HOW TO RAIS A CHILD HAPPY AND NOT BECOME UNHAPPY YOURSELF? HAPPINESS IS NEAR, BUT... It is commonly said that with the birth of a child, happiness appears in the house. Of course it is. The long-awaited little bundle makes the heart clench with happiness, and sometimes breathing stops completely with delight. Often a mother begins to live the life of a child, her interests end up somewhere on the margins. And this is where there is a fear of becoming unhappy yourself. Not that she's completely unhappy. Mother's happiness remains, but sometimes some small joys that used to make up happiness disappear from life. MOTHER TAKES CARE OF THE BABY, AND WHO WILL TAKE CARE OF MOM? Children's playground. There is a very elegant baby in the stroller. New branded jeans, a shirt, even children's booties and sneakers. He definitely doesn’t need sneakers yet, since the baby hasn’t even begun to learn to walk. But they certainly create an image. Mom is nearby. Proud of the baby, but as if a little dissatisfied with something. With what? It turns out that my mother used to regularly buy herself new things. This was her entertainment. And now the mother feels that she must do everything for her son, because she is a mother. That's why she buys half of Children's World's things. What is this mother's mistake? She feels that she owes her child too much. But she already does everything that is needed for the baby. She loves him. She cares about him. But she should not live only for the sake of the child, she should not, for example, buy him too expensive things to the detriment of herself. Why does the mother do this? For some reason she needs to show others and herself that she is a good mother. Maybe because her mother periodically repeats: “You are a mother now, you must forget about yourself”... And returning to the title. Who will take care of mom? First of all, she herself! 2. HAPPINESS IS NOT IN TOYS...Modern parents are children of the eighties and nineties. They didn’t have an abundance of toys, and the store shelves were empty... How you want to catch up, play enough yourself, give your child everything you didn’t have. What is the result? I know one wonderful, caring mother whose son has more than two hundred cars. All these cars stand neatly in orderly rows on shelves. Can you imagine how much work it takes for mom to constantly keep these shelves in order? She wipes off the dust, endlessly washes the cars, carefully arranges them on the shelves again and again... This takes a lot of time... Another mother is very upset that her son hardly plays with toys, although in the store he constantly tearfully asks to buy him more and more new ones . Indeed, the boy plays with new toys for a maximum of one or two days, and then forgets about them. At home, toys are stored in huge boxes. The boy plays like this. He turns out an entire box of toys or even two on the floor, rummages through them and loses interest. He gets bored quickly. In the evenings, the problem of cleaning always arises and the unhappy mother first unsuccessfully tries to force her son to put away the toys, and then collects the toys herself, simply pouring everything into a box... Do you know what this is like? Sophie Kinsella has a series of novels about a shopaholic. Becky buys everything, getting great pleasure from the process. But she loses interest in the new thing almost after paying for it. A very revealing episode is in which she promises her husband to wear each of her clothes three times. And when Becky starts clearing out her closets, it turns out that she has hundreds of things that have never been worn. She doesn’t even remember when and why she bought them... The same thing happens with this boy. He doesn't remember what toys he has because there are too many of them. He doesn't play with them because it's difficult for him to choose a toy from the variety. And that is why he wants to have more and more new toys. A vicious circle: hysterics in stores, daily quarrels over cleaning. But a child only needs a small number of toys. The main thing is that they are stored in such a way that the child always knows where which toy is and can get it on his own. After all, if a child wants to find somespecific thing and knows that it is in one of these ten huge boxes or on the balcony, or maybe in the closet or in the garage, then he simply does not have enough strength to find the toy. But if a child knows that the toy he needs is on a specific shelf, then even a two or three year old child can be taught not only to take what he needs, but also to put the thing back in its place immediately after playing. And then mom won’t have to spend time on endless cleaning every day. Happiness doesn’t come from toys... But what is it? For a child, first of all, happiness is in having the opportunity to play with these toys, so that they are conveniently located, so that the child knows where each toy is. These conditions cannot be satisfied if there are too many toys. 3. SHOULD A MOTHER...A very responsible grandmother kept telling her daughter: “Children should definitely eat fresh food”! And her daughter, a good but unhappy mother, cooked four different dishes a day. Every day. Because she knew for sure that the child should not eat yesterday’s soup... What will happen to the child if he eats yesterday’s soup for lunch? Nothing bad. But my mother will definitely become a little happier, because she will have a free minute. And this mother also cleaned the apartment every day at night, washed and ironed clothes, and washed the dishes. Why at night? Because she was a very, very good mother who, as we already understood, obeyed her mother. And her mother regularly said: “Everything needs to be done when the child is sleeping.” Why? Because when the child is awake, you need to study with him, play, read... Even during quiet hours, this unfortunate mother did not know peace. After sleep, she and her son usually engaged in various creative activities. And so she spent the entire quiet hour cutting out blanks for appliqués, kneading dough for modeling, that is, fully preparing for classes. All this activity seriously complicated my mother’s life. And the question arises: should a mother completely devote herself to communicating with her child and his interests? This is probably a rhetorical question... Because all of the above can be done together with the child, because children love to do everything “like mother”... 4. WHAT IS INTERESTING FOR MOTHER? Do things with your baby that are interesting to you. Then your child will also be interested. I remember my mother, who really did not like to sculpt. As soon as she picked up the plasticine, she immediately began to get irritated. The very viscous consistency of the plasticine, the fact that it smeared disgustingly on her hands, was already driving her crazy. However, she was a very responsible mother. Every day she and her daughter did some kind of creative work: drawing, appliqué, modeling, crafts, etc. It seemed to her that a child should definitely engage in a variety of activities. And she endured it bravely. Moreover, she looked for more and more new modeling schemes and brought them to life together with the child. And my mother herself loved to embroider. But she never had enough time for her hobby. And it was a revelation for her when a friend, to whom she complained, advised her to embroider with her daughter instead of modeling. “Why are you doing modeling with your daughter?” asked a friend. “Well, modeling develops fine motor skills, teaches how to work with a diagram, and the child’s color senses develop,” the mother answered. “But all this develops with the help of embroidery, and you like this activity,” my friend retorted. And it was almost a shock for the mother, who tried to overcome herself and do what she didn’t like for the sake of her daughter. And they began to embroider together. These were truly wonderful hours that the daughter and mother spent together. 5. WAITING... HOW TO BREAK IT UP. Strange title. Incomprehensible. Do mothers have time to wait? What's the expectation? Moms don't have enough time. But no, dear mothers. Almost all of you, almost every day, wait for an hour, or even more, for your children, sitting in the corridor of a development center, the lobby of a swimming pool, a music school, or on the stands of a skating rink. This is not the first year I have been observing expectant mothers. Do you know what I noticed? Most of them gather in groups and talk... about nothing.Why nothing? Because they are strangers who met by chance. And they talk to each other more out of boredom than out of interest. Mom might have read it or knitted it, but in a hurry there was no time for that. It was necessary to collect the child, give him a uniform, notebooks, a change... But the mother did not have time to think about herself. No time. But what if you still take care of yourself? Should I take a book or craft with me? Or should you swim yourself in the pool while your child is studying? Or just take a walk in the park alone? Do something you haven't done for a long time? 6. DO YOU NEED TO RUN AHEAD OF THE STEAM LOGO? Have you seen mothers with children on a walk, in a museum, or a zoo? They are often in a hurry to show the child everything they have planned, they rush him. And the child? Entering the museum for the first time, the child becomes shy and looks around, amazed by the splendor and power of what he sees. Sometimes he freezes in the hall. He needs to realize, understand, feel what he saw. And mom is in a hurry. It seems to her that it is stupid to stand in the hall, she needs to quickly go into the halls and look, look, look. And the child looks at it anyway. I remember my youngest son’s first trip to the Russian Museum. He was about a year old and visiting the museum took us exactly 20 minutes. The eldest managed to show him his favorite hall: we looked at paintings by Aivazovsky and “The Last Day of Pompeii” by Bryullov. And they went out to the indignant muttering of the eldest son, who demanded to go see Kuindzhi... And at the zoo? Parents first of all take their children to look at exotic, rare animals: polar bear, giraffe, rhinoceros, elephant. And the child freezes in front of the cage with the bunny, staring at the ducks, although he has seen them in the park many times... What happens to the mother at this moment? She understands that they don’t go to the zoo every day; she wants to show her child all the animals. The mother’s anxiety level increases, she begins to get nervous and hurries the child. Somewhere in the depths of my soul, if I voice my mother’s concern, it will be something like: “We drove an hour here and bought an expensive ticket not to look at the ducks that swim in the pond next to our house.” And mom becomes unhappy again...And how to become happy in this case? Not easy. It’s not at all easy to let go of the situation and look at it philosophically. The child is happy, he looks at what he wants. Why not enjoy the sight of your happy child now? 7. IS IT TERRIBLE TO QUIT WHAT YOU STARTED? Actually, in our society, people who quit unfinished tasks are not highly valued. But finishing things for an adult and for a child are different things. An adult, starting a new business, is able to estimate how much effort he will need for this business, how long it will take. For example, we don’t usually start baking a cake at night and don’t expect to be able to do the repairs in a couple of days... Children cannot estimate the amount of work, how labor-intensive it is. Especially if the initiative to do something does not come from the child. Namely, if the mother suggested that the child do some kind of creative work, say, an appliqué, then so far only the mother knows what the end result should be. Now imagine that you were offered to do something. But you don’t know how long it will take you to create a masterpiece, you don’t know what you will do in general. In this case, it is not surprising if you cannot finish what you started. We also must not forget that the result is important for parents, and the process is important for the child. The difference between adults and children is that parents are primarily results-oriented. They want to get a beautiful picture that they can hang on the wall, give to their grandmother, etc. But a small child is mainly interested in the process. He still doesn’t know how to work for results. The baby flattens a ball of plasticine with his little finger and gets pleasure from it. His parents suggest that he continue to work, that is, flatten the next ball, etc. But it was not there. The kid is pleased with himself; he happily performed the proposed action. Now he wants to understand what plasticine is, because it is a new material that!