Understanding your role in the family. Family atmosphere. Timing of the program
Understanding the parental role in the familycreates strong protection for children from addictions
Numerous studies, and folk wisdom, have already proven that the personality of parents, their relationships with each other and their attitude towards children play an important role in the development of a person. And if you have realized the origin of your problems, decided to help your children grow up as harmonious people, have already begun to free yourself from negative attitudes and stereotypes, working on your personality and the psychological climate in the family, ask yourself the question: “What should I do as a parent?” Firstly, use your parental power - this will create a sense of security in the child and will contribute to the development and formation of his personality. Often in families there are children who, with their whims and stubbornness, terrorize those around them. Many of them are simply uncontrollable. The reason for this situation is that their parents underestimated the child's need for reasonable parental authority. Another reason why parents hesitate to use their power is the feeling of guilt that arises from the fact that they do not pay due attention to their children (overloaded with work or other worries), i.e. Due to the softness of their parents, children receive too much freedom and are left to their own devices. Power is given to parents so that by using it they can help their children develop a sense of self-confidence, a sense of personal responsibility and the ability to make conscious choices. The best way to demonstrate parental authority is to set certain boundaries of behavior, to clearly define what is possible and what is not. The better they imagine what is expected of them, the more opportunities they have to feel parental love and strive to do exactly that, i.e. making a conscious choice. First of all, parents should set boundaries for their children in the form of basic house rules. They must be clearly formulated and must be understandable to children, and violation of them must be followed by a predetermined punishment. These rules should define specific forms of behavior. To maintain authority in the eyes of a child:
| Necessary: | It is forbidden: | |
| Pay special attention to education. Set clear, reasonable boundaries for acceptable behavior. Require compliance with family rules. Apply punishments appropriate to the behavior. Punish for educational purposes, and not for the sake of punishment itself. Ensure that the child understands why he was punished. Always listen carefully to your child and respect his feelings. Give the child freedom to the extent that he shows responsibility. Avoid direct clashes (quarrels and scandals). Encourage your child in every possible way for his efforts and praise him for his success. Understand and decide what life values you want to pass on to your child, and how these values were passed on to you by your parents. Strive for self-improvement. Do what you teach your child to do. | Make rules as you go. Constantly change the ground rules. Shame a child. Use your power to suppress the child’s personality. Scold and insult a child. It's too harsh to punish. It is thoughtless to impose life values on children. Say one thing and do another. |
| Necessary: | It is forbidden: | |
| Look at the child as an individual. See the child’s gifts and talents and help develop them. Take advantage of favorable moments; Help your child develop his or her abilities to the fullest. Perceive your child (and yourself too) as a being in the process of becoming and improving. To give the child what he needs, and not what we ourselves did not receive in childhood. Give the child a lot of attention. Celebrate his successes, encourage and praise him for his efforts. Point out mistakes when he does something wrong in an acceptable manner. Show him what he can do instead of telling him what he can't do. | Demand perfection from your child. Look at your child as a blank slate. Treats the child as an extension of themselves. Praise the child. Underestimate the abilities and humiliate the child’s dignity. Read notations to your child. It is inappropriate to assess his abilities. Protect the child from any difficulties. Imposing on a child what they themselves did not receive in childhood. Don't notice him. Undeserved praise and criticism. Overprotective or leaving the child to his own devices. Ignore attempts. |
| 1. You are now on the right track. | 51. It was a great job. | |
| 2. Great! | 52. Wonderful! | |
| 3. You did it. | 53. Even better! | |
| 4. Correct! | 54. Did you just do that? | |
| 5. This is good. | 55. This is better than always. | |
| 6. Super! | 56. Your brain did a great job | |
| 7. That's right! (Exactly like that!) | 57. You will really achieve success. | |
| 8. I'm proud of the way you worked today. | 58. This is an outstanding discovery. | |
| 9. You do it very well. | 59. Fantastic! | |
| 10. This is much better. | 60. Terribly great! | |
| 11. Good job! | 61. This is called great work. | |
| 12. I am happy to see your work like this. | 62. You did it very well. | |
| 13. You are doing it much better today. | 63. You probably practiced for a long time. | |
| 14. You are doing a good job. | 64. You do it beautifully! | |
| 15. You are close to the truth! | 65. How much you have done! | |
| 16. This is the best thing you ever did | 66. That's right! | |
| 17. Congratulations! | 67. You really improved (something). | |
| 18. This is what you need! | 68. Excellent! | |
| 19. I knew you could do this. | 69. I remember it well! | |
| 20. This is a good improvement. | 70. Congratulations. | |
| 21. Now you understand it. | 71. You're right! | |
| 22. Significantly! | 72. Keep it up! | |
| 23. Finally! | 73. You did it just in time. | |
| 24. Not bad. | 74. You did a lot of work today. | |
| 25. You learn quickly. | 75. This is the way to act! | |
| 26. By continuing to work the same way, you will achieve better. | 76. Now you are getting good at this | |
| 27. It's good for you. | 77. I like the way you think | |
| 28. I couldn't have done better. | 78. I am very proud of you. | |
| 29. A little more time and you will succeed. | 79. It’s a pleasure to teach such smart children. | |
| 30. You made it easy. | 80. Thank you very much. | |
| 31. You really did my job in jest. | 81. You outdid yourself today. | |
| 32. This the right way to get the job done. | 82. I have never seen anything better. | |
| 33. Every day you do better. | 83. You realized this very quickly. | |
| 34. You did this for so long. | 84. Your work has brought me a lot of joy. | |
| 35. This is not bad! | 85. Ol rait - in English - complete order. | |
| 36. Yes! | 86. Wonderful! | |
| 37. This is the way! | 87. Well, well. | |
| 38. You didn't miss anything! | 88. Powerful breakthrough! | |
| 39. This is exactly what this method is for! | 89. I haven’t seen this yet. | |
| 40. Keep it up! | 90. You are unrecognizable today. | |
| 41. Extraordinary! | 91. This is already a success! | |
| 42. Great! | 92. This is your victory. | |
| 43. This is the best! | 93. Now you feel your capabilities. | |
| 44. Absolutely! | 94. You are a true master. | |
| 45. Excellent progress! | 95. Heartily happy for you. | |
| 46. Great! | 96. I can’t help but express my delight. | |
| 47. Sensational! | 87. Grandiose. | |
| 48. This is better. | 98. Beautiful thought. | |
| 49. Nothing can stop you now. | 99. I believe in you. | |
| 50. Great! |
In this book, however, I will consider self-confidence as a component of self-esteem. A common problem with low self-esteem is a lack of faith in yourself, in your ability to achieve something. Healthy self-esteem involves the belief that “I am someone who can do it, and I am not afraid to try.”
Now that we have an understanding of what healthy self-esteem is (connection with oneself plus the courage to express oneself in communication with others), we can return to the basis of its formation: mindful parenting and the most important tools for achieving it.
Healthy self-esteem means being able to act based on your feelings.
Conscious Parenting
There are cracks everywhere, but light comes through them.
Leonard Cohen
When a child appears, it is as if you find yourself in front of a mirror. And not just any mirror, because your own child is the most incriminating mirror you will ever look into. You will discover your strengths and weaknesses, which is why being a parent is the best opportunity for self-development you will ever have. Don't miss her! This will help strengthen self-esteem - both for the child and for yourself.
What is conscious parenting?
Understanding the role of a parent implies understanding your responsibility and the influence that you have on your child in the process of interacting with him. For mom and dad who are aware of their parenthood, it is important what is in the child’s soul, what he feels and experiences. They are willing to work with their reactions to strengthen the child's self-esteem. Based on this, we will talk about three areas in which we need to achieve awareness:
What in the child's soul, – feelings and needs;
What in your soul, – what emotions and feelings the child awakens in you;
interaction in the family.
Child's feelings and needs
A child develops healthy self-esteem when his feelings and needs are recognized and accepted. In other words, our desire and ability to see and accept what is happening in the child’s soul is very important for the formation and strengthening of his self-esteem. This is very important, and we will often return to this: we must strive to be with the child on an emotional level, and not just react to external behavioral manifestations. We should be concerned about the child’s feelings, his perception of the world, how he feels himself in it. If a two-year-old child is scared, you need to try to imagine how the situation looks from his point of view and demonstrate to him a desire to understand and help, but this does not mean that the child should be indulged all the time. The same applies to older children: self-esteem is strengthened when parents try to understand them. This is how self-esteem is formed: adults accept the feelings and experiences of their children. By recognizing the child's right to a wide variety of emotions and feelings, adults help him develop a system of elements that strengthen self-esteem.
What emotions and feelings does your child awaken in you?
The most important teachers in the field of parenting for each of us are our own parents or other adults in whose care we were in childhood. The experience and experiences gained remain in us as an unconscious guide to action. Of course, it’s good if this leadership is competent and supports our self-esteem. However, the process of growing and maturing is very difficult, and being a parent is a difficult and responsible task, so most of us, if you look closely, received wounds and traumas in childhood that we would like to protect our children from.
However, we do exactly the opposite: we pass on everything that we ourselves experienced in childhood - both good and bad - to the next generation. Parents who often scold their children, as a rule, were often scolded themselves in childhood. Moms and dads who demand excellent grades from their sons and daughters were likely themselves raised in families where their worth was determined through achievement. Parents who joke and laugh a lot with their children most likely grew up in an atmosphere of smiling and laughter themselves. Such a good inheritance can be passed on with joy. But parents who are aware of their role should get rid of bad things.
Mindfulness does not make a perfect parent. He does not do everything right all the time, but he is aware of his responsibility and is ready to look at himself and his manner of communication with the child from the outside. Mindfulness gives parents the opportunity to grow. We cannot demand perfection from ourselves in everything, but we can decide to follow the path of conscious development with our child. In my opinion, such a decision is necessary if you want to strengthen your child's self-esteem. A child is dependent, he can only entrust his life to us - and the lives of children are in the hands of adults. The responsibility lies with us as adults to create interactions where the child feels accepted and has the opportunity to express themselves. For this reason, we must have the courage to look at ourselves in those moments when things do not work out, so as not to become hostage to the destructive tendency to blame the child for everything.
Why is unconscious parenting dangerous?
When conflict arises, we often shift responsibility to children. Sometimes we start talking about them as the reason for an unsatisfactory situation. For example: “Tina is so aggressive! It's simply impossible! We are exhausted. We tried everything we could, but it was all useless,” “Petter sometimes gets overwhelmed, it’s so impossible to deal with him! Because of this, everything in our family is upside down,” “We tried everything, but Katrina is hopeless. She’s been like this since birth – wherever you sit down, you’ll get off.” All of these statements are examples of how parents refuse responsibility, shifting it onto the child (“There’s something wrong with her,” “He always ruins everything”). The process of growing and maturing is complex, and all children have difficult times at times. And it is during these difficult periods that our responsibility, our adulthood, are tested. At such moments, you need to ask yourself the question: what needs to be done to make Tina feel accepted? Maybe Petter wants something from us, from his parents? What does he need? What should I say to Katrina? In addition, it is necessary to have patience and endurance in order to understand the needs of the child. And this will take time and hard work - conscious and purposeful. Unconscious parenting is fraught with danger: we can react to the words and actions of the child without trying to understand how he feels at the time when acts in a certain way. This threatens that the child will be left alone with his feelings and, therefore, will not receive the help he needs, will not calm down, will not sort out his feelings, will not express them.
Mom picks up four-year-old Petter from kindergarten. When the boy sees his mother, he lies down on the floor, begins to cry and kick his legs. Mom raises Petter, while telling him very sternly: “Is this a thank you for coming early? You can’t behave like that!” Petter roars, and his mother drags him into the locker room and pokes at him, dressing him with hasty, sharp movements. They leave the kindergarten - Petter is still crying, but not so loud...
Mom reacted negatively to Petter's behavior. Perhaps she was tired or upset because her son did not show joy when she came for him. Perhaps such scenes are repeated often when she brings him or takes him away from kindergarten. Perhaps Mom wanted to demonstrate to the adults present that she was a strong parent who could set boundaries. But she completely forgot about what her son needed most: for his mother to try to understand what was going on inside him. Maybe he is having a hard time or something is bothering him? “Is something upsetting you, my boy? Go to your mom’s arms, you’re so upset!” Having received a similar feedback, Petter would gain the experience that his feelings are valid, that his mother was there when he was upset (“I’m not alone!”). Most likely, he would quickly calm down, sitting on his mother’s lap, and with the help of the teachers he would be able to figure out what was going on. If mom focuses on Petter's feelings, and not just his behavior, then his self-esteem is strengthened.
Understanding the role of a parent implies understanding your responsibility and the influence that you have on your child in the process of interacting with him. For mom and dad who are aware of their parenthood, it is important what is in the child’s soul, what he feels and experiences. They are willing to work with their reactions to strengthen the child's self-esteem. Based on this, we will talk about three areas in which we need to achieve awareness:
- what is in the child’s soul—feelings and needs;
- what is in your soul - what emotions and feelings the child awakens in you;
- family interaction.
Child's feelings and needs. A child develops healthy self-esteem when his feelings and needs are recognized and accepted. In other words, our desire and ability to see and accept what is happening in the child’s soul is very important for the formation and strengthening of his self-esteem. This is very important, and we will return to this often: we must strive to be with the child on an emotional level, and not just react to external behavioral manifestations. We should be concerned about the child’s feelings, his perception of the world, how he feels himself in it. If a two-year-old child is scared, you need to try to imagine how the situation looks from his point of view and demonstrate to him a desire to understand and help, but this does not mean that the child should be indulged all the time. The same applies to older children: self-esteem is strengthened when parents try to understand them. This is how self-esteem is formed: adults accept the feelings and experiences of their children. By recognizing the child's right to a wide variety of emotions and feelings, adults help him develop a system of elements that strengthen self-esteem.
What emotions and feelings does your child awaken in you?
The most important teachers in the field of parenting for each of us are our own parents or other adults in whose care we were in childhood. The experience and experiences gained remain in us as an unconscious guide to action. Of course, it’s good if this leadership is competent and supports our self-esteem. However, the process of growing and maturing is very difficult, and being a parent is a difficult and responsible task, so most of us, if you look closely, received wounds and traumas in childhood that we would like to protect our children from.
However, we do exactly the opposite: we pass on everything that we ourselves experienced in childhood - both good and bad - to the next generation. Parents who often scold their children, as a rule, were often scolded themselves in childhood. Moms and dads who demand excellent grades from their sons and daughters were likely themselves raised in families where their worth was determined through achievement. Parents who joke and laugh a lot with their children most likely grew up in an atmosphere of smiling and laughter themselves. Such a good inheritance can be passed on with joy. But parents who are aware of their role should get rid of bad things.
Mindfulness does not make a perfect parent. He does not do everything right all the time, but he is aware of his responsibility and is ready to look at himself and his manner of communication with the child from the outside. Mindfulness gives parents the opportunity to grow. We cannot demand perfection from ourselves in everything, but we can decide to follow the path of conscious development with our child. In my opinion, such a decision is necessary if you want to strengthen your child's self-esteem. A child is dependent, he can only entrust his life to us - and the lives of children are in the hands of adults. The responsibility lies with us as adults to create interactions where the child feels accepted and has the opportunity to express themselves. For this reason, we must have the courage to look at ourselves in those moments when things do not work out, so as not to become hostage to the destructive tendency to blame the child for everything.
Why is unconscious parenting dangerous? When conflict arises, we often shift responsibility to children. Sometimes we start talking about them as the reason for an unsatisfactory situation. For example: “Tina is so aggressive! It's simply impossible! We are exhausted. We tried everything we could, but it was all useless,” “Petter sometimes gets overwhelmed, it’s so impossible to deal with him! Because of this, everything in our family is upside down,” “We tried everything, but Katrina is hopeless. She’s been like this since birth – wherever you sit down, you’ll get off.” All of these statements are examples of how parents refuse responsibility, shifting it onto the child (“There’s something wrong with her,” “He always ruins everything”). The process of growing and maturing is complex, and all children have difficult times at times. And it is during these difficult periods that our responsibility, our adulthood, are tested. At such moments, you need to ask yourself the question: what needs to be done to make Tina feel accepted? Maybe Petter wants something from us, from his parents? What does he need? What should I say to Katrina? In addition, it is necessary to have patience and endurance in order to understand the needs of the child. And this will take time and hard work - conscious and purposeful. Unconscious parenting is fraught with danger: we can react to the words and actions of the child without trying to understand how he feels at the time when he acts in a certain way. This threatens that the child will be left alone with his feelings and, therefore, will not receive the help he needs, will not calm down, will not sort out his feelings, will not express them.
Mom picks up four-year-old Petter from kindergarten. When the boy sees his mother, he lies down on the floor, begins to cry and kick his legs. Mom raises Petter, while telling him very sternly: “Is this a thank you for coming early? You can’t behave like that!” Petter roars, and his mother drags him into the locker room and pokes at him, dressing him with hasty, sharp movements. They leave the kindergarten - Petter is still crying, but not so loud...
Mom reacted negatively to Petter's behavior. Perhaps she was tired or upset because her son did not show joy when she came for him. Perhaps such scenes are repeated often when she brings him or takes him away from kindergarten. Perhaps Mom wanted to demonstrate to the adults present that she was a strong parent who could set boundaries. But she completely forgot about what her son needed most: for his mother to try to understand what was going on inside him. Maybe he is having a hard time or something is bothering him? “Is something upsetting you, my boy? Go to your mom’s arms, you’re so upset!” Having received this kind of feedback, Petter would have gained the experience that his feelings were valid, that his mother was there when he was upset (“I’m not alone!”). Most likely, he would quickly calm down, sitting on his mother’s lap, and with the help of the teachers he would be able to figure out what was going on. If mom focuses on Petter's feelings, and not just his behavior, then his self-esteem is strengthened.
Unconscious parenting sometimes manifests itself in a completely different way - parents blindly protect their child and do not notice that it is not easy for him, that he needs help.
Eight-year-old Stine’s mom and dad learned from the parents of her best friend Kaya that she had begun to avoid Stine and be a little afraid of her. Stina leads in all games, and if something doesn’t go her way, she fights. Kaya's parents suggest thinking about how they can solve this problem. Stine’s mom and dad just grin in response: “If other children can’t cope with Stine, then it’s not our problem. Stine is a cool girl, but the fact that Kaia is timid and insecure is her parents’ responsibility.”
Stine’s parents don’t want to hear that they need to somehow respond to their daughter’s behavior. They hold tightly to the ideal image of Stine and thus refuse to help her when she faces difficulties in communicating with other children. It can be said that they thereby deprive her of the right to work on her own development, a right that all children should receive, meeting friendly support in this difficult process.
If we are more busy with ourselves and not with the child, then we miss important moments for the formation of self-awareness and self-esteem. The child is left to his own devices in situations where he needs help. Petter is left alone with his experiences, and besides, he is also scolded in response to their manifestation. Stine is left alone with her relationship problems with Kaia, and her need for help is ignored with the best of intentions.
In such difficult situations, parents risk transferring the experiences of their own childhood into their relationship with their child. Of course, this experience can be useful, but it happens that such a transfer is inappropriate and harmful for the child. However, having decided to work consciously, we are able to separate the good from the bad and not transfer from the past what should not be transferred.
This does not mean that parents should always have all the answers. Over the twenty years during which the child grows and matures, more than one situation will arise when we can lose ground under our feet, we will doubt and think: what should we do? How do we deal with this? Raising children tests our strength, testing our self-esteem and integrity over and over again. Thanks to children, we have resources that we didn’t even know we had, and thanks to children, we realize the limits of our capabilities. Therefore, the role of a parent involves a lot of opportunities for self-knowledge and further development the adults themselves. And remember: you have the right to make mistakes. All parents make mistakes, they do it all the time, and it doesn’t hurt for children to know that adults are also capable of doing stupid things.
Family interaction
Children need to be heard. They should be able to actively participate in the life of the family, but they should not be held responsible for this. Family life is the responsibility of adults. It is adults who have experience, the ability to weigh the pros and cons, to see the interconnection of things, so they are the ones who should lead and guide. This does not mean giving orders and commands to achieve what you want, because such leadership is nothing more than a dictatorship. Leadership is more about taking responsibility for “how we live.”
Every interaction between people includes content and process. Content is characterized by what we do, process by how we do it. Imagine how different the whole family can have dinner. A tense silence hangs at the table, and the sound made by cutlery when touching plates only emphasizes the oppressive atmosphere. Another option is that there is laughter at the table, a lively conversation takes place in an atmosphere of joy and interest. The mood at the table is a process, the way we dine. And what we actually do - eat dinner - is content.
Children have a natural desire to influence the life of their family and should be given this opportunity from a very early age. When a child is asked about his wishes, about what he would like, this helps him develop healthy self-esteem. For example, when he is asked how he would like to spend his Sunday afternoon or what movie to watch on Saturday evening. In such cases, the baby will have experiences that develop the ability to listen to himself (“What would I like?”), as well as the ability to express himself in communication with others.
However, responsibility for the process, for how communication occurs in the family, how decisions are made, lies with adults. Children cannot bear such responsibility - they do not have enough experience or knowledge for this. However, already at an early age, children show their individuality, which greatly influences their interactions with adults. With some kids it's pretty easy to find common language, with others it is much more difficult. From this point of view, we can say that children influence how the interaction will develop and what mood will accompany it. However, as mentioned above, responsibility for the process and for family priorities lies entirely with adults. Influencing and being responsible are completely different things.
Sharing guilt and responsibility. The responsibility lies with us, even if the direction of the child’s development creates problems - both for himself and for those around him. Examples of problematic development are painful shyness, aggressive behavior, severe anxiety. In practice, taking responsibility does not mean being tormented by feelings of guilt. Feelings of guilt paralyze, while awareness of responsibility gives determination. That's why it's so important to separate guilt and responsibility. Or you can use the feeling of guilt: push away from it in order to take responsibility for yourself. We wear ourselves out, tormented by guilt: it puts pressure on us, drives us into despair, and we become helpless. The concept of "guilt" makes us think of maliciousness, in some sense indicating that we did not do everything we could, or even wished harm on our own child. However, no parent wishes harm to their child. Yet most children have a difficult life from time to time. Growing up is a difficult task, and it is completely normal to encounter problems along the way. Many parents also sometimes find it difficult to be the caring parent their child needs, and this is also normal. Taking responsibility means being aware of and controlling yourself as a parent, developing with your child, and worrying about fulfilling the obligations that every adult has to their child. We accept responsibility, and this is where our personal growth begins.
Often, taking responsibility means asking for help. Many prosperous and responsible mothers and fathers seek help from relatives and friends and thus find effective ways to solve the problem. Asking others for help at a time when we cannot cope ourselves is the most responsible step that can be taken in such a situation. As we see, responsibility does not imply self-sufficiency.
Some children require special care. The child may have learning difficulties, anxiety, ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) or other problems that require special help. Someone needs therapy or the creation of special conditions for staying in kindergarten, school, family. It is the parent's responsibility to seek help if a child needs special care. The responsibility of those who work with children is to provide assistance, receive necessary recommendations see other specialists or give a referral. Again, taking responsibility often means asking for help.
Responsible parental leadership is somewhat similar to business leadership: it is often said that you need to lead with awareness. That is, a good leader realizes, understands and analyzes own position, your tasks, as well as ways of interacting with colleagues. A mindful leader is not afraid to look at himself and his behavior rather than placing responsibility on others, especially when something goes wrong. The leader makes a conscious choice, focusing on his own contribution and responsibility for the atmosphere in the team and interaction with it. This is very similar to the responsibility of an adult in a family. Aware parents work to understand themselves and accurately assess their children's behavior; understand what is happening in interaction with the child. Aware parents do not turn a blind eye to their own weaknesses; they are ready to develop.
The period of growing up is also the beginning of the development of existential social roles - the role of Mother and the role of Father. There is a contradiction in culture that has enormous potential for the manifestation of the creative potential of the self of every person - a contradiction between legal (correct for everyone) norms for the implementation of family roles and moral, even more broadly, moral and ethical. If legal norms are based on obligation as a limitation, as an obligatory and necessary limitation on the spontaneous manifestations of a person, then the moral and ethical requirements are striking in their unconditionality and unlimitedness, I think that one example of such norms is enough to feel this: “A mother will never wish bad things on her child.” ", "Parents always want only good things for their children" and so on.
At the same time, the image of the Real Mother and the image of the Real Father exist and are maintained (in every culture). These are no longer roles that can be discussed quite specifically about how they are implemented, these are ideas, ideals that can be followed, but they are difficult to achieve, since they are not expressed in specific actions. How to be a Mother, how to become one? You can talk about this in the everyday language of a daily routine, diet, games, etc. How to become a Real Mother? You can talk about this, but when speaking there will be a feeling of the impossibility of expressing in words all the content that is accessible to feeling and thought. This is a touch of existentiality, this is the languor of the spirit that speaks of its existence.
The need for legal implementation standards social role Father and Mother is that the “instinct” of motherhood and fatherhood is unequal in humans to sexual desire. It had to be written in quotation marks, since it is very difficult what happens to a person in the process of acquiring this role. It is enough just to list those purely physiological changes that occur in a woman’s body from the moment a new life is born in it to see the potential complexity and ambiguity of the experiences that they can cause; this is a change in the excretory system, in the olfactory and tactile analyzer, this is a change in the size of the body, including the skeleton, and so on and so forth.
People have long known about possible postpartum depression, thrush, hormonal changes in a woman’s body, and so on.
It has long been known that bearing and giving birth to a child does not make a woman a mother. Probably, this is the greatest wisdom of nature; it is during this period - during the emergence of a new person - to create the conditions of choice for the manifestation of their original, existential qualities in other people.
This choice is far from unambiguous, not on the principle of either - or, at every moment of its implementation the contradictory nature of man will remind itself.
The insane increase in the number of abandoned children in our country is not only a social problem, but also an existential tragedy, a destroyed entity that tends to turn into its opposite: people - into non-humans. This danger was seen and described at the beginning of the century, when the development of medicine made legal termination of pregnancy possible and relatively safe - abortion.
I think that we are not yet able to assess the consequences of this for modern culture; perhaps there will be a researcher who will be able to analyze this phenomenon - marriage without parenthood as a phenomenon (one of many) born in the 20th century.
Mastering the parental role - life task human development during adolescence. What are the prerequisites for this? I think that the most important thing is that the parental role reveals the finitude and infinity of life in a new way, that is, it once again intensifies the experience of death as a reality. Only responsibility can resist it - for each other and for oneself, responsibility and love for life. It turns out that this is very important - to find out for yourself and for your marriage partner the content of the parental role for yourself and for him, as your own role and the role of another person, so as not to become captive to the phantoms of your own and someone else’s consciousness.
It is this clarification that will allow one’s own thought to be born, precisely to be born as something new, something that has never existed, not someone else’s, but one’s own. A thought appears when there is its subject - there is the content of thinking, not feelings (not only feelings), but also thoughts. It is precisely this subject of thought at the beginning of mastering the parental role that will be its content.
The role of the mother. It begins with mastering the ideal of Woman and Man, with mastering the very idea of the meaning of life, with experiencing the opportunity to understand another person, with experiencing your own power of influence on another person, and him on you. This is a school of spiritual rapprochement, as L.A. Nikitina writes, which prepares a person for love, determining not only the duration and depth of feelings, but also the choice of a loved one.
L.A. Nikitina believes that the main life baggage that prepared her for the implementation of the maternal role was: “My desire to be independent taught me responsibility, and without it, a mother is not a mother. My attitude to work determined my willingness to take on any work and to bring it to the end, and it’s impossible to do without the mother’s efficiency and patience.
And it was my conviction that family is indissoluble and love is enduring that served as the impetus for my great efforts to get out of family conflicts without loss. And the children...
When he was born, nothing came between us - neither knowledge, nor prejudice. We learned to understand each other without intermediaries - this is where my mother’s school began..."
In fact, the beginning of mastering the maternal role requires, calls for the actualization of forces for a new awareness of the meaning of life in order to embody it in a relationship with a little person.
Nature has designed the female body in such a way that after childbirth it gains strength and energy. This is a normal reaction of a normal body. But these forces can be wasted if they do not create the basis for new experiences of the value of their life for a woman. At this moment, the question of her love for herself is practically resolved in a new way, in particular, this is manifested in self-esteem, which, as we know, depends on the assessment of other people. If a woman feels loved and important, she will transfer this love to her child. He will not be perceived as a “disturbance” in relation to the spouses. I have to write about this, since one of the difficulties in a woman mastering the role of a mother is that she has to experience a “struggle” for her own love and attention from her husband.
Remember how steeply the calm curve falls on the graph; the crisis mark becomes dangerously close. This is one of the reasons why the role of mother is so difficult. The inconsistency of this role even leads to the fact that a woman begins to behave in a maternal manner towards both the child (children) and her husband, that is, the roles of wife and mother shift, which immediately causes sanctions - conflictual relationships arise. Sanctions are caused by the fact that shifting roles leads a man to experience the loss of his individual place in the structure family relations. The feeling of losing one's place is usually associated with the fact that there is no other person (in in this case wife), which would record and designate this (precisely this, and not some other) place as the psychological space of the Self.
This is how one of the most important properties of a role is manifested - it not only presupposes real and expected behavior, feelings, goals adequate (or supposedly adequate) to it, but also sanctions, that is, punishments for non-compliance of individual behavior with the role. Legal norms that fix the correct performance of a role do not imply a wide variety of individual options for its implementation. They define, and quite rigidly, the place, the social space necessary for the implementation of the role along with, and not instead of, other roles.
Role conflict is inevitable, since it is impossible (with all the desire) to strictly distinguish different forms of human activity in space and time; they intersect in his psychological space and create a conflict, which is called role-based intrapersonal conflict. A lot has been written about the difficulties that are associated for a woman with mastering and fulfilling both the role of a mother and the role of a worker. It has been shown repeatedly that the resulting overloads not only disrupt the functioning of the family, but also negatively affect the mental health of women.
A woman’s mastery of her role as a mother while growing up is further complicated by the fact that it is at this age that the task of developing a business career is solved. This is the task of finding and realizing your Self in the system social relations, not in the space of the family, but in the space of society. Behind this lies another existential, important experience for a woman, associated with her determination of her purpose. Making a decision about a career (or abandoning a career) is a difficult job of building a relationship with one’s own strengths, it is building an image of one’s life as a whole as the life of one’s own Self.
Many facts speak about the complexity of this work, I will focus on only one of them, using the book by L.A. Nikitina: “... you really want everything dear to you to be just as interesting, significant, exciting for your loved one.. And now we all have our own - separate - interests related to professional and social activities. And we women crave more and more to be understood, but we ourselves lose the ability to understand even our loved ones, even our husbands and children. We have broken some connections and patterns that have been established for centuries.”
So, the period of growing up for a woman is a face-to-face meeting with the historical time to which she belongs, through a system of sanctions and rewards, through demands, expectations, and so on.
A woman faces a choice between life and death. Very often, the specific implementation of this choice depends on the depth of her existential feelings, the consequences of which for her are no less important than for the whole society. It remains to be reminded once again that the degeneration of humanity begins with the destruction of the value of life in all its manifestations - everything can be devalued, even pain. This is the temptation of a person by the power of his own self, it is especially strong in the weaker sex, in women who find an infinite number of arguments in favor of the choice made.
Most of the family tragedies begin precisely at the moment when her love for her own life fades away in a woman - the irradiation from this to all family relationships has the most tragic consequences.
We have to choose... Sometimes women deliberately (specially) abandon their own complexity, their Self, in order to escape responsibility, from the conflict whose existence they foresee - it is also called pangs of conscience. This occurs in the form of an excuse for the inactivity of one’s own self, its immense dependence on others. This kind of game in relationships between people was aptly described by E. Bern and called it “If it weren’t for you” (UNT). In his opinion, it briefly boils down to the fact that a woman accepts restrictions on her activity if they come from a specific person (this could be her husband or someone close, or even not very close, but familiar). By accepting these restrictions, she thereby shifts the care of herself to another person. In this “game” she constantly takes advantage of this situation to complain about these restrictions and receive a “win” in the form of, as E. Bern calls it, social “reward”. This reward looks like maintaining, by external means, psychological and social space, supposedly accessible and necessary for the life of her Self. (Men can play this game too).
For a woman, the danger of these social rewards is that she begins to live in a phantom world of failed opportunities, although she herself has abandoned the integration capabilities of her Self.
A phenomenon surprising in its regularity - the limitation of one’s activity, one’s life, chosen during the formation of family relationships, during the period of mastering the role of a mother, turned out to be fatal. Life became tinged with boredom, the desire for new knowledge, the sense of humor, the ability to critically evaluate one’s actions, and the ability to be sincere disappeared. The above is a manifestation of the life of the Self in the person himself, which, of course, cannot be reduced to one or a dozen roles, unless, of course, it is an existential role.
A maturing woman is a person who, in a certain sense, embodies in her specific physical and psychological appearance historical time; she is the present and future of her culture at the moment when she chooses between life and death, between the creation of man and... May God grant her the strength and intelligence to choose life...
(Materials: board (or large sheet of paper) and markers)
Introductory part. The distribution of roles in the family is always associated with ideas about how family members should behave. It is largely determined by the conditions of upbringing of the parents themselves. Each family member behaves in accordance with a certain system of roles and can simultaneously play several roles. Roles can limit a person or enable him/her personal growth and development. But quite often, family roles are formed under the influence of those stereotypes of behavior in the family that a person develops even before family life.
Main part. On The participants' ideas about the roles that, in their opinion (and in the opinion of society) a husband and wife should perform in the family, are written down on a board or a sheet of poster-sized paper.
Absolutely everything is recorded without censorship. In order not to offend those present with the harshness of someone’s wording, the coach determines in advance that words should not be treated as an expression of the personal opinion of a particular person. This is a stereotypical attitude - “that’s what they say.” The coach writes down all the statements made in two columns - “female” and “male”.
One can easily assume that a woman’s responsibilities will include: being a good housewife; caring mother; loving and tender wife; must cook tasty and varied food; iron your husband's trousers and shirts; clean the apartment; create comfort at home; take care of the health and education of children...
Among the stereotypical male roles, the following are likely to appear: to be the protector of the family hearth; provide for family; raise children to be strong and resilient; be able to make basic home repairs; maintain home appliances, be able to fix malfunctions; responsible for family stability...
It may turn out that many stereotypes have become truly personal attitudes for someone. An attitude is characterized by the presence of three components: beliefs, emotional attitudes and behavior. If beliefs in the rightness or wrongness of a partner form an emotional attitude (let’s say negative), then the finale of the triad will be corresponding behavior. Dissatisfaction due to nonconformity with stereotypical ideas will lead to conflict.
Summing up. Issues are discussed. Why are stereotypes needed? Is it possible to do without them? Are stereotypes always bad, maybe there is a positive side? How does a stereotype or myth compare to reality? Is it necessary to fight stereotypes and how to distinguish a stereotype from objective reality? What happens if, before marriage, both the bride and groom do not clarify each other's expectations, but base their hopes on stereotypical ideas? Are there any inconsistencies among group members in their views on the role of men in the family (and what do men themselves think about this?), on what responsibilities are assigned to women’s shoulders (do the training participants agree with these roles?). What difficulties do men and women face in connection with accepted views on “traditionally masculine” and “traditionally feminine” behavior in family life? Can any of the training participants give examples of when he found himself a victim of a stereotype?
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