In the current conditions of the crisis, which has embraced all aspects of our life: economic, political, ideological, socio-cultural, etc., the problems of development, education and upbringing of the younger generation have become obvious. Children’s, school collectives in most cases have actually lost their positive formative significance in the life of a child. The role of the family in caring for the well-being of children, their mental and physical health, its responsibility, obvious and indisputable in itself, has increased.
In the last decade, the service of psychological and pedagogical assistance to children and their parents, dealing with difficult clients in counseling, has been rapidly developing.
Unfortunately, it should be recognized that the peculiarity of the service is its limited areas of work with children: diagnostics of difficulties, correctional classes, psychological trainings, career guidance work, etc.
At the same time, an analysis of the 5-year operation of one of the medical centers showed that among the complaints of parents in connection with the difficulties of teaching children at school and violations of relationships (according to statistics, these are the two main reasons for seeking help from the medical specialists), the most frequent (about 80 % of cases), the underlying cause is a violation of the development of family relations.
For parents, consultations are held, within the framework of which an adult can receive recommendations on how to establish interaction with a child. Psychological, or psychotherapeutic, help to the parents themselves, the family as a whole is not provided, and if it does, it is only due to the professional interest of volunteer psychologists.
The family as a “living environment”, the most significant in the development and formation of the younger generation, deserves the closest attention to it from specialists who provide psychological and pedagogical assistance to children. Apparently, this is a question for the future.
But, already today, a psychologist, relying on the rich theoretical and practical knowledge base accumulated in psychology, can identify the range of psychological problems of the family as systems that contribute to an adverse effect on the child.
Among such unfavorable factors that are available for study and diagnosis in the framework of counseling parents, it is necessary to highlight some features of the mother’s attitude towards a small child in the first years of life, especially the parental attitude, the type and style of upbringing. The position of the parent and the role that he “plays” in the relationship with the child is of great importance, and so on.
However, keep in mind that, by themselves, competently noticed violations in family interaction and professional recommendations of a specialist, only in rare cases contribute to an improvement in the family situation.
It is important to understand why this is happening. The simplest answer to this question is that, in addition to advice, the parent needs additional accompanying psychological or even psychotherapeutic assistance. A broader view will require: a careful study of the reasons why the parent is not able to independently and responsibly follow the recommendations received; and the search for new approaches in working with him, including to ensure the unification of efforts in the provision of psychological and pedagogical assistance to the child.
The need for such work is objectively due to the following factors:
- without the union of the psychologist with the parents of children with developmental difficulties, the effectiveness of this help, at times, is reduced to zero, reveals the dependence of the productivity of psychologists’ efforts on the attitude of the parents themselves to the problems of their children and from the ability of psychologists to involve parents in active participation in psychological assistance to children;
- children and adolescents who are brought in for a consultation with a psychologist, in the overwhelming majority of cases, do not realize the need for psychological help and do not have their own motivation to change. Parents, as practice shows, have a need for psychological help in matters of upbringing and teaching a child, and most often there is no motivation to work on a problem;
- all that the psychologist has at his disposal is, at least, the motive for seeking help from a particular parent, as well as his expectations from the specialist, refracted in the parental attitude to the problem, the “hostage” of which is the child.
Thus, summarizing what has been said, the main emphasis should be placed on the fact that for a psychologist who cares about the effectiveness of the result of counseling a parent, the parent’s view of the child’s problem, his attitudes towards the problem and expectations, as well as his personal motivation, are of great importance together with the involvement in the situation. So, along with the need to study the characteristics of family interaction, parental attitude towards the child in a general sense, it is equally important to know the parent’s attitude to the child’s problems in particular.
Category: General
Tags: council, human health, Mental Health