In childhood children don’t fully trust themselves; they don’t strongly rely on themselves and always look back at the adults’ opinion. Look at this situation through the eyes of a child, "I do something and my parents start worrying, get afraid and frighten at once. They have no idea why I do that, but they start influencing." Children don’t get a proper feedback from parents for the actions, receiving only their attitude to what they are doing. Therefore, children start attaching more importance to the attitude of other people to their actions, than to the importance of such actions personally for them.
Feedback is neutral information about what is happening. For example, the height above the sea level is 100 meters – is that good or bad? It is neither good nor bad, just 100 meters above the sea level, that’s all. The temperature is 3 degrees below zero – is that good or bad? If it’s in the fridge – it’s good, if you’re outside wearing shorts – it’s bad. The same is true with bringing up children. It happens that in the supermarket the child pulls his mother by the hair, beats her on the face, but she smiles, keeping calm, pretending that it’s OK. She sacrifices herself, endures shame and pain, doesn’t give the feedback to the child, thus deceiving him. But at home she will punch him for some insignificant misbehavior – for pouring water on the floor. Here, she will splash all her sacrificing endurance, and her reaction won’t be adequate. Her aggression will be the reaction, but not a feedback on what the child had done. She will punish him not for pouring water, but for everything, she forced herself to endure during the day.
If your children have a fit of hysteria, if they are screaming – you start screaming in the same manner, without fear, startle or anxiety. This will be the feedback. If we feel uncomfortable to scream when people look at us, the child begins to understand: when there are witnesses, mother yields – and children start using it. They scream – you scream. You show that you can behave the same way too. Once a beggar with a lamentable face came to me, "Grant for Christ’s sake!" I responded with a lamentable face, "Grant for Christ’s sake!" I gave the feedback, showing that I could do the same and the person changed something in his actions. Reflection is the feedback. In this respect, cats and dogs are more adequate teachers than parents are, because they are more honest. They don’t care what somebody will think about them, but many parents do care about that.
If children hit me – I hit them as well, but there is no anger, no fright, no fear, no pity or wish to look like somebody in the eyes of the witnesses, in my blow. My blow is emotionally neutral – I’m not trying to revenge or stop children’s action to prevent them from repeating it again. My blow is of the same power as the children’s ones, – neither weaker nor stronger. A 5-year-old daughter of my friend once hit me on the head – I hit her in the same manner; she hit me once again but weaker, I also hit her weaker, then she patted my head and I patted her head. This way life becomes a game. I feel every moment, how the environment reacts, I choose the manner of behavior depending on the expected reaction. Animals "bring up" their babies like this. When a kitten bites a cat, the cat bites it back, and it doesn’t mean that the cat doesn’t love the kitten – just makes the kitten understand how she feels. There is no punishment in this bite – she doesn’t bite the kitten stronger, there is no pity – she doesn’t bite it weaker. She bites with the same strength as the kitten does. The point of feedback is to make you understand how I feel about your actions.
We have changed life for dead toys for children. You can do whatever you want with these toys – beat them, cut with scissors, jump on them, tear away their legs, but toy creatures will still be smiling. It’s one of the illusions we instill into our children, and they grow up not taking responsibility for their own actions. Toy producers can write "ecologically harmless," but I think all toys are "ecologically useless." No porolon cats and plastic dolls provide the children with the most important thing – feedback. If you sit down on a live chicken – it will die, if you sit down on a porolon one – nothing will happen. If you break a real flower – it will dry and die, if you bend a toy flower – it will stand upright again and that’s all.
Children tore apart the doll’s head; it will neither cry of pain nor laugh. How should children understand if they were tender or violent? Children watch the parents’ reaction, and it’s really important for the reaction to be adequate to the children’s deed. If looking at the mutilated doll, parents laugh, this laughter is the feedback for children, the reaction to their deed. If adults laugh, then I do everything fine. But adults often behave completely inadequate, that’s why it’s essential for children to have live toys, which will provide them with a reaction. A real cat will never endure humiliation – it will spit and run away. So, children will start realizing the truth: if you torture the animal – it runs away, if you stroke it – it sits on your lap and purrs.
I remember as a kid I had a baby owl, which we brought from the scouts’ camp. In the daylight, my brother covered the bird with a piece of cloth, but one day he forgot to do it and stepped on the bird. The owl died – it was a factor of feedback for my brother. He then buried the bird, cried, but at the same time, he understood: if you behave the same with a living creature and a toy, the living thing dies.
At first, my daughter couldn’t measure her power with the result. Back then we had a cat, Matilda, who didn’t accept Vasilissa’s inadequacy and ran away each time she saw my daughter. So Vasilissa had to follow the cat and catch her in the corner to stroke, but still Matilda was struggling out of her hands and scratching. Then there appeared a second cat, Kefir. If my daughter did something to spite him and ran away, the cat ran after her, scratched her leg from behind, she stumbled, fell down and cried. Kefir became the best teacher for her.
If you don’t want to buy a cat – buy a plant. Let there be something living next to the child, then the child will see the reaction for action: you water the flower – it blossoms, you forget about it – it dies. Interacting with living beings, children understand that things don’t happen as quick as they want, they realize: I become hysterical, but nothing changes. The flower grows as fast as it can and demands patience and care.
I suggest parents to support their children. Let your children be much more important to you than all these strangers in the supermarkets and in the street. Anyway, be on the children’s side, no matter how they behave. There will always be some "granny," who can say that your children are brought up badly. Don’t take her side, take your children’s side. The world will wait; it will outlive the children’s whims and won’t collapse because of a scream and a cry. The society will wait. Children will grow up and sort it out with the society, find their place in it, become somebody. Now children are little, they don’t understand the social models and other people’s expectations, they don’t know meanness, betrayal and other "nice" things.
I ask you not to be mean and not to betray children, because you are the only source of information about the world for them, and this information has to be adequate. Make children the main people for you, and then your reactions will always be natural and only possible. Treat your children the same way that any stranger would treat. If children break racks in the supermarket, don’t allow them to do that, don’t crawl on all fours for them, picking the scattered bags. Because if your children do that again and you aren’t near, nobody in this world will crawl and pick things up for them.
