Children should be loved, not raised

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

Children and parents are a problem that it seems they are no longer trying to solve, because this is not a rewarding business. Is it really? What problems are most common in parent-child relationships, and how can they be dealt with? And is it possible at all? This is our conversation with Karine Gyulazizova, an analytical psychologist at the Moscow Center for Analytical Psychology "Axis of Time".

- Karine, where do all kinds of problems in the family between elders and children come from? They love each other …

- Between parents and children in families, love has not existed for a long time. When parents start talking about this, they are naturally indignant: how can I not love my child? I care about him so much, I buy so much! I create all the conditions for him, but the child is just the meaning of my life! We start talking further, asking questions. For example, how do you know exactly what your child needs? The answer is banal: well, this is my child, so I know better! That is, there is such a substitution of desires, a substitution of concepts, but most importantly, parents do not accept the child as a person, they rely on their ideas about what kind of life he should have. Thus, the child is deprived of his own life and childhood ceases to be self-sufficient. And it, childhood, does not exist in order to grow up.

A little person is traumatized by any little thing. Even a table and a chair, because they are larger. I always advise parents: if you want to feel what your child is feeling, sit down and try to communicate in this position with people of your age. The tension is colossal. In Switzerland, for example, I observed what conditions are created for children. The children's room is upholstered with a special fabric, there are no corners and the child can tumble around in this room on his own, without any damage, as he wants. It is free from prohibitions, of which we have more than enough: you cannot go here, you cannot go there, don’t touch it, don’t touch it, otherwise you will be killed. We are certainly far from Swiss conditions. But we are not even trying to adapt the space for children. We have it under the general slogan: "There is nothing of yours here and all this is not for you!"

- If there is no possibility at the level of physiology to be on an equal footing, so psychologically it is worth being a child with a child?

- No, you have to stay in your roles. What is parental position? This is the ability to take responsibility for your child, while remaining exactly the parent. And we have parents to their children, anyone, but not parents. They are their brothers, sisters, friends - which they love to be proud of. You often hear, for example: "I am a friend to my child." This is not normal. He will always find friends and girlfriends for himself, but, alas, no mom. And this problem will be solved in some other way.

There are, of course, many advantages to having a relationship model with a child as with a brother or sister. There is more psychic intimacy here than in parental relationships. But in this case, one must remember the consequences. In such a system of relations, a child has no parents. It grows without a rear, without protection. Such a child grows up as a kind of homeless person. His social notions will be displaced. He is unlikely to be able to agree with a person standing above him and, as a result, he will have problems with a career in the future. It will be difficult for such a child to build a normal heterosexual relationship. Or any kind of sexual relationship at all. Such children, in addition, growing up, tend to "sink" on people who have shown at least some attention to them. And this is fraught.

- You said what is not in the relationship between parents and children, and what should be?

- Of course, the desire to protect your child. When a child realizes that there is a mom and dad who will side with him anyway. They will not figure out who is right and who is wrong, who is objective and who is not. They always choose him. They defend him in front of the public, in front of the same teachers, even if he put a button on his teacher's chair. Before the teacher, they will protect, but with him alone to explain all the positive and negative aspects of his act. Most parents are engaged in the same search for objectivity. And it doesn't exist. A child is happy when he realizes that his parents accept him without conditions, simply by the fact of his existence. Of course, this does not mean that the child does not need to show boundaries. This is also extreme.

It is very, I repeat, very important for a child to be talked to, to be hugged. When I am asked various questions regarding problems with children during a live broadcast on the radio station "Moscow Govorit", I ask the question: how often do you hug your child? And people start to think seriously. In many families, it is not customary to hug children, kiss them. But we are a lot to read a lecture on the topic "How to study in order to get a good certificate". Most parents have an amazing punishment system. And all this begins to multiply, like a cancer cell and give colossal metastases. A person now begins to try to earn love, and this is impossible. You can earn status, rank, respect, but love cannot be earned.

- That is, until a certain period of time it is necessary to accept a child in the structure in which he is located?

- Yes. The way it is.

- And what about such a great thing as upbringing?

- The child does not need to be specially brought up. You need to live with dignity yourself. Literally speaking, then be an example for him. The child has eyes and ears, and everything else. And looking at his parents, if they live a healthy life, he will not grow up to be a freak. And to educate … It's like in a joke: - Buratino, who raised you? - When is dad Carlo, and when nobody! So it is here. I understand why this word was invented - again, to weaken the energy of the individual. Children should not be educated, but loved.

Interviewed by Alexander Samyshkin