A teenager needs to be brought up as a free person, because only a free person can succeed in life and become happy.
It is the volume of freedom – that is, what to allow, what to prohibit – in the first place, worries parents whose children are already entering adolescence. But it makes no sense to make such lists – this is already possible, but it is still impossible – apart from the main thing: from family relations, from mutual trust.
Let me give you an example: in 1980 I worked in a boarding school and, together with my students, was in a summer labor camp. There I had a terrific squad leader, a 15-year-old boy. He worked on a par with adult teachers – the same responsibility, the same sanity, the same sensible approach. When I asked him: “How did it happen that you are already so mature and responsible?”, He replied: “My parents just trusted me all my life.”
In general, the very fact of trust removes many problems.
The example is more recent, from the 2000s. During the summer holidays of the Basis students in Feodosia, one day young tutors came running to me with the words: “Nina Naumovna, we are in trouble! Children demand that we let them go to a disco in the center of the city, late in the evening, alone! Without adults! “
I gathered children and educators and told the educators: “Let them go. Just to keep everything together, not lose sight of each other. And if they clean their faces at the disco or on the way back – well, that means you will have fewer problems. The guys will understand that they didn’t want to let them in because of the real danger. ”
As a result, no one went to the disco. First, they didn’t need the disco itself more than the right to go there on their own. Secondly, they described the possible consequences. If you want – go, but bear in mind, it may turn out like this and that. If this is explained calmly, without nerves, without exaggeration, and most importantly, completely sincerely, without any “pedagogical” falsehood — teenagers often draw the right conclusions.
Here is an example from my own childhood. The beginning of the 50s, I’m nine years old, we then lived in the Moscow region, in the village of Chashnikovo. There was a functioning church in the village. And I somehow argued with the guys that I could go to church at night, where there were coffins with the dead (the next morning they were to be sung). Now it is difficult to believe in it, but then the church was not locked at night.
I had to share my plans with my mother in order to be able to leave home at night. Mom said, “Of course you can go. But bear in mind that the dead are not accidentally tied up with their jaws, because the dead can get air out of the dead, and if the jaw is not tied up, a terrible cry is heard. If you are not ready for this, you can be very scared. ” And I did not go! I understood that I could not prepare myself for this.
And this moment must be particularly clarified. Mom could ban or start to dissuade and would achieve the opposite result. By allowing me this night adventure, she understood that there was a risk here. But the essence of trust is that it is incompatible with one hundred percent guarantee. If parents refuse any, even the smallest risk, they will have to put the child in a cage and not let him out until retirement.
In reality, such attempts end in either a deep neurosis, a broken personality, or rebellion and a complete rupture of the relationship, as soon as the former teenager gains the opportunity to live separately.
So freedom flows from trust. But besides that, freedom must be taught. First of all – to learn to evaluate the consequences of their choice. Here you do it – and what will happen? Look, maybe this, and then it is necessary so, and maybe this way, and then otherwise. Or offer the child to independently figure out what the consequences of a choice are possible. It is important that this be a discussion, and not shouts and mutual reproaches or insults.
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