No matter how huge the family is and no matter how special experience its members have, the main thing in the upbringing process is the parents. Why this is so important - says Olga Belousova, columnist at BeautyHack.
In the apartments where families with grandmothers live, there is always a smell of baked goods and borscht. It is very warm, a floor lamp burns like a home, newspapers are stacked in an even pile, and starched towels hang in the kitchen. But somewhere in the corridor, a backpack carelessly thrown after school is sure to be found, and in the soft pile of the carpet a detail from Lego is insidiously located. In the corner of the room is Dad's desk with a computer, incomprehensible details from something and sheets of notes and corrections. Right there, a little to the left, is mom's shelf. On it are small bottles, several boxes and such attractive bubbles with nail polish …
Several generations and worlds meet in one very limited space. Every day, touching and often painfully colliding, they discover the whole world - the world of another person.
At the same time, everything may not be so happy. This is especially true of the moments of education. Each of the older members of the family carries a unique life experience and, however, from the bottom of his heart wants to share it, investing precisely his understanding of love and care in the process of interacting with the child.
However, it is worth considering an important fact: no matter how huge the family is and no matter how special experience its members have, the parents are the main ones in the upbringing process. They may be wrong a hundred times, but it cannot be ignored that it is their wrongness that will have the greatest influence on the formation of the child's personality. In this moment, power and responsibility are combined, and it is extremely important whether the parent is aware of them or is "walking around the instruments." Everyone is familiar with the stories of an inconsistent, often quite tough attitude of a parent in an attempt to restore his right to power from the category: "I'll show you who is in charge here!" Remember that the very fact of the need to say such things already signals that the swing is in a position not too in your favor, so much so that "swinging the saber" is definitely the last thing you can apply in this situation.
Let's take a closer look at two key concepts: parental authority and parenting sequence.
First. A parent is an older, adult family member who bears great responsibility for the child's life in all its spheres and manifestations. Of course, as the baby grows up, this responsibility decreases - after all, he is already able to do something himself. But in general, the responsibility is so great that almost any parental reaction becomes an example of “how to do it” in the original source. If in the family system this area functions without failures, then the child is not burdened by the fact that he is a child. He does not feel insignificant, weak. It's just that the parent makes important decisions, and the child can count on being heard.
Second. The sequence consists, first of all, in a fairly accurate and, possibly, monotonous list of the parent's approaches to the same situation, regardless of mood, state of health and any other factors. When a child sees that the parent gives constancy of reactions, he feels safe and has no reason to doubt parental love.
These two factors are one of the basic mechanisms for the formation of a healthy personality in a child. And now attention: if so much depends on two people, then what happens if grandmother, grandfather, aunt, uncle turn out to be significant in the system? You can assume that the child's attention at this time is in a chaos disproportionate to age and abilities, and his flexible psyche works according to an energy-saving and beneficial plan: it finds one of the adults who deviates from the established rules softer and easier. From the outside, it all looks like this: an absolutely spoiled child "builds" his entire large family. This is the meaning of the saying: seven nannies have a child without an eye.
Therefore, dear parents, grandparents, uncles-aunts, for the sake of your dearly beloved children, agree somehow about the basic rules of the family and have the willpower to adhere to them. And start with the most important thing: mom and dad "rule" the children they gave birth to. But, of course, the most important thing is that they rule themselves.
