This resource is for those who want to raise their children happy.

If our goals coincide, then “Welcome!”

This page is a guide to the project, its basics and principles.

There are thousands of books, lectures and articles about raising children.

How does “Detology” stand out from the crowd?

System!

This is not a set of advice, but a new look at old problems.

All you've heard about Abraham Maslow's pyramid of needs.

Maslow developed this concept, but he studied adults.

It is ideal for understanding what makes a person happy and what makes a person unhappy.

I adapted Maslow's theory to raise happy children.

Any whim, fear, disobedience, aggression, etc. explained by this theory.

Moreover, thanks to ideas about your child’s needs, you can not only understand its behavior, but also correct it!

You can find out for yourself
how happy your child is today!

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How it works?!

Watch the video or read the explanation.

To understand, we need to understand some concepts.

True needs - these are the innate desires of every person, be it hunger or the desire to learn.

There are five true needs according to Maslow:

Children, like adults, have deep, true needs; and their constant satisfaction naturally leads to the formation of a healthy personality.

Maslow called people with a high degree of need satisfaction highly actualized people, i.e. people who have reached their maximum potential.

Maslow: “I imagine the self-actualized person not as an ordinary person to whom something has been added, but as an ordinary person from whom nothing has been taken away.”

Frustration- Failure to satisfy needs leads to the child growing up unhappy. Systematic frustration of needs leads to inhibition and distortion of the formation of the child’s personality.

Maslow: “An unsatisfied need causes him to feel humiliation, weakness, helplessness, which, in turn, serves as a basis for despondency and triggers compensatory and neurotic mechanisms.”

Learn about the importance of children's needs!

Physiological needs - This is the base in the pyramid.

Have you noticed that children become capricious when sick or lacking sleep? This is the simplest example of frustration of the physiological needs of a growing organism.

Health problems always leave an imprint on a child’s personality.

Since this is a frustration of a basic need, then, like a snowball, it entails the frustration of other needs.

Without a strong foundation, the house will collapse.

And when higher-level needs are frustrated, physiology often falls first.

These are diseases caused by nerves, i.e. To put it simply, the child became overexcited, nervous and ill.

But this may be a one-time occurrence, or it may be a pattern that specifically ruins the lives of all family members.

How to raise a happy child?

Now you understand that bad behavior, conflicts, disobedience, etc. - these are all signs of frustration.

This means that you can stop beating around the bush, you can break out of the vicious circle and finally satisfy the true needs of the child.

The needs system allows you to sort everything out!

Of course, knowledge about the needs themselves is not enough.

This is just the beginning of your journey.

And you are moving in the right direction.

Summary: Five basic needs of a child. The child's need for respect. The need to feel self-importance. Need for acceptance.

The art of education cannot be mastered once and for all. As the child ages, the needs of the child change, and parents need to learn to respond sensitively to these changes. In my opinion, all children of all ages have five basic needs: the need for esteem, the need to feel important, the need to be accepted, the need to feel connected to other people, and the need for safety.

I called them basic because the successful implementation of these needs is the cornerstone of raising an emotionally healthy child. For parents, these needs are like road map, with the help of which you can and should adjust your actions, evaluate pedagogical successes, developing strengths childish character and smoothing out the child’s shortcomings.

1. The need for respect

Children need to feel respected. Therefore, the attitude towards them should be the most attentive, the treatment should be polite and courteous. Children need to be valued and seen as full-fledged people, and not as an “appendage” to their parents, who can be pushed around at their own discretion. Children need to be respected as independent individuals with their own will and desires.

If you treat a child without due respect, his self-esteem will sharply decline, and he will behave defiantly with others. Ultimately, he will get completely out of hand. Children whose parents treat them as second-class creatures are often simply convinced that something is wrong with them - often this becomes their subconscious belief.

Children must be treated with the same respect that we ourselves demand. For example, the phrase “Sorry, honey, right now I don’t have a single free minute” is just as easy to say as the phrase “Stop tugging at me! Can’t you see I’m busy?” The first one will take no more of your time than the second one. But these phrases will have a completely different effect on a child. Ordinary politeness can sometimes make a strong impression.

For a child - even for a teenager who pretends that everything is indifferent to him - literally everything is important: the opinions of his parents, their attitude towards everyone and everything, their actions.

Indelicacy, rudeness, and inattentive treatment on the part of adults are often the result of our carelessness. We forget that children have the same needs as adults, and we don’t think about how what we say and how we say affects them.

If you treat your child with respect, he will be in a great mood and, most likely, your baby himself will begin to treat other people with respect - including his own children over time.

I will try to give examples of how parents can improve their attitude towards children.

Rudeness, impoliteness

One day I was watching a friend of mine talking to his eight-year-old son. The boy was enthusiastically telling his father something, but suddenly the phone rang, the father got up and, without saying a word to his son, picked up the phone and started a long conversation. When the boy approached him and tried to continue his story, the father frowned and reprimanded him: “Behave politely! Can’t you see - I’m talking!” The question arises, who behaved impolitely in this situation?

What if, upon hearing the phone ringing, the father said to the boy, "Sorry, Bobby, let me find out who it is. I'll be right back." What if he told the caller: “I’m sorry, I’ll call you back soon. I’m talking to my son right now”? This would not just be a tribute to respect - just think what a significant person the boy would feel like.

One day something went wrong at work. Frustrated, I went home earlier than usual. My son had already returned from school, he was sitting at the kitchen table and eating cornflakes with milk. The refrigerator door was wide open. I began to reprimand my son, calling him a bungler and emphasizing that food quickly spoils in an open refrigerator and that we cannot afford such expenses. And then my David burst into tears. "Why are you crying?" - I yelled. “I didn’t do it by accident, and you’re yelling at me like I’m a villain,” he replied. “Oh-oh, baby, you might think!..” - I exclaimed and ran out into the street.

To cool down, I walked around the city a little. And gradually it began to dawn on me that my reaction was inadequate to what had happened and that the cause of the outbreak was not my son or the refrigerator, but my own bad mood and problems at work. I basically acted as if every night before he went to bed, my boy recomposed the list of “ten ways to drive Dad crazy.” Of course, David didn't leave the refrigerator open on purpose, but I talked and acted as if the boy had committed a serious offense. I treated him with disrespect, to put it mildly. Realizing this, I returned home and asked my son for forgiveness.

Lie

Lying is another type of disrespect. Untruth kills children's trust. It’s as if we are letting our children know that it’s normal for adults to lie when talking to younger ones.

It all starts with the little things. For example, you tell your child: “This is for your own benefit,” although you know perfectly well that, first of all, this is for your convenience. Or you make a promise and don’t keep it, trying to somehow get out. By doing this, we prevent our child from understanding the very essence of the lie. Later, by punishing him for lying, we make the situation even worse.

On a subconscious level, a child’s emotional stress can reach enormous intensity: after all, he wants his father and mother to be embodiments of virtue, and at the same time he sees and feels their insincerity. As we get older and begin to realize that our parents are ordinary people, capable of making mistakes and having their own shortcomings, this often causes us surprise and even anxiety.

When communicating with children - especially children! - Honesty is the best thing you can come up with.

Humiliation

If a child makes a mistake or does not obey, and we respond by calling him rude names (“stupid,” “fool,” “lazy,” “greedy,” “selfish,” etc.) or humiliating him in some other way with words, intonation or action, we are being extremely disrespectful. Parents should strive to understand the reasons for their son or daughter's unseemly behavior and help them behave appropriately.

Inappropriate or excessive anger, irritation or ridicule from parents provokes the child to defend his position with all his might - for example, to respond in kind. The effectiveness of such parental comments tends to zero. For example, if you mockingly tell a high school student who is not very conscientious about his studies that after high school he will have to get a job as a dishwasher, “since you won’t be good for anything else without a college degree,” this will be both rude and ineffective. And if you tell a teenage girl that in such a dress and with such makeup she looks like a prostitute, then in the future she is unlikely to consult you on anything.

Disdain: "listen with half an ear"

Every time we do not listen to our children, are distracted, do not pay attention to them, and even ignore them, we thereby demonstrate our disrespectful attitude towards them. For example, a child tells us something, but we don’t answer him or change the topic of conversation without reacting in any way to what was said. Or we often interrupt the child mid-sentence and load him with some tasks. When our friend or relative asks a child, “How are you doing at school, Annie?”, we immediately jump in by answering for Annie. In each of these cases, we act disrespectfully.

Summary

If we want our children to respect themselves and others, then we ourselves must be polite, attentive and respectful to them. We should avoid ridicule, humiliation, and shouting: irritability and anger should be kept to a minimum. You need to stop lying, learn to listen more and talk less. Children should not be perceived as inanimate objects that should be controlled and manipulated - children should be seen as full-fledged individuals.

Parents need to command less and advise more. You also need to train yourself to say “please,” “thank you,” and “I’m sorry”—yes, even to your children. It should be remembered that children also have feelings, and how to speak is sometimes even more important than what to say.

This does not mean at all that you and I should turn into saints or that no demands should be made on children. But if a parent understands that his children need respect, and has a good idea of what this respectful relationship should be, then such a parent will continue to develop and both his children and himself will benefit from this.

2. The need to feel important

To feel important means for a child to feel his own strength, influence, value, to feel that “I mean something.” This need manifests itself at a very tender age. I once saw a mother and daughter get into an elevator and the woman was about to press the button. "No, I, let me!" - the little girl screamed and stood on tiptoes, trying to reach higher. There was also a case when I was trying to help a child fasten his seat belt: “I’ll do everything myself!” - the boy was indignant.

If children do not feel needed and useful (and in our time this is one of the main children’s problems), if they cannot satisfy this need “legally”, children will most likely try to attract attention to themselves in some way that is far from harmless. way. They may rebel, become embittered, begin to be insolent, they may contact some gang or gang; become addicted to drugs, become promiscuous sex life, take the path of crime.

At the other extreme, such children can fall into apathy, withdraw into themselves, lose interest in life and the desire to strive for something, become dependent on others, and become completely passive.

Helping children satisfy their need for self-importance, develop their self-esteem, give children the opportunity to feel needed and useful, and ultimately form a full-fledged personality - all these are the greatest tests for parents, families and society as a whole.

Overprotection

By setting too strict restrictions, parents thereby weaken the child’s faith in his own strength. I also sinned by caring for my children too much. My childhood was spent in New York, my father and mother were at work from morning to evening - in a word, I had plenty of freedom. I wandered the streets, and very often I felt lonely and even scared. And, apparently, subconsciously I decided that my son should not experience what I experienced as a child. Giving in to my fear, I went to the other extreme and bothered my son too much. I wanted to know everything: what he does, where he goes and how he behaves. All this did not benefit my son, and, of course, neither did I. His mother was also driven by fear most of the time. And at home, arguments often broke out between him and me.

Children are eager to experiment; they need to explore new and unknown things. This is how they grow and learn; In addition, this strengthens their faith in their own strength. Children's curiosity and desire for experimentation and adventure should not be condemned, but, on the contrary, should be supported in every possible way. Children should hear “yes” more often than “no.” Of course, we need to protect kids from real dangers. But it is equally important to be able to determine what dangers they face - real, imaginary or exaggerated; It is important for us to understand whether we are overprotective of our child.

Overindulgence

Excessive indulgence - back side overprotection. Of course, for younger generations, hearing “yes” is more necessary and important than “no,” but if you never forbid your children anything, then sooner or later they will start to get into trouble. Your children may begin to dream of something impossible, mistaking it for something easily accessible. Internal immaturity and lack of experience can push children to take unnecessary and unreasonably large risks.

Children should be involved in setting limits; In addition, you must be able to listen to them with a completely unbiased mind. If parents realize that the danger is not as great as it seemed to them at first glance, they should be ready to take back their words. It also happens that concessions are out of the question (smoking, drugs, alcohol). But even in these cases, if you allow your child to participate in the discussion of the problem and calmly listen to his opinion, you will strengthen his sense of self-worth. When children are allowed to do whatever they want, they, oddly enough, often feel unnecessary.

We talk a lot, we listen little

Most parents talk too much and listen too little, thereby increasing their children's feelings of helplessness. We rant, “read morals,” advise, dictate to our children what they should and should not feel and think; we rain down avalanches of words on them, when we should listen more carefully to the thoughts and feelings of our children. The one who doesn’t listen seems to be saying: “I’m not interested in what you have to say - you’re too small a fry to be taken into account.” “Your words are very important to me, as are you,” says the Listener.

One of the most important components interpersonal relationships- which, by the way, is very rarely present in our lives - consists of the ability to completely concentrate on the person in whose company you are, the ability to inspire this person that now for you he is the center of the Universe and nothing less.

When communicating with children, the ability to listen carefully and fully “be there” is especially important. Moreover, it is not necessary to specifically allocate time for such communication. Even if you only have a couple of free minutes, you can completely devote yourself to your baby - act as if in these few minutes no one exists for you except him.

By listening carefully to the child, we not only help him feel his importance: then he will listen to us with pleasure. The more we listen, the more we get to know children, the greater our chances of acting constructively and effectively.

Decision making, problem solving

If parents, who know everything and can do everything, decide everything themselves and do everything themselves, then the children’s self-esteem and confidence in their abilities will not increase at all. IN best case scenario, they will remain at the same level. If you want to reinforce the sense of “I matter” in children, involve them in discussion and problem solving.

The ability to understand complex situations well and resolve difficulties and conflicts does not come to a person suddenly and immediately and not at a certain age. The ability to cope better with increasingly complex problems comes with experience - in the process of solving less difficult problems.

There are seemingly no suitable opportunities to involve children in solving problems - and the age of the son or daughter does not play a decisive role here. Whatever the topic is: family financial difficulties, choosing a menu for a shared dinner or choosing clothes, planning family leisure time, caring for a pet - you can always involve children in the conversation.

Responsibilities - powers

Don't do all the work for your children. Distribute household responsibilities, tasks, and powers among all family members. From the younger age involve children in work, gradually making the tasks more difficult - this will benefit both the children and the whole family.

Provide children with appropriate status: assign ranks, titles, and empower them. Thus, in one family, a girl who takes care of a dog living in the house was given the title “chief livestock breeder.” In addition, the little girl was tasked with drawing up an estimate of the costs of maintaining the dog. Then the parents approved this estimate, and the child was responsible for its implementation.

In another family, the child was appointed "head of security." The boy had a sheet with a list of safety measures, where the results of routine checks were recorded - all family members helped the boy in this matter. The older child, who was assigned to read books to the younger one in the evenings, was called “teacher.” The “assistant chef” learned to cook and at the same time provided invaluable assistance in the kitchen. Each child in this family had a chance to receive major responsibilities and corresponding titles; From time to time the children changed roles.

Children have many opportunities to participate in household chores, and to participate usefully. Household chores not only strengthen the child’s sense of self-worth and self-confidence - with their help, you can teach children to read, write, solve problems, look for a way out of difficult situations, and engage in various research.

Example. My room is my castle.

One young man described how his parents reinforced his sense of self-worth as a boy:

“Mom and Dad once declared that my room was my property, and that from now on they would treat it as my personal possessions. Before entering, they asked permission, they never rummaged through my clothes without asking. I decided for myself, what my room would look like - it changed with me. I saw that this was really my world and that if they respected him, then they respected me too.”

Summary

Parents should not be omnipotent, should not make all the decisions themselves, keep everything that happens under their control and do all the homework. Involve your children in this - ask for their opinions, give them tasks. Find ways out of difficult situations together, give children certain powers and recognize the value of what they do; Be patient if your child is slower or worse at work than you.

Children need to feel powerful, important, and useful. If you give them the opportunity to feel important and if you treat them as respected people, children will not have to play someone else's roles in life, trying to prove to themselves and others that “I matter.”

3. Need for acceptance

The child needs to be seen as a self-sufficient, unique person, and not just a copy of his parents, who needs to be adjusted to parental standards of an ideal son or daughter.

This means that children have the right to have their own judgments, feelings, desires and ideas about the world. We must recognize that feelings are neither good nor bad - they simply exist. Accepting does not mean approving, agreeing, or showing condescension. Accepting a child’s feelings means recognizing that children, like all people, are endowed with their own feelings and that these feelings should not be suppressed, one should not be afraid of them - they must be accepted, understood and discussed, if necessary, working together with the child on their development.

If children's feelings and emotions are suppressed or trivialized, the child may lose confidence in himself and become withdrawn. If we refuse to listen to his experiences, the child will quietly suffer, and then throw out the pain by committing some inappropriate or bad act. In addition, in a difficult situation such a child is unlikely to ask our advice.

Example. Forced to play the piano.

Here is a description of how a father humiliated his nine-year-old son:

“I remember how my father treated me when I refused to play the piano in front of the guests on Thanksgiving Day. He didn’t ask me to play - he ordered me. I replied that I didn’t want to play now. Then he said: “What does it matter? Do you think I have the luxury of doing only what I want?" We started arguing, and in front of everyone he called me lazy and stubborn; I was ready to fall into the ground."

Reaction - pain

This father does not recognize that his child is a separate person with his own feelings and needs. It seems that he considers his son’s performance in front of guests as reward for the money spent on a music teacher - this is the parental position “And after everything I’ve done for you!..”. Parents are often tempted to show off their children to friends and acquaintances. Disobedience is often seen as a challenge - the father "explodes" and treats his son with extreme disrespect.

Reaction - help

Parents need to remember how they feel when, for example, their boss orders them to do something. You need to understand that a child is not a mechanism that can be turned on and off at your own discretion. A polite request accompanied by an "assumption of possible refusal" will sound much more appropriate and will be more effective: "Carl, I'd really like you to play something for us - if that's okay with you, of course." Or: "Would you like to play something for us? Everyone, I'm sure, will be glad to hear you."

Hasty reaction - emotionality

At a seminar for teenagers, an eighteen-year-old senior student told how he once begged his father to let him go to the beach at night after prom - the guys didn’t want to immediately go home. “Are you crazy!” exclaimed the father. “Don’t you know how dangerous it is in Los Angeles at night?” “This is not even discussed,” the mother supported the father. According to the graduate, his parents left the room without allowing him to say a word.

It is quite clear that the emotional reaction of the parents is explained by fear for their son - they were afraid that the guy would find himself in a dangerous situation, in their opinion. This fear is familiar to many parents. But the bad thing is that they reacted as if their son presented them with a fait accompli, and did not make a request. Their sharply negative response does not capture even a shadow of concern for the young man’s feelings, about the impact the meaning and form of refusal will have on him. Rhetorical exclamation “Are you crazy!” suggests that a person who wants to go to the beach with friends at night is not entirely sane.

Parents who recognize their child’s right to have their own desires and who have not lost their heads from fear behave somewhat differently. For example, like this: “Perhaps it would be interesting, but I have some doubts - the streets at night are so dangerous that if you went there, I would simply go crazy. Let us think about everything together, and then again We'll discuss this." By accepting the child's desire as a fact, we will help him avoid further disappointment. If you treat children's emotions more carefully, the likelihood of finding a peaceful solution increases sharply: either parental fears subside, or the child agrees to an alternative option.

Because of fear, parents often confuse possibility with inevitability. We often behave as if some event is not only possible, but just about to happen. Parents should clearly distinguish between these two concepts. And if we realize that many of our fears are simply far-fetched, then we can say “yes” more often and worry less.

Suppression of emotions

We often do children a disservice by trying to rid them of their own emotions. The child is upset that his friend is “sulking” at him, and the parents tell him: “Don’t be a fool, he’s not worth thinking about.” Eventually, you have a lot of other friends." The child’s mood deteriorates even more: firstly, the friend is still angry with him, and secondly, the parents believe that being upset about this means “playing the fool.” Perhaps intentions parents have the purest ones - they don’t want their son or daughter to suffer; sometimes the parents are worried about the child’s excessive sensitivity. And the father and mother try to fix everything, fix it, save the child from suffering - this is the direct responsibility of the parents, isn’t it?

But the result is negative. The words “don’t be a fool” do not console or clarify anything. Perhaps, of course, they are hinting that it is stupid to get upset when some kind of trouble happens. If anything, the child becomes even more embarrassed. In addition, such remarks interfere with the development of dialogue and deprive children of the opportunity to understand their feelings in order to make some kind of positive decision.

If the father and mother understand that feelings in themselves are neither bad nor good and that the child has the right to his own emotions, they will never try to dissuade children from their feelings. They might say, for example, something like this: “It must be very unpleasant to realize that good friend angry with you." The parent can also identify himself with the child, remembering a similar situation from his own experience. The main conclusion in this case: sadness is a completely normal feeling. Children's suffering is also often very short-lived - the child can calm down quite quickly, even if his parents don't tell him anything.

Parents should not always ask questions when they see that their child is sad about something. To be comforted, a child often only needs the parental presence. If Bad mood lasts a long time and negatively affects the entire life of their son or daughter, parents can help children understand their feelings and think together about what can be done. This will be much better than the child being ashamed of his emotions, hiding them, “melting” them into aggressiveness or other negativity.

Incessant criticism

Excessive criticism and constant remarks from parents are another factor that prevents a child from feeling that he is accepted for who he is. The most likely reactions of a child to constant comments will be: low self-esteem, ignoring criticism, a feeling of personal failure. The child may decide: “What’s the point of trying - you won’t please anyway.”

And one student primary school literally said the following: “If you behave well, the teacher doesn’t even look in your direction. And as soon as you start being naughty, she fusses with you for hours.” It’s better to look at many things “through your fingers.” “Don't worry about trifles” - this expression popular among businessmen is quite applicable to the relationship between children and parents.

Focus on the positive

You need to emphasize all the good things in the child - praise him and even look for what you can thank him for. The central theme of the bestselling management book The One Minute Manager, written by Kenneth Blachard and Spencer Johnson, is that you need to “catch people doing something.” good deed and praise them." We are very good at catching people, especially children, doing some bad things - let's try to shift the emphasis. Children especially need praise, not blame. If we want, we will definitely find something for which the child can be praised praise. And the more we praise him, the more reasons we will have for this. And if you still have to make a comment, talk about the child’s behavior, and not about him. Learn to refuse with love, and not with anger. Instead of saying, “Are you crazy?” say, “Yes, a night on the coast is great. But I wouldn’t find a place out of excitement if you went there; I'm sorry, I really don't want to disappoint you."

Summary

Accepting children means listening to them, trying to understand and recognizing their right to their own opinion, feelings, desires and ideas. If parents make it clear with their entire appearance that their children do not have the right to think or feel something, then they seem to be hinting that their children are not completely normal. Children, most likely, will not listen to such parents, and it will no longer be possible to have any positive influence on their behavior.

Acceptance does not mean permissiveness. I do not encourage you to allow your child to do whatever he wants. On the contrary, everything harmful and dangerous should be suppressed. Accepting your child for who he is will help you eliminate hostility in your relationship and eliminate the possibility of power struggles. Treat your baby as an individual and treat him accordingly. Give credit to his achievements; don't worry about trifles; focus on the positive aspects; When you need to say “no,” do it with love for your child. Don't let fear get the better of you and play first fiddle in your relationship.

And remember: just because something can happen, this does not mean that this event will certainly happen. These are slightly different concepts.

All children have the same needs, although they are expressed to varying degrees. The younger the children, the more similar they are to each other in terms of needs, although depending on their temperament they express them differently. A choleric child is usually a very demanding child, and if left alone, he will most likely scream, cry and generally be loudly indignant. This child knows how to stand up for himself and, just like a sanguine person, knows how to attract attention to himself with active actions, but a phlegmatic or melancholic person will most likely lie quietly alone and suffer from frustration90 in silence. But the need, in particular, the need for the presence of mother (another loved one) all children have nearby.

The basic needs of a child include the needs for food, sleep, rest, movement, thermal comfort, safety of existence, tactile contact, unconditional love, affection, communication. It is impossible to care for and raise a child well without understanding his needs and/or without understanding how to meet them. If we are not aware of a need, most likely it will not be satisfied at all.

The ways to satisfy innate needs, no matter how strange it may sound at first glance, depend on a particular society, on a particular culture, family traditions and the personal choice of parents. That is, they are not the same at all - there are a lot of them. Conventionally, numerous modern methods of caring for infants can be divided into two large groups, reflecting two different approaches: natural and medical-technocratic (which is generally accepted and considered traditional in our society).

Natural care is physiologically and psychologically based care. It puts the child’s innate needs and their natural, complete satisfaction in first place. This approach is focused on the gentle adaptation of the newborn to new living conditions, constant contact with the mother, natural (breast) feeding, and excludes (in whole or in part) the use of such artificial devices in child care as strollers, playpens, walkers, etc. , in contrast to the traditional, medical-technocratic approach.

Of course, this does not mean rejecting any artificial devices, but only those that do not satisfy the child’s innate needs. Those who help the mother and do not harm the child, his growth and development, are only welcome. For example, a newborn child has a need for constant contact with his mother (or another close person). For this purpose, man invented a method of tying a child to his mother using a piece of fabric - a sling, so that she could do other things at the same time. Yes, a sling is a cultural invention, but thanks to it, the child’s natural need for constant contact with his mother is fully satisfied, and at the same time it does not harm the development of a healthy baby. There is no reason not to use it, except when a particular child does not like it or when the mother’s condition does not allow it. As far as I know, the only people who cannot carry a child in a sling are those who, for health reasons, cannot carry a child in their arms. And sometimes a sling is recommended instead of arms, because, on the contrary, it reduces the load. Although this is all decided individually, in such cases you should only consult a doctor.

Human culture develops much faster than a person has time to adapt to it, and as a result, methods of caring for children appear that do not satisfy all the needs of the child, do not contribute to his full development, and sometimes harm him or delay him. Good example- disposable diapers, which were invented to make child care easier for modern busy mothers and other family members. Their use is not physiological; they delay the child’s development, causing him a lot of discomfort. Can they be considered a useful invention? Of course not.

The child needs not only to have all his innate needs satisfied naturally, but also to have help in satisfying them. loving person. In mammals, which includes humans, the main role in raising a child belongs to the mother. Brain development in all children follows the same “scenario”. It was a great surprise for me to learn that when researchers calculate the norm of brain development, orphans, children who from the first days were given up to grandmothers or nannies for care and education, and children of emotionally cold mothers are excluded from the sample. The norm of brain development is calculated by taking into account the development indicators of only those children who are personally raised from birth by loving, caring and responsive mothers.

IN early age The child constantly needs attention, love and communication. But you don’t just need to love your child - you need to show him your love. Affection, praise, showing interest and attention, communicating with him from birth. Love must be unconditional (without conditions). Every person, especially a small child, needs someone to love him just like that. Not for something (for being handsome, smart, obedient or something else), but just like that, for the fact that he exists in the world, without resentment towards him, without expectations of gratitude, without thoughts that he must always obey, etc.

You should not be afraid that with unconditional love, and not with “love for achievements,” the child will not have an incentive to develop. Every child has a desire for development and learning from birth. The need for self-expression and personal growth is also a natural human need. In order for a child to realize himself in different areas, he needs the support and love of the closest people - his parents. Therefore, unconditional love from parents not only does not harm the development of the child, but, on the contrary, stimulates it.

It is impossible to spoil a child with love, so you should not “dose” it even with good intentions, otherwise it will be difficult to avoid emotional problems, behavioral deviations and neuropsychic diseases of the child. Well, and besides, not everyone around you will love a child with unconditional love, but only the closest people. Of course, he will have the opportunity to learn the nuances of different human relationships by interacting with different people. But most importantly, if loved ones love a child with unconditional love, he has the opportunity to be himself. This opportunity is worth a lot in the life of every person.

Lack of attention and care, in particular, leads to hospitalization. It is a mistake to believe that only in orphanages do children receive less care and attention. This also happens in ordinary families, where the parents, especially the mother, are emotionally cold. Such parents carry out only the minimum necessary actions in caring for the child (feeding, changing clothes) and do not show any “extra” tenderness or desire to communicate.

Dr. Bowlby also wrote about negative consequences hospitalism: children who, for experimental purposes, were well fed, changed clothes on time, kept in comfortable greenhouse conditions, but little hugged, caressed and carried in their arms, completely lost interest in life (they did not want to eat, walk, or move). Another scientist, Rene Spitz, wrote about a similar experiment in 1945: children at the age of three months were separated from their mothers, and they spent about six months in a nursery, where they were impeccably looked after (fed and changed on time), but were not interacted with at all. Result: 70% of them died, the rest showed a general deterioration in development, including emotional stupor, behavioral abnormalities, stagnation in weight gain and height. Having a mother and losing her turned out to be an even greater shock for the baby than not having one at all.

It is hospitalism that main reason, according to which children from orphanages are lagging behind in development. The presence/absence of parents is a determining factor in the fate of a child. People who believe that “it’s better to be in an orphanage than to have bad parents” simply do not understand how catastrophically orphanhood affects one’s fate. This also applies to social orphans, that is, children who have parents, but pay little attention to them, spend little time with them, are rarely interested in their successes and problems (even if the reason is good - for example, parents work a lot).

The child really needs a lot of attention. It is a myth that the main thing is not the quantity, but the quality of time spent by parents with their child. Both are important. But if you have to choose, then at an early age the child is more important the amount of time spent with his mother than its quality (although quality is an evaluative concept, isn’t it?). This means that it is more important for the child that the mother is nearby, even if she does her own thing all day and does not have enough time exclusively for the child, than the fact that the mother only comes home in the evening and plays exclusively with the child for an hour.

The heaviest punishment for a child and the most harmful for his overall development is ignoring him by adults, primarily parents. Some parents punish their children by being silent and not talking to them for a while. To many, such ignoring a child seems very harmless, but it is not. Let me clarify right away - we are talking about small child, about an early child and before school age, for whom the whole world is his parents. For children of this age, the most important thing is what happens “here and now,” in the present moment. Older children may perceive such parental behavior differently, but for young children it is the most terrible and destructive.

Communication of any quality is preferable for a person to being ignored. If this is a child who is still growing and developing, then even more so. What does it mean? This means that even a mother’s angry and scolding voice has a better effect on the child’s development than her silence. Remember, I wrote that a child is capable of seeking the attention of his parents by any means, because his absence is an unbearable situation for him? So - I'm talking about the same thing again. Although this does not mean at all that it is better to scold a child than to restrain yourself and remain silent. This means that if parents cannot restrain themselves, then it is better to talk to the child so that he understands what is wrong. But do not ignore him when he directly addresses them or in any other way demands their attention.

Criteria for assessing the correctness of family upbringing (degree of involvement in upbringing, degree of satisfaction of the child’s needs, requirements for the child, sanctions).

1. The degree to which parents are involved in raising a child (the level of protection in the process of upbringing). We are talking about how much effort, attention, and time parents devote to raising a teenager. There are two levels of protection: excessive (hyperprotection) and insufficient (hypoprotection).

Hyperprotection. With overprotection, parents devote a lot of time, effort and attention to the teenager, and his upbringing has become the central task of their lives.

Hypoprotection- a situation in which a teenager finds himself on the periphery of the parent’s attention, his hands “can’t reach him,” and the parent “has no time for him.” The teenager often disappears from their sight. They take it on only from time to time, when something serious happens.

The degree to which the child's needs are met.

We are talking about the extent to which the parents’ activities are aimed at satisfying the teenager’s needs, both material and everyday (food, clothing, entertainment items) and spiritual - primarily in communication with parents, in their love and attention. This feature of family upbringing is fundamentally different from the level of protection, since it characterizes not the extent to which parents are involved in raising a child, but the degree to which the child’s needs are met. The so-called “Spartan upbringing” is an example of a high level of protection, since the parent does a lot of upbringing, and a low level of satisfaction of the teenager’s needs There are two possible deviations in the degree of satisfaction of the need.

Indulgence - when parents strive for maximum and uncritical satisfaction of any needs of the teenager. They "pamper" him. Any of his wishes is law for them. Explaining the need for such upbringing, parents cite arguments that are typical rationalizations - “the child’s weakness,” his exclusivity, the desire to give him what the parent himself was deprived of at one time, that the teenager is growing up without a father, etc.

Ignoring a teenager's needs. This parenting style is the opposite of indulgence and is characterized by the parent’s insufficient desire to meet the needs of the teenager. More often, spiritual needs suffer, especially the need for emotional contact and communication with a parent. .

3. The quantity and quality of requirements for a child in the family. Requirements for a teenager are an integral part educational process. They appear, firstly, in the form of the teenager’s responsibilities, which he performs - study, self-care, participation in organizing everyday life, helping other family members. Secondly, these are requirements-prohibitions that establish what a teenager should not do. Finally, failure by a teenager to comply may result in sanctions from parents, ranging from mild disapproval to severe punishment.

1. Excessive demands-responsibilities. It is this quality that underlies the type of improper upbringing - "increased moral responsibility" The requirements for a teenager in this case are very great, excessive, do not correspond to his capabilities and not only do not contribute to the full development of his personality, but, on the contrary, pose a risk of psychotraumatization.

2. Insufficient requirements-responsibilities of the child. In this case, the teenager has a minimum number of responsibilities in the family. This feature of upbringing is manifested in the statements of parents about how difficult it is to involve a teenager in any chores around the house.

Requirements-prohibitions, i.e. instructions on what a teenager cannot do, determine, first of all, the degree of independence of the teenager, the ability to choose his own behavior. And here two degrees of deviation are possible: excessiveness and insufficiency of demands-prohibitions.

3. Excessive demands-prohibitions. This approach may underlie a type of miseducation "dominant hyperprotection" In this situation, the teenager “cannot do anything.” He is presented with a huge number of demands that limit his freedom and independence. In sthenic adolescents, such upbringing accelerates the reaction of emancipation; in less sthenic adolescents, it predetermines the development of traits of sensitive and anxious-suspicious (psychasthenic) accentuations. Typical statements by parents reflect their fear of any manifestations of independence by a teenager. This fear manifests itself in a sharp exaggeration of the consequences that even a slight violation of prohibitions can have, as well as in the desire to suppress the independence of the teenager’s thoughts.

4. Insufficient requirements and prohibitions for a teenager. In this case, the teenager “can do anything.” Even if there are some prohibitions, the teenager easily breaks them, knowing that no one will ask him to do so. He himself determines the time of returning home in the evening, his circle of friends, the question of smoking and drinking alcohol. He doesn't answer to his parents for anything. At the same time, parents do not want or cannot establish any boundaries in his behavior. This upbringing stimulates the development of a hyperthymic type of character in a teenager and, especially, an unstable type.

5. The severity of sanctions (punishments) for violation of requirements by a teenager. Excessive sanctions (type of education “cruel treatment of a teenager”). These parents are characterized by a commitment to the use of strict punishments, excessive reactions to even minor behavior violations.

6. Minimum sanctions. These parents either prefer to avoid punishment altogether or use it extremely rarely. They rely on rewards and doubt the effectiveness of any punishment.

4. Sustainability of parenting style.

The instability of the parenting style is characterized by a sharp change in style, a transition from very strict to liberal and, conversely, a transition from significant attention to the teenager to emotional rejection by his parents.

The instability of the parenting style (according to K. Leongard) contributes to the formation of such character traits as stubbornness, a tendency to resist any authority, and is a common situation in families of adolescents with character deviations. Parents, as a rule, recognize the fact of significant fluctuations in the upbringing of a teenager, but they underestimate the scope and frequency of these fluctuations.

Psychological reasons deviations in family education

The reasons for improper upbringing are various. Sometimes these are certain circumstances in the life of a family that make it difficult to establish adequate upbringing. More often - low pedagogical culture of parents. However, often the main role in disrupting the educational process is played by personal characteristics the parents themselves.

The child's needs for different periods lives differ only in the degree of expression. In this article, we will look at basic children’s psychological needs and find out what psychologists recommend parents do to satisfy each of them.

Maslow's classification of basic needs

Despite the fact that parents truly love their children, they do not always know how to behave in such a way that their children truly feel loved. To make your child happy, you need to understand what psychological needs are basic for him.

American psychologist Abraham Maslow argued that all human needs are innate, and also described them as a hierarchical system of dominance consisting of five levels.

At the first, basic level – physiological needs.
At the second, higher level is the need for security. For a person, a need of a higher rank will not become dominant if the needs of a lower level are not satisfied. So, for example, a person will not think about safety if he is starving.
At the third level – the need to belong to some social group, for example a family, a work team.
The fourth level is the need for respect and recognition.
The fifth and highest need is self-actualization, that is, the need for self-development and personal growth.

U different people the degree of expression of a particular need varies depending on their psychological make-up. For some people, the needs of lower levels remain leading, and they never experience much sustained interest in higher ones.

This theory of needs draws the attention of parents and educators to the fact that children will not strive to develop unless their needs for safety, belonging and respect are first met.

Basic psychological needs of children

Even with proper supervision, without meeting basic psychological needs, children freeze in development. For example, psychologists have found that physical tactile contact between an infant and a mother or other adult who cares for the child is a necessary factor for normal growth child's body. And infants who are completely deprived of communication with adults experience mental development delays.

As children grow older, they experience growth crises that make certain psychological needs more pressing. Thus, the basic psychological needs of a preschool child include: up to three years - communication, emotional connections with other people, the need for cognition; from three to seven years - respect, independence. The basic needs of children of primary school age are recognition, self-actualization; teenage children - belonging to a group, independence.

Maslow's levels of needs give parents and teachers a hint about what actions they need to focus on in raising a child.

Need for security

The rules and procedures that parents impose on their children in the process of upbringing do not always only limit or deprive them of a sense of freedom. Often discipline also performs an important function for the child’s psyche: it provides structure and a sense of orderliness in life. And thereby satisfies one of the basic psychological needs - need for security.

Permissiveness, lack of support from an experienced person who will give advice on how to act in a new unfamiliar situation, gives rise to a feeling of anxiety. Even for a rebellious teenager, it is important to know that if something happens, mom and dad will back you up, that you can trust them and ask for help.

Family traditions and rituals are a great way to give a child a sense of stability and security. This could be anything: a weekly family dinner, an overnight trip to the countryside at the same time of year, going to sports matches, a monthly spring cleaning in which all family members participate. The main thing is to make the event mandatory. Such traditions not only provide a sense of stability, but also unite the family and give warm memories for a lifetime.

Children need a warm and peaceful family atmosphere much more than adults. If quarrels and scandals arise, the child feels threatened: his established, safe world is in danger. There is no need to make the little man a witness to the showdown, and if the conflict has already occurred in front of the child, then you need to make peace in front of his eyes. So, the baby will learn to understand that good always replaces bad, and in the future, becoming an accidental witness to a quarrel, he will not experience such severe anxiety.

If it comes to divorce, you need to be as delicate as possible. Children in such situations experience guilt and fear, feel abandoned and unnecessary. Assuring you of your unfailing love is an essential step in satisfying the child’s need for a sense of security. However, it is important to do one more thing: help the child see a future in the context of a broken family. After all, the child’s world, which seemed so stable and understandable, has been destroyed. It is important to reassure your son/daughter and explain how the changes will affect the child’s usual lifestyle.

The need to belong to a group

This motive is not a priority among the needs of preschool children; it becomes more relevant among schoolchildren and reaches maximum significance among adolescents. But even young children are hurtful to feel isolated when their company is dismissed on the basis of their young age.

You can and should discuss financial issues and parents’ work problems with your children. Of course, you shouldn’t do this in an alarmingly pessimistic way. But by introducing children to this part of life, you can make them feel like part of a “family team,” teach them responsibility, and show them an example of how to cope with life’s difficulties. In a good way A family council can be used to introduce a child to the circle of adults, at which various household and family problems will be jointly resolved. By taking part in such discussions, the child feels the value of his opinion for his parents and realizes the importance of his role in the life of the family.

Feeling a strong connection with your loved ones, it is easier for a child to resist negative influences from the outside and avoid falling into the bad company of teenagers. After all, such a very important need as the desire to be part of a significant group has already been satisfied, at least within the family circle.

Need for respect and recognition

One of the basic needs of a preschool child is the desire to feel like an independent being. Stubbornness and self-will are common symptoms of a three-year-old crisis in children. It is at this age that the child realizes himself as a separate person and evaluates the boundaries of his own will and desires.

Also, the need for respect is acutely realized in adolescence. During this period, children simply need to be seen as full-fledged people and given the right to their own thoughts and feelings. Giving your child the right to his own feelings means not ignoring his emotions, not ridiculing or diminishing the significance of his experiences. Children's problems may seem unimportant from the experience of an adult, but for a child this is not the case. If children's feelings are suppressed or trivialized by parents, the child simply withdraws. As a result, the son/daughter’s behavior becomes either timid and insecure, or overly defiant and aggressive. In both cases, emotional contact with the child and his trust in us is lost.

Nothing damages self-esteem more than excessive and harsh criticism. Negative comments about a child's behavior that show no concern for his or her feelings can make the teenager feel as if the parents are making comments that are trying to hold him up to some idealized standard that is acceptable only to themselves. But a child is a separate person. Therefore, it is necessary that adults take his wishes into account as well as their own.

Need for self-development

Every person is born with unique abilities and talents. Identifying them does not mean finding what the child is the best at. To develop real talent, hard and painstaking work is not enough - enthusiasm in work is also necessary. In order for a child’s need for growth to be realized, it is necessary to support his natural interests in any activity: both those in which he is strong, and even, at first glance, useless activities. Parents often unconsciously, and sometimes even fully understanding what they are doing, try to realize their own ambitions with the help of their children. But a child does not come into this world to stroke the ego of his parents. He is born to be happy, realizing his own goals and dreams. And only by independently setting goals for yourself and overcoming the difficulties that stand in your way can you grow as a person and develop.

The art of dealing with children is the ability to take care of their true needs, and not those contrived by parents.

They don’t need an eighth iPhone - they want to feel important, children don’t want to throw tantrums - they need your attention, and they don’t want to refuse communication, but only avoid your harsh criticism and hurtful remarks.

For a child to develop in a healthy psychological climate, it is enough to learn to always see in him a developing personality and treat her with respect.