Let's do a simple experiment. Let us think about the first association with the idea: "We live in North Korea tomorrow". It caused terror? And good. Because when I listen to some of my friends, I have the impression that we will come to the conclusion that communism was great. Then we all had equal. The same shoes. The same coats. Even the same in the fridge. No matter what we did, it was equally. And as my mother says, "Let's give everyone equally. That is all shit. "
We like "old" in a new package
Tylko co to ma do naszych dzieci i zakazu komórek w szkole. Mam przekonanie, że zaczęliśmy jako “rodzice przepracowani” i “rodzice przeciążeni” codziennością, szukać atrakcyjnych haseł. Haseł, które zdejmą z nas dodatkowy ciężar wymyślania rozwiązań problemów, których nie doświadczyliśmy jako dzieci. Chętnie słuchamy populistycznych haseł, które pozwolą nam sprowadzić współczesne czasy, do czegoś co znamy z własnych doświadczeń. Nic dziwnego nasze mózgi uwielbiają znane wzorce. Wiedzą o tym marketingowcy. To dlatego mamy dużo reklam nawiązujących do filmów Barei. Lubimy “stare” w nowym opakowaniu. Ostatnio w sklepie znalazłem gumy Turbo i Hubabuba – oczywiście kupiłem 🙂 .
If our children did not have cells, then there would be no problems? So everyone has equal. Only for sure?
If we take for a moment that all our children's childhood is to be a preparation for adult life, why do we try to treat our children as idiots? We try to cheat them, that life is different than it really is. Do not get me wrong. I do not mean to sit with a second-grade student and show him photos of the massacred corpses from the war and say - The world is terrible. Of course, the truth must be presented so that our little listener can understand it. We are mentors to our children who are to help them prepare for the best of their adult life.
How does it look with us - adults
So let's think about how our adult life looks like today and whether it fits the slogans that fall into our ear so easily. At the first fire let's check the claim that the lack of differences causes no problems. Are there clear rules in our work, mutual respect and no differences?
Take, for example, your business outfit. Apart from a few exceptions, there is no such thing as an equal dress at work. I worked for many years in the uniformed service (Lasy Państwowe). It can be said that the idea of an even dress and the lack of differences should be fulfilled. Nothing more wrong. And in uniforms can be a variety that makes you dizzy. From tailor-made uniforms (by good tailors), to a whole range of shoes - from rubber boots to hi-tec shoes with membranes and merino wool lining. What happens in "normal" companies and offices, there is nothing to describe, because we all know about it from our everyday life. This is how we are in our everyday "real adult life" - we want to stand out and distinguish ourselves from others, it is in our nature.
Dress, clothes, but what about our cells or cars or bags? Here, too, there is no equality. We take part in some sick ranking every day. They not only judge us, but we also evaluate others. Why? Because evolution directed us. From the beginning, we assessed: strangers, opponents, threats, situations. However, also because it is easier. If we would like to know someone's true value, it would require effort and time to get to know him. And we can not afford to do it in our daily routine.
Once we have established that our "adult" life has inequalities and divisions, it is full of drawers, compartments and boxes in which we "put" ourselves or our friends, why are we trying to impose different rules on our children? Are we trying to protect them from this truth?
We believed that protection is the creation of a fairy-tale world
In each of us is a strong need to protect children from unpleasant events. This is called parenting. However, how we understand this protection makes a big difference. Do we prefer to convince our children that the world around them has no problems, injustice and gifts bring Santa Claus (though this theory is also weak, because one child brings Santa Claus consoles and the other wooden soldier - does it mean that even Santa Claus someone loves more or less)? Once we believed that we must create a perfect fairy-tale world for children. And very good, however, by the time. School-age children no longer believe in Saint. Nicholas.
Maybe it's better to teach our children how to fight for self-esteem and values that will allow them to cope with many everyday problems - real life?
Our daughter goes to the second grade of elementary school. As in every middle town, he goes to class with children of richer parents and poorer parents. In this ranking is more or less in the middle of the rate.
At the beginning of the second grade she got a smartphone from us. Not fantastic. An ordinary, armored smartphone Hammer Polish company myPhone. We got it for PLN 1 for extending the cheapest subscription contract, so it certainly is not worth much. Although I am a gadget personally and in the drawer I have two used phones with the apple logo, we decided that the apple phone is definitely too expensive for our daughter. The main reason for Ewa's smartphone was our need for contact. The more that she was supposed to start returning home herself after school (you can read about the individual returns below).
Related topic
Clear rules
While giving her phones, of course, we outlined clear rules for its use. In addition, we have spent some time explaining to her that the children at school have different phones and that we do not have to compare with others or evaluate others in this topic.
After a few months, Ewa's phone "got lost". He disappeared somewhere at home. It was after some technological detox (I will soon describe what the detox is about - today in a nutshell: every two months we make a family detox from technology. Both we and our children put down phones, tablets, computers and do not use them - except for work ). We searched the house, the basement (because in the meantime there was a renovation and it was suspected that we had carried her phone with some scraps). There is no. As a replacement, I pulled the old Nokia from the drawer.
I must admit that this antique made an impression on my daughter. First, he had a physical keyboard. Second, it was loaded once every five days. And the photos were so charmingly "minecraft" that you did not have to edit them to be pixelated;).
I wondered how Eve would accept it. She surprised me a bit because she was delighted with his otherness. Well, it's 1: 0 for us. The question is what her friends and school colleagues will say.
Ewa met a hatter
After the first week of "nokowi replacement" I asked Ewa how she liked her "new" phone at school. Eve thought a moment and said:
"In total, Dad, only one friend was laughing at me. - Ewa said.
- How did you feel then? - I asked.
- Normally. - answered Ewa without interrupting her activity, consisting in kneading the mixture on the house slave.
- You were not sorry? - I did not give up.
- No.
- And what did your friend say when she laughed at you? - I was snooping.
- Well, she said that my phone is some shit and she has a great modern smartphone. And that I'm stupid that I have something like that.
Potwierdziło się, że dzieci to okrutne bestie 🙂
- And what did you say to her? I asked a little uncertainly.
- I asked how much her phone cost. And she said that two thousand zlotys. - answered Ewa. - And I told her that my phone cost 50 zlotys - continued the story of Ewa - and is also a phone.
- You've been telling her - I praised my daughter and pride was in the middle of me - did you tell her anything?
- Yeah. - answered Ewa with a slight resistance - I asked her who is more stupid, if she spent two thousand on the phone, or 50 zlotys, after all, both do the same thing - he calls, and I have a computer to play. "
Gdybym, przeczytał to na blogu, pomyślałbym że strasznie naciągana ta historyjka. Jednak przysięgam, że to absolutna prawda – tak było 🙂 Z jakiegoś powodu Ewa nie dała się przygnieść czyjąś oceną. Ta ocena spłynęła po niej jak woda po kaczce. Co takiego zrobiliśmy, jako rodzice, że umiała tak dobrze obronić się przed hejtem?
I began to analyze what we usually do in communication with our children. It turned out that they were repeated to their boredom a few things.
In brief:
- we love you unconditionally and you also love yourself unconditionally
- we do not judge others because we do not know which way they have gone in life and you also do not let yourself be judged
- we build pillars of self-confidence - we praise 4 times more than we improve
- we do not allow children to "psychological spinners" (details below)
- do not give yourself labels like: gapcio, latecomers, absent-minded etc. so do not talk to yourself like that
- together we experience difficult emotions, good ones too, but bad ones more
We do not hate
At our home, we do not allow others to be hateful. We simply do not judge. At the table or in the so-called adult conversations. We were so often assessed (mostly critically, because we let our children experience emotions, for example at the store shelf), that we said that we would not comment on our friends. We never know who has passed the way previously, what the burden of life brings with it and what ultimately affects its behavior. Our children had nowhere to learn to hate others.
We do not judge
Every attempt to evaluate others by our children immediately extinguish in the bud. We simply interfere in their conversation and ask them difficult questions like: "Do you know that earning money is a difficult skill to practice? And that someone, if there is no money, does not mean it is worse? "And we start discussions. For example, we ask them, "Do you know that someone has or does not have something, does not mean he is worse or better than you?", "Do you know that everyone is a genius, but you have to find it in it?". We always and absolutely react as our children try to judge someone. And we do not allow others to judge our children. No matter how many academic titles they have before the surname. This does not mean that they must be right.
We do not criticize
We praise four times more than we extinguish. We praise our children for everything. We emphasize every even the smallest thing they will do well. Thanks to this, they are more likely to do better than not to do bad things. It builds their self-confidence and self-confidence.
We do not use motivational tricks
We do not use psychological "spinners". What are "psychological torpedoes"? For example, we never say: "Tomorrow will be better", "Next time you can do it". In our house, it is forbidden to say such things. Why? Because, they are only seemingly positive. They kind of motivate, and really they say: "you have no right to do something wrong" and "tomorrow you have to bury even more" and what if someone just does not have the strength anymore? We do not give him a choice. Then the delinquent feels compelled to act, the feeling is that we have failed someone if we can not do something better tomorrow. We believe that everyone has the right to be weak. We give ourselves the right to fatigue. And if someone is tired, we look after him and then help him overcome his weaknesses.
We experience emotions together
We experience difficult emotions together. To end. Sometimes saying nothing but being together with each other. We help each other to understand these difficult emotions. We draw conclusions. And above all, we do not give ourselves stickers for life. Have you fallen over? This does not mean that you are clumsy "gapcio". You just rolled over. Your knee hurts, that's why you cry. Maybe your legs were tired, or something turned your attention and you fell over. Your friends do not want to play with you, let's talk about it. Not why they do not want to play with you, just feel how they do not want to. Why do you feel it and whether you are definitely drawing the right conclusions. Be yourself because we love you as you always are and unconditionally, and you should love yourself. We never pretend that everything is okay if it is not.
Slice on the wound that becomes a problem
Why do we think that prohibiting and ordering uniformity is only a slice of a wound that becomes a problem? Because artificial regulation of anything has never happened in history. Here are examples: planned economy, caused economic disaster and mapping everything - remember these queues? Prohibition of drinking alcohol - organized crime has flourished, with which we have not managed to this day. One could exchange it forever. This slice will only work for a moment, and the wound will fester and can become a problem for the whole society in the future.
Increasing inequalities in all societies are becoming a problem. We have very rich and very poor people around us. Unfortunately, there are social inequalities. These rich people think that they have the right not to respect the poorer, and the poorer ones think that they have the right to hate the rich and do their job just as part of the compensation. This spiral is getting more and more winding up.
And our children are somewhere in the middle of this cyclone. If we do not teach them to respect ourselves and others, not to judge, and to feel our own dignity and values, they will enter into these illnesses in adult life and continue to wind the spiral.
The greatest gift we can give our children
We would like to live in a fairy-tale world. In a world where the "less is more" principle is the basic law of gravity. We would like to live in a world without bad emotions. Unfortunately, this is a fairy-tale world. No prohibitions and orders of this world will create.
The greatest gift that we can give our children is the ability to see and understand the world. as it really is. Only then will they be able to change it. Therefore, let's give them the ability to understand their own emotions and the ability not to judge others through the prism of what this person has, only what kind of person he is. Our children can learn these skills from us by watching us every day. It is very difficult. However, this effort makes sense. Thanks to him in the future it will not matter what cells we have, and in what brand of clothes we walk. True meaning will have what kind of people we are and what people we can become.
