Your children are not your children. Павел Эрзяйкин
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to communication with people without fear for this world. Do you agree?
When parents create a fairy tale for their child, where there is no grief, poverty and death, this becomes an excellent ground for further frustrations. One day the child will come across the reality and will get to know that there are empty pockets and sufferings. This happened to Buddha, who didn’t know that there were diseases, senility and death for 16 years, so when he left the palace he was shocked. While your child is just a kid, you can defend her and create absolute goodness for her, but one day she will step out into the real world and will be inadequate, not ready for defense. On the other hand, if you start speaking about the cruel dangerous world, full of criminals you will jump into another extremity. Such frightening will make no sense; because we don’t have another world and you shouldn’t cause fear and rejection of this world in children, bring them up in illusions, because you will have to cure it after a while. Do not hide anything from children. Just explain that the world is much more than they show in the news. News is not the life of the planet, but something that is interesting to some people; life is not only murders and theft, life is successes, orgasms, birth of children, excellent marks for exams, etc. Ask your child, "You have lived a day, have you seen any of the things shown on TV in our town?"
Fight against drug addiction creates drug addicts. Fight for peace starts new wars. If you don’t interfere, the TV interest will soon fade. Nothing will have to be forbidden, if we don’t watch it ourselves. We have to forbid, when we watch ourselves, but we forbid to the kids only, "Now there is an adult program, it’s high time for you to go to bed." I remember my parents telling me so, and I then was lying under their door trying to peep at what they were watching. Prohibiting, parents create something in the child’s head; interest arises and energy is evolved – until it is implemented, interest remains.
Don’t you deny the influence of the "street" on children? If they grow up in the context of drug addiction and criminal behavior, they may get under control of this environment and it will be hard for parents to get them out of there.
When I consult mothers of the drug addicts, who (the mothers) tell me what kind of television, schools and society we have, I understand that these mothers are looking for the party in fault, because they feel authorship and direct participation in the trouble happened to their children. Such mothers create the "Committee of soldiers' mothers," the "Committee of drug addicts’ mothers," and soon will probably create some other committee to fight against the society that is killing their children. These children perished in the army or died in some situation only because they suddenly were left alone without the mother and couldn’t survive without her. The heads of these children were stuffed with false ideas about the world that mothers had invented to shield their children from reality. As long as they could, they kept their children in these illusions, thought for them, suggested answers, worried about them and when the children grew up, went out of the parents’ nest, the world turned out to be a shock for them. But they couldn’t live another way, so they started playing fools and insisted, showed their whims and told other people "how it should be." But the world is unlikely to bow and scrape before somebody’s whims. Then the only thing left to the child is to return to the mother, or, if it’s impossible, to step out of life. Either you accept everything as it is or you die – a very simple formula of life. Because if you accept, you start interacting, you are in contact and only this way can you influence, create and change. But if you are not in touch, there isn’t any other chance.
It’s impossible to unglue my child from watching cartoons – he can watch them for hours, though they are stupid and futile. Shall we wait until they bore him?
If real life is interesting, if parents have partnership relations encompassing love, respect and support, if something happens at home, if the child takes part in family events, talks, if there are discoveries and interest every day – in general, if there is life in the family, then cartoons will "go off-stage." But if in the real life the child is positioned as a "nobody, a freak or a loser", then he will crave for the world of illusions, where he isn’t guilty, where he won’t be punished.
What about the bad quality of contemporary cartoons, I’ll tell you about a talk between a children’s psychologist and the parents of children attending the same kindergarten as my daughter. She was telling us about the harm of contemporary cartoons, which form the matrix of a cruel woman. As an example, she took the cartoon "Shrek," where there is a scene, when the girl hits the face of the main character with her legs. The psychologist said that a woman can’t behave like that, because she’s, well, a future mother with plump cheeks and so on. However, women can be different, the sooner a child gets to know it, the better. Don’t create fairy tales and myths, don’t impose the stereotypes about "real women" and "real men" upon a child. The less you lie, the more adequate your child will be.
§ 2.1. Supporting Point
Parents, who are happy living their own private life, are happy if the child begins to live independently and has an inner center, supporting point. Сhildren are responsible for their life and do not need "crutches" in the form of assistance and support from parents. In this case, you, as a parent, know exactly that all the terrible things that scare anxious mothers will never happen to your child, because they have the courage to think with their brains and rely on common sense. You are sure that they will be winners, successful and lucky people, and all that remains for you is to be proud of your child, and you are not even slightly worried about where they live. You know that no matter where they live, it’s the best possible life out of all the opportunities in the world.
There are people who are fine under any conditions. There are people who demand special conditions to live. You have to make your child understand that he or she is the main condition to live. You are alive, then live. If we take the universal purpose of parenthood on a planetary scale, it is the same as that of a lion or a dolphin or a dog: to teach a baby to be responsible for his/her life. This quality doesn’t appear by itself at a certain age – it needs to be formed and created.
You can’t teach responsibility with fear. Fear is a stimulating, not motivating factor, and it works as a temporary measure. Parents are unable to forbid anything. Even if you forbid now, you won’t be able to run after a child for all your life and watch, forbid and control. At that very moment when you are not near, the child will do what he/she wants and you will never know about that. You have taught your child to give "right" answers, you’re calling home and asking: "What are you doing, sonny?" – "Homework," – he’s saying, but in reality he’s watching daily rebroadcast of the movie you forbade to watch yesterday.
Children should have a supporting point to choose themselves what they like and what they don’t like. When there is no such point, children have to rely on what’s "right" and "wrong," but these values are changing constantly. Back then, if you had sex before the wedding, it was a shame. Now if you don’t have sex before the wedding, it’s a shame as well. If you instill the stereotypes about the norm, you make your children vulnerable for the changing world, for assessment. They start believing in the absolute, but then suddenly everything turns head over heels and they get confused.
I am doing homework!..
When children start believing in the absolute assessment, they become silly, dependent, extremely vulnerable and turn into "social sheep" telling their mom, "I’ve seen this chocolate commercial on TV, and I need this chocolate. I can’t live without it!" The life of such children depends on who they will meet today. If they meet a member of a sect, they will become sectarians. If they meet a thief, they will become thieves. If they meet a drug addict, they will become drug addicts. Mothers usually do not see the root of their child’s problems in themselves and lay the blame on school and TV. However, millions of people watch TV and go to school, but not all of them become drug addicts.
Once I talked to the mother of a drug addict. As soon as she entered my office, I told her, "Do you want me to tell you what kind of son you have? Irresponsible, weak-willed and purposeless." – "Yes. How do you know that?" – "Because you are very responsible, decisive and purposeful." If some