You came to visit, brought a little boy a gift. "What should I say?" - strictly reminds my mother. "Thank you," mutters his son. Having said this one "magic word", he seemed to settle with the guest. He seems to have no need to express gratitude now with a smile, with joy. The habit of politeness has become stronger, the ear of the heart has become dull ... A hundred or a thousand such exercises - and from this precious natural property there will be no trace.
It seems to me that not every child can simultaneously become accustomed to courtesy, and develop a heartfelt hearing. For the rules of politeness are just designed to make a person, for example, express gratitude, even if he does not feel it. Prematurely accustoming a son or daughter to express in words feelings that he does not yet experience, we can drown out these feelings forever ...
I will take the liberty of questioning one seemingly indisputable truth: is it necessary to teach the children of politeness?
Nothing, perhaps, does not outrage us as much as a polite, but heartless person. We know very well: there is not enough external culture, we need an internal culture.
But not everyone understands that these two types of culture, although they are united in one word, are phenomena completely different in nature. External culture - a set of habits, behavioral skills; At the heart of the culture of the internal is a certain mental ability, the same as memory, attention or musical ear. Her, this ability, can by analogy be called a hearty hearing.
You do not need to be an expert to notice: habits (skills) and abilities come to people in different ways. Skills are inculcated, abilities develop. The habit is associated with automatism, the ability - with a creative attitude to life. What is useful for the formation of habits is most often harmful for the development of abilities, and vice versa.
You came to visit, brought a little boy a gift. "What should I say?" - strictly reminds my mother. "Thank you," mutters his son. Having said this one "magic word", he seemed to settle with the guest. He seems to have no need to express gratitude now with a smile, with joy. The habit of politeness has become stronger, the ear of the heart has become dull ... A hundred or a thousand such exercises - and from this precious natural property there will be no trace.
It seems to me that not every child can simultaneously become accustomed to courtesy, and develop a heartfelt hearing. For the rules of politeness are just designed to make a person, for example, express gratitude, even if he does not feel it. Prematurely accustoming a son or daughter to express in words feelings that he does not yet experience, we can drown out these feelings forever.
Why do we, for example, force the child to say "thank you"? I think, more often than not, to look good in front of people, to show the breeding of a son or daughter.
The education of politeness is so similar to upbringing! But I'm sure: a true upbringing takes place if and only if we have to give even a drop of spiritual strength. However, you will agree: when teaching courtesy, we usually do not waste our souls, but our nerves are not the same at all. You can teach politeness without being a father or mother. And even - not loving the child. If Huck Finn had stayed with the widow Douglas a little longer, she would certainly have made him a polite boy too!
Even sensitivity - for example, the sensitivity of the seller to the buyer - can be significantly increased by conversation, reprimand and especially premium. Heart hearing does not respond to such influences. This is a rumor not on a word, but on a state. Therefore, all the usual methods of education - from persuasion to punishment - turn out to be unfit for the development of this ability, because they are calculated primarily on the word.
How can you develop a hearing in your child?
The task is much more complicated than mastering the words "thank you" and "please."
Mom learns the little son of an important concept - "impossible." He touched the hot, cries. Mom teaches: "See? It hurts! Listen, when mother says" you can not. "Otherwise it will hurt." And so - at every step: "You can not, fall!", "You can not break it!", "You can not, you catch a cold!", "You can not, the teeth will ache!" ...
But the true "can not" is not when you are hurt, but when it hurts another! Focus on the other, the feelings of the other - this is the first condition for the development of heart hearing. The family watches TV, the boy needs to pass by the screen - will he duck? Hurry up? So, with the son everything is all right: he feels the presence of other people, is afraid to prevent them. If it passes quietly, slowly, then the house is ripening trouble and it's time to collect a family consultation.
To the child has learned to feel another, it is necessary and in it to recognize this another. My mother decided to bring up hard work: "Give ... Bring ... Help ..." Teaches you to love: "I'm so tired ... Pity your mother ... Show me how you love your mother ... Who you love more - my mother or Dad? " What example does he see before himself from the first days of his life? In front of him there is always a man (yes such an authoritative one is Mom!), Who constantly complains, gets tired, needs help, can not go himself and take a thimble, does not consider it shameful to handle petty requests every minute. So, I, too, can complain, make it difficult for others, and if it hurts, loudly declare my pain - let mother suffer too!
I think in such a family the child will never understand: complaining to those who love you is unscrupulous. Do not obstruct people in anything, do not upset them with your troubles, do as much as possible yourself! This lesson should be taught by us, adults. Well, if we ask the child for anything, let's say to him not one thing, but ten "please" so that he can see how difficult it is to ask, to obstruct, but because he could not refuse the request. If we make a note to a child, we seem to correct his behavior, but sometimes we numb his heart-rumor.
Another, the feeling of another! Between the phrases of my father "I'm tired" and "Mom tired" - the watershed in education.
It is so difficult for children to unravel the state of another person, that many of them start thinking for no reason that their parents do not like them. We learn about these sufferings many years later ...
Yes, the ear of the heart initially deceives. And maybe, and does not deceive, maybe at some point we really did not like the child? .. We would be indignant if we were told about this, and he felt it.
It is easier for a child to understand the state of another person if he himself causes this condition. Do not bother the other - and try to please him. The first family concern is who and what will we give?
A female engineer told me about her two young children:
- I try to teach them to give. They will learn how to learn ...
And indeed, her four-year-old daughter comes with her mother to visit only with a gift in her hands: my mother managed to make it so that it's a pleasure for a girl to give, give and enjoy someone else's joy.
In our usual view, the heart person is primarily responsive to someone else's pain. People were living unhappily, and in the language there remained: "co-suffering," "co-pity," "co-feeling." But there is no "co-joy" in the language. More often I would like to hear and cordial: "I'm happy for you", rather than: "I envy you."
Teach your child to rejoice over others, and rejoice unselfishly, not correlating someone else's luck with their failures. If the daughter says that there was an excellent student in the classroom, from the heart we will be glad for an unknown girl and we will not rush to reproach: "You see? And you?" With examples in general, you need to be more careful. Setting an example of a peer, we most often excite not the desire to imitate, but envy.
And - no reproaches, if the child does not hurry to give, give, if he does not know how yet to rejoice for another. Only one thing is required of us: to give them themselves, to rejoice and ... to wait. Wait, wait and wait with the alarming belief that the day will come when the child will make his first gift to another person (and not just to mom! Not only to grandfather!). We will occasionally give the child a strong impression. For nutrition it is more useful to give each day on an apple, for education it is better to bring a bag of apples once a year ...
Education of the heart ear requires moral calm. In the boiler room - which rumor?
Dad and his first-grad son go to the house, warns: "We will not call - my mother is sick." We'll open the door with a key. "
A wonderful lesson ...
But my father did not have time to finish how his son pressed the bell button. And then:
"I told anyone?" Parasite!
Where there was enough grief, there is unnecessary irritation.
But for a well-educated child, the penalty is a barely noticeable surprise in the older man's voice, a slightly raised eyebrow: "What's wrong with you, my dear?" If the parents have to reprimand, make comments, condemn the child, then the upbringing has taken a dangerous direction. The child should hear with his heartfelt hearing the grief of the elders. When, however, this frustration results in words, reproaches, and reproaches, the heart-rumor becomes unnecessary and, as a result, becomes dull. If today I only reproached my son, tomorrow I will have to reprimand him for a long time. And every day he will hear me all the worse and worse. Then, after a small pedagogical set - "Do not you hear, do not you hear? Oh, I'm talking to whom? Do not you understand Russian?" - the great pedagogical will inevitably follow: clenched fists, cuffs, belt - and so on until the children's room of the police. The child, whose heart hearing is repulsed, is, in my opinion, almost impossible to educate. It is necessary only to regret the teacher to whom such child will get.
By frustrated piano, you can, of course, punch. But not a single tool in the world has sounded purer.
It's unpleasant to see a boy who constantly judges and condemns comrades, and even more so of adults. If the child speaks ill of our guest, we usually try to correct it. But every evening the family watches TV, the transfer for the transfer, and begins: the actor is bad, he repeats, and in general - nonsense. This nightly home school of cursing is a nightmare training in heartlessness. Imperceptibly for ourselves, we allow children to judge and discuss adults without any sense and without pity. Then we will demand: "Do not scold the teacher! The teacher is always right!" Why not blame, if all other adults can be scolded? Incidentally, the turn of the father and mother will come even before the teacher ..
Do not like the transfer - turn off the TV under any pretext. Do not we call the house guests only to then disassemble them on the bones?
Teach the guys to love people - they will learn to judge themselves ...
Heart hearing is not a moral quality, but, let's repeat, a psychic ability. It follows that a person with a developed heart hearing can be both good and bad. Each of us has met cordial people who, through their weakness, bring terrible suffering to their loved ones.
On the other hand, weakness is not necessarily a companion of heartiness, and a heartfelt child is not always a pay-boy. He can be a ringleader: the boys love him, because he will only offend the insolent, and if he dares to laugh at someone, then it's fun. He may forget himself, like all the children, can do a little something, but then he will instantly remember when he sees that he has gone far and that his prose has hurt someone. He willingly takes someone else's blame on himself, and his main role is the role of intercessor. Not because he is stronger than all, but because he feels someone else's pain more sharply than others. No one in the world is so fond of heart people, and although a boy with a thin hearty ear is easy to give up and easily gives, for some reason he gets the most.
To award the child with a heartfelt hearing is the best that parents can do for his happiness.
As for the rules of politeness, when a person grows up, he, endowed with a hearty hearing, will master them himself - quickly and easily, following the example of the elders.
Hearty hearing and politeness are the ultimate properties. The only work of understanding people is infinite. To understand people we learn all our life.
But up to the last minute the person with the developed heart hearing, even bedridden, will worry: it complicates doctors and relatives, gives to them efforts.
Because, probably, heart people are less sick and live longer. Taking life to heart, they constantly feed on his life.