And childhood has no past And maybe that’s why it’s so infinitely happy. L. Derbeneva "Childhood" (from the film Peter Pan) Starting point. The brightest time. A time of dreams and hopes. A time when it seems that everything can be done, that there is so much amazing stuff ahead and it will only get better. Time for new acquaintances, new discoveries. A space where everything is unusual, surprising, delighting. When the sky was higher, when the trees were big. What do you remember about your childhood? Associations, events, images, smells, people, buildings, places. What could be a resource for building further relationships in the adult world? Somehow it was customary to remember childhood with warmth, slight sadness and even nostalgia, as if for a country to which you will never return. Was taken. Many did this completely sincerely. Of course, in everyone’s childhood there were tears, misunderstandings, anger, frustration, and resentment. But for some reason you don’t get stuck on this too much, maybe you really force it out, but somehow you bear it easier, again, because you know that everything is ahead, everything will be different, you will fix everything, because the sea is knee-deep. But over the years you understand something and accept that it was worth going through it. And even negative experiences are valuable and can be no less a resource than positive ones. Thanks to the tears shed, in contrast, you remember better and more what is funny, amusing, and tender. And all this pushes us to new adventures... Lyrical digression. Now what am I talking about? Lately I have noticed a tendency among some professionals to exaggerate children’s problems, failures and difficulties. To exaggerate to such an extent that a person who even has pleasant memories of his childhood and his father’s house begins to doubt that he has the right to think so well about his childhood and parents. How does this happen? Firstly, there is now an opinion that the educational methods of past generations were incorrect. They humiliated the child’s dignity and prevented him from liberating himself, developing, and becoming a unique and free person. Now modern society and children in this society must be brought up differently. Consequently, if I was raised in the old way, then something is correspondingly wrong. Perhaps I would have developed more as a person, had fewer problems, if only... Secondly, the fatality of childhood events. “If this happened to you, then the consequences of it will ruin your whole life.” Or better yet, start blaming your parents for everything: “This didn’t work out for me because it’s your fault, you didn’t raise it that way.” And more and more often you can hear this not from a child of alcoholics, but from a child from a prosperous family. Well, yes, the parents didn’t take everything into account, they made a mistake somewhere, they raised them as best they could, but this “as best they could” was clearly better than an orphanage. No, you’re doing it wrong, think about whether your child will forgive you. What if he doesn’t forgive? Personally, my answer to this question: “And if he doesn’t forgive, then this is his personal desire to carry this garbage in his soul for the rest of his life. I don’t relieve myself of responsibility, but I’m not going to take on someone else’s.” In fact, children They are unforgiving and very easy-going, and there is nothing wrong with that. They have their whole life ahead of them. They are less stuck on the emotional garbage that adults love to get stuck on. This is precisely the great potential and resource of a child, which everyone should not lose, but carry from childhood throughout their lives. But some modern experts exaggerate the consequences of parents’ mistakes, planting and hammering home the idea that an adult is mercilessly wrong, and a child is infinitely defenseless. This is not an inaccuracy - it is a blatant lie. A parent can make mistakes just like a child can play pranks and not understand the first time; both have the right to do so. But right to the extent that both are ready to improve and grow so as not to fall back on the same rake 20 times. Normally, a mother, even when punishing and scolding her child, is ready to forgive and hold her to her heart within a minute. And the child is ready to forgive his mother, understandingintuitive level that she could be tired, sick, and in fact it was he who broke up and brought her to such a boiling point. And thanks to him, she, too, learns time after time to control herself and find a balance between maintaining order and discipline and adequately responding to disobedience. Maybe he will understand and forgive her later. (If in fact there is something to forgive for). Maybe it will only dawn on him at the age of 18: “Oh, how right mom was.” But their relationship is difficult to break, since they love each other and are attached to each other and are ready to close their eyes to many things and give each other the hundredth chance and continue to build relationships when they would no longer tolerate this with strangers. But now a supposedly smart person appears who begins to belittle the parent’s role in authority and increase the level of responsibility due to the mistakes of adult children. Sorry, but a person’s mistakes are his own, no matter if they are 5, 15, 25 or 85. You can look for someone to blame as much as you like, blame it on parents, school, state, but the essence of the matter does not change. Of course, the family leaves its mark, but it is only in our hands how we deal with the experience gained. This is our area of ​​responsibility. For example, a child had poor performance at school. Because of this, he was teased, and a teacher once spoke unflatteringly about his mental abilities. He also missed out on getting home from his parents, for another bad grade. You can believe for the rest of your life that you are a loser, get involved with a bad company and not find a normal job. And after all this, to think that everything didn’t work out only because everything went wrong in childhood. They didn’t understand me, they didn’t support me, me, me, me. Again, it is very convenient to blame your failure and failures on fatal childhood events. In one of Dr. Dobson's books* I found a description of an interesting study. It was conducted by Victor and Mildred Goertzel and was called "The Origins of Extraordinary Achievement." This study examined the conditions in which four hundred people spent their childhood years who had achieved great success in life. Among them were W. Churchill, F. Roosevelt, A. Einstein, Z. Freud and others. Based on this, the success of these people was precisely the result of the characteristics of their childhood, which was far from rosy and positive. For example, three-quarters of them experienced adversity in childhood (divorce, humiliation, physical disabilities, poverty, etc.). A quarter of those studied had physical disabilities. But it turns out that it was these factors that became the incentive and resource to achieve more in this life. We find similar scenarios in folk art. The stepdaughter, insulted by her stepsisters and stepmother, who piles difficult work on her, ultimately succeeds in completing the task, transitioning into adulthood and successfully organizing her personal life. And what is most interesting is that the stepsisters, in contrast to her story, do not cope with their tasks. Why? Because before this, everything was given for free, without effort and stress. I do not encourage parents to deliberately complicate their children’s childhood and treat them with disdain. But to protect from everything, including from ourselves, is also stupid. To protect themselves from themselves in the sense that now parents are offered a model of behavior whose functions are akin to those of a nanny. A detached educator who must provide care for the child's needs, create conditions for development, explain what is good and what is bad, but not use punishment to regulate discipline. This teacher is extremely balanced emotionally or is capable of exclusively positive emotions for praise and encouragement. He does not show even a shadow of severity or irritation. Everything sounds very nice in theory, but very rarely works in practice. Yet the relationship between fathers and children unfolds completely differently. Parents have the right to certain actions that others do not have the right to and can expect an attitude towards themselves that their children will never build with others. Sometimes mothers write to me who cannot build a relationship with their child. According to newThey do everything right according to pedagogical trends, but in the end the relationship lacks subordination and even the expected warmth. If the mother is not ready to build the child if necessary, the child builds her. Sometimes such relationships look prosperous on the surface, but in relation to their parents, children treat them like older brothers or sisters, maybe even like friends. But parent-friend relationships are not really normal for a family system. When parents are both parents and friends to their children, it is called a dual relationship. Dual relationships can be observed, for example, in a married couple, when the husband is the director, the wife is the executive. Or the mother is a teacher at school, the child is a student in her class. This can complicate relationships because, having family ties, it will be more difficult to resolve work issues. I will not dwell on this in detail, because... that's a completely different topic. Returning to our conversation, parents who insist that they are friends with their children either do not fully understand all the features of friendship, or introduce aspects into their relationship with their child that are completely alien to the parental relationship. For example, before a mother could throw a phrase to her daughter of the following nature: “You will talk to your girlfriend like that.” And she was absolutely right. Friendship relationships involve relationships as equals. They assume a certain level of communication and the depth of this communication. For example, again, a common option is when the mother goes into details of her personal life and experiences with her father or another man, and what not with details of a sexual nature. It’s clear that she won’t tell this to her five-year-old daughter, but she could easily tell her fifteen-year-old daughter. Frankness is expected in return for frankness. But children are very cunning creatures, at least the majority of them. And in the end, having received a dose of information from the parent, they, nodding their heads, are not at all going to go into the details of their personal life. Moreover, after such intimate conversations, some will not even ask what they normally could, and perhaps even intended to ask. Another option for the development of such relationships may be to treat the parent solely as a guardian. The child expects that a lot of things will be given and provided to him, without any intention of making his contribution to maintaining the relationship and being responsible for what he receives. A parent should, period. And very often this is how it is presented. We don't owe our parents anything. Yes, it's possible. You just owe it to your children later. But earlier, due to the fact that the child did not owe anything, because there was nothing to take from him, he occupied the corresponding position. If you can’t bear responsibility, you can’t offer anything in return, then you’ll sit as quiet as water. Your opinion is the last, treat those who lead the process with respect and learn for the future what to do and what not to do. Now everything is the same, only without the last point. Everyone owes you, and you also start to steer, as you need and as you don’t need. You have the right to this, because otherwise you will not grow up as a free person with your own opinion. The only deception is that the development of personal opinion does not depend on the encouragement of stubbornness, rebellion and arrogance. But some experts write this way. That it is rebellion or arrogance that will subsequently develop into firmness of intention, will, perseverance in achieving the set goal and, God forbid, this is broken by pulling the child back into place or punishment. Truly, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. It seems like what a lofty goal is being pursued, but what a crazy means is being proposed. Humanity is moving by leaps and bounds towards progress. Not only scientific and technological progress, but also progress in relationships, the family system, relations between the sexes. It moves, sweeping away everything in its path, without checking, without trusting past knowledge. Indeed, progress: children begin to be able to read earlier, but they do not begin to love reading. They learn more earlier, but they have less wisdom in building relationships and wise living. Parents strive to make relations with their children more democratic and free, but in the end these. 193