INSATISFYING LITTLE THINGS - Nine-month-old Galya throws all the toys out of the playpen one after another - Ten-month-old Valya joyfully rattles the pot and lid - One-year-old Vasya hits the floor with all his might with a spoon - One-year-old Antoshka opens the kitchen cabinet door and closes it with a roar - One and a half year old Lesha tears off pieces of toilet paper and throws them into the toilet. Do you think that I spied the pictures at your house and wrote them down? Excuse me, but I wasn’t at your house... True, several hundred mothers were at my reception with similar requests, and my children are not lagging behind others. The mothers of these children complained that their children did not obey them and they had to use various measures, sometimes harsh. Galya’s mom: “I collected the toys several times, but Galya threw them away. Now I give her one toy.” Valya’s mom: “I told Valya ten times to stop, then I put the pan high on the shelf. Valya cried for half an hour.” Vasya’s mom: “I offered Vasya rattles and a plastic spoon, but he didn’t want to play with them. I had to endure it. When he had enough of playing, I put away the spoon and no longer let him play with the dishes.” Antoshka’s mother: “I had to tie the cabinet doors with a rope, but my son began to open other doors. Then I bought special latches for the doors and now all our doors are locked.” Lesha’s mother: “I allowed Lesha to tear the paper. He tore several rolls over a few days and then stopped doing it.” What to do? To begin with, a mother should ask herself: “What need does my child satisfy with this behavior?” And immediately ask yourself the second question: “What do I not like about the child’s behavior? What annoys me? We will immediately answer the second question, and we will answer the first in the process of analyzing the behavior of our little heroes. Parents are most often concerned that - children can ruin expensive things; - children make too much noise; - children do not respond to their parents’ requests to stop doing what their parents don’t like. The first reason is quite justified. If you feel sorry for some things, then the best option would be to organize your living space in such a way that the child cannot spoil what is dear to you. Remove the crystal vase from the coffee table and temporarily avoid using your favorite porcelain plates. Has your home become less comfortable? But your things and your psyche are safe. Let the child take what he can: rattle old bowls, tear up unnecessary newspapers and magazines, untwist unnecessary balls of thread. Actually, anything that is no longer needed is suitable for a child’s games, but it would be a pity to throw it away. Why do children prefer things from adults to toys? Because they look at adults and want to imitate them, they want to be “like their mother.” In psychology, this process is called identification (identifying oneself with a significant object). Do you think your child is playing around when he tears up toilet paper and throws it in the toilet? Don’t rush to take the roll away and ask him to tear up the old newspaper. Most likely, the child saw that they used the paper and threw it into the toilet. After flushing two or three rolls down the toilet in a few days, your child will lose interest in this activity. But he will gain important experience for him. If you give your child the opportunity to take and use different things in play, then it will be easier for you to divert his attention from what is “not allowed.” If a child has a hundred “don’ts” and can only play with toys, then your life will resemble hell, you will constantly take away different things from the child, and he will persistently take them. If you forbid taking only a couple of things out of a hundred, then it will be easier for the child to accept the refusal. Is the child making noise? If you are able to be patient, then there is nothing terrible in the fact that a child made a drum out of a saucepan. He invented the game for himself, implemented it himself and enjoys it himself. Well, isn't he great? But if you don't want your child to slam the closet door. You can reorient the child to another game: “Let’s quietly close the door so that it doesn’t break.” Well done!". If there are not too many prohibitions, then the child usually readily switches to a new activity. YouAre you worried that your children can't hear you? Have you said “no” many times, but your child continues to do his own thing? If the child does not hear requests, then this is most likely a signal that you are talking a lot in an imperative tone that the child does not want to hear. And he stops hearing. If you start living near a train station, then at first the trains disturb you, and then you stop hearing them, they become the background. It’s the same with annoying requests and screams. They fade into the background. It is better, after the first unheard request, to approach the child, touch him (take him by the hand, put his hand on his shoulder), look at the child and repeat your request. And it’s better to do it together, to help a little. Scolding and intimidating is completely pointless. This will not lead to obedience; rather, it will lead to hypocrisy, deception and childish lies. And finally, let’s think about what the optimal behavior of the parents of our little heroes would be. By the way, let's return to the first question I asked. To understand what parents should do, it is important to understand what need the child satisfies with his behavior. What should Galya’s mother do? Give the girl toys over and over again? Should I let her out on the floor so she can't throw toys? Give her one toy? Warn that if she continues to throw out toys, she will sit in the playpen without toys? I assign this problem to students. Students often suggest tying one toy to a string, so that the child, having thrown it away, could get it himself by pulling the string. And one day, one smart student will suggest attaching a lid to the playpen so that the baby cannot throw away toys. Why did Galya throw away her toys anyway? What important need did it satisfy? Let's pay attention to the girl's age. She is nine months old. Around this age, the child first begins to feel like a subject of activity, to realize that he is the source of activity. Galya threw the toy out of the playpen at eight months, when she learned to stand up. The toy fell. It's interesting and unusual. But at first Galya did not understand what had happened. She threw away a few more toys. Then again and again. After some time, the insight came: “I did this!” Galya was filled with great joy: “It’s me! I! I can!". And the little girl needs to make sure that she did it, that she can do this! To do this, you need to throw a huge number of toys out of the playpen. And now I want to quit again and again, because the joy of the opportunity to perform a new action overwhelms the girl. Not to mention the fact that each toy turns out to be completely different: the ball rolls far from the bed, the soft bunny falls quietly, the rattle hits the floor loudly. All this is a new experience, which is very important for the girl. So, Galya satisfied her need to understand the world, as well as the need to be a subject of activity. However, the question arises, what should mom do? Collecting toys in the playpen again and again? By the way, why not? Collecting toys is not so difficult; you can give the girl more toys, then she will be busy with the throwing away process for a long time and the mother will be able to be distracted by her own affairs. Perhaps the girl will be fascinated by the throwing process for several days or even weeks. But in any case, this period will definitely pass. The child must throw his thousand (or more) toys out of the playpen and move on to a new stage of development. Could it be that the child specifically attracts the attention of his parents by throwing toys out of the playpen? Of course it can. Take a closer look at the child. If he is enthusiastically busy throwing out toys and does not scream, then most likely she is enthusiastic. If a child throws away one toy and at the same time screams, looks at his parents, and waits for your reaction, then most likely he thus attracts your attention. Only in this case is it important to understand that the child is doing this because before this you reacted too violently to throwing toys out of the playpen. This is the child's reaction to your reaction. Consider the following example. About Valya, who rattled pots. What is Vali's basic need? And again.