“I have never been praised”: What mistakes of parents do we not want to repeat?
"I will never do what my mother did," “I will not make such mistakes, as my father did,” young parents often say. What do they mean? We talked with five mothers about the fact that they do not want to transfer their own children from their childhood to childhood, and whether it is difficult for them to give them - and at the same time they saw how the approaches to communicating with children change over time.
Interview: Elena Barkovskaya
Helena
38 years
In my youth I often resented my parents: it seemed to me that they did a lot of things wrong because of their egoism, did not notice my needs. Now, when I myself am a mother three times, I understand that I have very good parents who always act in my interests, as they themselves understand it. You listen to other people's stories and think: I have never been humiliated, insulted, not beaten, always supported in difficult times - with what can I still be unhappy? Although generally I can.
The main thing with which I disagree in the upbringing and that my mother still persistently does is a strange principle never to praise. I was an excellent student, was engaged in music, dancing, performed in the theater of a young audience. And my mother never praised me, either after numerous concerts or after fives. I thought all the time that I was underworking, I was not very good at dancing or playing roles, because I come after the performance, where my mom was, and she doesn’t tell me anything. And if I gained courage and asked her: "Well, how are you?" - then she made a few comments. And the child simply has nowhere to find out if he is doing well - only from the parents. I have never been in a circle for a long time, because I sincerely believed that I was not very good at it. And I was always sure that I was not very pretty - I never said that at home. Since then, getting a compliment about my appearance is always a shock to me.
When I grew up, I asked my mother many times why she never praised me. And she was amazed to find out that she praised me for all her friends - and that I was clever, and that she was beautiful - but she didn’t say anything to me, following the principle "bad - in the eyes, good - only for the eyes". But why not to tell a good child? Why tell this to strangers?
In general, my children are always “the smartest and most beautiful”: when they are awkward teenagers with acne, when they don’t work at school, when they lose in competitions. Recently, the middle son, who is now sixteen years old, said: "Because you always praise me, I have felt self-confidence since childhood, and it helps me a lot in life."
Alice
31 years
I can not afford to cry in front of parents and sister - I am ashamed. Because of this, my sister always called me callousness, although this is not so. With the advent of my children, I realized what was the matter. I once heard my mother say to my daughter on the street: "What a shame! It is not a shame to cry like that, now everyone will see!" The same phrases she said in my childhood. I asked my mother not to say such words to my children: it prevents the child from working and releasing her emotions.
I was beaten with a belt - in Soviet times it was very common. My sister and I were not beaten so often, but it was. I generally do not understand this measure of punishment: how can you beat a defenseless baby? Show your physical superiority? Yes, I am not iron either, and I had moments a couple of times when I was in the heat of passion, like on the machine, slapped the child with the palm of my hand, but then I asked for forgiveness for this and cried from my wrongfulness. But a belt? While you go after him, there is time to cool down and think about the correctness of his actions. Ask any child if he remembers being flogged in his childhood? Yes. Do you remember why you beat? Not.
The parents were not close with us as I would like: they did not sit in the evenings, hugging, wondering how the day had passed, did not resemble how they loved, did not say how clever, beautiful, and diligent we were. I lacked confidence. I want to be the best friend of my daughters so that they trust me with secrets, experiences, and I tried to help them. Every day I hug them many times, saying how I love and that they are my most beautiful!
And there are still some small rules: I don’t have to wash the entire apartment, and after that I can wash the entire apartment, and most importantly, do not warm the ice cream!
Irina
34 years
There are several things that I do not want to repeat with my children. First of all, to turn everything into a joke - for example, you say that you fell in love, but they laugh at you and make fun of you. In our family, it is customary to make jokes on everything, and sometimes it helps, but it also discourages the desire to share something painfully important.
Secondly, I do not want to inspire the child that everywhere and always you need to "behave culturally," be polite, not cause inconvenience to those around you. Before going to the doctor, my brother and I were warned not to scream and not to cry, because "it is inconvenient to the doctor." My "favorite" principle is to live with the eye of "what people will say." I rebel against it all the time inside, but it seems that I continue to live like this. For example, I still suffer a lot when I need to ask for cleaning in a dirty room that you just entered. For others to intercede is a sacred cause, but it’s impossible for yourself Why do people strain? Inconvenient. And even worse, if they think you're a ham, you put yourself above the others. With my son, I want to talk about boundaries, about how to politely defend my rights, and I learn to say no.
I have one more injury. I do not know what to call it - when a child is forced to do something against his will. My brother and I did not know the native Turkmen language, as we were born in a USSR in a multinational family and everyone spoke Russian. When I was seven or eight years old, they decided to leave us for a month without parents from distant relatives, as if to put them in the language environment. It was terribly difficult - although my brother and I were united in this situation. It was difficult not because of the language, but because there are strangers around, orders, way of life, there are no loving moms and dads around.
"I do not want to repeat these mistakes," unfortunately, does not mean that I "do not." But I pay attention to this and often stop. Already well, if we slowly break it down from generation to generation.
Veronica
27 years
There was very little that I could consider the mistakes of my parents. I would like to establish a more emotionally close relationship with my son. My mother is a sincere, warm, but rather closed person: it is difficult for her even with her closest friend to share her secret things, and she is still shy to discuss the details of her personal life. I understand all this now, and in childhood it was the only possible option to keep shameful or complex feelings with you. I want to share feelings with my son, call them, discuss them and already try to do it - so that he can more easily share with me when it is needed.
Most of the hard memories of my childhood are connected with primary school, when I got into the classroom to the tough, angry old school teacher. She could walk in silence and painfully tug at the shoulder, because she thought you were writing off, scolding you with the whole class, ordered you to take out the necessary textbook and notebook on the floor in front of the office door, so as not to “mess around” in the classroom, forcing you to finish eating the food from the dining room. And with her parents she behaved quite politely. Mom wondered: "Why are your textbooks so dirty? Why don't you want to go to school so much?" I told her about the methods of our teacher only a few years later, and my mother was horrified. I think her mistake is that she (like most other parents obviously) couldn’t see what kind of person our teacher, didn’t know what was going on in the class, and didn’t lead me into a frank conversation.
My mom was too serious about evaluations. I don’t remember that they screamed at me or punished me for them, but after every four people I followed long tedious instructions: “Why four? Did you figure it out? Did you work on the mistakes?” My mother was infuriated not by the fact that I got a four, but that I don’t want to correct her (and I really didn’t want to go to high school). In the end, I learned to lie - to forge the signature in the diary was common. With my son, I will generally try to discuss the estimates less, not to ask what he got. Let him deal with educational matters, it will be necessary - he will ask for help. My task is to prepare the ground for him to ask.
Suddenly I realized that I’m writing all the errors to my mother’s account, although I grew up in a complete family. Probably the main father's mistake is that he was removed from my daily affairs and experiences.
Yuliya
40 years
Sometimes we think that we will never repeat the mistakes of our parents, we will never shout at children, we will be understanding and emotionally accessible. But time shows that we cannot become “ideal” parents like that, on a click, especially if we did not have a positive example before our eyes. Our first rash reaction is always the same as that of our parents. And to change this, you need to make a lot of effort. Children, for their part, are also not "ideal."
The important thing that I personally managed to “break down” is the idea that parents know better what their child should do. In my childhood I did not have the freedom to choose hobbies. Hobbies were "right" - approved - and "well, some kind of nonsense." I took offense at my mother for a very long time because she took me away from the ballet studio, where I really liked it and everything worked out, and gave me to the music school that I hated, which I left after three years. When, a couple of years later, I entered an art school without any support from my parents, my success did not arouse enthusiasm either. Drawing was considered "stupid", "frivolous" occupation. I fiercely fought back from entering the law and economics departments that my father liked so much, and as a result I entered a sociology incomprehensible to me - it was a compromise. About creative specialties - journalism, design, direction, theater - could not be considered. "This is not serious and talent is needed. But do you really have talent?" The implication was naturally not.
Raising my children, I immediately decided that I would not force them. Do you want to go karate? Let's try chess. Tired of the theater boy? But what do you want? Ecology? We will look for. Of course, there were agreements: “You walk for a couple of months, if you don’t like it, you quit” or “Let’s come this year, and after the holidays decide whether to continue or not.” Of course, I was bitter when my son threw out good sections with good teachers, because he was bored or simply lazy. But I remembered that you can’t be forcedly milled, gave me a rest and offered new options.
With younger children, I went further. By this time it dawned on me that it was not only a matter of being able to choose, but also of moral support. A child looks at himself through the eyes of his parents, and if in those eyes he is not very good all the time, not very talented, then he will treat himself so. I began to consciously and actively praise children for creative and intellectual exercises. I grew up in an atmosphere where if you did something good - it should be so, but if you did badly - you will definitely notice and scold. In the end, I was afraid to take on something new and unexpected, because at first it always turns out not good enough.
I had to realize that the bar that was set for me and which I sometimes set for the eldest child was greatly overestimated. There is no need for any standards from parents. Planks will be arranged by the world around us - teachers, trainers, they themselves, after all, - and let mom just love and admire. I praised and was interested in any drawing and crafts, any achievement, and I did it absolutely sincerely. This is not difficult if you turn off the measuring line in your head, which compares the child with other children.
It was such a pedagogical experiment - zero criticism, only positive. Images of younger children hang on the walls of the apartment interspersed with mine, and for them it means a lot. And I see an amazing result: they are addicted to creativity and are able to take on any task without fear that it will not work, that they cannot, they do not know how. They just take and do as they see how they came up. Sometimes they bring me to show (they used to bring more often, now not so, and my approval is necessary, they are confident), and I, of course, praise. It does not matter whether the child will continue to draw or not. An artist is a state, creative courage and inner freedom.
PHOTO: dohee - stock.adobe.com (1, 2, 3)