Labkovsky about relationships with parents. Psychologist Mikhail Labkovsky: the secrets of raising a happy child

You are not five years old, but your mother still asks what you had for breakfast and whether you put on a hat. Dad never misses a chance to remind you that you are a clumsy clumsy. And, of course, both parents believe that you generally live wrong, and any attempt to talk ends in a scandal and mutual reproaches. We have collected six tips from psychologists on how adult children should talk to their parents.

Sasha Galitsky - art therapist, engaged in wooden sculpture with people who are from 70 to 100 years old

Mikhail Labkovsky - practicing psychologist

Don't try to change your parents

Sasha Galitsky:“Accept your parents as they are, with all the shortcomings, remembering that parents are not chosen and you will never have others.”

Mikhail Labkovsky:“One of the biggest problems for a person is to accept parents for who they are. For example, it happens that a child cannot win the love of his parents. In this case, you need to take out a pathological need from yourself so that your mother, at least at some age, pays attention to you. It's very difficult, but real."

Do not argue and do not quarrel

Sasha Galitsky:“The aggression of older people comes from dissatisfaction with themselves. When you accept the cause of aggression, when you smile at an elderly relative and do not respond to his attacks, aggression subsides. If he answered, he disappeared.

Mikhail Labkovsky:“When you hang up and think you've dealt with your parents, nothing happens. Resentment, aggression, rage - this is not a solution to the problem. When you send dad or mom, you are cool, of course, but you remain a resentful person.

Don't hold a grudge against your parents and don't blame yourself

Sasha Galitsky:“Guilt haunts everyone. No matter what happens, there remains a feeling that I didn’t finish it, I didn’t finish it, I behaved incorrectly with my parents. You don't have to blame yourself. Time is to blame. This is a vicious cycle that does not depend on us.”

Mikhail Labkovsky:“You don't owe anyone anything. There is a correct answer: “I didn’t ask you to give birth.” It was the choice of the parents, so no one owes anything to anyone here.”

Explain exactly what you want

Mikhail Labkovsky:“You need to be very specific in explaining to your mother what you do not want - so that a five-year-old child can understand. "Stay out of my life" is very abstract. "I don't want to discuss my appearance"- specifics. Mom, of course, will be offended at first, but as a result, she will begin to reckon with you and speak in a way that is comfortable for you.

Don't expect fun

Sasha Galitsky:“If you don’t wait for the pleasure of interacting with elderly relatives, the likelihood that you will still get it increases. You can get pleasure from yourself. For example: if I have a difficult conversation with a parent, I must restrain my own anger. One second it will be hard for me, and the rest of the time I will enjoy the fact that I restrained myself.

If you don't want to talk, don't talk

Mikhail Labkovsky:“If dad regularly calls you drunk and wants to talk, tell him: “Dear dad. I love you very much. When you call drunk, I definitely don't talk to you. I hang up and don't be offended by me." And never after that, do not break the word, do not say, “Dad, I asked drunk people not to call me.” If dad doesn’t understand something, you can just block his number.”

School life goes on as usual: children write the first control, parental chats are in full swing. And many good intentions of mothers on the eve of the school year - not to collect a portfolio for the child, not to chastise for bad grades - are broken in the constant conditions that the school brings to the family. But even if they think that something is wrong with the school, the psychologist Mikhail Labkovsky is convinced: God bless her, with the school, this is not the most important thing in life.

Now let me say a few words without protocol.
What do we learn, so to speak, family and school? -
That life itself will punish people like us severely.
Here we agree, - tell me, Seryoga!
Vladimir Vysotsky

The first and most important thing: you don’t need to do homework with your child! There is no need to pack a briefcase with him! Ask "how is it at school?" no need. You spoil the relationship, and the result is only negative. You don't have anything else to talk to him about?

The child must have personal free time, when he is doing nothing: two to four hours a day. Anxious ambitious parents of children organize. Circles, sections, languages ... And they get children's neuroses and everything that comes with them.

In relations with the school and teachers, you must be on the side of your child. Take care of the children. Don't be afraid of bad grades. Be afraid to bring to disgust for school and study in general.

School grades versus child's relationship with parents

Russian parents are focused on grades at school. This is from Soviet times. For example, there were two Czechs and one Pole in my class. After one serious test at the meeting, all "our" parents asked about grades and only Czechs and Poles asked something like: "How did he feel? Was he worried?" And it is right.

It is difficult to say who has more psychological problems - an excellent student or a loser. Excellent students who take diligence and "hatch" their fives are anxious children with low self-esteem.

If your child cannot do homework on his own, there is always a reason. Lane has nothing to do with it. Such a category as "laziness" does not exist in psychology at all. Laziness is always decomposed into a lack of motivation and will.

Among the reasons why a child does not do homework himself, there can be anything: increased intracranial pressure, hypertonicity, psychological problems, (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). And instead of spending evenings sitting together on textbooks, it is better to try to determine this cause and work on eliminating it.

There are parents who want to raise responsible, independent, successful children.

And there are parents whose goal is total control over the child, and how he grows up there is not so important - the main thing is not to get off the leash.

How often because of the anxiety about grades, families literally collapse, relationships collapse, parents and children find themselves separated, sometimes forever.

The psyche of adolescents is already aggravated, and the months of preparation for the GIA and the Unified State Examination become truly black times for the family: everyone is haunted by neuroses and depressions, they provoke tantrums, illnesses, almost suicides. How to avoid all this nightmare or at least minimize the consequences?

I think focus on love and eternal values. To think that pretty soon, when all grades and exams are erased from memory, only one thing will be important - have you lost closeness, trust, understanding, friendship with your child ...

After all, you can get an A and lose your daughter. Pass the exam, "to enter the son in the institute", but no longer restore relations.

Lectures on the upbringing of children, advice from psychologists and teachers on family relationships are effective and make sense only if the parents themselves are psychologically well or at least stable.

Being unhappy people there is no way you can build a relationship with a child that makes him happy. And if the parents are happy, then you don’t need to do anything special.

Many people think that everything is fine with them, parents, and only their children have problems. And they are surprised when two completely grown up in one family. different child: one is self-confident, successful, an excellent student in combat and political, and the other is a notorious loser, always whining or aggressive. But this means that the children felt differently in the family and some of them did not have enough attention. Someone was more sensitive and more in need of love, but the parents did not notice this.

As you communicate with a child in his childhood, so he will treat you in your old age.

When a child is born to you, you consider it a miracle, you are happy that you became parents, you do everything to make the child feel good, you rejoice in communicating with him, admire every little thing ... But now he is 6 or 7 years old, and between you and school gets up as a child.

As if a military commissar comes into the house and pulls the child out of the family. Although, what, in fact, is happening so terrible? Well, he needs to go to school, gain knowledge to the best of his ability, communicate, grow up. Why let this natural process separate you? School is smaller than life and needs to be taken outside of your relationship with your child.

The school should teach not so much mathematics and literature as life itself. From the school it is important to get not so much theoretical knowledge as practical skills: the ability to communicate, build relationships, be responsible for oneself - one's words and actions, solve one's problems, negotiate, manage one's time. It is these skills that allow you to feel confident in adulthood and earn a living.

excessive child's feelings about bad grades- this is only a mirror of the reaction of adults. If parents calmly react to a deuce or failures in sports, to some other failures, if parents smile, say “My good man, don’t be upset,” then the child is calm, stable, always levels out in school and finds a business where he has everything it turns out.

You will grow old - how will they live?

If in primary school your child does not cope with the program (some tutors are already hired in the first grade), if you have to sit with your child over lessons for a long time, the problem is not with the child, but at school, gymnasium, lyceum. These institutions work exclusively on the ambitions of parents and do not care about children, but about their own prestige and the cost of their services. Harder doesn't mean better! The child should not overwork, try to catch up with the program compiled by teachers who constantly need the help of parents, tutors, the Internet, etc.

In the first grade, the preparation of homework should take from 15 to 45 minutes. Otherwise, you won't last long.

It is possible and sometimes even necessary to punish children. But you need to clearly separate the child and his act. For example, you agreed in advance that before you come home from work, he will do his homework, eat and clean up after himself. And then you come home and see a picture: the pot of soup is untouched, the textbooks obviously have not been opened, some papers are lying on the carpet, and the child is sitting with his nose in the tablet.

The main thing at this moment is not to turn into a fury, not to yell about the fact that "everyone has children like children", and about what a shameless tormentor, irresponsible freak he is and that zero without a wand will grow out of him.

Without the slightest aggression, you approach the child. Smiling, hug him and say: "I love you very much, but you won't get a tablet anymore." You can also give out an old Nokia phone. Without any internet.

But yelling, insulting, offended and not talking - that's not necessary. The child is punished by the weaning of gadgets.

There is no need to live their life for children, decide what to do and what not to do, solve their problems for them, put pressure on them with your ambitions, expectations, instructions. You will grow old, how will they live?

All over the world, only the smartest and richest go to universities. The rest go to work, look for themselves and earn money for higher education. What do we have?

If a child is constantly guarded, he does not know what it is to be responsible for his actions, remains infantile and greedy for any opportunity to violate the ban.

I am against constant scrutiny. The child must be sure that the family loves him, respects him, respects him and trusts him. In this case, he will not contact the "bad company" and will avoid many temptations that peers with a tense situation in the family cannot resist.

When I worked at school, on the Day of Knowledge I said that you need to study, if only because you get paid many times more for working with your head than for physical labor. And that once you learn, you can work and get paid for what you love to do.

The mess in the teenager's room corresponds to his internal state. This is how outwardly chaos is expressed in his spiritual world. It's good if he washes ... You can demand to "put things in order" only if the child's things are lying around outside his room.

To educate is not to explain how to live. This does not work. Children develop only by analogy. What is possible and what is not, how it should be and how it is better not to act, children understand not from the words of their parents, but exclusively from their actions. Simply put, if the father says that drinking is harmful, but he himself does not dry out, there are many chances that the son will become an alcoholic. This is the most striking example, but children catch and adopt more subtle things no less sensitively.

If a child tries to manipulate adults, he simply has a neurosis. And we need to look for its cause. Healthy people do not manipulate - they solve their problems by acting straightforwardly.

The child should feel that the parents are kind, but strong people. Who can protect him, who can refuse him something, but always act in his interests and, most importantly, love him very much.

Surely you dream that your children know what they want - a very important quality for life, since it is a matter of self-confidence, high self-esteem, right choice work, family, friends, etc. How do you teach this to a child? No, if you do not know how to realize your desires.

Mikhail Labkovsky is the most expensive psychologist in Russia

Photo personal archive

My generation's parents never asked, “What do you want for breakfast or lunch? What clothes should you choose?" Usually what mother cooked, we ate. The key words for us were "necessary" and "correctly". Therefore, when I grew up, I began to ask myself: what do I really want? And I realized that I do not know the answer.

And so many of us - we are used to living automatically repeating parental scripts, and this is a big problem, because the only way to live our life happily is to live it the way we want.

Children under 5-8 years old develop by analogy with their parents - this is how the whole animal world works. That is, you are an example for him.

You ask: how to learn to understand your desires? Start small - with household items. And sooner or later you will understand what you want to do. Ask yourself: what kind of cottage cheese do you like? Once you find the answer, move on. For example, get up in the morning - and do not eat what is in the refrigerator or prepared in advance if you do not want to eat it. Better go to a cafe, and in the evening buy yourself something that you really love.

In the store, buy what you really like, and not what they sell on sale. And when you get dressed in the morning, choose the clothes that you like.

Photo Getty Images

There is one important problem with self-doubt - this is ambivalence, when you are torn apart by multidirectional desires: for example, you can eat and lose weight, sleep and watch TV at the same time, and also have a lot of money and not work.

This is the psychology of neurotics: such people are always in a state of internal conflict, their life does not turn out the way they want, there are always supposedly circumstances that interfere ... We must get out of this vicious circle possibly with the help of a psychologist.

Such people do not respect their choice, they can be quickly persuaded, and their motivation quickly changes. What to do with it? Whether it's right or wrong, try to do what you want. If you make a decision, try not to spill it along the way and bring it to the end! The exception is force majeure.

Another tip for doubters: you need to ask less questions to others

My favorite example is the women's dressing room in the store: you can see such women right away! Do not call saleswomen or your husband and do not ask them if the thing suits you or not. If you don’t understand yourself, stand and think at least until the store closes, but the decision should be yours! It is difficult and unusual, but in a different way - no way.

As for other people who want something from you (and this is how our world works, that everyone needs something from each other), you must proceed from what you yourself want. If the desire of a person coincides with yours, you can agree, but do not do anything to the detriment of yourself or your will!

Let me give you a tough example: you have small children who need attention, and you come home from work, you are very tired and do not want to play with them at all. If you still go to play, then you do it not because of a feeling of love, but because of a feeling of guilt. Children feel great! It is much better to tell the child: "I'm tired today, let's play tomorrow." And the child will understand that his mother is playing with him, because she really likes to do it, and not because she should feel like a good mother.

About children's independence

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Roughly speaking, there are two doctrines of infant care: one says that the child should be fed by the hour, and the other that food should be given when he wants to. Many choose to feed by the hour, because it is convenient - everyone wants to live and sleep. But even this nuance is fundamental from the point of view of the formation of the child's own desires. Children, of course, need to be regulated in food, but as part of proper nutrition, you can ask: “What do you want for breakfast?” Or when you go to the store with your child: “I have 1,500 rubles, we want to buy you shorts and a T-shirt. Pick them yourself."

The idea that parents know better than children what they need is rotten, they don’t know anything at all! Those kids whom parents choose to send to various sections also do not understand later what they want. And besides, they do not know how to manage their own time, because they simply do not have it. Children should be left to themselves for 2 hours a day to learn to occupy themselves and think about what they want.

The child grows up, and if you ask him for all sorts of reasons what he would like, then everything will be fine with his desires. And then by the age of 15-16 he will begin to understand what he wants to do next. Of course, he can be wrong, but that's okay. It is also not necessary to force anyone to enter a university: he will unlearn for 5 years, and then he will live with an unloved profession all his life!

Ask him questions, be interested in his hobbies, give him pocket money, and he will really understand what he wants.

How to recognize a child's talents

I want to say right away that before school the child is not obliged to learn anything! Advanced development is nothing at all. At this age, the baby can only do something in game form and only when he wants it.

They sent the child to a circle or section, and after a while he became bored? You don't have to force him. And the fact that you feel sorry for wasted time is your problem.

Psychologists believe that a steady interest in any activity in children appears only after 12 years. You, as parents, can offer him, and he will choose.

Whether a child has talent or not, this is his life. If he has abilities, and he wants to realize them, then so be it, and nothing can interfere!

Many people think: if my baby has an ability for something, it must be developed. Actually - don't! He has his own life, and you do not have to live for him. The child should want to draw, but the ability to beautifully create pictures in itself does not mean anything, many can have it. Music, painting, literature, medicine - in these areas you can achieve something only by feeling the need for them!

Of course, it is sad for any mother to see how her son does not want to develop his obvious talent. And the Japanese say in this regard that a beautiful flower does not have to be picked, you can just look at it and pass by. And we cannot accept the situation and say: “You draw cool, well done” - and move on.

How to get your child to help around the house

When Small child sees how mom and dad are doing something around the house, then, of course, he wants to join. And if you tell him: “Go away, don’t interfere!” (after all, he will break more plates than he will wash), then do not be surprised when your 15-year-old son does not wash the cup after him. Therefore, if a child takes the initiative, he should always be supported.

You can offer to participate in a common cause. But then no appeals to conscience: "Shame on you, mother alone is tearing herself up." As the ancients noted long ago: conscience and guilt are needed only to control people.

Photo Getty Images

If a parent is relaxed and enjoys life, then life is very simple for him. For example, a mother loves to wash dishes and can wash them for her child. But if she is reluctant to mess around at the sink, then she is not obliged to wash the dishes for her offspring. But he wants to eat from a clean cup, they tell him: “You don’t like a dirty one, go wash it after yourself!” This is much more progressive and effective than having the rules in your head.

It is not necessary to force the older child to be a nanny for the younger one, if he himself does not want it. Remember: no matter how old he is, he wants to be a child. When you say: “You are an adult, big,” you generate jealousy for the baby. Firstly, the elder begins to think that his childhood is over, and secondly, that he is simply not loved.

Mikhail Labkovsky never calls himself a child psychologist. He works with adults. All his advice is addressed to those mothers and fathers who are ready to change in order to build harmonious relationships with their children.

We have prepared for you important and useful quotes from articles and public speeches by a psychologist on how to raise a happy child.

parent example

1. "Lectures on the upbringing of children, advice from psychologists and teachers on family relationships are effective and make sense only if the parents themselves are psychologically well or at least stable."

2. “Being unhappy people, there is no way you can build a relationship with a child in such a way that he is happy. And if the parents are happy, then nothing needs to be done on purpose.

3. “It is impossible, without loving yourself, to raise a child into a person who will love himself. And a parent with low self-esteem cannot raise children with high self-esteem. Although many are trying very hard.

Rewrite children's script

4. “Yes, the roots of many problems come from childhood. But parents are who they are. They raised you the best way they could. You can’t change them, you have to change yourself: rewrite the children’s script, grow out of it.”

Stability, comfort, trust

6. "The feeling of security that a child should receive in childhood is the most important condition for his future mental health and life without neuroses."

7. “Stability, comfort, trust - this is what children should receive from their parents in the first place. If parents behave aggressively, humiliate, criticize the child, then, naturally, his confidence in life in general and in people in particular is undermined. I have one friend who says specifically: I hate people. She picks up dogs, cats, and it’s clear why: the animals didn’t betray her, but dad betrayed her.”

Family harmony

9. “If you take a complete family, but neurotic, and a family without a father, the second is definitely preferable.”

When Parenting Stops Causing "Cute" Delight

10. “The trouble is that most parents lisp with their children until a certain age, and at the age of four they suddenly refuse to understand that they have a child in front of them. And they begin to demand something, put pressure, wait ... When you want the children to bear your last name, this is normal, but when you want them to finish what you did not have time, it is fraught.

11. “When a mother is on maternity leave for a long time and “through force”, she feels like a hostage to her child, or consciously, by a strong-willed decision “spends a lot of time with her child”, because that’s how responsible she is, or - even worse - “devotes son (daughter) all of himself, ”or even worse -“ lives for him ”, the children definitely don’t feel any better from this.”

Do not confuse care and education

12. “Making sure that a child is dressed, shod and fed is a concern, not an upbringing. Unfortunately, many parents believe that enough care is enough. At the same time, parents often do not know how to communicate with the child. They just can't talk to him. Then this problem moves to school, where all the conversation revolves around grades, lessons, behavior and exams.

Guilt

13. “Children read everything and perfectly understand when they are “sitting” or walking with them out of guilt. Or, for example, a mother comes tired in the evening, on the one hand she has remorse that her children require attention, on the other - who will feed them if she quits work? And so she tries to keep up a conversation with them, and she wants only one thing - to lie down and die of fatigue ... It’s hard for her, and it’s not easy for them. Look for helpers, talk to the children, ask for their support - you don't have to carry everything! In the end, tired - hug the children, wash your face and go to bed. Chat tomorrow. Better than the nightly tantrums: "The whole house rests on me, I work and stand at the stove, and you ...".

14. “And when, because of guilt, they are paid off with toys, children also know very well. “Sorry, I came home from work late again, and I’ll go on a business trip for the weekend, so you, son, have a new designer” ... Such relationships - with initially incorrect settings - are reflected in the child's psyche, and even in physiology.

15. “A healthy situation when a mother, impatiently (and not blaming herself for anything), anticipating how she will hug her daughter or son, hurries home from work. From work, where she realizes herself, communicates, gets satisfaction and where she manages to miss her child. And those couple of hours or less that a parent and child spend together are really valuable, filled with love, sincere interest in each other and give a lot to both parties.

If the family is not the first child

16. “Dear parents! When a second, third, fifth child is born in your family, do not tell the elders that they are already adults. Neither behavior nor words let them understand that, they say, "you are already big." Firstly, although he is older, he still remains small in relation to his parents, and this is the only normal position. And secondly, children perceive all these stories about “you are now the elder” as a sign that they no longer love him or love him less. This is painful and extremely unhelpful for family relationships and his later life.

Just unconditional love without ambition - the main guarantee of children's happiness

17. “A child, like yourself, must be loved simply for the fact that he was born and is. And all these ambitions, demands, dissatisfaction with a son or daughter are clear signs of dissatisfaction with oneself, one's own unsatisfied ambitions and one's own, excuse me, insolvency.

18. “In a conversation with a child (and not only) do not criticize him, do not touch his personality, do not go beyond the analysis of his actions. Talk not about him, but about yourself. Not “you are bad”, but “I think you did a bad thing”. Use the wording: “I don’t like it when you ...”, “I would like that ...” Less criticism, more constructive and positive.

19. “The child should feel that parents are kind, but strong people who can protect him, can refuse him something, but always act in his interests and, most importantly, love him very much.”

Lecture-consultation "About children" by Mikhail Labkovsky gives answers to parents' questions. It is suitable for those who do not have much time to read voluminous books on parenting or listen to long lectures. Everything here is short, clear and to the point. In a short period of time, the psychologist manages to tell about the most important points education.

At first, the birth of a child is perceived as something miraculous, this little man seems to be the most beautiful creature in the world. But it often happens that later everything becomes different. Parents get tired of the daily responsibility to monitor their children, educate them, especially if the child has a difficult character.

How to keep the joy of communicating with a child, how to gain mutual understanding? When should you discipline your child and when should you not? And what kind of punishment can be considered appropriate? How to learn not to be led by children, to say “no” to them so that they understand that this is done for the good? How to avoid conflicts between children? How to teach children to get up for school without disputes and daily battles? Answers to all these questions can be found in the psychologist's lecture, he gives vivid life examples, gives advice that will help grow a responsible person who understands that all actions have consequences.

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