What are our children teaching us? This child taught us to enjoy every little thing
The charitable lecture by Lyudmila Petranovskaya was held in support of the Volunteers to Help Orphans Foundation. Today, the fund has many programs in four main areas - prevention social orphanhood, assistance to children in institutions, promotion of family arrangements, work on changing legislation, public opinion and the entire system of collective institutions for orphans. We post the recording of the lecture with the consent of the author and for donations that can be made on the foundation's website: https://www.otkazniki.r u/donation/
95% of what is taught in school is irrelevant
There is an expression: generals are always preparing for the last war. This applies even more to parents and teachers. Parents raise their children today. When we think about what would be good for our children, we look around, analyze the surrounding reality and from this we draw conclusions about what to teach them, what not to teach, where to direct them. But at the same time, we rarely think that by the time our children grow up, today will be the day before yesterday for them.
But even parents here will be given a lot of points ahead by a school that is already preparing children for the day before yesterday. Already today, 95% of what children learn at school, what their time and energy is spent on there, is irrelevant, irrelevant even today, not to mention the future. This is such a paradox of education that in some other areas we plan ahead, we are engaged in strategic planning, we think about what will happen next, and when it comes to raising children, we seem to forget that time is passing, and life is changing.
In ten years, 15% of existing professions will disappear
According to forecasts, over the next ten years, 12 to 15% of the current professions will disappear. Your children will not grow up yet, many of them will not finish school yet, and there will no longer be 12-15% of the usual, basic professions that are now around us. We can hardly imagine what will happen in 20 years, when all your children will definitely grow up.
The modern world is characterized by a tremendous rate of change. Everyone remembers when you got your first personal computer? And the first mobile phone? And in our hall there are already people who do not remember how this did not happen, they cannot imagine how it could not have happened.
Have you ever asked yourself why the actions of many action-packed series often take place not in the modern world, but at least in the 80s? It's very simple: if we imagine that the characters have mobile phones, the task of action becomes more complicated by an order of magnitude. The directors simply move the action to a time when there are no mobile phones. And immediately there is a lot of movement: this one is lost, this one is looking for him, this one does not know where he is, this one did not say, this one did not understand.
And what to do now, if everyone has mobile phones? You need to come up with some kind of artificial situation that, for example, the hero got into some kind of zone where there is no signal or he was drowned out by aliens. And so in ten films in a row.
A mobile phone is not just some technical thing - it changes our lives, our relationships, for example, with children, who now grow up in a situation of constant control. Did your parents know what you do all day long before? And now, which of you is ready to put up with the fact that until the evening you will not know where your child is, what he is doing, has he put on a hat, has he eaten?
Mom writes on WhatsApp: “Did you put on a hat?” He replies: "I put it on." She writes again: "Take a selfie and skin" .
Children are better than adults in many ways.
How much does the Internet change life? In every sense, from the possibility of remote work, ending with the fact that we can no longer control what and when our child learns.
Some ask psychologists: “At what age can a child be allowed to start a page on social networks?” Guys, he forgot to ask you! He will start everything from a classmate’s phone in a minute at a break, go everywhere he wants, and you won’t even know.
And in general, the child understands this better than you.
This is also a very interesting new phenomenon - in our country now children often understand something better than adults. This has never happened before in the history of mankind, but now it is the norm.
And in a situation of such rapid changes, such unpredictability, such ambiguity, adults are nervous, they do not know what will happen next. It is no coincidence that futurologists are now so popular, who are trying to understand what will happen next. When parents get nervous, they put pressure on their kids to fit into a future we don't know about.
It seems to me that this is a feature of our time: on the one hand, we understand that we cannot predict the future, on the other hand, we are experiencing. But it is impossible to worry about the future, because it is impossible to worry about what you do not know!
So we worry about what we can imagine. How does he pass the exam, does he absorb those 95% of the unnecessary material of the school curriculum, did he learn this, did he remember something else. Worry is located in very ancient layers of the brain, it is such an instinctive program, a reaction to stress, and on top is built a smart cortical brain that does not like cognitive dissonance when we are worried about something. The brain immediately begins to look for the reason, to adjust the puzzle to the answer. And - here it is, you have to worry about the exam. At least some logic.
There are many opportunities to complete your education
I now communicate a lot with people from Russia who have moved to Europe with children and go to local schools. Both sides are stunned by each other.
They say that the Swiss Ministry of Education is holding a special meeting where they discuss what to do with Russian mothers. They were given the name "Mom Helicopter". This is a mother who, like a quadrocopter, hangs over the child and watches him, worries.
At the same time, my young colleague, who left for Europe several years ago, says that there is a generally different attitude towards education: immediately after school, either pronounced intellectual nerds go to universities to do research, or the children of rich parents who have this childhood extension option.
Everyone else prefers to work first and look around for a while, or work low-skill jobs and travel the world. Visit as assistants and assistants in various fields, then go to some kind of bachelor's degree. After graduation, they work for a year or several years, and then go to the magistracy, sometimes in a different specialty.
In the first year of undergraduate studies, they sit side by side former students, and those who are 30 and those who are 50. And that's fine. The person did not have the opportunity before, or he did not understand yet. what is it.
But we hold on stubbornly: if the child didn’t go to university after school, life didn’t work out, I’m a bad mother, in general everything is terrible, a disaster, “the janitor will be!”.
Forecasts now say that children born in the new century, after the year 2000, are very likely to live 100-120 years, unless something catastrophic happens. And you take out their brains because of the control in chemistry.
Sometimes it's just, maybe, to talk to a child about how he lives 120 years old, so that he does not plan to jump from the roof because of a bad exam or unrequited love? Maybe talk to him about the fact that he still has a long life ahead of him, and all this will change 10 times more, and if he wants to learn chemistry (suddenly he needs it), it is possible.
Look what it is now great amount opportunities to complete your education if you did not receive it at the time. And this is the model to which we will move. We will learn more than once and for life, but throughout our life we will learn and relearn many times.
And we try to instill in our children the views of our parents.
Another example. How much attention we pay to foreign languages. Indeed, in the modern world without English anywhere. Poor knowledge of the language slows down our science very much, because in our country the average applicant for a PhD degree sometimes cannot read modern articles.
But, apparently, we are five, at most ten years away from a very well-functioning simultaneous google translator, after which all these hours and years spent on English will simply not be needed. Yes, google translate will never allow you to read Shakespeare in the original, enjoying it, but what percentage of those who seem to know English now do this? And someone will still be, why not.
People will always have exotic hobbies. In 15-20 years, the ability to drive a car will become an exotic hobby, just as now someone likes it and knows how to ride a horse. People are looking for special places where they teach this and charge a lot of money for it, and ride for fun. And once it was not normal for people not to know how to ride a horse.
In this situation, we continue to worry about children and try to instill in them the same views, the same ideas about what is right, what is better, what is worse that our parents and our ancestors had.
When your stairs are too steep, you instinctively grab onto the railing. When the pace of change is too fast, people instinctively jump on the nostalgia and think, “This is how good it used to be.” Have you heard nostalgic ones: “Before, they taught well in Soviet schools”, “But before, children obeyed their parents there”, “But before, children respected”, “But before, children read books”? Psychologically, this is very understandable.
Another question: you are nostalgic - do not be nostalgic, but the timeline goes in one direction. Of course, maybe we will have a world-wide fundamental religious revolution and we will all walk in burqas, or a nuclear war will happen, and we will catch two-headed rabbits by snares and kindle a fire from the sun, but this is completely force majeure. But we still hope for the best option that everyone has enough brains not to bring it to this.
Top 6 Outdated Ideas We're Still Putting Into Kids' Heads
When I was preparing for the lecture, I made a list of the fears of the generation.
Idea #1: It's good to have a reliable profession for life
Of course, there are professions that, probably, will definitely not disappear. There will still be some doctors, but these will be doctors who, most likely, will be very little like today. And in order to become such, a person will need to be retrained almost completely.
When I finished school and even then I wanted to enter the psychology department, they told me: “Who will you work as? You understand that a psychologist is only a job in a club for those over 30. We need to start with the fact that “for those over 30” is already ridiculous. Then there was a special club for the illiquid, those who did not find a mate before the age of 30, and only with the help of a psychologist and specially organized dances did they have a chance to create a family. Now people at the age of 30 are only scratching their heads: “Marry - do not marry, get married - do not marry, or wait a little longer”, not earlier. Not to mention the fact that psychologists have become very much in demand.
But they did not invent it, it was so. I had philologist friends: my wife studied at the department of classical philology, studied ancient Greek and Latin, and my husband studied at the department of Slavic philology and studied the languages of fraternal peoples (this was in Soviet times). And while they were studying, it was obvious that the husband had a sure piece of bread in his hands, because translations of various communist writers were going on, delegations were coming, it was a constant amount of work. And she is learning some incomprehensible female needlework, some stupid Latin that no one needs. Then perestroika happened, my husband was left without work, and it was in great demand, because everyone began to open classical gymnasiums, everyone wanted to teach Latin to children.
Idea #2: You need to save money
The next conviction that we inherited from our grandmothers, but we profess it ourselves and try to instill in our children, is that we need to save for a “rainy day”, generally save money. But what is it in the modern world to "save money"? How? Remember Agatha Christie: he left her some pounds, she put it in the bank at interest, lived on them in her nice little country house with two bedrooms and a small garden near it, and sometimes drank tea at Tiffany's.
In the modern world, this is impossible, all rates have long been negative, and you can save and save money only for some very short term. What to do next with them? It is necessary to invest them somewhere, but where - you need to know. It’s impossible to just bring it to the bank, put it in and calm down, it’s even more stupid to put it in a stocking. Although I don’t know which is more stupid: maybe in a situation of a banking crisis, a stocking is smarter. But the “save money and you will be happy” strategy no longer works.
At the same time, we often teach children to be thrifty, to something that is also often not relevant today. In today's world, it's more common to simply change something than to worry about not tearing or staining it. It is more objective and correct from all sides. With savings, including money, time and other things, not counting the nerves..
In the book "SelfMama" I wrote a life hack for a working mother. If your child has a uniform at school, buy three times more clothes than he needs objectively. In this way, you will save your time and will not be forced to wash and dry this uniform with a hair dryer at night, on Sunday or Saturday, if you worked.
People are in shock: how is it? What would my grandmother say if I bought three times as many clothes as my child needs? Okay, let's sit down and count. How much does an extra skirt or extra vest cost for your child? How much is your working hour? Often these are people whose working hour costs more than a skirt costs, but at the same time the grandmother did not order.
Idea number 3: You need to accumulate knowledge and understand everything
I talked about “saving money”, and now I will talk about “accumulating knowledge”. A person must know everything. The child must read everything. 100 Books Your Child Must Read, 100 Movies You Must See. Museums on the list is a must, then a must, this is a must. And the idea that it is important to accumulate knowledge is not relevant at all in modern times.
The volume of information is such that it is impossible to accumulate it, while the availability of this information is such that there is no point in remembering it. Absolutely irrelevant. The school sits completely on this - to accumulate knowledge. Broad education, erudition 50 years ago gave a competitive advantage, and now the only way you can apply it is to go play a game on TV.
In fact, in the modern world - everyone is talking about it - it is much more efficient to navigate the sea of information, to be able to extract it, to be able to structure it, to be able to distinguish between reliable information and fake. Where is it taught? A person will learn on the Internet. Not at school, not with parents. Some will learn and some won't.
Idea number 4: You need to do everything well, efficiently
You need to do everything well, not slipshod, not blunder, qualitatively. My grandfather used to say: "You can't do anything bluff." Not relevant. If in today's world you try to do everything well, you won't last long, I'll tell you honestly. The task in the modern world, on the contrary, is exactly the opposite - to be able to deftly and quickly determine what we are doing as well as possible, what we are doing is acceptable, and what we are doing is a blunder.
This is exactly what the school teaches well, because they ask so much that it is impossible to do everything. If parents can't stand their children's brains and don't demand this madness, then essays on Moscow studies should be written for 5 points on their own after studying the literature.
Who is older, remember the typical amount of homework, for example, in primary school? Three examples and one exercise. Look at what's being asked now! This situation teaches children how to make a choice, but the position of the parents is important: do they stand, hang over that everything needs to be done well, and then complain that the child sits for 5-6 hours at school, with neurosis, with hysteria.
Or they tell the child that in this situation it is impossible to do everything, come on, find your bearings, figure out what can be reduced and what needs to be done with high quality, let me help you. The necessary competence in the modern world is to rank tasks: what needs to be done conscientiously, what needs to be done at the level of “will do”, what needs to be done, just to get rid of it.
Idea No. 5: You need to try in order to succeed with diligence
Another important truth that our grandparents considered unshakable is that all good things come with hard work, you must try and you will achieve results with diligence.
What do we see around? All around we see successful people many of them work very hard. Is it possible to call their work the words "zeal", "labor achieve"?
They work like undermined, because it is their rush, they like it, they are in their own flow. And someone in general accidentally achieves success, and someone succeeds, obviously not in accordance with the efforts.
Why did the owner of Facebook become a very rich man, and the owners of other systems, which were maybe even better, ended up being bought by Facebook? Quite by accident, there was a good moment, somehow it happened. Children are not fools, they see that in the modern world diligence is not at all equal to success, and we continue to demand perseverance and diligence from them as the main qualities.
Idea number 6. Up the career ladder
Career in the modern world is less and less vertical, character in hierarchies. What has always been - step by step, step by step: I was a worker, then a foreman, then a shop manager, and so on. You have to get into a large hierarchy, into a large corporation, into some large structure, and there step by step to climb higher. And if you do not fall into this hierarchy, then you have no special chances.
What do we see in the modern world, thanks to connectivity? The horizontal career reappeared. When was the last time she was? The Middle Ages, the city of craftsmen, you do not make a career in corporations, you are simply the best at making pots or weaving rugs, you are famous that no one does like you.
And you make your horizontal career, you don’t become the boss of all the potters, you just make the coolest pots, and people come to you from all the surrounding cities, your pots grow in price, and you take people as an apprentice at most, they do something similar but still not the same as you. This is a horizontal career. The modern world makes this very possible.
I had a very elderly relative, who at the time of perestroika was over 70 years old. All his life he worked in some small department in the customs service of the USSR and there he worked on some kind of maritime customs law. When the iron curtain fell, it turned out that there were no such specialists at all.
After that, all departments and ministries lay at his feet, they were literally ready to carry him in their arms from an apartment to a car, and then raise him to his office so that he would not retire. It so happened that for several years he turned out to be the only specialist in Russia in general in some area of this very law. A man sat quietly all his life in a small ministerial position, and suddenly, overnight, due to processes beyond his control, he turned out to be a hyper-demanded specialist.
The concept of a career in the modern world is not about the fact that you necessarily belong to something big and climb inside this structure, but that you know something special and unique. You can be a specialist in ancient Sumerian cross-stitching - I’m talking from the bulldozer now - and in principle, people who are interested in ancient Sumerian cross-stitching, on the whole earth, can be 500 people out of 7.5 billion.
Previously, you did not have a single chance to earn money with this, you had to work somewhere, and work on your crosses with the Sumerians at night in your kitchen. Now, if you turn out to be a master who is stunned by how he cross-stitches in Sumerian, thanks to connectivity and the Internet, you will be able to earn money: you will conduct webinars, master classes for these 500 people, they will come to you for advice, buy your products.
I remember one absolutely amazing consultation I had with the mother of a sixteen year old boy. She was very angry with him that he was skipping school, not doing his homework, he didn’t give a damn about the exam and so on. In general, I came with such a text that I have such a lazy person, he does nothing, I don’t know at all how he will live, some kind of nightmare.
I began to find out what he does when he does not do his homework, word by word it turns out that the boy composes music for computer games, earns about three thousand euros a month, is in demand in Australia, Canada, somewhere else. And for some reason, he does not want to go to school and does not read the novel "War and Peace" diligently enough.
If we demand from the child to do everything qualitatively, he will not have a chance to become the best in something.
This is just what popped into my head. I think that if you think about it, then remember the examples of unshakable truths that we introduce into the minds of children, but they no longer correspond to the real state of affairs. We simply do not have enough speed of analysis and critical thinking to have time to figure it out. It is easier for us to move somewhere by inertia. In principle, there is nothing wrong with this, all parents are like that, we are not originals here, if we do not show excessive zeal.
But the problem of modern parents is that they often treat this matter with incredible zeal, they press children so hard in order to prepare them for the world - I remind you, for the world that, at the moment of adulthood of their children, will become the day before yesterday - they cannot come to terms with the fact that their child will not know English at the age of seven, will not read at five, there will be something else.
Now there is just nothing, and many children have such a lifestyle that at the age of five a child does not have time to play. From one lesson he goes to another, from another to a third. Moreover, if a child does something himself, this often does not cause any respect from parents: “This is his stupidity, okay, play a little, between lessons and classes in additional English.”
Although again, we understand that he has a chance to just make a career due to what he is interested in. And again, the child needs respect for what he is interested in, in which he will become a real master. This is just a matter of choice: what to do with high quality, and what is a blunder. If we demand from a child to do everything qualitatively, then he will not have a chance to become the best in something, and in the modern world this is the key to success, and not a uniform “everything is as it should be”.
As a result, the pressure of parents and the school (of course, here the school will still give parents a head start) leads to the fact that children come to the feeling that they have taken away the control panel for their lives, and they themselves do not decide anything for themselves, they are only back and forth, back and forth. It is believed that this is all a very developing environment, but sometimes children do not have free time to just lie down, just read, just chat with friends. Just look at the clouds and the weather.
For some reason, it is considered very cool when a person does not have time for this, when he does not have time to just think, just reflect, just feel, mourn looking at the rain, for example. It is impossible, because he has this in five minutes, and this in another ten, and he still needs to do the task for tomorrow on this, this and this.
When a child feels like a pawn, he arranges passive resistance.
As a result, as soon as the child discovers for himself - and this usually happens in adolescence- that he can just say "no" and nothing will be done to him, he does exactly that. As soon as he discovers for himself the method of the Italian strike "I lie down on the sofa and do not get up from it" - he does exactly that. As soon as he discovers opportunities for himself, for example, to lock himself in a room and say that he is afraid to go out, he does exactly that.
Now a whole natural disaster of such "new Oblomovs" has appeared. In Japan they are called "recluses". Young people are locked in a room, they don’t go anywhere and do nothing, they don’t study, they don’t work, they don’t communicate with anyone, at best they sit at the computer, and sometimes they just sleep.
The young man does not study, does not work, does nothing. You can't even say that he skips school because he hangs out with friends. No, he doesn't hang out with his friends either, he doesn't do anything at all.
Almost every time you ask your parents what happened before, there is a history of turbulent early development when the child was dragged, taught, squeezed into his head this and that, the fifth or tenth. And there were so many expectations, such a capable boy, such a promising girl, such interesting child, you need to give him more, because he has so many talents, all of them need to be developed.
And the child lives in this state for years, when the control panel is taken away from him, he feels like some kind of pawn that is being moved. At some point he becomes a teenager, he has an identity crisis and he understands that his only way to regain his subjectivity, to regain his control, is simply to go on strike. You know how nonviolent protesters sit down on the pavement, clasp their hands together and let the police take them away. They don't fight, they don't run away, but just like that, they express their will through passive resistance. So is a child.
What qualities will children need in the future?
At the same time, the entire modern world requires exactly the opposite - involvement, enthusiasm, liveliness. Experts identify four competencies that will be most needed by children in the world that is coming and has already come in part.They are called the four "K": communication, cooperation, creativity and critical thinking.I will now slowly name it again, and you think about each of them, how our school today treats them.
Communication.What happens when our children communicate in the classroom, do we teach them various ways of communication? I once conducted a training with teachers, and there were young guys who were not completely perverted. And when we did such an exercise with them - how we want to see the child in the lesson, they directly said "dumb and paralyzed." The head teacher or director will never tell you this, they will say: “We want children to develop their personalities, so that they become active citizens.” "Petrov, shut your mouth and sit down." What kind of communication?
Many parents complainingly say: “Yes, he goes to school to hang out and communicate.” Lord, at least someone goes to school to learn what really needs to be learned! Children in general are very inventive, they can create an atmosphere that is absolutely not suitable for learning, they will still find how to learn there. They are very fond of learning.
Cooperation- the ability to act in concert with other people, achieving synergy of resources. Does our school teach this? Do you know many examples when there is work in groups at school? Imagine that the preparation for some test or test would be like this: we would make a group of children and say: “You, five, will be a group, your task by tomorrow is to present the solution to these problems.” And these five children go to someone's house or somewhere in a cozy corner of the school sit down and begin to work together to solve these problems. At the same time, children are different, they have different levels of training, different levels of knowledge.
Do you know what our teachers say when you offer them this? “How do I know that he didn’t cheat? And how do I know that he himself decided it, and not this one decided it for him? Look, adults do this. If you look at how work is organized in your company, in your department, in your small company, wherever you work, it is like that: a task is set before the group, the group goes, distributes, one invents, the other carefully writes down, the third criticizes. The fourth encourages everyone and tells how great we are. And the fifth coffee brings, and this is also needed.
And for some reason, we allow adults to work this way. Although it is clear why: adults work for money, and if we do not use effective methods of work, we will go bankrupt, and this effective method work. Cooperation provides for the distribution of responsibilities in connection with key competencies, features, and coordination of actions. When everyone is marching in formation and they are commanded by one person, this is not cooperation.
Does our school teach cooperation? Yes, for them it is sedition, go offer some form of work. What I told you immediately goes: “How will we know, and how will we find out that he actually did not decide himself?” Yes, he did not decide himself, but he created the atmosphere. And when the other decided and explained to him, he understood better than when the teacher spoke.
Creativity.Do we encourage creativity in children? Well, yes, when we set the topic: “Now we are all drawing New Year”, then the child, of course, “chooses”: he will draw icicles or balls on the Christmas tree. This is our creativity. How ready are we for the fact that the child has the right to draw something completely different? For example, draw one of yourself sitting on a chair and say: "This is my New Year, because I will be sad and lonely on New Year's Day." The teacher will immediately send to the school psychologist, immediately punishment will follow for such creativity.
What will we say if the child does differently, if he chooses some other form to show his thought? In fact, the imitation of creativity is encouraged, within narrow limits, “here the pattern can be drawn a little differently.” Real creativity is box-breaking, pattern-breaking, it's "doing things like no one else has done before me." What are you! If a child writes an essay in a way that no one has written before him, he will not get anything good.
And finally critical thinking.Do we develop critical thinking in children? God forbid, if they had developed critical thinking, they would have got up and left this school on the same day. And this is not only about children, but also about adults. people without critical thinking it is easy to manage, so everything is aimed at ensuring that it does not happen, and if it happens somewhere, then it is necessary to trample it down as soon as possible.
The Most Valuable Things Parents Can Give to Children
Look, a strange situation, even if we know where to steer, we steer directly in the opposite direction. God be with her, with school, school is our separate pain. Let's think of ourselves as parents. If we understand everything that we just talked about, what do you think is the main thing to equip a child in this world?
Remember, D'Artagnan was collected by mom, dad gave him a horse, said, fight with everyone who does not have time to escape, mom shed tears, gave him a piece of bread in a bundle. What knot should we collect for our children after what we talked about? What do you think is the most valuable thing we can give them?
- Fundamental life values
In general, understanding that there are values. We live in a postmodern world, where the amount of this uncertainty, unpredictability, ambiguity is such that it seems that there are no values left, there is no good and evil, there is no “good and bad”. And many children are now growing up in this really incomprehensible value broth for them, when it is not clear what is good, because the adults themselves are disoriented. We ourselves sometimes do not really understand where we have what values. We are not sure that we have the right to have values and talk about them. That others have a right to have values.
- Self-confidence and trust in yourself
Self-confidence, self-reliance, what is called self. I am even closer to the expression “confidence in myself”, the ability to feel what you need, not be afraid to admit it, not be afraid to say it, not be afraid to achieve it. It is the person who has confidence in himself, who feels what he needs, who has much more chances to make that very horizontal career, to find such cross-stitching in which he will be the best.
Unfortunately, what we talked about before - "taking away the control panel" - most of all hits the credibility of oneself. We are very worried about the children, we are very nervous, we want to lay a straw here, warn him here, tell him not to come here, as a result, of course, we catastrophically undermine this trust in ourselves.
In general, if you look at your life and the lives of adults around you, you will see that nothing gives such a competitive advantage as psychological stability and psychological health. This is much more important than any success. Remember how everyone was touched by Yulia Lipnitskaya when she was spinning and jumping at the Olympics? The result - the girl has anorexia, the girl left the sport. Her life has not ended, thank you Lord, big sport is not the most wonderful way to spend your life and youth will still find itself. But how much was invested, how many hours, how much effort, how much effort. If there is no psychological well-being, all this is meaningless. You can invest education in a person as much as you like, but if he falls down on the sofa with depression, where will your education be? You can blow his mind with your tutors, grades and results. But if he is not confident in himself, if he is tormented by neuroses, depression, then what is the point of all this?
Psychological health, psychological well-being, psychological resilience - what is denoted by the English word resilience, that is, the ability to withstand stress, withstand change, recover from it - this is the most important quality of a person in such a rapidly changing world. Much more important than the amount of knowledge or success in a particular area.
Unfortunately, in order to achieve success now, we simply hit and hit this resilience, because we want the child to do what we need right now and show the results that we need.
- Parental support
If we release a child into a world of such uncertainty and unpredictability, it automatically follows that he will make mistakes. It's just a built-in option, in this world it's impossible not to make mistakes. And here we need to work very hard on our own attitude to the error as a misfortune, as a fault, as a monstrous incident. It's a problem in our culture that we treat a mistake as a misfortune and a fault, without thinking that, in fact, a mistake is just an indicator that a person is learning something new.
Have you ever thought about it? If you do something without a single mistake, what does it say? That you already know how to do it. When you make scrambled eggs in the morning, you are most likely not making any mistake, because it is an automatic action that you have done. The result of it is not your learning, the result of it is the scrambled eggs that you have eaten. You didn't learn anything as a result, you didn't do it for that.
If a person does something without mistakes, it means that he is not learning anything at this time. If he does something with mistakes, then he is mastering a new activity. Until we begin to treat mistakes as a point of growth, as an inevitable component of the situation of learning and development, we will spread rot on children for mistakes, we will be upset and destroyed by their mistakes.
I do not mean a spelling mistake, although many manage to collapse because of this. I'm talking about a mistake with choosing an institute, a mistake with choosing a profession, a mistake with choosing what to score on and what to do. People will make mistakes, this is natural, and huge parental support is needed so that the child knows that after any mistake he can draw conclusions and continue. That no mistake will be the basis for us to say: "You disappointed me, you broke my heart, I am unhappy in my parenthood."
- Freedom of choice, autonomy
Freedom of choice and independence is generally the most difficult thing, because we see that modern civilization is attacking freedom of choice. We see that we need more and more security. Cell phones- these are still flowers, then they will implant chips at birth in order to know exactly where the child is, and in which case to stop him from unwanted actions.
In this situation, we must somehow instill in the child a love of freedom, a passion for freedom and the ability to use their freedom. This is a difficult task, sometimes we ourselves don’t even know how we should be with our freedom and how we can defend it, and even more so how to develop a taste for freedom in a child.
Remember The Matrix? We once saw and said "Ah!". And talk about this with modern children, they have an interesting look at this. They are already used to the fact that all the most interesting events take place in virtual reality, that life is boring, this is an essay on Moscow studies, and movement, interest, passion are all virtual reality, these are games, TV shows, these are films, this is somewhere out there. .
Love - unconditional and all-encompassing
Only children are able to love us not for something, but just like that. They don't care how much you weigh appearance or how much you earn. They love, even if mom didn’t wash her hair on time or dad lost his job.Live here and now
This is a very important human ability, which, unfortunately, we lose with age. Adults tend to be too busy to stop and enjoy simple things: good weather, birdsong and the like. Another ability that we can learn from our children depends on this - the ability to be happy. Just like that, because it's a good day, because close people are nearby, because your baby is smiling at you ...Our children teach us kindness
By nature, the child is pure, sincere and kind. It is later that society and life will teach him to be careful and attentive, teach him to defend himself, and sometimes attack. In the meantime, their kindness is manifested in everything, in relation to people, to animals, to themselves. Another important trait that appears in us with the advent of the baby is patience. But what about without him? We also learn to treat with understanding, first to our child, and then to other people. We often ask ourselves why the child behaves this way, maybe something happened. We try to be sympathetic to her sometimes strange interests and needs. Children are open to the world, and in return the world is open to them. Adults very often "shut down", trying to protect themselves from various threats and unpleasant situations.Sometimes this is really justified, but often it leads to a negative perception of the world and oneself in it. But when we trust the world, the world trusts us, it opens its possibilities and resources to us.
What can be learned from a child?
Children are absolutely open and natural in manifestations of their feelings, needs and desires. They don't play. They are real in all their experiences, sometimes in joy and delight, sometimes in sadness and irritation. When feelings and emotions are conscious and sincere, not blocked by stereotypes and fears, life becomes brighter and more fulfilling. Children are always open and very easy to perceive everything new.They easily destroy established stereotypes with a simple question "Why?" Or their "simple" thoughts. Often, with their questions, they put us, adults, at a dead end and make us think about things that have always seemed clear and generally accepted to us. They teach us creativity. Their fantasy and imagination have no boundaries. Children can easily imagine a magical ship with a simple cardboard box, see the figure of an animal in the cloud, and turn an ordinary room into a castle.
And it depends only on the adult whether he will create the conditions for the development of children's creativity, or he will plunge into this fascinating mutually creative process, or he may block and limit the curiosity and openness of the baby. Those who lose the ability to use their imagination with age lose new opportunities. They remain in an empty room. Those of us who are creative about the world will end up with castles. It is the child who will teach you to accept yourself for who you are. Because your baby is absolutely indifferent to how you look, you have done a certain job. It is important for him to love and receive warmth and care in return.
Another ability of children is to tell the truth
Psychologists have proven that the average person lies about 50 times a day. The reasons for and forms of lying can be many, from unwillingness to answer questions to outright lies in order to look better in the eyes of others. And only children are so sincere and frank that it does not even occur to them to tell a lie. Sometimes their truth is simply shocking, but always captivates with its spontaneity. Children teach us to believe in a dream. They are absolutely sure that their dreams will come true and do not doubt it for a minute. In the meantime, a person believes, she will do everything to make her dream come true. Adults are very often so busy that they simply do not have enough time for dreams and desires. Communicate with your children, pay more attention to them and your life will become brighter and richer!Titova Yulia Sergeevna
Essay "The purpose of education is to teach our children to do without us"
Essay.
The purpose of education is to teach our children to do without us..
E. Legouwe
The teacher is the first, after the mother, the teacher whom the child meets on his life path. Educators are people who always remain children in their hearts. Otherwise, children will not accept, will not let them into their world. Communication with children is a kind of exam every time. Little wise teachers both test you for strength and at the same time love you. The secret of their pure love is simple: they are open and simple-minded.
One can only wonder how much is required to work with children, which for the uninitiated seems quite simple. Many people think that the main thing in the profession educator - love children. I think they love their children parents, and for teacher is important to understand, support, know their features. Support gives the child the freedom to be different, sincere, frees him from common human fear
As adults, most of us love to talk. We tell children what to do, we talk to their parents. We talk, talk, talk… But what if we try to listen more? I know from my own experience: the one who listens to people achieves much more than the one who tells them what to do. When we listen to what children have to say, we give them the opportunity to hear themselves. In this way, they better understand their feelings and develop a solution based on their own experience.
Job educator is not limited to activities with children, it is important to help parents learn to respond more"professionally" on their behavior children. You need to take your children seriously. Children are individuals who have equal rights with us to any feelings and desires. You need to understand their big fantasies and small fictions, their thoughts, feelings, desires, and also give all emotions an appropriate outlet. In my work with children, I am guided by humanistic principles.: respect for the personality of the child, recognition of his right to own desires, feelings, mistakes, attention to his worries. home purpose of education- Help develop the child as a person.
Time runs very fast and what used to seem like a fantasy is now in every home and no one is surprised. Our life is bright, full of events and unexpected turns. Modern child subject to various influences from the outside world. He still does not know how to separate good - evil. The mission of the teacher is precisely to, having passed the influence of the outside world through the prism of love and kindness, to raise a Person. Much depends on how he does it.
The role of the teacher in the progressive development of society is also significant because he educates the youth, forms a generation that will continue the work of the elders, but already at a higher level of development of society. Therefore, to some extent, we can say that the teacher shapes the future of society, the future of its science and culture.
The significance of the role of the teacher in the progressive development of society was also determined by the Russian teacher K.D. Ushinsky: « caregiver standing in line with the modern move education, feels like a living, active member of a great organism. He feels like a living link between the past and the future…”.
They say that in educators go those who did not play enough in childhood. I don’t know if this is true, but as far as I can remember, I always wanted to become educator. After the end of the eighth grade, the choice of profession was obvious. The topic was set at the drawing lesson: "Who do you want to become in the future" i drew a picture "I want to be teacher at preschool» . She studied at the Orenburg State Pedagogical University at the preschool department. She happily combined her studies with work in kindergarten. I really love children, together with them to play, engage, create, invent new fairy tales, games, entertainment. To say that I love my job is an understatement. I love it, I live it, I breathe it. No day is ever the same. Whatever mood or state of health you have, when you enter a group and start playing with children, you forget about everything.
For a small child, everything is important in kindergarten: and comfort in the group, and the beauty of toys, look, and the word educator, and even the sun that shines through the window brighter than usual. “The whole business of teaching little people is made up of little things. Of all the little things, the foundation is imperceptibly laid, without which the entire building of education is shaky, and rolls, and on the side. Therefore, every little thing that in any way concerns the child has a certain meaning ”V. P. Sheremetevsky.
The mission of the teacher is to form a holistic thinking pupil, diversified development. Synthesis of knowledge and skill distinctive quality teacher. It defines other skills of the teacher.:
not harm health, psyche, desire for independence, creativity pupil;
motivate a holistic child's perception of the world, his cognitive activity;
main qualities, which the teacher must have in order to fulfill the mission entrusted to him:
- love for children;
– tolerance (tolerance) ;
- tact;
– professionalism;
- external attractiveness;
- justice.
The teacher must bring the child to the realization that he himself is the blacksmith of his own happiness. To do this, you need to love and feel children be able to communicate with them. The teacher in my understanding is not so much the one who deals with children in the classroom how much one who teaches a child to be human. The successful solution of these problems requires the teacher to have formed empathy, that is, the ability to see the situation through the eyes of another person, to be able to put himself in his place. pupil. In my work, I try to skip all the feelings, experiences children through yourself. Raising children, I get the right, carefully, carefully, to enter the space of childhood, filling its precious minutes with communication, play, creativity, passing on to the children the knowledge and experience once received from their teachers.
To achieve this, quality comes to the fore - pedagogical skill. Mastery is a high and constantly improved art of teaching, available to every teacher who works by vocation and loves children. The teacher is a master of his craft, a specialist of high culture, deeply knowledgeable in his field, well acquainted with the relevant branches of science or art, practically versed in issues of general and especially child psychology, who is fluent in teaching methods and education.
As L.N. Tolstoy: “To love is to live the life of the one you love.” These words contain the meaning of why you go to kindergarten to children.
When you see happy faces children, their trusting eyes looking at you, their arms that reach out to hug you tightly, when their parents come with gratitude to tell about how your advice helped them, new forces appear to continue their such, at first glance, and imperceptible, but such important mission - the mission of the Teacher!
Everything I do for children are good. Future children depends entirely on what foundations we lay in them in preschool age. With our help, a child learns the world, learns to see, hear, feel and understand everything that surrounds him.
Finish your essay I want the words of the wise French writer Leguve E. : « The purpose of education is to teach our children to do without us.».
If you were given the opportunity to observe a spiritualized person, then you probably noticed that he is always on. He is interested in everything that happens around, even something insignificant, he is ready to do the work "out of status" with full dedication, it seems that everything is so important to him. And it doesn't seem like it really is. It is present in the present moment and does not cast aside the details of the present. And if you do not have the opportunity to communicate with people with a high level of spirituality, watch the children. They behave exactly the same. Only their behavior for some reason causes not respect, but irritation.
The child never sits. Although his parents stubbornly teach him everyday patience - the best thing that can kill the present, wasting time for the sake of a brighter future.
"Sit still, wait, don't twitch, go near and don't turn your head, then I'll give you a candy"; "Now we need to sit quietly in order to get to my grandmother and we will already play there." In other words: "Worry for now, live somehow now, so that later it will be good and interesting." Will it be interesting later? You will probably have to wait for something. With his whims, unwillingness to do everyday things boringly, the child encourages us to live now, to make the present moment interesting and exciting.
Please note that the child is always included in the process, and in absolutely any, despite the fact that this annoys many. While adults are trying to get away on the road, to kill time, the child is interested in everything that happens here and now. He looks at everyone with curiosity, and in response he hears: “do not look at your uncle, this is not good, do not turn around”, finds something interesting almost anywhere and at any time: “well, what are you picking there again? Remove your hands, there is dirt, sit still, we will arrive soon.
Children are our teachers. And it's not just beautiful phrase. If you take it seriously, if you apply it in life, if you listen to a child, hear a child, you can learn a lot of things.
Be present here and now
We have already talked about this. Make everyday activities interesting and exciting. Instead of going into your thoughts while dressing the child, try to captivate him with interesting reasoning, pronounce the whole process, focus on the details. Yes, there are more important things in the world, but the meaning of life here and now is to put on tights! :)
Meditate in extremely inappropriate conditions.
There are times in a mother's life when she has to stay in uncomfortable positions for a long time. The child fell asleep (finally!) in your arms in the transport, but not entirely successfully, the baby sucks his breast all night and no longer has the strength to lie on one side, the children started a noisy game when you want to relax. This is an excellent occasion for meditation. Meditation music, subdued lights and comfortable posture? Did not hear! In order to quickly relieve fatigue and be less dependent on circumstances, you need to learn to relax in uncomfortable positions.
Smile for no reason
Surprisingly, adults are often annoyed when a child smiles for no reason. Either they believe that he is up to something, or they are afraid that passers-by will think that he is laughing at them. In any case, with such a reaction, adults build a clear connection in the subconscious: you need to laugh and smile only when there is a reason for this that is understandable to others. But in the future, the less often we smile, the less reason for this.
Play
Turn any situation into a game, think in a playful way, easily change the rules, quickly forget about defeats. There are very few children of principle, if a child has some principles, he simply imitates adults, and his principles easily collapse under the onslaught of children's love of life and curiosity. Look at the world broadly and be naive to be sure that you can do everything and everything is available to you - that worldview that makes an adult successful and which the same adult achieves through long-term work on himself, a bunch of trainings and read books on personal growth. Therefore, before the next time you tell your child: “You can’t, don’t waste time, you are still small, this is not for you,” think, maybe it’s better to take an example from him?
Accept yourself and your emotions
It is difficult to imagine a small child who is trying to hide his resentment. Indignation immediately reflects on his face, He lives and burns his emotion to the end and immediately, until it takes root, and then lives on with a light heart and loves everyone around. The ability to hide and suppress emotions comes with age. Already at school age, parents and teachers are trying to teach how to do this instead of teaching them to accept all the movements of the soul in a correct and civilized manner, to sincerely ask for forgiveness and sincerely forgive. And don't think about it anymore.
I really want to write that children teach us patience. But patience? Patience is waiting. Live now and you will never have to endure again.
Spring! Everything blooms and rejoices in the sun. I finally got out to meet my friend in the botanical garden! And there spring in all its glory - tulips, lilacs, magnolias - everything blooms, the aromas intoxicate!
Walking in the garden, a friend says: “You are so attentive to everything that surrounds us. You've already drawn my attention to three ladybugs, a few spiders, and a bunch of other bugs." “It's all thanks to the kids,” I replied and smiled. And then I thought. Indeed, how much can be learned from children if you slow down to their speed.
What have my children taught me and are teaching me?
Such a difficult simple question. First of all, see in a new way. What are these bugs, where do they crawl, where do they live ... and many other questions are asked by a child when he sees a living creature. Can you think of fascinating story, can you tell Interesting Facts from the life of a beetle. (Thanks to the children, I learned what a ladybug larva looks like). Together we observe where he crawls or, taking a bug on his finger, we sing: “ Ladybug fly to the sky…” and he flies away. The world of insects has become closer to me. Wasps, bees, bugs and spiders - they can all get into trouble - puddles, mud, falling on your back, and we are insect rescuers!!! We help them, and we ourselves learn to respect nature.
My son taught me to understand car brands. Before that, they were divided into “ours” and “foreign cars”. Now the world of cars is open to me in all its diversity. Mercedes, Citroen, Porsche are no longer empty words, but names filled with history. "Cars" is our favorite cartoon. We not only watch it together, but also find out what cars are behind the images of the characters.
When did the first car appear? Who Invented the Train? What did ancient people ride? The son asks questions, and the mother buys books on the history of transport! And the mysterious world of the future. Will there be flying cars, what kind of planes and trains will there be? We already have this book. Now we know everything, well, almost everything! Thank you, son, for expanding my horizons!
And with my daughter we get to know the life of animals. Who lives in the forest? What are they eating? What kind of houses do they have? And the answers don't have to be scientifically correct. No, it's not that interesting. We will figure everything out ourselves. The child's fantasy world works wonders. And now our deer is already eating nuts with a squirrel girlfriend, and after that they go to visit the raccoon who lives in the house. And his neighbor is a big elephant. Every day our little animals experience new adventures.
Daughter got carried away in kindergarten English language. And now, twice a week, my mother checks her knowledge of the language under the supervision of the most strict teacher. New poems and new words are my treasures thanks to my beloved daughter.
For many years you live and do not even suspect the owner of how many talents you are. The appearance of children reveals them to the fullest:
Acting– Playing with children you try on many different roles. Now you are an evil gray wolf who wants to eat a little bunny; the wolf has already disappeared, and in its place is the princess, who needs to be prepared for the ball. And you need to be sincere and convincing, plunging into all the images. Children do not tolerate falsehood.
Singer- an unsuspecting mother becomes a singer, singing along with her children their favorite songs from cartoons or lullabies at night. Often you start singing just like that!
Artist- the acquaintance of the child with pencils and paints entails the active inclusion of the mother in this process. “Mom draw…” and you understand that, despite the 3 in drawing at school, you are a good artist. And all thanks to the admiration that you see in the eyes of your child. And then you become an art connoisseur. From now on, the refrigerator and walls perform another important function - they are carriers of highly artistic works.
