Павел Эрзяйкин - Your children are not your children

Instead of waiting anxiously for the child to fall flat and come back home, it would be nice to think that he will succeed. There are difficulties, and everything happens. Nothing works on the first try, so let him attempt over and over again. Even if he fails, it’s not the reason to give him up as hopeless and say, "Well, now stay with your mommy for the rest of your life. Do you see how dependent you are?"

I will tell you more: even if the child asks for help, don’t rush to help him. Judging by your question the only thing you crave for is his asking you for help, then, you will become important and meaningful, responsible for his life thus proving his dependence. Let the child himself understand and realize: can he live alone? Don’t push him with your commentaries.

Children mature this way – alone, without friends, face to face with life, "I keep on acting and doing. Not for approval, not for applause, but to survive."

Should I raise my child with the feeling that she is exceptional, different from the rest of the children?

We are all exceptional, not like other people, and unique. This is called individuality. Every person is born unique – just don’t kill this feeling in children. It often turns out that parents first let the child feel a complete zero, but then start instilling the feeling of self-uniqueness. This is a very difficult process – to destroy first, and then restore. Don’t destroy from the very beginning. There is a wonderful anecdote about a woman who came to visit a vet with her dog. She was complaining of her dog’s sudden urination. The vet asked the woman to ask her dog to do something. The woman furiously shouted, "Sit down!!" The children are born "crazy," brave, ready to take risk without fear or anxiety. The need to believe in their power appears if it has been taken away before.

How can I make my child understand that his parents’ house will always be his back-up, but at the same time I want my son to solve his problems by himself and address "back-up" only in case of emergency?

Your anxiety proves that you already know: your child is dependent. Your hypocrisy is that you say his requests are felt as a burden, whereas you really enjoy them. This is some kind of a game: "I would help you, not every day, but every other day…" Unless the child becomes independent, unless he is responsible for his life, he comes to ask for help. If he needs help, he will come every day. Maybe it has become a burden for parents, because they have finally started to live their own lives. They haven’t had it before and they liked their son asking them for advice, for money, but this dependence has become a burden. Your control over a child turned to be his control over you; his dependence became your dependence.

Can I rise my child’s supporting point, refusing him in pocket money (making him earn money himself), not leaving a ready-made lunch (making him learn to cook) and so on?

You can learn if you are taught. We grow up, become smarter and more courageous when we solve problems and overcome difficulties. Creating these difficulties may either be a good training or the purposeless exercise. Refusal is not the method of upbringing. If you have tamed your child, hooked him on full provision, be responsible for that. "You can’t earn money – be poor. You can’t cook – be hungry" is ridiculous. Any load created for a child has to be adequate to his abilities. When you reject, what do you want? Do you want your child to start earning or pleading you for a tip? Is your child aware were money comes from? How do you happen to have it in your pocket? You can refuse to provide money only in case he knows where and how to earn it. If he only knows that money is from a pocket, having received parent refusal, he will get into the only place where the money "lives" – the pocket. It may be their parents’ pocket or somebody else’s.

The child is asking you to give him 300 rubles to go to the disco; you see that there are some bottles, which he can hand over and get 10 rubles, so you say, "I’ll give you 290 and you’ll find 10 more yourself." Thus, you check if your child is able to see these 10 rubles in this world, and having seen them do something to have them in his pocket. He may not see them, but to start blackmailing, threatening and getting capricious, "Then, I will not go anywhere!" He is what you created. Depriving such child of money to make sure he is good-for-nothing is pleasing your vanity.

When I was in the seventh grade at school, I also had various "desires" – a tape-recorder, Lewis jeans, etc. My mom made everything clear at once, "Our father works alone. The money he receives is for basic needs. We don’t have extra money." I was under 14, but with my father’s connections, I got a job at a construction site where I earned 180 rubles for two months. The tape-recorder cost 220 rubles, but my summer holidays were over and I could not make more money. Then my mom added the rest of the sum. This was "support." In the following year I didn’t ask my mom – I knew I could earn money myself. I got the same job and made money to buy expensive jeans. Everything was honest – I was told that there was no money, I was shown the place to get it, parents didn’t take away my money, they respected my plans and supported (adding the rest of the sum for the tape-recorder), when they saw I couldn’t cope myself.

What should I do if my child is so independent that he doesn’t allow parents into his life, behaves self-sufficient and aloof?

It looks like a runaway from home. There was too much control, fear and nightmares, prohibitions and questions, examination and tortures, intervention, personality surgery and cutting off its pieces. Therefore, he ran away. It is not about independence. He may have really hard times, but he prefers to die than to ask his parents for help. He doesn’t let you in, safeguarding his life, because he is fed up with your intrusion. He doesn’t want to be controlled, disapproved, manipulated, helpless being a culprit at an eternal trial, where you are the chief judge and where sentences cannot be appealed. You are attempting to get into his life and be quasi helpful, but he doesn’t allow it, because he knows that it is dangerous for his life and for his life values.

The lack of respect and trust tells that you are not worth respect and trust. Respect appears, if you respected your child, trust – if you trusted him. If respect for other people's powers, the credibility of someone else's identity, the sanctity of personal space of each member were valuable in your family, you do not have to worry about anything – the child will come to you to share news, success and joy. If it was not so, there is nothing to worry about too – he will never return to the family home. Maximum, he will come to your funeral. But he may not.

My husband believes that we have to teach our son to be independent right from his childhood, but I don’t want to deprive him of his childhood preferring to pamper and support him. What will be the impact on the child if the parents have different views on his upbringing?

It will be a bad impact. Both parents betray their child. So, we can say that he doesn’t have parents at all. You are both so preoccupied by the concept of "right-wrong" that you don’t pay attention to the child himself. I have a question to you, "What does your child think about this? Does he want to prolong his childhood or be independent?" Unfortunately though, your ideas on upbringing have nothing to do with your child. Your mutual relationship is more important to you than your child is and you are using him as a trump-card. Each of you plays your own rightness. "I think he’s mature!" – "But I think he is just a kid!" You don’t have to think – here is your child, ask him. Most likely, you have problems with sex, or you failed in such roles as a "lover," a "friend" and a "professional."

When mom says she doesn’t want to deprive her child of his childhood, she doesn’t want to lose it herself. The child is ready to take up independence being a year and a half, when he says that he will do everything himself. He wants to carry a bag, but it’s too heavy for him. Don’t poke his nose in his weakness and enjoy his inability to help – support his initiative, suggest carrying a bag together each by one handle. Yes, the child may undertake things he can’t do so far, he will do it improperly, he may cut himself, break something, scatter, but if it doesn’t threaten his life, let him have this experience.

My son had guests and after they left we found the loss of a big sum of money, which was hidden. My son didn’t initiate the theft himself, but he was a silent witness while his friends were searching the house. Why couldn’t he defend himself, his family and our property?

Temptation is also a sin. It’s an old truth: If I don’t know or don’t see something, it doesn’t exist for me. Talking about hidden money, your passive son and his brassy friends, you are just fencing yourself off, because you feel being accomplices in this crime as you were provoking it. If you hadn’t talked about the hidden money at home and your son hadn’t known about it, he wouldn’t have boasted of his father’s grist in the street, and nobody would have broken into your house.

Are you displeased that your son didn’t rush to defend your money? Would you want him to act as a hero? Like in the movie "Pay the other guy," where "bad people" killed the "good boy," and his parents were then proud of their son not having wet his pants. Do you need that kind of a son suicide? Besides, your son didn’t accept this money as his money, which you spend on buying him clothes and food. So why are you surprised that he wasn’t heroically defending it? It wasn’t his money. He will fight for his favorite toy car, he will cripple anyone for a broken match he uses as a gun, he will not talk to you for a week for this match, but he doesn’t think of money as of the value. Does he have anything to do with this theft? How can he demonstrate something you didn’t raise in him? How can he possibly have it, if he doesn’t have anybody except you? If the child still thinks that money lives in your pocket, he will be careless with it. If you show him the mechanism of money getting into your pocket through earning, he won’t have the slightest thought to steal it.

Laying the blame for your foolery on the child is not unique. Parents, visiting my seminars, say, "We think there is something wrong with our son." The first question: "What’s wrong with you if you have such a son? If he is an apple, then you are the apple-tree. Do you want a pear? Become a pear-tree."

We often have sweets and cookies at home. While they are in abundance, my daughter’s friends come to our house. Once my daughter came home upset and I asked her: "What’s the matter?" – "The girls sent me for sweets again." – "Why have you made it your duty – providing everybody with sweets?" – "They don’t want to be my friends without them." I told her that this was not a friendship anyway, that she had to stand up for herself, not to do what she didn’t want, not to be afraid of being alone in some situation. Nevertheless, she is afraid of loneliness and loosing relations. How can I make her more self-assured, so that she could defend herself?

In this game your daughter is a "client" and her friends are the "prostitutes" who she buys. Such relationship between your daughter and her friends tells that you behave the same way with her. When she is good for you, you give her a candy, when she is bad – you punish her. Your daughter knows how to be good for you and how to buy someone for a candy. So, everything you say speaking about your daughter is, in fact, about you: you are afraid of staying alone, loosing relations; you can’t defend yourself; you are not self-assured. That’s why your daughter doesn’t have it – she can’t possess something her parents don’t possess. I would suggest doing an inventory control of your life: see what you have, get rid of something you don’t need and develop what is necessary. Then your daughter will possess self-respect, self-assurance, communicative skills, and she will trust herself.