, the notion prevails that a good parent should not be irritated with children. Such opinions can seriously poison the life of the family and interfere with the upbringing process.
Usually, irritation arises and accumulates in those situations when mom or dad is unable to correct the individual characteristics of the child's behavior, to cope with some kind of everyday situation.
If the usual ways to influence the situation are not enough, irritation is connected as a spare, albeit unnecessary battery. I have yet to meet people who enjoy their irritability.
Irritation should be viewed as a state of undoubtedly negative and, moreover, after the fact, causing feelings of guilt. In other words, irritation is not only unpleasant at the moment when you are at its mercy, it leaves behind an extremely unpleasant aftertaste. It is because of frequent outbursts of irritation that many parents, especially mothers, believe that they are bad, unsuccessful and incompetent.
How is parental irritation perceived by a child, especially a pre-school child? Shouting, threats and spanking are often seen by him as a manifestation of dislike. The mother gets angry and swears, and the child concludes that she is angry and does not love him at all.
Of course, with age, this view of things inevitably changes. A recent child, who still well remembers the irritability of his parents and his own resentments about this and once sincerely promised in his diary: “I will never, for nothing, shout at children, be angry and annoyed at them!” Becomes a parent himself. then comes the "moment of truth" for him, then comes the first, albeit superficial understanding of the reasons why father and mother seemed so cruel and unjust to him.
It turns out that the parents were not angry at all because they were angry and bad! They just got very tired, not coping with their countless responsibilities.
however, understanding why mom and dad were angry, as a rule, does not become a vaccine against their own irritability. The idea that it is necessary to throw out everything sore and depressing is only partly true.
A family is a long-term project, over the course of decades, everything happens to it: some periods turn out to be relatively simple and almost cloudless, while others become a time of a real test of feelings for strength. That is why the exchange of information between spouses is so necessary.
It is no secret that many young families are initially forced to rent a house and only eventually acquire their own homes. In this case, the apartment may be more spacious or more modest, better or worse. Marital communication is built in a similar way: the ability to conduct confidential and sympathetic conversations about the most difficult issues does not always come immediately. During the courtship period, there is no need for this: the heads of the lovers are busy with completely different things. True communication is the prerogative of a mature family, whose members are well aware: each of them is a complex set of merits and flaws, which are in a constant and fierce struggle among themselves, where "the battlefield is the human heart." Communication skill is not a bonus attached to a marriage certificate, but the result of many years of painstaking and responsible work. However, it is the absence of this experience that gives rise to a large extent to spontaneous outbursts of destructive emotions.
Irritation is very similar to chronic allergies. At first, it is caused only by a certain number of very specific situations, but if we do not properly deal with our anger, over time the range of possible causes expands.
Chronic irritability can be compared to a morbid addiction to alcohol or the habit of spending evenings in front of the TV. You can compare it with playing sports - the more diligently we “pump” our muscles, the stronger they become, or with a traveler wandering through the desert: the more water he drinks, the more painfully his thirst overcomes.
The more often we experience irritation, the more compulsive it becomes to pour it out on someone. However, we all need to remember: you cannot get rid of negativity just by throwing it out. so you can only "feed" and "lull" him for a while. At the same time, irritation will hide and will only wait for the right moment in order to publicly declare itself with renewed vigor. This is one of the "anger traps".
A kind of angry intoxication may arise when the level of mutual irritation in the family rises so much that its members have to agree on some kind of pause, about some kind of truce with each other.
The habit of letting off steam every now and then has the most negative impact on our relationships with children. Moreover, they inevitably transfer it to their peers, as well as to their younger brothers and sisters.
Eastern wisdom says: "An irritated teacher does not educate, but only annoys." A parent in this state can achieve his goal in the short term, but he lays in a child's soul a vicious model of emotional behavior: when something goes wrong, turn on your irritation, press on your neighbor, "and you will be happy!"
The child easily masters this simple tactic and with its help really more and more often achieves that, for example, they turn on a "cartoon", even if at this time they have to do completely different things, buy a desired, but not at all necessary toy or add an extra a spoonful of sugar into porridge.
What can you recommend to parents in this regard? First of all, admit that you are annoyed, even if you absolutely do not like it. Likewise, the Alcoholics Anonymous program considers the patient's very admission of an addiction as the first and defining step on the path to recovery from addiction. To humbly admit the existence of an urgent problem means ten to fifteen percent closer to solving it.
Following this, you need to honestly answer the question: do you really want to get rid of this habit? If, being irritated, you feel quite comfortable, then there is no reason to talk, but if irritability really bothers you, you should make every effort to get rid of it.
Before you start fighting this habit, you need to understand its nature. What should we know about irritation? First, we must determine in what situations it usually occurs, where the keys are hidden, with the help of which anger penetrates into our souls. After carefully observing ourselves for two to three weeks and scrupulously recording the situations that provoked irritation in a notebook, any of us will be able to identify the factors that cause a negative emotional reaction.
We are talking about the so-called "normative conflicts", about the very "rakes" that we step on every day, or even several times a day. For example, every night when we try to brush our children’s teeth, they try to run away, and this behavior irritates us. Knowing this in advance, we can prepare ourselves internally by forming an anticipatory reaction that will prevent anger from taking over us unhindered.
The next step should be to observe when and how our state changes. For example, just now you were calm, you talked to everyone evenly and kindly, but after a minute you start to scream and tug on someone's ears ... Almost everyone can analyze the development of a situation in which irritation arises, but this requires a certain methodology ... I insist that it is necessary to record the results of your observations on paper, otherwise a mess will inevitably arise in your head.
It is important to understand how this process takes place. Usually the mind begins to take possession of an obsessive thought: "That's it, I can't stand it anymore!" - and now anger covers us with a turbid wave. For some people, the anticipatory sensation is certain physical symptoms - for example, their breathing and heartbeat become faster, their cheeks turn red and their fists clench reflexively. Someone starts pacing excitedly around the room, touching the surrounding objects, or grabs a cigarette, like a lifeline.
In the fight against irritability, it is extremely important to fix the moment of "emotional transition". Having identified it, try for three to five seconds to hold and balance on the verge of a breakdown, be patient a little and, perhaps, hold your breath for a short time. If this technique works, then the emerging ability to mitigate irritation may well turn out to be the next step on the way to consciously aligning your behavior.
In order to get rid of bouts of anger, you need to realize their true nature, to understand if you have encountered something similar in your parental family. We must try to remember who often raised their voice at you - grandmother, father, kindergarten teacher or primary school teacher. Think, in whose voice your irritation persistently declares itself.
We all come from childhood, each of us at the level of memories captures the behavior of parents and people who are significant to us, and in similar situations tends to imitate him. For example, cleaning an apartment on a single day off was completely natural for our mothers and fathers, because they simply had no alternative. Of course, times have changed, but even those of us who have the opportunity to work remotely, at home at the computer, unconsciously copy this weekly routine, which has long turned into a ritual.
Mom may not even know why she is so annoyed by the forever untied shoelaces on her son's shoes or the semolina smeared on the table. Then the door to the nursery slammed loudly, a cup of milk fell and broke on the floor, a hole appeared in a school uniform, a notebook for written homework was filled with crossed out and blots - and emotions are already overwhelming the woman. Everyday life situations in which children find themselves can cause violent outbursts of irritation in her. And the thing is that she herself once turned out to be the object of such flashes.
Realizing that your emotional response clearly does not correspond to the cause that caused it, you can be sure: either unconscious childhood memories have entered into action (someone from your loved ones was inclined to get irritated in such situations; you remembered these outbursts of anger and now reproduce them diligently) or you are in a state of chronic nervous overload.
Our childhood was spent in nurseries and kindergartens, which means that most of the time we spent in the company of women, often lonely and, as a result, emotionally unrestrained.
Schools and kindergartens have traditionally used and are still using tough methods of team management. In families, however, this approach is not applicable. Look again your old photos, remember conversations with relatives. In order to make the reactions manageable, I advise you to activate childhood memories and relive them.
Causes of parental anger and the forms it takes
Irritation is very similar to chronic allergies. At first, it is caused only by a certain number of very specific situations, but if we do not properly deal with our anger, over time the range of possible causes expands.
Some people tend to get annoyed in situations involving certain physical conditions. For example, for many of us, chronic sleep deprivation is becoming the strongest provoking factor. An unstable, tense, nervous and unfriendly environment at work, dissatisfaction with marital relations can also become the reasons for increased irritability. Make every effort not to load your child with problems that have nothing to do with him. In such cases, it’s better to just say to yourself: “Today I didn’t get enough sleep again and I resemble a car that loses control on a slippery road, which means I should concentrate and be more careful when cornering!”
You can try to explain to teenagers: “Now I am completely and completely absorbed in work, I am very tired and, probably, that is why I am angry with you more often than usual. However, my condition does not at all indicate that I have stopped loving you. Believe me, it has nothing to do with you at all! "
Talk to your child more often, trust him more! Remember that irritation causes guilt not only among parents, but also among those to whom it is directed, according to the principle: "If my mother is angry with me, then I am bad, I am not worthy of love!" In the future, all this can lead to an unjustified decrease in the child's self-esteem. In addition, many children and adolescent problems parents begin to explain by the fact that once they yelled at the baby, spanked him unfairly, were unjustifiably harsh with him and as a result “pecked”.
This is not to say that any manifestations of our anger are completely safe, but the feeling of guilt generated by emotional outbursts prevents us from seeing the true reasons why a child grows up fearful, unbalanced or overly shy. Guilt distorts our awareness of cause and effect.
Generally speaking, children are very stress-resistant creatures. One-off outbursts of parental irritation most likely will not do much harm to their psyche, but systematic manifestations of discontent will almost certainly entail long-term negative consequences.
If you often find yourself annoyed, try changing something about yourself. At the same time, do not expect rapid changes: the process may well drag on for many months, or even years. If you managed to take even a small step in the right direction, since you were able to determine the nature of your irritability and have learned to control it at least a little, then a good start has been made. However, until the possibility of your emotional breakdowns is completely ruled out, you should often repeat to the child: “Mom always loves you, loves you, even when she is angry, even when she screams! She raises her voice simply because she has such a character, but at the same time she sincerely wishes you well. "
The little man is not able to comprehend these simple truths on his own. After all, we ourselves came to realize them only when we grew up. Don't wait that long! the child should explain everything in a calm environment. When the right words are found and pronounced on time, mother's or father's negative emotions will no longer, as before, poison and destroy their relationship with children.
To a certain extent, the splash of parental irritation can be compared with the safety function of a pressure cooker valve, which is absolutely necessary. It is only important to make sure that emotional outbursts do not cripple the child's psyche, do not destroy your relationship with him, do not undermine the calm and do not poison the friendly atmosphere in the family.
If your irritation was inadequate and you just wanted to let off the accumulated steam, and a child accidentally fell under your arm, then it's not a sin to ask him for forgiveness. Another thing is how often you have to apologize for your unmotivated outbursts. If breakdowns occur several times a day, such an apology will only indicate the inconsistency of your pedagogical position.
If you share your thoughts about your excessive irritability with your spouse, and possibly someone else, everyone will only feel better. The main thing in this situation is not to bend under the weight of inescapable guilt, not to indulge in self-hypnosis: "We get annoyed every now and then, and therefore, we are lousy parents, and nothing can be done about it!" In no case do not succumb to fruitless despondency and do not fold your hands helplessly! Remember, you cannot live without mistakes in family life, but it is important to track the dynamics of relationships. The very fact of realizing your own shortcomings and a firm intention to fight them indicate that you have entered the right path and, sooner or later, will certainly become the masters of the situation.
"Ladder of aggression"
The splash of parental irritation can, to a certain extent, be compared to the safety function of a pressure cooker valve.
Irritability can be driven deep inside by systematically redirecting it, avoiding sharp corners, and avoiding risky situations. However, in this case only the “tops” are cut off, while the “roots” remain intact. After waiting in fertile soil, they will give rise to new, even more powerful and poisonous shoots.
Sometimes, after we receive some useful information, there is a sharp improvement in family relations, followed by an equally rapid deterioration. Hopes give way to bitter disappointment: a scheme that seemed ideal and universal before suddenly does not work in your case. I want to warn you: here you are faced with a very common phenomenon. Don't count on daily and indispensable progress! The process of harmonizing the internal state can be characterized by the well-known formulation: "One step forward, two steps back." Only gradual, barely noticeable shifts can really change the situation for the better over time.
Remember some situation that seemed to inevitably throw you off balance, but for some reason this did not happen and you managed to stay on the edge without slipping. Out of your usual anger, you should have yelled at someone, and you just gritted your teeth, you should have been “supposed” to hit the plates on the floor, and you managed to do without excesses ... What happened is the result of your efforts, which should be sincerely rejoiced.
What to do, life teaches us to notice only our mistakes and failures, not celebrating even small, but nevertheless very significant victories. Unfortunately, the ability to gratefully rejoice in good things is not inherent in everyone. such a state requires a certain emotional culture, which we are deprived of.
By the way, in this respect, both adults and children are alike. Meanwhile, praise is a much more effective method than punishment, and encouragement is much more effective than punishment.
We find it difficult to praise anyone, including ourselves. With half a sin, we still manage to encourage children, but even this is not easy for us until we learn to give due to ourselves and our spouse. We have to make a decisive choice, deciding for ourselves once and for all: will we fix our attention on our successes or will we focus only on failures and failures. Whether we prefer to "nag" each other or try to support and inspire each other.
Fixation on shortcomings, accompanied by endless reproaches, is an endless field for cultivating anger.
Negative emotions that have accumulated as a result of everyday intra-family friction are spilled out without any apparent reason. At such moments, even some insignificant, but recklessly hasty phrase may turn out to be the “last straw”.
Among psychologists, the term "negative reinforcement" is common. Let me explain its essence using a simple everyday example. Let's say you come home from work, walk into the kitchen and find your husband trying to cook dinner for you. At the same time, you annoyed: “The vegetables for the salad are cut too finely (or, conversely, too coarsely), but the tea, dear, you brewed the wrong one! Is it so hard to remember that in the evenings I prefer green and weak? "
You have fixed your focus on flaws. This is the very negative reinforcement that inevitably leads to outbursts of anger and subsequent mutual alienation. Unfortunately, in our daily behavior, remarks, shouts, sarcasm and notation are the very tools with which we somehow prefer to work.
Usually, negative emotional reinforcement expresses all the discontent that has accumulated over the years for a variety of reasons. At the same time, the phrases we throw out casually often turn out to be much more significant than the reasons that caused them. In the end, family relationships reach that "point of no return" when they no longer satisfy both spouses.
* * *
Let us reflect on our desire not to thank and praise, but to be ironic about each other. Let's think, did something similar happen in the families in which we grew up? "I copy my mom, although I never imagined that I would do it!" - we usually come to such a disappointing argument sooner or later. Between the second and tenth year of the family's existence, almost every couple goes through a period of re-enactment of the parenting scenario, and it is almost impossible to completely avoid this.
When eldest daughter I was one year old, I was finishing my studies at the university and I thought that I knew almost everything about infancy and motherhood. However, later I was surprised to realize that with each child I know less and less. And indeed, with the birth of each subsequent baby, you become increasingly aware of relativity. teaching experience, because what is optimal for one is absolutely unacceptable for another. Gradually, I came to understand: education as such does not exist, there is just life in a family with children. It can be more or less bright and happy, more or less difficult or easy.
Living next to children is always very interesting, albeit troublesome. It happens that you want to sleep terribly. Sometimes you are ready to kill everyone. But it’s never boring! Little by little, they educate you, and you, in turn, try to educate them. And it's not about "who will win"; it's just that over time, people who influence each other become not quite the same as they were originally.
The family grows, and gradually we are convinced that this is not a mechanism, but an organism. The tree grows and develops, new branches appear ... But the children have grown up. And what about the parents? The most different changes... In fact, I have always been on their side - parents are people too ...
Over the past twenty years, I have mainly dealt with the problems of parents and children - both professionally and personally, as a family. Over the years, eleven children were born in our family, I have written fifteen training and lecture-practical programs. About ten years ago, when the women with whom I worked as a psychologist began to get pregnant for the second time and came with questions related to the relations of children in the family, the lecture "Second Children" was born. As time went on, new children were born and grew up, and the course "Psychology of Interaction" appeared, which consisted of five lessons. Subsequently, magazine articles began to appear reflecting on the most frequently asked questions. A lot of such materials have accumulated.
Almost all those with whom we once started together are now parents with many children. Some families broke up, and such news shocked me - how is this possible? After all, everything began so well! But it turned out that one of the most popular (unfortunately!) Topics of conversations with a consulting psychologist is directly related to the problems of divorce. It became more and more obvious: the family is not just a social organism, but an extremely complex, multi-layered and polyphonic organism.
In the life of any family, various types of inheritance are intricately intertwined. Not always optimistic family scenarios created by previous generations are embodied, "gives in to the heat" childhood experience, the experiments of early youth leave their mark ... How does all this affect us, parents? Can we change something? How do relationships develop in a viable family?
However, these scribbled pages are only an intermediate result, and not at all a result. It may well be that in five or ten years my views on some or even on many issues may change.
I was lucky: I had soulful and very experienced guides. I would like to express my gratitude to Yulia Postnova - a wonderful midwife, as well as to the wonderful, thinking and loving to learn parents - members of the parenting clubs "Christmas", "Revival" and "Jewel", who took an active part in my seminars, and especially to those who wrote down and took notes - to Natalya Tagiltseva, Olga Dorofeeva, Svetlana, Alexey and Evgenia Belov.
Thanks to the Rozhdestvo club, on the basis of which most of my seminars were held, its sensitive administrators Lena Ermolaeva, Zoya Sergeevna and Irina Samusikova, far-sighted and wise leaders - Lena Davidenko, Natasha Rymarenko, Asya Kryachko, as well as correspondents of the magazines Menu-Magazin , "Neskuchny Sad" and "Large Family", who selflessly fiddled with my interviews.
Thanks to Alla Germanova, Ekaterina Polyakova and Yaroslav Simakina, who helped me in transcribing the lectures.
I am especially grateful to the people who read the texts and contributed to the creation of this book.
My family, without which nothing would have happened, exceptional gratitude! I thank all of them for being there!
Introduction
All parents really want everything to be good with their children. And the field of special responsibility and anxiety is precisely the relationship between children. If the family has more than one child, parents consider it their global task to make everything wonderful between brothers and sisters. Often it doesn't work out as well as you want it to. On this occasion, the greatest number of questions arise from those who grew up as an only child, who had no experience of being an older or younger. Sometimes questions arise for those who grew up with brothers and sisters, but the relationship was not ideal, or there were moments that now, with their children, I want to fix, settle in a different way, differently than their own parents did.
Our childhood experiences with siblings play a decisive role in shaping our parenting position. After all, children are by no means a blank sheet of paper. Their birth is associated with our fears, expectations and dreams, with the hope that we will be able not to repeat the mistakes of our parents. Therefore, thinking about how to optimally build relationships between two (or more) of your offspring, you need to thoughtfully analyze the past - both the experience of the husband and the experience of the wife. However, if your childhood memories are far from ideal, it is important that they do not intimidate you or interfere with your own parental intuition.
While waiting for the second child, you can change and fix a lot. I would only know how ... Unfortunately, not so many modern parents have this intuitive knowledge, because according to statistics, single-child families dominated in Soviet times. People who grew up in them have no idea what it would be like to raise several children.
Some mothers and fathers, even before the birth of their second child, precisely, in small things, imagine how they will arrange life with their children, how they will spend the weekend and where the toys will be. It seems to such parents that the second child is a completely normal phenomenon. As a rule, at least two children grew up in the families of their parents.
And there are spouses who, expecting a second child, begin to be tormented by doubts: are we doing the right thing? Will we pull it out? Will the elder be deprived of our love and attention? Oh, how many such questions haunt some fathers and mothers! Most often they were the only children or grew up in dysfunctional, so-called dysfunctional families.
Psychologists know the phenomenon of "family programming". The child captures in his memory the life style of the parental family in full and in all details. Let's say that mom and dad had two children, which means that this is the number that corresponds to the norm. And if only one child grew up in the family, then conversations of this kind begin: "Reasonable people do not give birth to a second ...", or: "Children are so hard, I have difficulty alone ...", or: "As I imagine, that you will have to go through all this again ... "
How many of them are unwanted, rejected by grandparents: “Well, think for yourself, why do you need a second one? Just started to live like a human being! .. "It is not easy to neglect such" parental orders ". By doing the right and natural, in general, thing - giving birth to a second child - you will definitely feel guilt, even if it is irrational. You definitely need to do something with this feeling so as not to pass it on like a baton to the next generations.
First you need to deal with your own expectations: the second child - who is he for you? An improved and augmented copy of the older one? An attempt to correct the mistakes made? Or maybe this time you are expecting a child of a certain gender? Or is the older one bad with mathematics, and since there are all "techies" in the family, then someone is needed corresponding to the tradition? What expectations are you going to burden your second unborn child with? I can say with confidence: all of them can seriously complicate the life of your baby.
So what to do in order not to complain later: “Oh, time has passed ...”?
If you really think you’re doing something terrible by deciding to have a second child, do your best to adjust your attitudes before the baby is born. Otherwise, many of your actions will turn out to be inadequate, since they will be the result of false attitudes. You can fix the situation like this:
1. Analyze examples of the behavior of brothers or sisters who mentally traumatized you at one time and still burden your memory with a heavy burden.
2. Try to determine from an adult's point of view why such behavior became possible and what mistakes, voluntarily or involuntarily made by adults, contributed to the development of your relationship in a negative scenario.
3. Be sure to forgive your parents and brothers and sisters if you haven't done this before!
Parents, who in childhood were the only children themselves, have much more questions and fears when a second child appears. For a long time they do not let go of the feeling that they are doing something irreparable, depriving the first-born of love and attention, and that the task facing them is virtually impossible.
If you are one of these parents and are afraid of not coping with several children, go to homes where at least two or three are brought up, and make sure that your fears are groundless.
The problem also lies in the fact that the only child who became the parent of two children is an obvious violator of the traditional family scenario, which means that his fear can be fueled by grandparents who evaluate their experience as the only true one.
Such parents should constantly tell themselves that in fact a normal family, not burdened by any force majeure circumstances, presupposes the presence of at least two children. In addition, it is much more difficult to raise and socialize an only child than several. Of course, this anxiety will come back to you more than once or twice. It is like dust - you wash it, it settles again, you wash it again ...
But now you have made up your mind and want the relationship of your children to be good. To do this, you need to clearly understand, as far as possible, and not set yourself unrealistic tasks. One of the goals of the book is to show how much you can regulate relationships between children, how much you can improve them.
Very often, the relationship of our children puzzles us. We want to make them better, but sometimes we just get stuck: every now and then there are situations that we have never encountered, which we did not know about, about to become parents. And there is no one to ask. And the peculiarity of Russian-language literature on education is such that, unfortunately, very few books have been written that would tell how to raise brothers and sisters, what peculiarities arise when there is more than one child in a family. And if more than two, then this is generally terra incognita. And there is nowhere to gain experience, there is no one to find out how it is possible, there is no one to ask how it happens - we are disconnected, we do not communicate a lot with other people, especially with families in which several children are growing.
In this book, I share my experience of how unexpected and ambiguous episodes in the behavior of brothers and sisters can be, how parents should behave in a given situation.
Now I would like to talk about the structure of the book.
The chapters "We are waiting for the new one", "Getting used to the new one" and "The new one at home" will be most useful to those families who are either expecting an addition, or the baby has already been born, but he is not yet two or two and a half years old, that is, the relationship between the children is only developing ... I will tell you how, literally month by month, step by step, the relationship between brothers and sisters develops, what new moments appear, what should not be missed, what can be predicted, what mistakes should be avoided.
This is not to say that the first three chapters are not at all relevant to those with older children. Oddly enough, very often the root of the problems that exist in the family today is not even how life was arranged yesterday, but how life was arranged the day before yesterday, namely, in the very first months after the birth of a new child ... This part of the book can also be useful in reverse, that is, in hindsight: to review the experience of the first year of the relationship between two children - not in order to lament and develop complexes in oneself, but to understand what can be corrected in hindsight.
Chapter 4, “Brothers and Sisters Growing,” is especially useful for families with a second child at least two years old. It is also good to read it ahead of time, when the baby is just born, in order to imagine what prospects await you and what strategic planning is possible.
The fifth chapter "When the third is born" is relevant to families regardless of the age of the first two older children.
This book is not a universal recipe. This is my point of view, my opinion based on own experience and education, from the experience of reading books, articles, from the experience of other families, which I have consulted for almost two decades. If something does not suit you, it is, in general, good, and disagreement can and should be expressed.
I will be glad if the result of reading the book will be an idea of when children can be expected to cooperate (i.e. that they will cooperate, cooperate, be friends), and when this can not be expected and even be ready for the opposite behavior.
An important result will also be an understanding of what type of difficulty are those situations that you face, because of what your “favorite” clashes, your normative conflicts, occur in your particular family. We will deal with general cases, and it’s good if your specific cases fall under these descriptions, that is, you will be able to distinguish groups of conflicts, groups of difficulties and, accordingly, react in a more balanced way.
Chapter 1
We are waiting for the new one
Second pregnancy: how to work and how to rest
When you are pregnant for the first time and the whole family is eagerly awaiting the birth of their first child, the undivided attention of your husband and relatives is guaranteed. The spouse rushes about with you like with a crystal vase, blowing off dust particles from you. But now the baby was born, grew up a little, and your family is already expecting a second child - a brother or sister for the first. What difficulties and peculiarities can a pregnant woman and her whole family face this time?
The first pregnancy from the second (and from all subsequent ones) is radically distinguished by the lack of time and the inability to control oneself. The entire space of the house is occupied by the firstborn, all the strength and attention of the mother, and often also of the fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers and nannies, is entirely devoted to him. The first child may require endless care.
Taking a close look at a second pregnancy requires a lot of effort. It seems to you that you do not have a minute to complete a special complex gymnastic exercises, squeeze your juice, go to the pool or take another break. But the one who is within you is also a person! Remember: by taking care of yourself during pregnancy, you are actually caring about the baby you are carrying, about his health and the stability of his psyche. In addition, making the necessary time for your specific needs, you gently, gradually prepare yourself, the first child and those close to the adoption of a new family member. After all, it will soon take time, and a lot! Months of pregnancy are a great opportunity for all households to "make room" a little, freeing up psychological space for a newcomer. And this should be done by unloading the mother, giving her a daily opportunity for an hour or two to feel not like the mistress of the house “on the job”, but just a pregnant woman.
Well, a woman needs to learn to plan her day and her week so that she has time for herself. You cannot save on it, but it should be devoted to gymnastics, leisurely walks alone, relaxing baths and thoughts of a new child. A day for which you are only tired and did not take care of yourself at all cannot be considered successful.
However, do not try again to enjoy idleness and freedom from knowledge. household memorable to you from your first pregnancy - you will not have so much free time even with the most perfect organization of the day! However, try to save a little energy and by the evening, by the time you put everyone to bed and redo the most necessary things, devote at least half an hour to immersion in your pregnancy. Do not be afraid to show weakness and helplessness, gratefully accept care from all family members, and first of all from your husband and child.
Often, in cases where it is a woman who initiates an increase in the family, or if a new pregnancy causes opposition from her neighbors, she has a desire to prove to everyone that she is coping with the situation and everything is under control. Because of this, the pregnant woman takes on so many responsibilities that she cannot deal with without overstrain. This may well lead to an unjustified waste of energy, which would be so useful after childbirth! During the second pregnancy, you need to learn to gently "provoke" respect to yourself from loved ones.
Do not try to be in time for everything and cope with all the responsibilities and affairs "on a solid five"! It will be useful for relatives to understand that not only a pregnant wife and mother should constantly take care of everyone, but she herself is a creature in need of attention, support, care and anxious attitude.
If relatives are negative
In families that have raised only one child each, there is an idea that more than one is already a lot. And although for demography this is a real catastrophe, and the state is forced to spend a lot of money on correcting the situation and increasing the birth rate, one-child grandparents often remain unshakable: “You already have one wonderful child, why do you need another? Children will be jealous of each other, quarrel and even fight! "
The following words may also sound: "Do the second yourself, we will not be able to love him as ardently as the first."
Conversations of this kind can pretty much spoil the nerves of a pregnant woman. Remember: usually, when the second baby grows up a little, grandparents accept and love him no less than the first child! Moreover, according to numerous observations of psychologists, often one of the grandparent families "appropriates" one child, and the other - the second. Most often this is due to either external similarity, or with the similarity of abilities and talents.
The negative reaction to the news of a new pregnancy by both grandmothers and grandfathers is associated with one of the laws of family dynamics: a multigenerational family can react in this way to the news of the imminent birth of children if, as a result, there will be more of them than they themselves had. In other words, parents who have raised two children may not enthusiastically respond to the birth of a third child in the family of a son or daughter.
If the reaction of the older generation upsets you, try to spend as little as possible on thinking and discussing it. nervous energy, and most importantly, do not try to convince anyone! Life will certainly take its toll, and as soon as your youngest has his first achievements, grandparents, who recently did not want to hear about him, will proudly show their friends photos of the baby and exclaim with delight: "Look, what a wonderful grandson we have!"
Relationship to husband
The imminent birth of a second child is not only a great and long-awaited joy, but also a significant new load on the marital subsystem of the family organism.
Not so long ago, the process of adaptation of spouses to each other was completed, an unwritten agreement arose on the division of their roles and the distribution of responsibilities. The marital dyad has finally turned into a parental triad: "dad - mom - child." The birth of another family member is a new challenge, a new height that you have to take together.
A second pregnancy can and should be seen as a respite. The period when one baby has already grown up, and the other has not yet been born, should be used to strengthen the relationship between you adults. During the months of pregnancy, a mother should not try to give her first-born in advance everything she can - he already received more than necessary. But husbands are often abandoned. The wife develops a new sphere of motherhood, becomes an expert on issues related to upbringing, development, treatment and education, and the spouse is left with only crumbs, leftovers ...
During the second pregnancy, you need to try to compensate for the lack of caring for your husband, because then again it will not be up to him. Babies inevitably divert virtually all of a woman's attention to herself. While you are still pregnant, let your husband feel that you care about him, that not only children are loved in your family. Then he will become your faithful ally and assistant, and not an offended workaholic.
Be sure to set aside at least one evening a week for a trip to visit, to a movie or to a cafe. The older child must learn that parents have the right to go somewhere without him, that they are not only dad and mom, but also husband and wife.
Ekaterina Alekseevna Burmistrova
Irritability. Parents who want to conquer anger
For those who want to build a happy family
Instead of a preface
Perhaps there are no dads and mothers who from time to time would not be annoyed by the behavior of their children, and at the same time, almost every parent thinks that in terms of anger he has no equal. Everyone else, in his opinion, gets irritated much less often, and perhaps never at all. In today's society, the notion prevails that a good parent should not be irritated with children. Such opinions can seriously poison the life of the family and interfere with the upbringing process.
Usually, irritation arises and accumulates in those situations when mom or dad is unable to correct the individual characteristics of the child's behavior, to cope with some kind of everyday situation.
If the usual ways to influence the situation are not enough, irritation is connected as a spare, albeit unnecessary battery. I have yet to meet people who enjoy their irritability.
Irritation should be viewed as a state of undoubtedly negative and, moreover, after the fact, causing feelings of guilt. In other words, irritation is not only unpleasant at the moment when you are at its mercy, it leaves behind an extremely unpleasant aftertaste. It is because of frequent outbursts of irritation that many parents, especially mothers, believe that they are bad, unsuccessful and incompetent.
How is parental irritation perceived by a child, especially a pre-school child? Shouting, threats and spanking are often seen by him as a manifestation of dislike. The mother gets angry and swears, and the child concludes that she is angry and does not love him at all.
Of course, with age, this view of things inevitably changes. A recent child, who still well remembers the irritability of his parents and his own resentments about this and once sincerely promised in his diary: “I will never, for nothing, shout at children, be angry and annoyed at them!” Becomes a parent himself. then comes the "moment of truth" for him, then comes the first, albeit superficial understanding of the reasons why father and mother seemed so cruel and unjust to him.
It turns out that the parents were not angry at all because they were angry and bad! They just got very tired, not coping with their countless responsibilities. however, understanding why mom and dad were angry, as a rule, does not become a vaccine against their own irritability. The idea that it is necessary to throw out everything sore and depressing is only partly true.
A family is a long-term project, over the course of decades, everything happens to it: some periods turn out to be relatively simple and almost cloudless, while others become a time of a real test of feelings for strength. That is why the exchange of information between spouses is so necessary.
It is no secret that many young families are initially forced to rent a house and only eventually acquire their own homes. In this case, the apartment may be more spacious or more modest, better or worse. Marital communication is built in a similar way: the ability to conduct confidential and sympathetic conversations about the most difficult issues does not always come immediately. During the courtship period, there is no need for this: the heads of the lovers are busy with completely different things. True communication is the prerogative of a mature family, whose members are well aware: each of them is a complex set of merits and flaws, which are in a constant and fierce struggle among themselves, where "the battlefield is the human heart." Communication skill is not a bonus attached to a marriage certificate, but the result of many years of painstaking and responsible work. However, it is the absence of this experience that gives rise to a large extent to spontaneous outbursts of destructive emotions.
Irritation is very similar to chronic allergies. At first, it is caused only by a certain number of very specific situations, but if we do not properly deal with our anger, over time the range of possible causes expands.
Chronic irritability can be compared to a morbid addiction to alcohol or the habit of spending evenings in front of the TV. You can compare it with playing sports - the more diligently we “pump” our muscles, the stronger they become, or with a traveler wandering through the desert: the more water he drinks, the more painfully his thirst overcomes.
The more often we experience irritation, the more compulsive it becomes to pour it out on someone. However, we all need to remember: you cannot get rid of negativity just by throwing it out. so you can only "feed" and "lull" him for a while. At the same time, irritation will hide and will only wait for the right moment in order to publicly declare itself with renewed vigor. This is one of the "anger traps".