"I live for my children. I was not loved enough as a child, so let them have a lot of unconditional love." Oh, these childhood traumas...
Olga Batueva, a psychologist, explained why blind maternal love is dangerous.
With the development of psychology in our country, where the emphasis for a long time was on childhood trauma, many young mothers (not by age, but by experience) began to go to extremes.
Mothers who have been wounded by their childhood try their best to be correct and perfect, especially in unconditional love.
Moms' forums are full of good advice on how to love. They are so carried away by it that the healing love of a mother turns into a suffocating blindness.
Such “love” makes the future adult infantile, unable to take responsibility for his life, egocentric “everything is for me and only for me”, unable to withstand the stress of adult life, overcome difficulties and cope with suffering and the challenges of reality.
The other side of blind maternal love is to cram so much development into your child that, starting from adolescence, he is already sick of developmental clubs, sections, lectures and classes.
One mother proudly told us at a consultation that her children's schedules were filled to the minute. "And when do they rest and do their children's things?" she asked. "What kind of things could they possibly have to do? Their job is to study, study, and study some more. They'll thank you later."
Several years passed. The same mother came to me in complete confusion that her teenage daughter had attempted suicide. "I put so much effort into her, and she..." She couldn't stand her mother's passionate love.
Everything should go its own way in the development of the child.
There are three important components for the conditions for the development of a psychologically healthy personality.
1. Know child development psychology, understand the age-related characteristics of children and follow not the fantasy in your head of raising a superman, but pay close attention to the characteristics of your child and his age.
Listen to lectures on child psychology, read books about it, don't compare your child with all the children in the world. Study the child's capabilities and help him gain life experience.
2. Separate love and education. To love unconditionally does not mean to allow everything in the world and to focus only on the child's desires. He does not know what will be good for him and what will be harmful. He is not able to make an independent choice even in adolescence.
Because he has no life experience. He first needs to accumulate social capital.
It has long been proven. Social intelligence is much more important for life than general intelligence (IQ). We all know examples of C students taking off on a social elevator and the suffering of A students who, like frozen, mark time in one place.
Love for a child is shown first of all in giving him exactly as much development as his psyche can accommodate. Giving him time for rest and personal time so that he can play, walk, do what he likes, and sometimes do nothing at all.
Love is sensitivity to the child's personality traits. Education is defining the rules and boundaries of what is permissible. Plus learning to live in society.
3. But the most important thing is to avoid falling into the zone of blind maternal love; it is very important to engage in your own development.
I used to work as a primary school teacher. At this age, children are very open, and from the outside it is clearly visible how they diligently copy adults. Then I received a psychological education. I began my practice as a child psychologist.
Worked for a year. Couldn't take it anymore. Mothers brought their children for consultation and reported roughly the same thing: "I live for him/her, I gave up my career, and he/she is such and such and doesn't appreciate it. Do something with him/her."
She almost always asked: "Who raised your child?" Raising her eyebrows, the mother answered: "Of course I did. I forgot about myself, everything was for him/her."
"Then perhaps the question is not so much that your child is wrong, but that your actions, your love and upbringing led to this result?"
I was young then and very categorical, and, of course, not all mothers could bear this truth.
But it's true! Children are a mirror of their parents. They either humbly accept what is in the family system. Or they constantly rebel through behavior, illnesses or rejection of everything that parents offer.
An unhappy mother cannot have happy children. She simply has nothing to pass on to them except unhappiness. "I'm unlucky, so let's make you lucky" - does not work.
Blind maternal love makes a mother a bore. In order not to become one, it is important to take care of your psychological health. A child learns to interact with himself and the world through his mother. If a mother has hobbies, work, time for her own affairs, then this is the best example for him.
Through relationships with their mother, children learn to take other people into account, to set boundaries, to be responsible for their affairs and their condition, to withstand the stress of separation while their mother is busy with her own affairs.
Therefore, when the thought arises: “Something is wrong with my child,” ask yourself: “Is everything the same with me?” And before taking your child to a psychologist, take yourself by the hand to a psychologist.
It is difficult, not easy and painful to admit to yourself that you are imperfect. But it is this admission that helps you accept your imperfection, fatigue, disappointment, helplessness - the whole spectrum of emotions, because raising a child is a lot of work.
And when we work around the clock, we get very tired. As practice shows, the mother "recovers", the child "recovers" at any age. The mother-child relationship recovers.
Blind maternal love, first of all, brings great harm to the woman herself, erases the boundaries of her personality and causes a lot of pain and suffering.
You don't have to be a perfect mother. A good enough mother (D. Winnicott) is what is needed for a child's healthy development.
