10 ways to build trusting relationships with children

The concept of trust is complex, and building such a relationship with a child is especially difficult. The ability to trust yourself and others is at the core of any good relationship, and you can begin to build your child's sense of trust as an infant by responding to her physical and emotional needs.

As the child grows, you can try to increase his ability to trust. To do this, you need to try to create a favorable environment in which you listen to children and keep your promises.

Concept of family and family relationships

A family is a social group that influences a person’s psychological state for the rest of his life. These are some of the most important values ​​in life. In a family, subjects (parents) and objects (children) have certain properties and interact most of the time. Such relationships determine the physiological, psychological, and moral state of the student.

It is considered normal that a married couple, preparing to become parents, wants to give the baby all the best. The father and mother must realize that they will be responsible for the children, but repeat the behavior patterns accepted in their families. Interpersonal relationships between parents are the principles of communication that exist in children's families.

Psychological climate is the most important function of the family.

The psychology of relationships between parents and children includes:

1. Mutual trust is complete peace of mind when children and parents do not doubt each other. Lack of trust becomes the main reason for the loneliness of a person entering adulthood. Perhaps the roots of the problem lie in family relationships.
2. Sympathy, support. These qualities allow the child to feel calm in the company of his parents. Emotional well-being requires physical contact, primarily stroking, kissing, hugging.
3. Rational assessment of activities. The attention parents pay to their child’s activities should include approval, guidance, and sympathy. Success—personal and professional—comes from joint efforts.
4. Adequate requirements. The child must be clearly aware of his responsibilities and fulfill them. In families where there is no division of responsibility, children experience discomfort and are torn between the desire to please their parents and a lack of understanding of their place in the family hierarchy.

The need to evaluate activity often implies the child’s desire to feel parental understanding, support, and attention. Lack of reaction entails low self-esteem, uncertainty, the child tries to find understanding outside of family relationships, often in dangerous ways.

Peculiarities of relationships between children and parents in the family. consultation

Peculiarities of children's relationships

and parents in the family.

Of great importance for the educational potential of a family are such components as the educational level of the parents, general culture, pedagogical activity, the ability to establish good relationships with everyone around, the structural type of the family, the age of the father and mother.

There are three main styles: authoritarian, democratic and liberal.

The authoritarian style is presented as a strict declaration by parents of demands that cover the entire life of their children. In the family, forceful pressure, aggression, dictatorship, callousness and coldness, and unceremonious attentiveness are manifested.

Liberalism in the family is characterized by complete indifference of family members to each other, complete connivance. Each family member lives with his own affairs, worries, thoughts.

Democracy is based on mutual interest, support and mutual assistance. In an authoritarian style, children’s needs are suppressed, and in a liberal style, they are ignored; in a democratic family, there is constant, unobtrusive control over the child’s development.

The main direction in describing the typology of family education is the study of educational parental attitudes and positions. In general terms, this can be formulated as suboptimal and optimal parental positions. Opinion, point of view, attitude towards something and corresponding behavior.

The optimal parental position meets the requirements of adequacy, flexibility and predictability. The adequacy of the parental position is presented as the parents’ understanding of the individuality of their child, a vision of the changes taking place in his mental world. The predictive nature of the parental position lies in the fact that the style of communication should precede the emergence of new typical and personal qualities of children. Based on the predictive parental position, the optimal distance can be established. The flexibility of the parental position is considered as the ability to change educational influences on the child in the course of family living conditions.

Some authors dealing with the problem of raising children have tried to base the description of types of upbringing on the degree of expression of the emotional attitude of parents towards their child.

Education based on love and acceptance. The generalized formula of parental education is expressed by the satisfaction “The child is the center of my interests.” Parents are constantly engaged with the child, treat him tenderly, take care of his life. In other studies, attention was paid to both the degree of freedom of the child in the family, i.e. how parents regulate his behavior. With this approach, two extreme types are identified - excessive guardianship and excessive demands.

Overprotective parenting. Parents' educational formula: “I will do everything for the child.” The parents' behavior shows complete connivance combined with excessive care.

Education according to the type of excessive demands. The educational formula of parents can be expressed by the statement: “I don’t want a child the way he is.” Parents constantly criticize the child’s behavior; there is no encouragement or praise.

The third group of scientists, analyzing the types of education, came to the conclusion that

that a more accurate assessment of upbringing lies not in one, but in several aspects. On the one hand, there is the emotional aspect of the attitude towards children, on the other hand, a reflection of behavior. The combination of these aspects gives four types of education:

1) a warm attitude towards the child combined with the introduction of independence and initiative;

2) cold permissive upbringing, in which there is some coldness towards the child, a lack of parental feelings is combined with the idea of ​​freedom for him,

3) warm, restrictive parenting, which is characterized by an emotionally intense attitude towards the child with excessive control over his behavior;

4) cold, restrictive upbringing, which is accompanied by constant criticism of the child, nagging, and sometimes persecution of independent action.

Recently, another approach has been identified, based not on a two-number, but on a three-number model of education. Three aspects of the relationship that make up the attitude of parents towards their child are identified: sympathy - antipathy, respect - disrespect, closeness - distance. The combination of these aspects of the relationship allows us to distinguish eight types of parenting.

Effective parenting based on sympathy, respect and intimacy. The formula of parental attitude towards children is as follows: “I want” my child to be happy, I will help him in this. In the family, there is a warm emotional tone of communication, active upbringing is inherent in the interests, hobbies, and abilities of the child, his rights are respected, and there is a rosy demand.

Detached parenting is based on sympathy and respect, but there is a great distance from the child. Family education formula: “Look what a wonderful child I have, it’s a pity that I don’t have much time to communicate with him.” Parents highly value the child, his appearance, his successes, his abilities, but gentle treatment of him is accompanied by an inability to help with his problems.

Effective pity is based on intimacy, sympathy, but there is no respect. The parenting formula is as follows: “Although my child is not smart and physically developed enough, he is still my child and I love him.” This style of emotional attitude towards a child is characterized by awareness of real and sometimes imaginary deviations in his physical and mental development. As a result, parents come to the idea of ​​​​the exclusivity of their child. When communicating with a child, they take the path of providing special privileges and protect them in every possible way from harmful influences. The parents' interests are focused on him; they do not seem to believe in the child's capabilities and abilities.

Education according to the type of condescending detachment is based on sympathy, disrespect, and greater interpersonal distance. The formula for family education looks something like this: “You can’t help but blame my child for not being smart and physically developed enough.” The child’s ill-being is secretly his right, parents do not interfere in the child’s affairs, in his contacts with peers and other people, they are not sufficiently oriented in the mental world of a child.

Rejection is based on antipathy, disrespect, and large interpersonal distance. This attitude of parents towards their children is very rare; the formula of the parental position is expressed as follows: “This child gives me unpleasant feelings and an unwillingness to deal with him.” The parent withdraws from the child, does not want to communicate with him, does not notice his presence. The parent becomes coldly unapproachable when he approaches.

Contempt. In this type of relationship there is disrespect and small interpersonal distance. This attitude towards children corresponds to the following parental formula: “I suffer, suffer endlessly from the fact that my child is so undeveloped, stubborn, cowardly, and unpleasant to other people.” The parent does not notice any achievements of the child, ignores them, and does not notice anything positive in communication. Communication between parents and children is based on urging, edification, and demands. Such parents constantly visit specialists in the desire to “correct.” Education is based on the formula: “My child is a scoundrel, and I will prove it to him!” In upbringing there is a strong belief among parents that their child has turned into a “scoundrel.” Parents try to break the child with excessive severity and strict control; they often initiate the involvement of the public in education.

Refusal is based on antipathy, respect and great interpersonal distance. In raising a child, detachment from his problems prevails. They, like him, watch the child from afar, recognizing his strength and the value of certain personal qualities. When relations become strained, such parents willingly resort to the help of the public and strive to entrust their child to school. The given types of parental education are pointed. During upbringing, under the influence of circumstances, certain events, the attitude of parents towards the child changes. It would be a mistake to assume that the behavior of parents from the birth of a child to his growing up was described by one type of upbringing. Practice shows several relationship options in the behavior of parents. The above approach allows us to determine which particular attitude has currently become the leading one for parents.

One of the leading spectrums of family relationships is communication. Researchers V. Zazdeshnyuk and V. Semichenko highlight that communication between parents and children has a number of specific features. They highlight the following positive signs of family communication:

1. family communication is characterized by intimacy, intimacy, a decrease in the “confidence interval”, and the distance between the communicating parties;

2. family communication covers all aspects of a person, ensuring his extra-role acceptance and interaction. For example, a child at school plays the role of a student, on the street, crossing it - the role of a pedestrian, in the sports section - an athlete. The family accepts him in the integration of all his external roles;

3. in family communication it is impossible to highlight such aspects as training, education, development. They have a complex nature of influence. By encouraging a child’s certain behavior and punishing him for violating certain rules, parents make it clear what system of norms and rules is acceptable. At the same time, an identification mechanism occurs simultaneously: the child imitates his parents, focuses on them, this can happen both on a conscious and on an unconscious level;

4. The family has the responsibility to regulate the child’s various relationships with the outside world. Parents are a kind of “buffer”, because It is unacceptable to bring down the complexities of life on a child’s fragile psyche. The family relieves stress that the child experiences in other areas of life. Here the family performs a recreational function;

5. family provides the maximum duration of connections, which has a great influence on a person throughout almost his entire life.

However, researchers point out that communication in the family can be complicated for some objective reasons.

1. It has been studied that the range of emotional expressions in a family can fluctuate because includes relaxation, decreased self-control, and an increased tendency to nervous discharges. Communication between spouses and children occurs in the second half of the day; upon returning home, family members feel an urgent need for rest.

2. Communication in the family can take place against the backdrop of an already accumulated excess of communication.

3. Communication in the family is associated with small, everyday household chores, which devalues ​​its meaningful side because limited to external effectiveness with an internal emptiness of relationships.

4. Parents often lack psychological and pedagogical experience. It is acquired in parallel with the development of the child. Therefore, mistakes are possible due to the lack of psychological and pedagogical experience. Researcher of children's neuroticism V. Garbuzov identifies several types of improper upbringing: hypersocial, anxious-suspicious, egocentric.

The hypersocial type of miseducation is more common. They want to have a child not because there is a deep spiritual need for him, but because there should be children in every family. The family adheres to “strict” rules: recommendations for “ideal” upbringing are read and punctually followed to the point of formalism. For example, a baby is not picked up, even if he starts crying. They feed him by the hour, although he does not want to eat at the allotted time and cries from hunger at the wrong time. A child with hypersocial parents is, as it were, programmed, overly disciplined, and overly hypocritical.

With hypersocial upbringing, temperament is suppressed, as a result, children develop a hypersocial or anxious-suspicious character, which leads to neurosis if they suffer a severe failure or collapse of their claims.

The anxious-suspicious type is observed in cases where, with the birth of a child, a persistent concern for him, for his health and well-being, simultaneously arises. This type of upbringing is often observed in a family with an only child, as well as in a family where a child is growing up. In this case, the child is not independent, indecisive, vulnerable, touchy, and unsure of himself. They become very restless due to an anxious perception of reality.

The egocentric type is observed in a family with an insufficient level of responsibility regarding the future. The child is forced to imagine himself as a self-sufficient super-value. The slightest whims are satisfied immediately, desires are anticipated.

From the above reasons, we can say that despite the potentially high possibilities of family education, there are reasons that complicate the process of intrafamily interaction.

As a result of everyday interaction, a general atmosphere of intra-family relations develops, characteristic of a particular type of family. The following types of relationships are encountered.

Collaboration is about support and relationship. In a family, the basic needs of all family members are met. Everyone, regardless of age, feels important and receives help and understanding from everyone in the family.

Parity - refers to “allied” relations based on obtaining a common benefit from interaction that satisfies all parties. The personal significance of each family member is relegated to the background; the most valuable thing is the search for the rational expediency of any event.

Competition - in the family, everyone strives to be the first in everything, to achieve their own goals faster, at any cost.

Confrontation - in family relationships the desire to dominate others prevails. Show your superiority over others.

Antagonism - in a family relationship there are two or three opposing sides who do not agree to compromise. This relationship can arise between parents and children.

Against the background of such types of family relationships as antagonism and competition, symptoms of “hidden orphanhood” appear, emotional alienation of children from parents, loss of protective contacts between parents and children, and as a result we see children’s homelessness, vagrancy, and uncontrollability of children’s actions. Under such conditions, the number of childhood neuroses increases. Neurosis that is not cured in childhood can distort a person’s fate and affect his entire life.

The problems of family education are multifaceted. Violation of family functions and education: a suboptimal style of communication and interaction leads to constant conflicts and negative trends in the development of children. Marital relations form a certain position, emotional relations towards a son or daughter, and a view on his (her) upbringing. Parental position is one of the most important factors influencing the formation of a child’s personality. It reflects the feelings that his parents have for each other.

The atmosphere of the family, the entire family structure influences the child. The communication experience gained in the family is very important. It largely determines the well-being of children’s relationships with people around them.

The influence of intrafamily relationships on the formation of a child’s social experience is evidenced by the work of modern psychologists, teachers and the practice of family education (A. Ya. Varga, V. K. Kotyrlo, A. S. Spivakovskaya, V. Ya. Titarenko, etc.).

In a family, children choose different, individual paths of behavior, which are built on the basis of a subjective, subconscious assessment of what is happening around them. Already at the end of the first and at the beginning of the second year of life, the child becomes a real “expert” of his parents. In families with serious problems in relationships, personal deviations of parents, such forms of behavior of children and impacts on parents are observed that have a negative impact on the development and relationship of the child with other children (illness, aggression). Thus, we come to the conclusion that the nature of the relationship between children and adults is influenced by the following factors:

- marital relations;

- the position of parents, expressed in the style of education;

- the age of the children themselves;

- personal qualities of children;

Quarrels between children and parents are contradictory in their significance for the formation of children’s personalities.

On the one hand, they strengthen character and act as a subjective experience for children. Quarrels between children in a family cannot be avoided. But they can be considered natural and normal only if they are not based on the motive of betrayal.

Negative relationships between children and parents, in the absence of the correct position of the parents and the positive personal qualities of the children themselves, can take hold and accompany them throughout their lives, causing various internal conflicts of the individual and affecting relationships with other people.

The concept of "parental relationship"

The relationship between parents is an example for a small family member, so they must develop and improve. The foundations of personality are laid before the age of seven. Then it will be possible to change anything with the help of professionals, but this takes more time, effort, and energy.

The psychology of parent-child relationships includes:

• joint activities;
• communication;
• the influence of children on the relationship between parents;
• the influence of parents on the formation of the child’s personality.

Relationships can be successful and dysfunctional. The first case is that children are respected, trusted, and their opinions are taken into account. The second is a lack of mutual respect, understanding, and trust.

There are several types of relationships:

• cooperation that takes into account the needs of each family member;
• competition, where everyone strives to take a leading position, thereby depriving other members of attention, the goal is to fulfill needs by any means;
• confrontation - the desire to dominate, to prove one’s importance to the detriment of the interests of other family members;
• alliance - involves the receipt of benefits by all people included in the cell;
• antagonistic relationships - rejection of the opinions, desires, needs of another person, regardless of his status in the family.

Psychoanalysis was the first scientific direction that became interested in parent-child relationships and revealed the degree of influence of upbringing on a person.

The educational positions of adults are the main factor shaping the personal qualities, character, and emotional background of the pupil. Educational positions are:

1. Optimal, meeting the requirements of adequacy, the ability of parents to see the needs of the child, the organization of his mental world, and predict age-related changes associated with needs. Parental flexibility is the ability to restructure one’s own behavior in order to find an approach that will predictably influence the pupil’s actions.
2. Suboptimal. Manifestations of flexibility are lost, behavior is unchanged, does not take into account the changing situation, living conditions, and age. Lack of awareness of the individual’s needs, inadequate assessment of the psychological state, inability to anticipate behavior, and act proactively.

Educational positions can be corrected, but this requires careful attention to professional advice, practical application, analysis of personal behavior, statements, and demands made on children.

Family is the first stage of development

The behavior of parents directly affects the life of the child and his behavior pattern in his own family. It is very important for parents to realize how appropriate the claims, punishments or rewards presented are. This way you can build harmonious relationships.

Parents naturally have the greatest influence on the children in the family. Their upbringing prevails over upbringing in children's institutions. And this directly affects how the personality is formed. In psychology, there are several parenting styles, which we will dwell on in more detail.

Principles of relations between adults and children

The principles of family relationships are formed from living conditions. Two-parent and single-parent families differ in their way of life, approach to education, and different emotional backgrounds.

The role of the child is determined by several template sets related to the child. There are 4 main roles that it performs:

• a favorite, while the parents have no feelings for each other, all emotions are directed towards the child;
• a scapegoat who attracts the parents' negative feelings towards each other;
• a conciliator who solves parental problems and smooths out rough edges;
• baby - a role imposed on a pupil if the spouses are too close to each other; he always remains a little boy or girl.

Other authors identify the following roles:

1. The child is a burden. Personality formation occurs in an atmosphere of uselessness and alienation.
2. Slave. The qualities of subordination to parents and the need to complete all tasks, regardless of the child’s wishes, are instilled.
3. Weapon. Often mothers or fathers use a child for blackmail in order to get what they want, to subjugate another person to their will.
4. Lover, husband's substitute. The mother insists on complete frankness, demands renunciation of personal life, and binds the child with bonds of love.

There are two opposing principles that determine intrafamily relationships:

1. Emotional relationships of love, acceptance. The baby gets a lot of attention and time.
2. Rejection, alienation. There is cruelty, unwillingness to spend time, ignorance of basic needs, hatred.

Accordingly, several types of communication are identified that shape personality traits. The specificity of the relationship takes into account, on the one hand, a deep internal connection, on the other, an assessment of behavior, activity, and judgment, therefore, periodically arising conflict situations are a common occurrence even in normal families.

Parental control is exacerbated under the influence of concerns about the future of the pupil and concern for health. These factors cause internal tension on both sides, turning children into objects of education.

Classification of parenting styles in psychology

The system of educational techniques is an unconscious set of methods. Awareness includes:

• understanding the goals of education;
• choice of techniques;
• setting goals;
• analysis of methods, taking into account experience.

There are 5 main types of educational influence:

1. Guardianship. Parents provide all the baby’s needs, depriving him of initiative and the opportunity to take care of himself. The result of such upbringing is a person’s complete unadaptability to life. The child's independence is blocked.
2. Dictatorship. Signs of dictatorship are coercion, ignoring the interests of the child, physical or mental abuse when trying to show resistance.
3. Non-intervention or liberalism. One side of the issue is taking into account the interests of adults and children, on the other - coldness, inability of parents to learn to communicate, emotional distance.
4. Cooperation is the most constructive community of close people, where everyone has the right to seek help.
5. Parity is a group in which family members act according to a plan that ensures that all people get what they want.

In single-parent and two-parent families, mothers are involved in raising children. The father's role is to provide financial support for the cell's needs.

The consequences of different parenting styles and how to mitigate them

The parent-child relationship is influenced by several factors:

1. Personal experience of raising parents themselves. In adulthood, people bring the disadvantages and advantages of the educational process that existed in childhood. For example, the appearance of younger family members was assessed as a negative phenomenon, because all the parents' attention was focused on the youngest. There is an idealization of childhood, excessive care, and a desire to prolong the child’s childhood. The result is a restriction of independence, the development of a consumer attitude and selfishness. Awareness of the mistake comes after a consultation, during which parents are advised to give more freedom to their children, understanding the difficulties encountered on the path of personal growth. Children make their own decisions, parents support them, regardless of the correctness of the choice made.
2. Parents' aspirations that were not realized in childhood - lack of achievements. This internal attitude hinders the child’s social adaptation; he is forced to spend more time at home and pay attention to family members. The result is that the teenager becomes distant and spends a lot of time outside the home with strangers. The psychologist’s goal is to identify parents’ children’s problems, make them aware of their own unrealized plans, and perhaps confront them with the fact that it is never too late to engage in any type of activity. This approach shifts the parents' attention to themselves, freeing the child from constant control.
3. Attachment. The fear of being alone forces the mother or father to demand the child's attention. Perhaps the parent spent his childhood in a single-parent family, and there was a shortage of male and female attention. The assessment of the pupil’s behavior is based on whether he creates the required emotional sensation for his parents or not. Parents need to work through this aspect, after which the relationship improves.
4. Personal characteristics of adults surrounding the baby. Lack of understanding and flexibility leads to conflicts in adolescence. It's time for adults to stop seeing their son and daughter as small.
5. A bad relationship or lack thereof with the child’s other parent can cause an internal struggle, a desire to change the person by influencing the offspring. The child does not understand what caused the behavior of, for example, the mother, he is forced to psychologically close himself off. Realizing and accepting the situation is the only way out so as not to destroy the relationship with your son or daughter.

The circumstances of the birth of a baby affect the relationship - unwanted pregnancy, difficult childbirth, long-term illness, gender discrepancy with the expected. These moments can cause alienation and rejection by the parent of the child.

J. Bowlby's toy room test

The father of attachment theory is considered to be the British psychologist John Bowlby, who, together with his comrades, made numerous experiments on this topic. One of the experiments involved observing the behavior of a mother and baby in a room full of toys.

The study notes that there are children with insecure attachments who never leave their mother's lap , even though they would be very interested in playing with toys. Some leave their mother and play without returning to her for a long time.

In these two groups there are babies who will initially be close to the mother , but gradually they will begin to play with toys , regularly looking back to see where the mother is and thus check the connection with the "source of safety", and then continue to play and explore.

Such children have a secure attachment type.

Features of education at the present time

The modern system of home education is to give the child all the benefits and available material things. The financial guideline fosters greed, hypocrisy, and the desire to please where it promises benefit. Most often, girls inherit this upbringing from their mother, boys from their father. Reluctance to follow parental guidelines must be eradicated at the subconscious level, with outside help. The desire to change family relationships is a mutual decision of both parties.

The presence of a large number of educational institutions inspires parents with the idea that other people are capable of replacing a child’s home, parents’ attention, and their authority. The same situation arises when the baby is left for a long time with a nanny or grandmother. It is important to understand that the consequences of upbringing will fall on the shoulders of the parents.

Why do you need to build trusting relationships with children?

General trust building with your child comes down to thinking about what helps you build trust with the important people around you. When we think of trust, words like “integrity” or “character” come to mind—we expect a person or thing to be reliable, truthful, and capable of doing what they claim.

In addition, trusting relationships between children and parents make it possible to avoid overly strict and even abusive upbringing, minimize quarrels in the family and reduce parents’ anxiety about their children.