Relationships between children and parents. Emergency psychological assistance. How to quickly establish a relationship with a child. Part 2. How to quickly establish a relationship with a child if the relationship is very damaged? There is an emergency tactic for this, which is recommended by psychologists from the website Vashe-Soznanie.ru.
Step one. A week of trusting your child.
Try to commit to one week of trust. Don't scold him for what he did or said. Start observing and noticing how he tries to do things on his own. Tell yourself that you trust your child to have enough self-esteem and independence to decide for himself what is best for him. Your child, no matter how old he is, will still remain a child for you, but already more mature. Your inaction and observation of the child’s behavior during this week of trust will be a kind of upbringing and teaching the child to trust himself. The main thing this week is to understand what your child really wants to receive from you: to be loved, dear, significant, or helpless, inept, weak? After all, it is one thing to worry about the fate of your child and quite another to show this concern at every step, controlling and actually not allowing him to live on his own. Key phrase that is advisable to repeat during the week of trust:
- A person can truly become an adult and independent person only when they trust him, and only in this case he is able to perform adult actions.
Your doubts about your child’s capabilities, manifested, in particular, in overprotection (after all, the weak need care!), undermines his faith in his own strength, makes him passive and helpless, and at the same time aggressive and distrustful. Sadly, most parents in our culture do not think about things like trusting their children, and often the thought of trusting their child sounds like a real revelation to them. Moreover, in relation to one’s own child there is often a certain amount of skepticism - “he is too vulnerable”, “she is not independent.” To at least partially get rid of these prejudices, take a look at the second step.
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Step two. Get your life in order.
Stop worrying about other people's lives and pay attention to yours. Finish those things that have been put on the back burner. Sometimes the heaviness of having to finish something develops into tension, which we unconsciously take out on others. Put your house in complete order and get rid of all unnecessary things. Old things are echoes of the past that pull back, not forward. Give yourself time to relax. Everyone has family problems, and they need to be solved, but this does not mean that we should forget about ourselves. Change your wardrobe, take care of your health, do what you have long wanted to do, but for some reason found excuses not to do it.
Step three. Be a role model for your child. Be a person who does not take, but gives resources!
How can a child become independent, reasonable, and independent if he has no one to follow as an example? How will he take care of his health and take care of his appearance if he does not see this in his family every day? We were all once little and wanted to be like someone, to admire someone. When you were a child, were these your parents? Or maybe it was some book hero or famous actor? You really liked the qualities that that person had, precisely because of them, you once wanted to be like him, these are resources. These qualities are manifested in actions. So if you notice that your daughter is being used by her friends and, moreover, you don’t like them, and you constantly tell your daughter: “Respect yourself and don’t communicate with these fools!” Think about how you communicate with friends and do you respect yourself? Do you love yourself? If not, gather your strength and willpower and start loving yourself. Show your child how to do it, rather than force it. He or she will definitely notice and appreciate it. Have you thought about it? Fine! Now ask yourself a question: How do you think your child would like to see you? This will be a great gift for your child. Your main educational goal is for your child to gain independence. And it may take place not in instructions and advice, but in the expression of support and approval on this difficult path.
Harmfulness is not a vice
If your baby begins to refuse to follow your instructions, do not rush to grab the belt.
Everything in its own way, everything contrary! “Seryozha, let’s go for a walk!” - "No I'm not going!" “Go have dinner, I made pancakes!” - “But I don’t like them!” Yes, I don’t like it, if I used to tremble with impatience, feeling the smell from the kitchen; and he was walking so hard that you couldn’t drag him home by your ears! In general, why did it suddenly become like this: to almost everything you say - “no”, “I don’t want”, “I won’t give it”...
Invincible Physiology
Yes, this is shocking, especially for young parents - their two-year-old just started to touch his mom and dad with meaningful speech, began to really communicate, and suddenly became such a hedgehog that he wouldn’t even handle it again. It seems that the main thing for him now is to go against it.
And, you know, this is completely normal, your child is developing correctly and naturally. It is by the age of two that the baby’s brain begins to quickly mature - the left hemisphere, which is responsible for analytical thinking, begins to manifest itself more actively, he begins to become aware of himself, control his speech, and his “I” is formed. The kid thinks he can handle everything.
At this age, children begin to need not only care, but also recognition of their independence and the right to their own point of view and line of behavior, which, of course, seems funny and absurd to an adult. Therefore, we continue to do what we did before - to control their every move and over and over again run into growing resistance and demands for independence.
The child is carried away, absorbed in his new state, and due to weak willpower, he, while having difficulty switching from one activity to another, may simply not understand speech addressed to him. The child has no intention of tyrannizing you on purpose; he simply may not have enough attention to listen to you or the moral strength to obey. So, we can say that kids at this age are sometimes capricious not because they want to achieve a certain goal, they simply cannot cope with their stubbornness.
But what can you do - physiology!
From stubbornness to caring
Which, however, can develop into a character trait. Indeed, despite the inevitability of physiological processes, traits of stubbornness manifest themselves with particular force in children who are proud and at the same time active and energetic by nature. Such children at the “age of stubbornness” need special understanding and support. The main thing for you is not to waste time on trifles, to set priorities correctly.
Try to give your children as much freedom as possible during this time. If he’s such an “adult,” let him, so be it, put on different colored mittens, since he really wants it, and see how the guys in the yard react to it. Do not interfere with him putting the book on the ball while putting away the toys - it will fall to the floor even without your instructions. It is worth interfering only when it comes to the safety of a child trying, say, to run down the stairs two steps like an adult. I will say more: you can try to turn moments of stubbornness to the benefit of the baby.
A friend’s daughter suddenly got tired of washing her hands before eating; no amount of stories about germs helped. She made a decision and stubbornly walked past the washbasin and straight to the table. And a friend managed to solve this problem precisely through the child’s desire for independence. She asked the girl to wash her hands... for her mother. And Natasha did it with pleasure, washed better than herself, and even helped dry her hands. It is clear that after such care for her parents, the girl no longer needed to be called upon to practice hygiene. Along the way, it also became clear that the desire for independence easily turns into a desire to take care of others.
And mine once became stubborn and did not want to leave the street for anything, despite the fact that she was clearly tired. And then I was lucky - a magnificent collie, clearly not from our area, walked past, along with its owner. “Listen,” I told Nastya. “Let’s run home and tell dad who we saw!” The daughter rushed as fast as she could to the house to share her impressions. When she grew up, the classic technique, called “Switching Attention” in the literature, unfortunately, stopped working...
Children's stubbornness will overcome itself - if you use the same desire for independence that lies at the basis of this quality.
Stubborn parents
Contrasting a child’s stubbornness with an adult’s stubbornness is not only futile, but harmful and, in my opinion, dishonest. Under no circumstances should parents become involved in a fight with their children, because in every fight there are winners and losers. Kids, of course, will not defeat their parents, but for the latter... Do you really like to feel cooler than the little one?
And do you have enough flexibility and imagination to switch the little person to something interesting for him, corresponding to the magical game world in which he lives? Do you know how to distinguish the shades of relationships based on the child’s temperament (do you feel it at all?), or do you only need his subordination? Evaluate your behavior towards your baby. Are you humiliating him?
And the strangest thing is that you compensate for these impulses, perhaps feeling guilty for being too strict, by excessively pampering, petting your son or daughter. At these moments you forgive them everything, remove all prohibitions. And after this, are you still surprised that he stubbornly, without moving away from the shelf, demands some kind of toy from it? Your inconstancy is categorically incomprehensible to the child. Why was it possible to watch a cartoon until 10 pm yesterday, but not today? He will continue to insist on his own until infinity...
Keep in mind that if you go too far with prohibitions, you risk damaging the child’s psyche.
And, quite possibly, you will soon begin to complain not about the baby’s stubbornness, but about his timidity and difficulties in relationships with peers. Your child has lost self-confidence; along with stubbornness, you have “thrown out” his independence. The figure is
2.5 years - this age marks the peak of children's stubbornness.
In the fight against stubbornness:
- do not try to instill anything in your child, scold him - this will excite him even more;
- be persistent with your child; if you say “no”, stand your ground;
- exclude from your arsenal rude tone, harshness, the desire to “break with the power of authority”;
- do not resort to the help of strangers: this is all the child needs - hysteria and capriciousness require an audience.
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Step four. Patience is golden.
Don't expect an outward change in your behavior to immediately affect your child's behavior. After all, during a damaged relationship, the child found a lot of defenses from your guardianship - simply turning a deaf ear to everything or not noticing you and your life at all. But even if changes happen right away, they most likely will not be noticed or appreciated by you and your child. Because, as I mentioned above, habits and stereotypes play too much importance in the relationships of close people, which do not allow them to sensitively grasp what is happening in the other. But this week of emergency relationship building with your child should be decisive for you.
Step five. Break down barriers of mistrust!
Another name for this step would be an action of trust. This step is appropriate to use when there is some disagreement (barrier) in your relationship, which serves as a reason for numerous quarrels and conflicts. For example, you do not allow your daughter to be friends with a guy who seems suspicious to you. Or you constantly scold your son for wanting to take an academic degree. Then an act of trust on your part will consist of a “public” withdrawal (capitulation) of a demand or prohibition that has been put forward for a long time, for example: “I thought and decided that whether or not to quit school is, after all, your own business, you are an adult.” , you can quite decide for yourself. I won’t say another word to you about this” or “In the end, this is your personal life, you know him better, meet him whenever you want.” If one of the problems was a ban on going somewhere, arriving too late, etc., then lifting it would also be such an act of trust. It is important that this does not look like a handout on your part or a demonstration of the principle “Do as you know!”, but rather as a manifestation of trust, as evidence of a different, more mature and respectful attitude towards the child’s personality. Of course, an act of trust will be such only if, having declared something, you will never back down from your decision.
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Step six. Talk about your own feelings and experiences.
Any psychologist will recommend this to you and I am no exception. This task is somewhat more difficult, if only because before you begin to express your feelings, you need to try to understand them yourself. Therefore, it would be better if you make an appointment with a psychologist yourself. On the Vashe-Soznanie.ru website, a psychologist will carry out special work aimed at identifying what is hidden behind your child’s behavior. When working with you, the psychologist will not go into “psychoanalysis” of your feelings. At the psychological consultation, we will talk about you, your needs, the child’s behavior, your desires and visions of how you would like to correct the situation and how you lead an ideal relationship with your child. Then work will begin to realize your desires and change your behavioral tactics. Your anxiety about a bad relationship with your child will decrease significantly during psychological work. Thus, your important behavioral change is a reorientation from constant control to the manifestation of your own feelings and experiences associated with the child, the inadequate expression of which, in a sense, is overprotection. This goal, at first glance, seems completely simple. This means that after working with a psychologist, your thinking should partially change and instead of “Don’t you dare think about leaving college!” you will be able to say “I’m so afraid that you will ruin your whole life if you quit studying. At one time, everyone advised me to finish my dissertation, but I had just gotten married, there was absolutely no time, and in the end I was left with nothing, and I’m terribly afraid that this will happen to you too.” It might not seem like much of a difference, but it’s surprising how difficult it can be to simply complete the phrase “I feel like...”. Expressing your own feelings can be very effective in resolving a situation, because sometimes it is precisely because you rarely express your own feelings to anyone or are analyzed, so the feelings and experiences of others also remain incomprehensible to you or are interpreted quite primitively: “He acts to spite me,” "She doesn't understand anything." But as soon as you are able to reveal your feelings to another - in this case, your own adult child - your feelings, perhaps the child’s experiences will also be revealed to you; and, having understood them, you may no longer feel the need to control or worry about anything (everything may not be so scary: the child is not too passive, friends are not so promiscuous, etc.). During a conversation with a psychologist, you will not only discuss the problem of feelings, but also talk about why it is so necessary to share them with others. A psychologist will help you feel what it means to express them.
The child takes an example from you
- It is useless to demand something from a child if you yourself do not know how or do not want to do it. This applies to everything: from politeness to everyday matters. If you always say hello, thank them for their help, and are friendly with others, then there is a high probability that your child will not have to teach this.
- The same applies to order in the house. Don’t rush to quickly remove all the toys from the floor yourself, but involve your baby in this from early childhood. It doesn’t matter that he does it slowly, the main thing is the desire.
- The child hears everything you say about other people, so learn to resolve conflict situations without his presence. Otherwise, one day he may tell your mother-in-law something unflattering that you recklessly said to her.
- Such methods are especially effective and important during the period of preschool education of children, when your authority is almost indisputable.
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Step seven. How to successfully talk to your child about problems. How to organize a confidential conversation?
Changing relationships is an unusually complex process; in order to solve such a problem yourself, you need to have internal strength or resources. If you don’t feel like that in yourself and think that you’re at a dead end, it would be appropriate to consult with a psychologist on the website Vashe-Soznanie.ru. In any case, a confidential conversation with a child is important - whether you make an appointment with a psychologist or not. The purpose of such a conversation is to show the son or daughter that the attitude towards him (her) has changed, to try to reach a level of deeper contact and interaction than before, talking about yourself, about your feelings and experiences, which are based on parental concern, anxiety and love for the child. Such a conversation, in which both you and the child have the opportunity to repent of your “sins”, open your soul a little, get rid of accumulated grievances and claims, can turn out to be a real milestone in your relationship. Of course, a psychologist from the Vashe-Soznanie.ru website can set you up for such a conversation using special techniques.
