Today my son once again reminded me how important intimacy is in a relationship and how important it is to distract yourself more often and be more attentive to your loved ones. To be attentive not formally - “good morning”, “have you eaten?”, “Here is a chocolate bar”, but to be truly attentive - when a loved one is at the center of your world at the moment. We all need such attention, and without it it is impossible to love, but children simply need it. We, adults, often do not notice behind our adult problems and affairs what can be very important for our children, and sometimes we do not see the children themselves. So Tyoma, going to bed today, behaved somehow unusually - nothing special, but something about him was not the same as always. He spoke more quietly than usual, could not find a place for himself, went to drink water a hundred times, did not ask to sing a song “about a quince”, in the sense of “about an eagle” (that’s what he calls the BG song “Under the Blue Sky”). To my words that I love him very much, he reacted with the question: “why?” and looked at me very carefully, waiting for an answer. I didn’t immediately find what to answer, I said that this is because he is my father’s son, and also because it is great happiness for us that we have him, and also because he is so wonderful and wonderful and we are very happy be his parents. That he believed me was clear from the expression of his eyes, but the reaction puzzled me - he literally threw himself on my neck and burst into bitter, bitter tears. When I asked what was the matter, he answered through tears: “I wanted there to be a game, but there isn’t…” and he burst into tears even more. I didn’t even immediately understand what he was talking about, I said: “do you want some new game,” and he: “no, it was there, but now it’s not, and you said: let’s make another one...”. Only then did I remember - in the morning Tyoma asked me to get an interactive game with his favorite dinosaurs. But it turned out that we threw away this game a long time ago, because it was broken. He was upset and cried, but quickly calmed down when I invited him to make a game with dinosaurs himself, and he was carried away by the idea. Then we drew a dinosaur for this game, then there were other different things - a regular day. I finally remembered this, and at the same time I remembered my active listening skills: - You’re sorry that there’s no more game with dinosaurs. - Yes, I really wanted it to be... - You’re upset that you can’t do it anymore. play with her. A pause, during which he calms down, the crying ends (I want to clarify, the words “crying is over” sound somehow unusual, but that’s exactly what it was, the thing that made him cry has simply ceased to be relevant. You know, it happens - a child cries, they calm him down, and he tries to pull himself together, cope with his emotions - there are no more tears, but he is still sobbing, and it will take some time until his breathing is restored. So, when you use active listening, the child calms down differently, without any sobbing, without. effort of will, he doesn’t try to stop crying - the crying just ends) - She was so big and beautiful... and so many dinosaurs... Pause, about half a minute, then kisses me on the cheek - Mom, I want to sleep... really And, indeed, she falls asleep - really quickly and very calmly. So, why am I telling this - even when a child’s mother is a psychologist and she knows a little more about feelings and knows a little more than, for example, a mother is an accountant, he still quite often has to be left alone with his feelings that are quite difficult for him to deal with on his own. It was no coincidence that I spoke in such detail about the situation; parents do such stupidity as I did very often, this stupidity is to distract the child from his feelings. For me, this situation with the game is “little things in life”, but for my son it is “loss” and he is experiencing this loss, and I tell him “let’s do another one together” - it would seem that everything is fine, the child has calmed down, is not crying, and is interested in a new thing. But what's really going on? The child is truly interested and his attention is redirected from his negative emotions to other activities. But the emotion did not disappear from this. He justI tried to push it away. In a situation when a child is faced with various experiences and cannot cope on his own, when he needs emotional support - when he is offended, when he is afraid, when he is angry, sent away or upset, parents do much more than it seems at first glance. Here we can highlight several results with which the child comes out of such a situation, depending on the reaction of the parents. The first result concerns the situation itself and the actual emotion - if they try to calm the child at all costs and as soon as possible (they distract him, prohibit him from freely expressing emotions ) he leaves the situation with an unlived emotion, be it fear, resentment or something else, it will remain relevant and the child will waste energy in order to restrain this emotion, and mental stress will increase - if the child in need of emotional support is given parents helped to react to the emotion, it either disappears completely or its severity is significantly reduced. The second result is experience - how to cope with this state in the future - having no experience of living the emotion, the next time, faced with such a situation, it will be the same, or even need more support from parents, the child may be frightened of his emotions, react inappropriately, avoid situations that can cause this state. - if the emotion was reacted with the support of adults, the child next time will understand what is happening to him, will know that something what happens to him is normal, and also to know that it will pass. The child learns to recognize his own emotions and the emotions of other people. He learns to behave in accordance with his internal state. The third result is a mark on your relationship with the child - when parents do not provide the child with emotional support, this disrupts their contact with the child, leaving no opportunity for intimacy in the relationship. The child feels rejected, misunderstood, and may experience feelings of shame and guilt for his experiences. - when parents provide emotional support to the child, this helps to establish deep contact between parent and child, children begin to trust adults more, and adults become more attentive and tolerant of needs and the child’s experiences, this makes it possible to achieve mutual understanding in the relationship with the child. The fourth result is the impact on health - suppressed emotions are localized in the human body, creating blocks and clamps. If failure to respond to emotions becomes systematic, this can lead to the development of psychosomatic diseases in the child. How to provide emotional support to a child? The method is called active listening. Listen to what the child tells you and try to return to him in your answer what he told you, while naming what you think the child is experiencing now. The child’s phrase can be paraphrased, or it can be repeated verbatim, it is important that your words sound affirmative and not interrogative. It is advisable to establish eye contact, sit down so that your eyes are at the same level, or pick up the child in your arms if he is small and if he does not mind. Speaking in this way can be very difficult at first - the phrases do not seem natural and you really want to say the usual “calm down”, “don’t be afraid”, “don’t worry”, you want to offer the child a ready-made solution in a difficult situation. But not only will all this not help him, but rather even hinder him. It will prevent him from learning to find ways out on his own, learning to recognize and express his emotions, it will prevent him from trusting you, because when you tell him “don’t worry - it’s nonsense,” he feels that you have brushed him off, because for him now this is nothing not nonsense. For example, I am very afraid of caterpillars, and if suddenly, when I see a caterpillar, you tell me “don’t be afraid, it doesn’t bite,” it won’t make me feel any better. I will most likely also be angry with you and with myself because I already know that I shouldn’t be afraid, but I’m still afraid of them. But if you tell me.