Child and criticism. article on the topic
How to teach your child to respond correctly to criticism.
In my work with preschool children, I often encountered the problem of children’s inability to adequately respond to criticism and comments addressed to them.
Preschool children have not yet developed a stable psyche, which is why it is difficult for them to calmly withstand comments.
This is not surprising when a child is upset and offended and does not want to see those who criticized him anymore. The main thing to understand is that a child must be taught to adequately perceive criticism from others in order to exist safely in society. What to do in this case? How to teach your child to respond correctly to the words of strangers?
First of all, every parent must come to the understanding that criticism is very important in the development of a child, in the formation of his personality. If the teacher does not point out the student’s mistakes and does not correct him, then how will the child understand what he did wrong and what he did right? How can we talk about education in general in this case?
In order to teach a child to respond correctly to criticism addressed to them, parents, first of all, need to learn how to properly respond to the child’s behavior in response to criticism.
The kid painted new wallpaper. Mom scolded him, and in response the child threw a tantrum. What is mom doing?! She runs to calm him down. His mother calmed down her child, he no longer cries, but what model of reaction to criticism did she form in him? The baby realized that as soon as he showed tears, his mother would immediately forgive him, and he began to use this model of behavior with other adults. It might be better to leave the hysterical child alone and go into another room. Hysterics need spectators, so the child, having lost the spectator, will immediately calm down. Now it makes sense to talk to the child, explain why you reprimanded him and who is to blame.
The child must understand that criticism is not a personal insult. Explain to your child that he should not take her to heart. After all, every person has his own opinion, and everyone has it different. Explain that criticism is a person’s point of view about the child’s work or actions, but does not express the person’s personal attitude towards him. Try to teach your child to calmly listen to criticism, analyze the remark made to him and respond. If he is sure that he made a mistake, then he should admit it and seek help. If the child believes that he was right, he must calmly argue his opinion or actions, prove that he was right in all possible ways. It is very important to teach a child to defend his point of view not with tears, screams and yelling, but to explain the reasons for his actions in a calm tone. The example of adults plays an important role in the formation of these skills. It is the behavior of the parents that forms the child’s idea of how to act in a given situation.
It happens that a child comes home from kindergarten upset and complains to his parents that the teacher scolded him. Explain to your child that the teacher has the right to criticize, because he strives for children to become better, and criticism is a kind of impetus that encourages them to develop. Criticism makes it possible not to stand still, to correctly evaluate one’s actions, and to draw objective conclusions.
If you think that the teacher unfairly criticized your child, talk about it with the teacher in person, but never speak badly about the teacher in the presence of the child, because this can lower his authority in the eyes of the child, and this will lead to new problems .
"I can't"
You learn the fear of failure and the enslavement characterized by the words “I can’t” in the following three ways.
First , you learn them through repeated association with a specific event. Supplemented with destructive criticism or physical punishment. By spanking your child every time he touches the piano, he develops a fear response. Which turns on whenever you think about playing the piano.
The second way negative habits are learned is the result of subtle negative influences. You may not be aware of them. Some people accept criticism without resistance, considering it justified. Others believe in the negative qualities attributed to them by horoscopes. And there are those who, having done something unsuccessfully on the first try, conclude that they have no ability in this area.
It is very important that you constantly ask yourself:
“What if I had a penchant for this?”
Then assume that you have such tendencies. Work on yourself. As you begin to remove the connecting links between your self-limiting beliefs and fears, you will discover that in reality there are not many obstacles. Almost all of them are in your head. In your automatic response.
The third way to learn negative habits and respond in the form of fear is the result of a single traumatic event.
If you have fallen from a height or drowned, such a terrible experience can instill in you an irrational fear of water and heights for the rest of your life. The very thought of something like that paralyzes you.
Sometimes such fears are called phobias. They can progress. If you continuously talk about a negative experience, reliving it over and over again, it can have a strong impact on your entire life and prevent you from achieving happiness.
“Irrational” is the key word for this situation. The situation includes feelings of extreme anxiety. You start to get angry without knowing why. The very thought of the situation upsets you. Interferes with work and relationships with other people.
Cleaning
One of the requirements needed to transform you into a positive person is to clear out all your mental shelves and unclog your subconscious pipes. To do this, you need to identify and deal with all the fears that lurk there and slow you down.
Talk about your fears with a good friend or spouse. Others very often see what you don't see. If necessary, consult a psychoanalyst or psychiatrist. A professional can also help you free yourself from mental obstacles that have been blocking your progress for many years.
Free yourself from attitudes that begin with “you should...”
These kinds of instructions are often given by parents to their own children. “You’re a girl, you have to be careful,” “Boys shouldn’t cry,” “You need to share toys with other children,” and so on.
An adult may also not be aware of this type of attitude. For example, a man throws all his energy into building a career just to finally become “good” to his father. Although, of course, in many cases, parental demands can lead to the exact opposite effect - a person begins to be lazy, ignore the requests and admonitions of parents, and so on.
Women who were expected to live up to certain high ideals in childhood can also unconsciously carry these attitudes into adulthood. They will constantly try to please other family members, neglecting their own plans, hobbies, and entertainment. If in childhood she was a modest excellent student who wanted to be perfect in everything, then in adulthood the daughter of critical parents turns into a hyper-responsible woman. By the way, such ladies often become spouses of unimportant social elements - alcoholics, gambling addicts, the eternally unemployed.
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Coercive nature
The second main type of negative habits acquired by children is of a forced nature. Coercive negative habits are acquired by a child when he is told over and over again: “You would rather do this instead of that.” Parents say: “If you don’t do it or don’t stop doing it, then you will be in big trouble.” For a child, troubles with parents always mean a lack of love and approval.
When parents condition their love on the child's performance or behavior, the child soon learns a message like, “I'm not loved, so I'm not protected until I please Mom and Dad. I have to do what pleases them. Obliged to do what they want. I must, I must, I must."
Forced negative habits are developed when parents love not unconditionally, but with condition.
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Self-confidence backed by fear
Mothers and fathers remind their children that they don’t really know how to do anything themselves, that they are ugly, they have no abilities, and so on. Outwardly, such mothers and fathers are self-confident. However, their actions lack love and compassion. They are afraid that if they show too much tenderness to their children, they will “sit on their necks.” Fathers worry that their sons will be smarter and more talented; mothers - that their daughters will become more attractive in appearance than they are. And sometimes one parent has fears of both kinds. So behind self-confidence are people who themselves are looking for love and recognition.
But is it possible to correct self-esteem in this case? This is not easy to do, but it is quite possible. True, you will have to spend a lot of effort. And sometimes financial resources, since in most cases independent work is not enough and you need to contact a professional psychologist.
Illustrative example
First of all, they need to work on creating their own psychological boundaries. This way you can learn to understand why certain words or actions are unpleasant for other people. Children of critical parents should cultivate self-respect and learn to defend their own boundaries. A simple example: in a cafe they bring such a person a cup with a broken handle. You can humbly drink coffee from it. Or you can politely ask the waiter to replace the container. After all, the client will pay money for coffee in a whole cup, and not in a broken one.
Work on developing personal boundaries
Often those people who had to deal with excessive parental criticism in childhood suffer from insufficiently developed personal boundaries. They cannot soberly assess their own capabilities, and are also poorly oriented in the desires and feelings of other people. Roughly speaking, a psychological merger occurs. In another person, such an attitude naturally causes a reaction of rejection - after all, no one likes it when their opinions, problems, aspirations or experiences are not taken into account. Another common drawback of such people is the habit of violating the boundaries of someone else’s space without asking. This is exactly what adult children of critical mothers and fathers do towards other people.
“Pocket skeptic”: how this type of psyche is formed and how it manifests itself
In fact, everyone has an inner critic as a personality component, largely borrowed from their parents. When a person is skeptical of himself, he may even use the same words or phrases that his mother or father once said to him. In this dispute, which for the unconscious does not subside for years, there are two sides. This is an adult from whom the criticism comes; as well as a child “learning” feelings of guilt, shame, and inferiority. The child's psyche quickly absorbs the attitudes of adults who are significant to the child.
Then, already at an older age, these psychological blocks become more and more durable and less conscious. As an adult, a person can, without even realizing it, “turn” into a child for some time. For example, feeling unimportant in front of a strict boss at work or experiencing awkwardness in communicating with the opposite sex. Or he himself may become such a critical “parent” in relation to another person - for example, to his lover.
