"Oh, how angry I am!" - this exclamation from the song in the cartoon "The Blue Puppy" describes not only the feelings of the pirate hero, but sometimes your baby, and sooner or later every parent faces it. Childish whims and tantrums are explained by the peculiarities of the growing stage, the changing needs of the child.
Three to six years
By three years the child's field of communication is expanding. He goes to a kindergarten, actively visits development groups, he has more familiar children. So, with new joys and discoveries, new conflicts inevitably appear. The child is faced with the fact that human relationships can not always be cloudless, quarrels often occur, and he has to meet with unpleasant emotions. And if in a year and a half or two years it was enough to sympathize with the frustrated crumb, who did not share his shoulder blade and bucket, and switch it. attention, then by the age of three the child has already mastered speech and understanding enough to go deeper into the discussion.
The kindergarten is a space in which children receive an important opportunity to experience feelings and relationships as in adult life: love and parting, friendship and frustration, joy and jealousy. And here it is important that the parent acted as a reliable harbor, in which the ship of children's experiences can take refuge. If a child feels that his suffering is understood, then they become less destructive for him. In this case, the mother can start the conversation like this: "I see that you began to cry more often, you do not want to go to the kindergarten, what happened?" If the child does not respond, it is important to voice several versions, because sometimes adults may be mistaken in their assumptions: "Did the teacher tell you anything and you were upset? Did you find something that did not like in the kindergarten? Or something is wrong with the other guys - Did you quarrel with someone? Maybe someone stopped playing with you? " Usually the child reacts to one of the questions or presents his own version. This is the beginning of a conversation in which the parent utters and calls the child's feelings: "Indeed, it is very insulting when the girlfriend begins to be friends with others and ceases to communicate with you. But it happens - everyone has the right to choose whom to communicate with. Do you think you would like to be friends with these girls too, or is there someone else in the band that you would be interested in playing with? Maybe you'll ask yourself to play together? " In this dialogue, the parent not only shares the feelings of the child, but also helps him to live the imperfections of real relationships, showing alternative ways out of the situation.
Openly discussing difficult situations with children, we show that this can and should be talked about. And in adulthood they take away the desire not to shut themselves off from arising conflicts by silence, but to resolve them in dialogue. In addition, comprehending their feelings, the child begins to understand more clearly and other people, learns to leave them the right to be themselves. This understanding of what is happening strengthens his self-confidence.
What should we not do with this?
The theme of how one can magically cope with tears and whims once and for all is one that has overgrown with a huge number of myths passed from mouth to mouth and discussed in parent forums. However, some of these educational methods are capable of inflicting harm on the child-parent relationship.
Handles shalat
One of the methods often offered to parents is to tell the child that he is not guilty of anything, but "his pens are screwed", which do something strictly forbidden, or "another boy / girl / cartoon character came" - someone who knocked the baby to disobedience and whims.
"Let's strictly talk to them, so that they do not do this any more and we would not quarrel with you," the child is offered. It would seem that this approach has a completely noble goal - to let the kid feel that they love him unconditionally, and condemn only his behavior. And whatever happened, he is the best in the world. In part, this is rooted in the traditional folk culture, with its beliefs that the "dark power" is planted in a good person. What is the danger of this method? If the legs and handles live a separate life or everything can dictate Carlson, it turns out that the child is not the master of his body or his actions. The shifting of responsibility can become a convenient position, moreover, such an explanation does not teach us to comprehend what is happening. It's important not to scold someone who is not an outsider, but to think up something constructive, at the same time explaining to the child his feelings and desires: "Do you like to play with your hands in a mess? Yes, it's fun, but when you eat, you do not do it. , and after breakfast we'll play with her separately. "
I do not see anything, I do not hear anything
Many parents sincerely believe that the complete ignoring of tears magically sobers the child. With a toddler, they stop demonstratively communicating or are sent to sit alone in the room. Moreover, even suffering from the necessity of applying such rigid educational methods, many of us seriously believe that they are helping their child. "After all, I did not succumb to provocation," the parent encourages himself at this moment. The roots of this behavior is that it seems to us hard: the child specially plays "the theater of one actor", and therefore it is important only to deprive him of the audience. And that emotional vacuum, into which we place it, will destroy the "insidious plan". In fact, the kid suffers from the fact that he can not independently cope with his emotions. And at this difficult moment, the closest person suddenly starts to ignore him, and the child will also meet with a feeling of acute loneliness. Punishment by silence meanwhile became a popular parental method - after all the child really quickly agrees with all our prohibitions. The feeling of rejection has such destructive power that it forces the child to reconcile with any position of the adult, just to restore the broken connection. He does this not because he has realized everything and has drawn conclusions, but only because the threat of breaking off the relationship is stronger than the desire to get something. In the end, such "upbringing" leads to the fact that the child simply changes attitudes to the situation calmly accepting the fact that one can not rely on the parent and is better not to trust him at all. In the future, he risks taking a similar model of distrust to adult people trying to build a close relationship with him in adulthood. Thus, by isolating a child, instead of being close at this difficult moment, we only aggravate the problem.
Too much "no"
Sometimes the irritation and vagaries of the child is a reaction to the fact that adults interfere with the natural child desire to explore the world, erecting too many prohibitive barriers. It is much more convenient and quicker to feed the child himself and change it before going out. On a walk, we are also calmer, so that he would stay close: "You will fall from this hill", "Do not run and look under your feet," "Now throw a dirty stick." It is not surprising that the patience of the child, whom nature tells fearlessly to move forward and try new things, bursts and the rivers come out of the shores. After all, the task of children is to remain researchers, and our task is to help them along the way, maximally secure the "field for experiments." For example, if the child wants to help wash the dishes, then show him how to do it most conveniently, removing the sharp knives further away. True, even if the parent allows for some action, the child may not have the skills and abilities due to age, the desire "I myself" is too great. This conflict causes a negative explosive reaction. It's worth not to blame the frustrated child, but to support him, to suggest that you try again with your help. However, we can observe another extreme, when, moving in the path of least resistance, it is easier for us to resolve all the child. Often this is covered up with a good desire not to hamper his inner freedom and to bring up responsibility for his decisions. The child at the same time finds himself in an illusory world, with a sense of his omnipotence and the absence of boundaries. This parental position can lead to serious violations of child development. After all, in order to live in the real world, one must learn to understand that there are certain limitations in it. It is important for children to realize in time that the world is imperfect, something is not working in it, and then we get frustrated and weep, and when it turns out we are happy. And this is normal, because this is life.