Your children are not your children. Павел Эрзяйкин

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      Once I talked to the mother of a drug addict. As soon as she entered my office, I told her, "Do you want me to tell you what kind of son you have? Irresponsible, weak-willed and purposeless." – "Yes. How do you know that?" – "Because you are very responsible, decisive and purposeful." If some traits of character are hypertrophied in the mother, the same traits are absolutely atrophied in the child – the child doesn’t need them. You have to delegate something to a child – responsibility or honesty; then, it will become his/her individual quality.

      Mothers having no private life start taking it away from children. They are anxious, if their children has eaten, whom they meet, what they are doing, have they had enough sleep. The parents all need to attend my grandma’s courses. Two of her children died of hunger. In our time of abundance, she was absolutely indifferent about my satiety. The child didn’t ask for food; that was good. They called me to have lunch, I refused – "well, if you don’t want to eat, it’s up to you." My granddad prayed to God, they ate and cleaned the table. If I was not in time – I was hungry. So, filling in my stomach became my own problem and responsibility.

      Parent responsibility is also to teach children to accept somebody’s opinion, if the children need it themselves, or not to accept, stay independent and uninvolved, knowing that they personally don’t need it. For example, the child comes home from school and says, "The teacher doesn’t like me." Prior to passing a sentence or diagnose, ask the child, why it happens. The inventory begins. It turns out that the teacher doesn’t like the child for some actions. "First, the teacher doesn’t have to like you. She has to teach you. Second, why do you provoke the teacher to start the conflict? Are you defending anything so important to you that you are ready to spoil relationship with the teacher? Do you think it’s worth behaving this way in the future? If it’s worth, then don’t complain. Do I get it right: you spoil the relationship for me to go to school and restore them?"

      There are three questions that work magically with children:

      The first one: What are you doing now? It gives them an opportunity to realize, where they are, what they are and what their activity is aimed at – a kind of a "stop" signal.

      The second one: What do you think?

      The third (control) one: When?

      Thus, we form responsibility. Children quickly learn to give the "right" answers to parents’ questions, but their individuality isn’t revealed through "right" answers. The first time you ask your children what they think, they will try to say something you’ll like. We ourselves provoke children to lie: say something to your mummy, so that she would calm down; say something to your daddy, so that he would leave you alone.

      The most important thing for parents is to ask not waiting for a certain answer: you ask, but you don’t correct. By asking a question, we give children the chance to find the answer themselves. So, what they say doesn’t excite or disappoint us. I have heard the answer and accepted it. Only then, without the external assessment, approval or condemnation, the children’s answer is accepted as their own. "What kind of friends do you have, son?" – "Good friends." – "Why do you think they are good?" and leave him with this answer. If there are no expectations, the child’s answer will be objective; the child will answer himself. Thus children learn their own lessons, which are the most important. When we don’t give answers, children start looking for them inside and, if they confirm that they are right, they gain confidence in themselves, a supporting point. In other words, children gain the courage to use their own brain (to reflect, to create and to manifest) and gain confidence: relying on my own opinion, I’ll get what I want.

      You don’t have to answer the question when the answer is obvious. Sometimes children ask just because they remember being praised for that as little kids. They ask only to attract attention, but sometimes because they don’t trust themselves. For example, my daughter enters the kitchen where I am drinking tea. She asks, "Dad, what are you doing?" – "What do you see?" – "You are drinking tea." – "Exactly." And she learns to trust herself in what she sees. When children keep asking about something obvious, it means they are not self-confident.

      Because we are arrogant, it takes a lot of time before we start delegating the responsibility for their life to children. At first, we enjoy thinking for them; we like being asked for advice, but then children stop thinking for themselves and we have to save them from various trouble. Despite the fact that we created this situation ourselves, sooner or later it starts being a burden.