Probably every parent has experienced the feeling: “It’s as if my child has been replaced.” Yesterday he was “normal”, obeyed, heard me, slept peacefully, ate, we agreed ...
And suddenly - an endless protest: “You are bad, you do everything wrong, I won’t eat, I won’t sleep, come, go, give, don’t interfere, I’m all on my own, why should I!”
It's like you had a relationship system with your child, but now it's completely broken. You invested in it, built a relationship with a child, followed the advice from books, stood your ground. And just got used to it - and all over again. Like any other loss, it can cause different emotions:
📍Aggression, anger, resentment. At such moments, it seems that the child is simply mocking us and we want to control, punish, urgently do something to “return as it was”, to regain control over the relationship.
📍Sadness, guilt: “Well, what did I do wrong? I’m probably a bad mom, I did something wrong, since he’s so angry with me .. I can’t cope, I can’t do anything. disposition and stop blaming yourself. But this does not help, the child begins to behave even more provocatively, and we fall more and more into guilt ..
📍Apathy, indifference. The motivation to talk with the child, to invest in relationships disappears. I want to let everything take its course, to say “do as you want and don’t touch me.” At such moments, I want everyone to disappear and there was an opportunity to just be alone.
We move away from the child and other family members, the gap and misunderstanding grows, and the problem is not solved. These are normal human reactions to stress. You are a living person and react when something incomprehensible, unpleasant and uncontrollable happens, especially in such an important area as relationships with a child.
The only problem is that the behavior resulting from these emotional reactions not only does not help you return peace to relationships and family, but sometimes, on the contrary, exacerbates the situation.
At this time, the child also experiences difficult feelings. Behavior described as “my child is broken” is an age crisis: 3 years old, adolescence, into growth spurts. The child did not choose him. It just happened to him because he is growing. 🙂
Nguyen Van Ngon
Preschool teacher, United Nations International School, Vietnam
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