Hegumen Evmeny: Anomalies of parental love. Anomalies of parental love *Hegumen Evmeny Anomalies of parental love

“But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Tim. 5:8).

Writing a book about family relationships is a rather risky and responsible business, especially for the abbot of a monastery, a person who has no practical experience in family life. For a long time I did not dare to bring the outline of this book to its logical conclusion, this topic seemed to me very difficult and confusing. Now many Orthodox books about this have already been published and I did not want to repeat the hackneyed truths.

But cases from my pastoral practice, in the resolution of which I had to be not only an observer, but also one of the involuntary parties to conflicts, accumulated. And without understanding the essence of such situations, without a thorough analysis of what is happening today in the relationship of growing children with their parents, without understanding why families turn into frozen icebergs before our eyes, pastoral counseling is impossible in the modern world.

Having children is an integral part of marriage. If there are children, then there is God's blessing on the family. The most important and enduring relationship a person can ever have is with their own child. The influence of how parents behave can affect not only their child, but also future generations. Parenthood is one of the deepest manifestations of responsibility that only an adult can take on.

The Lord said: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it" (Genesis 1:28). In reproduction lies a huge potential not only for the family, but for the Church as a whole. Fruitfulness has always been evidence of the blessing of God. Spiritual revival in our country is something that will have to be carried out not only by parents, but also by children, and children of children. Between the birth of children and the possession of land there is another link - the upbringing of children, to which we would like to pay attention in the first place.

Children are the future of our Church. Children are the future of our country. The Lord wants the Church to be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. But without strong and strong families there will never be a strong and strong Church. What are the families - the cells of the church organism - such is the Church as an integral and living organism. If families are destroyed, the Church is destroyed. If the family is healed and established, the Church is healed and established.

“This is an inheritance from the Lord: children; reward from Him is the fruit of the womb. Like arrows in the hand of a strong man, so are young sons. Blessed is the man who filled his quiver with them! They will not remain in shame when they speak to the enemies at the gates” (Ps. 126:3-5).

Children are not a burden, they are God's gift. A full quiver is a complete family, a filled and healthy Church, carrying the message of salvation to people. “The crown of old men is the sons of sons, and the glory of children is their parents” (Pr. 10, 10). What does empty quiver mean? These are empty families, incomplete families, empty churches. These are empty souls, hearts filled with selfishness and personal ambition. These are the words of Christ that come true to us: “Behold your house is left empty” (Mt. 23:28). That is what the devil wants, ruin and emptiness. He came to steal, kill and destroy. But Christ came to give life and abundant life (John 10:10).

God has given parents a serious commission to bear the responsibility of raising their children. “Let these words which I command you today be in your heart. And teach them to your children, and speak of them as you sit in your house and as you walk along the road, as you lie down and when you get up” (Deut. 6:6-7). “He commanded our fathers to proclaim to their children, so that they would know the coming generation, the children who would be born, and that they should proclaim to their children in due time, put their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, and keep His commandments” (Ps. 77 , 5−7). “The main goal of Christian upbringing in the family is to teach children to understand what is good, what it means to be kind. Children should be called to do good deeds and first ordered to do them, and then to get them to do them themselves. The most common deeds are charity, compassion, mercy, compliance and patience. Doing good must be taught, like any other deed, and the child will enter life with a gravitation towards good, ”said Archbishop Ambrose of Ivanovo-Voznesensky and Kineshma.

Communicating with believers and their relatives, I discovered that the source of pain, trouble, conflicts is often the churching of one of the family members, or rather, distortions in churching. The Church, arranged on Earth as a courtyard of the Kingdom of God, for many families has become a place of collapse of family dispensation, a place of suffering and tears.

More than once I have heard how children growing up in a churched family defend their right to independence, while parents intensely and quite directively continue to “church” their children.

Pastoral participation in certain episodes of the life of their parishioners requires deep understanding and wise resolution. The observations and reflections presented in this book are living evidence of experience in this direction.

What specific episodes are you talking about? For example, sometimes a pastor has to solve a difficult situation: a person goes to church, fasts, lives a church life against the will of unbelieving parents. The situation can acquire an extremely conflicting character in cases where a child (of course, not so much by age, but by his position relative to his parents who deny him the right to be an independent person) wants to arrange a life at his own discretion, for example, try his hand at the field of monasticism.

The confessor can act depending on what he sees in this person: premature youthful ardor based on romanticism and dreaminess, or a genuine call of God, similar to that which Christ addressed to one youth during His earthly life. However, if the confessor nevertheless gives a blessing on the monastic path, then he runs the risk of being among the first confessors of the 21st century. Fervently loving parents can stop at nothing, just to wrest their child from under the “harmful influence” ... And it’s good if their impulses are based only on a prudent fear of the correctness of a choice that is incomprehensible to them.

Another problem that pastors have to face is overly caring mothers who love their grown-up sons and daughters to the point of suffocating hugs. It is not difficult to understand that a person who turns to a pastor for help is dealing with precisely this type of parental affection. It is a “caring mother” who can say to her child who decides to connect her life path with a fiancé (bride) she did not like, monastic obedience, or simply life away from her parents:

“I dedicated my whole life to you. If you leave, I will die!

A child who obeys the commandments of the Lord is at a loss. She (he) loves her fiance (bride), but cannot violate the commandment to honor parents. Fate, personal life choices are at stake.

A simple analysis shows that there is no smell of love for a child here, if love is understood as an active interest in the life and development of the one you love. The mother opposes the development of her child and in general against human nature, forcibly not letting go of the grown chick from the nest.

Over time, it turns out that the interests, personal life and development of the child are of little concern to her, as long as he remains with her. What arguments does she give? Most often - everyday difficulties that await the child in an unknown place, inaccessible to her close guardianship. But if a child has grown up not adapted to life, who is to blame? Of course, "caring mother." After all, doing everything for the child, she blocked, did not let him receive his personal experience, did not leave him the right to make a mistake ... But usually such mothers, as a rule, do not want to listen to pastoral advice, even if they are mildly told that it would be time to change something in the field of relations with the child. It is unlikely that such mothers will read our book to the end. But still I want to invite them to this conversation.

Nobody is born with parenting skills. All parents start out as amateurs. Fortunately, today there are many excellent books, magazines and articles containing advice and revelations that can greatly help you to be the best parents. This book is addressed to both parents and pastors, priests who have to unravel the difficult knots of family relationships. This is a search for solutions through joint efforts, this is a frank conversation with parents and children. This is a desire for reconciliation, in order to survive together, to stand. Not alone. Together.

The way out is not in mutual accusations and threats. The way out is in the Word of God, without which “nothing was made” (John 1:3).

The solution is in a real return to God, because leaving the family for an active religious life, we, adults, left our closest people. Have we found God if we have sowed so much suffering around? An unheated, unpatched husband, despite the fact that his wife disappears for weeks in monasteries, with elders, on pilgrimages ... Destroyed families, a son who first got hooked on beer, and then on drugs, and a mother who tries to drag the child to "reprimand" or promises mountains of gold to him for "going to communion." What is this? Is this the fruit promised by Christ (Matthew 13:8)? Or maybe we have sown something else?

Truly believing parents will sooner or later come to a sober rethinking of their spiritual life. I am deeply convinced that sanity will prevail, believing parents will return to their families, to their children, humble themselves, repent before God and begin to give them love, acceptance and understanding. Spiritual revival in our country will not come unless families are restored. Spiritual revival in the Church begins with spiritual revival and restoration of the family.

It will be a great joy for me if I find out that this book this book will help someone find answers to questions that have arisen in their souls, if relations in the families of my readers are restored, if excessive guardianship is replaced by trust and respect, accusations - by the adoption of their son or daughter , grumbling and dissatisfaction - the joy of the relationship of children and parents blessed by the Lord.

I know this book will not be easy to read, especially the first half. Excursion into the ugliness of relationships in the modern family is not an easy task. But the second half will console you - I believe that there is a way out and on these pages you, dear reader, will find it.

Tiny sexton and novices in cassocks - tenderness or tragedy?

I remember one incident from my pastoral practice. Mother became a church in adulthood. She is raising her daughter alone. Daughter is thirteen years old, a late child. Both are very attached to each other. The only close friend of the mother is the daughter, the only friend of the daughter is the mother. The girl began to have problems in communicating with her peers:

“No one understands me at school, no one wants to be friends with me.

We begin to understand. It turns out that every friend who comes to the house, the mother always finds some kind of flaw, because she is jealous of everyone. Friendship with a new girlfriend ends with soft hints from her mother:

"Look how sloppy she is..."

She's not a believer...

This girl is not serious, she cannot be a good friend.

- Nastya has bad parents ...

The child is not able to understand why he cannot get close to anyone. The situation is further complicated by such circumstances. When the girl was six years old, she and her mother were at a feast in the monastery, which was visited by His Holiness the Patriarch. When the Patriarch left the church at the end of the service, she brought the girl under the blessing of the Patriarch, and in the general noise asked:

“Bless her to be a nun.”

His Holiness the Patriarch, moving through the mass of people, gave a blessing to the girl ... From that moment on, the mother daily reminds her daughter:

“Look, the Patriarch blessed you to be a nun, so get ready, don’t sin, don’t look at the boys…

On the one hand, there is a strong attachment to the mother, and the mother has already decided everything for her daughter, on the other hand, the girl begins to reveal her personal potential, she begins to look for her life path. Growing up, the girl will certainly face very serious problems. First, even if she goes to a monastery, her attachment to her mother will remain there, she will miss her there too. Monasticism, on the other hand, presupposes freedom from excessive ties of consanguinity. Strong blood attachment to each other can hinder spiritual growth. Secondly, the desire to go to the monastery is not the free choice of the girl, but the desire of the mother, the realization of which she doomed her daughter.

Each person is responsible for his life choices and for his decisions. In this case, the fate of the girl was decided, of course, by her mother, leaving her no choice.

Many believers live today with such an untruth of human relations.

Let me give you another real-life situation as an example.

The child is six or seven years old, he is not able to withstand a long service. The mother comes to the service (she is a novice or has already taken the tonsure), of course, with her child. It is difficult and boring for a child to stand a five-hour vigil, he begins to play, run around the temple. And some of the surrounding people, “pious” Orthodox Christians, begin to baptize him, telling the mother that her child is “possessed” ... Children under seven years of age are open to any remark made by adults, especially if it is a mother or relatives, people they respect. Suppose a child heard and remembered these unfamiliar and strange words that adults spoke about her. He will observe who else is called possessed, and suddenly he will notice a truly possessed person in the monastery. He will unwittingly compare the behavior of this person with his own, and sooner or later he will begin to behave like a possessed person, completely unconsciously copying his behavior, habits and actions ...

We are talking about a specific child, a girl.

I cannot fail to mention one more sad situation that a modern Orthodox pastor has to face: together with a mother who has chosen the monastic path, a daughter (or son) is forced to leave for the monastery. Encountering such cases quite often in my pastoral practice, I can say that so far I have had a chance to come across a few really successful cases of parents raising their children at the monastery. With the rarest exception, a person needs to live through childhood, in which there is a place for Winnie the Pooh and Cheburashka, in which a child can go with his parents to a zoo or a circus, to see all the diversity of the world into which he came. Children should study in an ordinary school, where there are peers not only from believing families. The duty of parents is to instill in their children the love of Christ, and the final choice of the path of life they need to make on their own already in adulthood.

Believing parents should be engaged in the upbringing of their children and it is to this, first of all, that they devote their lives. Obedience in a monastery is a completely different way of life. In a monastery, a mother cannot completely devote herself to raising a child, because this requires a special way of life, a special family arrangement, a certain measure of freedom.

What happens if a mother brings a boy, for example, 7-12 years old, to a convent? Until some time, she can still control him. Perhaps with the help of parental manipulations, for example, permission to take a walk, he can force him to take communion, confess. But the boy needs a masculine principle, a masculine upbringing.

If a boy does not find masculinity in the house, if only his mother brings him up, his life, as a rule, is formed according to two scenarios. In the first case, he will become dependent on his mother and effeminate in his disposition, infantile, helpless, because the mother unconsciously reminds him of his helplessness and dependence on her. In the second case, when the masculine principle nevertheless wins, he goes out into the street and there he finds an older and stronger leader, or perhaps an adult, and becomes simply part of the street environment.

I can say with confidence that the second way out for the boy is more positive. Why? Because in this case, he retains the masculine principle, masculine dignity, masculine identity.

It is good if in the monastery the boy finds the same unfortunate teenagers who, by their mother's will, without wanting or choosing it, ended up in a convent, and will be able to play with them. Even better, if there is a sensitive priest who will find time to raise this child. But usually priests at monasteries and city churches are very busy, first of all, with the performance of their immediate duties.

The most tragic thing is when a teenager, constantly accused of being demon-possessed or godless, is forced to go to church and formally participate in the sacraments. Over time, he may form a negative attitude towards everything Christian, church. And it’s not so scary if he honestly leaves the church over time, it’s worse if he becomes a religious hypocrite - a person who knows everything about dikirias and trikirias, rosaries, bishops, elders, but who has everything that is really connected with Christ and a living relationship with Him, it will be completely indifferent. Reasoning knowledge (once in childhood he was taught the Law of God or read the Children's Bible with him) is quite compatible with the opposite way of life. Growing up, such teenagers swear, smoke and strive to learn more about the various abominations of this world.

The religious hypocrisy of parents gives rise to slavery, despondency, and suffering. The “letter” kills joy, freedom, simplicity, childhood, both in the family and in the church, creates an atmosphere of despondency, and “a dull spirit dries the bones” (Pr. 17, 22).

Children are discouraged when they feel like prisoners. The atmosphere in some houses is sometimes so oppressive and heavy that the child literally suffocates. The parents of many of us lived in a difficult wartime, when totalitarianism raged, leaving an imprint in their minds, in their attitude towards themselves and people. Fate did not spoil them with luxurious gifts. They were brought up in harsh conditions of cruel control and the strictest punishment. Therefore, perhaps, in the life of parents there was not much softness, tenderness, sensitivity, kindness. This can be understood. Such was the time. They are children of their era, who became our parents.

But modern parents who raise their children in an atmosphere of freedom should not be a source of despondency and irritation, but a source of love, comfort and Have a good mood, an example of manhood.

Parental egoism destroys family comfort and causes irreparable damage to the parents themselves. The neglect of children, the suppression of their personality is unnatural for a person. This testifies to the presence of a sinful condition, which must be destroyed in the life of parents by the power of the grace of the Holy Spirit. It is especially painful to hear stories that in some families parents instill religiosity in children by repressive methods. The consequences are very sad: young men and women who have grown up for a long time cannot even hear about anything church, a stable immunity and an allergy to what they overfed in childhood are formed.

God is love. Love is the creative force of our being. Hatred is a destructive force of the individual, the family, and the whole society. We must love our children, love each other. A wise parent testifies of his Christianity to his children, first of all, with his kind and wise heart. Having given some minimum of knowledge to a child, he will very carefully remind him of God and at the same time provide more independence to the child in building his own relationship with God.

In parish life, one often sees the following picture: parents literally push their children into the altar. Everything looks very nice, especially at the entrances and exits. However, what is actually happening? When a boy is in the temple with his parents, under their control, they see what he is doing, and at some point they can go out with him into the yard. When a child is at the altar, parents calmly pray in the temple, and the priest and senior altar servers are simply not able to do it - they do not have time for this. At first the boy is interested, then he gets tired and starts playing with something. Reverence at the shrine collapses, and at home, ignorant parents say to him: “You are our altar boy, you must behave well.” And peers said to one boy: “You are our saint, we will not play with you.” Driven into a difficult situation, a teenager is forced to choose: either friends or a temple. I know teenagers who have completely left the temple, although this would not have happened if the parents had allowed their son not to serve in the altar.

My heart bleeds when once again I hear about such a parish custom in this or that church: everyone, both adults and children, drink “Orthodox tea” in the altar after the service - Cahors half with boiling water. This is such a custom in Orthodoxy, what's wrong with that? The bad thing is that the natural psychological barrier regarding the use of alcoholic beverages is removed in children - after all, everything that happens in the altar is done “with blessing”.

For help - to the father

The destruction of the family inevitably entails the destruction of the nation. The collapse of parental authority in the family gives rise to the collapse of all ideals in society. From here anarchy, confrontation and conflict of generations are born. Children blame their parents, parents blame their children. The people blame the government, the government blames the people.

If the family has not raised a person, society will no longer educate him, and the Church - only with a strong personal desire of the person himself.

It is to the Church, to its ministers, that many parents rush for help, advice and support. They rush when the situation has reached the edge, when they have had the wisdom to realize their mistakes and their helplessness. And so it will be wonderful if in the temple of God the parents meet a good shepherd who, with heartfelt participation and pastoral wisdom, will help resolve the situation, ask leading questions, perhaps give wise advice, and pray with the person about his situation.

First of all, I would like to dwell in more detail on the cases with which parents turn to the priest about their relationship with their children. Let's talk about how a priest can specifically help both parents and children.

As a rule, most often parents turn to the priest with complaints about their growing children: they began to treat them badly, they do not respect anyone, they do not go to church. More often mothers come with such complaints, but sometimes fathers also come, also complaining about their child, who in childhood was a “beautiful boy” (or girl), was almost going to leave for a monastery, and then suddenly completely cooled down to go to church, he had other interests. Since the priest most often does not have the opportunity to talk with these children, in this case it is necessary to help the mother or father herself, to understand the conflict only by the forces of those present.

A pastor who, after listening to a parent's complaint, will immediately say: “Yes, our youth is like that now. They don’t need God at all, they are generally mired in sin, TV and rock music have done their job ...”, will make a big mistake. Instead of helping the father or mother to understand how they themselves contribute to the emergence of a conflict situation, such a shepherd will take a position of solidarity with the parents, supporting the believing mother and scolding the "godless children." Mom, of course, calms down, but insofar as the priest himself supported her in the fact that her son became who knows who. Thus, she is even more firmly established in her incorrect pedagogical position, continuing “with the blessing of the priest” to scold and “nag” her son or daughter.

Why are parents asking for help now?

It is very important to understand why the parent turned to the priest for help right now. Why relationship problems have become especially acute today? What has changed in the relationship with the child or in the parent himself lately in this way?

It happens that the aggravation of relations is simply the natural process of growing up a child and leaving him out of parental control. But most often this is facilitated by a sharp change in the situation - either in the life of a child, for example, he returned from the army, went to college and, as a result, the possibility of control decreased, or in the life of a parent: he retired and he freed up time and mental strength for dedication more time in the family, or parents divorced ...

Four groups of parenting problems

The problems of parents can be conditionally divided into four groups. Sometimes all four problems arise at once, sometimes three, sometimes two, and sometimes one.

The first group: lack of contact with children. Lack of understanding of how they live, what they are interested in, the inability to talk heart to heart with them, the feeling of their parental uselessness, alienation to the child. Such people are characterized by statements like: “I don’t understand him (or her) at all. I don’t know anything about him, where he goes, who his friends are, he doesn’t tell me anything, he doesn’t trust me.”

Second: the disrespectful harsh attitude of children towards their parents. Constant quarrels and conflicts with them over trifles. Such complaints are characterized by statements: “He is constantly rude to me. He constantly ignores me. He plays his stupid music loudly. He doesn't want to help around the house."

Third: concern for children, fears that they do not live the way they should live from the point of view of their parents. Sometimes here a conflict occurs between the non-religious dispensation of the life of children, their unwillingness to go to church, pray to God, and the parental “should”. Sometimes parents perceive children as unhappy, unlucky, confused, lost. Such people are characterized by complaints of the following kind: “My daughter has a bad relationship with her husband. I would really like to help her get it right. family relationships but I don't know how to do it." Or, for example, a situation of another extreme: “Father, my son left the institute where he studied for three years and is going to leave for a monastery. How can I influence him? Or, for example, a mother complains that her daughter is only nineteen years old, and she has already had three abortions: “What should I do with her?”

Fourth: problems associated with non-standard deviant behavior of children. For example: “My son uses drugs. How can you help him? What prayers to read? Which specialist should I contact?”, or “My daughter is closely acquainted with members of a criminal gang that is engaged in racketeering.”

Naturally, for any complaint, the first task of the pastor is to understand the essence of the problem, to understand how much the claims and assessments of the parents correspond to reality. The most obvious way to do this is to collect information about specific facts.

Most often, the parent who turned to the priest is talkative, a rather “correct” (from his point of view) person, ready to tell you his story without leading questions. And yet, in order to get information about specific situations, you will have to ask him specific questions about how the relationship between the child and the parent unfolds, what they talk about, why and how disputes flare up, which serves as a basis for concern and suspicion.

When a teenager leaves the church

I would like to ask you to draw the attention of believing and loving fathers and mothers to the following fact. As a rule, at some point a teenager leaves the church. In church, he becomes bored, uncomfortable, unnecessary and uninteresting. This happens at the age of eleven or twelve, maybe a little later.

Metropolitan Anthony of Surozh sees the reasons for this departure as follows: “I think that one of the problems that confronts a teenager is that he is taught something when he is still small, and then when he is ten or fifteen years older, suddenly discover that he has doubts, and questions, and misunderstanding. He outgrew everything that he was taught in childhood, and in the interval we did not teach him anything, because it did not occur to us to follow what questions were born in him, and pay attention to these questions, treat them seriously, not just “how do you question this?”… It often happens that when a growing child puts a question to us, we do not answer it. And we do not answer, unfortunately, very often because we are inattentive to him, but because we have nothing to answer, we ourselves never thought.

Once I gathered a group of parents and children, teenagers. The adults expected me to have a conversation, to pay attention to the children, and the parents to sit like peahens: they supposedly know everything. And I suggested to the children: "Here you have questions - put them to your parents, and we'll see what they answer." And the parents could not answer. After that, the reaction of the parents was: “How could you do this to us! You have shamed us in front of our children!” And on the part of the children, another reaction: “How wonderful it was! Now we know that our parents are just like us!”.

In this difficult period for a teenager, a period of independent search, it is very important to support him, maintain a warm, understanding, homely atmosphere, so that when he leaves church life, he does not leave his family. It is impossible in this difficult, but important time for the formation of values, to push him out of the family. It is necessary to support him in every possible way in his independent life search.

Many modern parents often sin by deviating from this rule. You need to show your son or daughter that he is loved, despite the fact that he stopped going to church and does without prayer, without Confession, without Communion. It is important not to lose spiritual contact with the child, even if now he does not have aspirations for the spiritual. And for this (attention, dear Orthodox fathers and mothers!) you need to make certain sacrifices. Maybe the advice that I will now give will shock someone, but not those who do not want to lose their children, they will take everything into account.

If your child likes contemporary music, you can sit next to him while he listens or ask him to listen with him. Talk to him openly, heart to heart, honestly admit that you are a person of the older generation, brought up on other rhythms, maybe on the music of the Soviet stage, you prefer songs with a semantic load, not even so much music, so much text. Open your heart in response, without giving any critical assessment of what he likes. Ask the child to explain what is close to him in this particular music. Sincerely (but carefully) admit if you don't like this music or say that it's not bad, this composition is very beautiful. Explain why it is important for a child to listen to this music at a very high volume. That is, sincerely learn from your grown-up child about everything, do not try to lead him to the correct (from your point of view) answer on this matter.

Archpriest Arkady Shatov in the article “Why do children leave the Church?” advises: “You can and should enter the life of a child, connect with him, become the most interesting interlocutor for him. Then he will not seek consolation from other people: on the street, with friends who do not know God, in companies where they drink beer and smoke cigarettes.

Go with your child to the forest, let the boats on the river, in the summer go for mushrooms, for strawberries, listen to the birds sing in the forest, translate this singing into human language and say that the birds sing the glory of God and the child will remember it for life and perceive the beauty of the world as the beauty of God's creation. And then he will treat everything else in the same way, look from this point of view and see the manifestation of Divine love in everything that surrounds him.

“... You can’t deprive children of any company: this means depriving them of the joy of communicating with their peers. It is important to make sure that children from an early age have believing friends, it is necessary to organize their lives in such a way that they are interested,” Father Arkady writes further.

Invite your child to invite their friends to the house. It is better not to try to invade their communication, but just get to know his friends and, as if by chance, after an hour or two of communication, invite them to drink tea and cake. You can sit with them or leave, it all depends on the situation.

Dear dads and moms! Do not put a barrier between your world and the world of your growing child.

Quite often, even a priest finds it difficult to discuss with some overprotective, overdominant parent the specifics of their growing child's views. Their life principles seem to them the only true ones. Therefore, it will be more effective, having expressed doubts about the correctness of parental teachings, to move on to an analysis of the manifestations of their perseverance and control, to how specifically they express their criticism, to what directly underlies disagreements and difficulties in relations with children.

I will stop at one point. Having become churched five or ten years ago, and perhaps since childhood, believing parents see in the denial of their own attitudes and values ​​by a teenager almost an attack on the foundations of the Orthodox faith. And therefore, the advice that I gave above - to sit down and listen to his music with your child, can be perceived by such parents almost as a manifestation of the "non-Orthodox" of the author of this book himself ...

It is very important for a pastor (especially if the time of communication is limited), without going into details, without evaluating the life principles of the parent, to understand what exactly is the excess in the religious education of the child.

Many modern parents (especially “too Orthodox”) believe that in order to raise a child, for a better understanding of him, it is not at all necessary to read pedagogical literature, to be interested in the life of young people. In order to better understand your child, to understand what life values ​​are for the modern generation, sometimes you just need to sit down and watch with your son or daughter a video that is popular with teenagers. Ask your child:

- What kind of film is this, why is it so much talked about?

Why is everyone watching him?

- Bring the cassette tomorrow, let's watch it together.

Archpriest Konstantin Ostrovsky writes about this: “If we want to help children outgrow their spiritually harmful hobbies, we must try, remaining ourselves, to get in touch with them so that they do not hide from us their views, their experiences. If we keep only a high ascetic tone in communication with children, then the majority of even believing children will be beyond our influence.”

Unfortunately, many Orthodox parents do not set such a task. Moreover, they believe that in order to understand all life situations, only narrowly religious ideas about life are enough. Such a limited position, alas, leads to sad results. Putting themselves in a rigid framework, parents cease to understand their children, lose contact with them, thereby violating the Commandment of love, first of all, to our neighbors, because our children are the closest to us. Often, when discussing the basic commandments of Christianity, love for God and neighbor, we do not love those closest to us - our children, do not try to understand them, penetrate into their heart aspirations and secrets, but, on the contrary, evaluate, criticize, grumble, and thereby destroy the remnant trusting and respectful relationships.

In the Diary of Empress Alexandra we read:

“There is nothing stronger than the feeling that comes to us when we hold our children in our arms. Their helplessness touches noble strings in our hearts. For us, their innocence is a cleansing power. When a newborn is in the house, the marriage is, as it were, born anew. A child brings a couple closer together like never before. Young parents face new goals, new desires appear. Life immediately acquires a new and deeper meaning.

In a house where children grow up, all their environment and everything that happens affects them, and even the smallest detail can make a beautiful or harmful effect. Even the nature around them shapes the future character. Everything beautiful that children's eyes see is imprinted in their sensitive hearts. Wherever a child is brought up, his character is affected by the impressions of the place where he grew up. The rooms in which our children will sleep, play, live, we must make as beautiful as the means allow ...

Another important element of family life is a loving relationship with each other; not just love, but cultivated love in the daily life of the family, the expression of love in words and deeds. Children need joy and happiness just as much as plants need air and sunlight.

For a real mother, everything that her child is interested in is important. She listens to his adventures, joys, disappointments, achievements, plans and fantasies just as willingly as other people listen to some interesting story.

The richest legacy that parents can leave to their children is a happy childhood, with fond memories of father and mother. It will illuminate the days to come, keep them from temptations and help them in the harsh everyday life when children leave their parental shelter.

The pastor should tell parents that direct, directive influence on grown-up children is ineffective, especially if it is based on negative examples and raised voices. The reaction to parental pressure is most often insubordination, resistance, negativism, i.e. parents get the opposite of what they want. The pastor needs to explain to the mother or father that pressure and control only spoil the relationship with the child, they become undesirable and further destroy the family atmosphere.

In an atmosphere of total control, quarrels, constant showdowns or dictatorship, it is impossible to explain something to a person, to force him to do something. If personal relationships are damaged, trust and sincerity are gone, the effect of education will practically be zero.

Parents, never be silent, do not dismiss your children. As it comes around, so it will respond. What if, one day, they will just as carelessly dismiss you with your senile questions? Learn to listen to their questions. Ask God for wisdom for answers. Many of their questions are far from idle.

Fellowship with children is a serious ministry that requires great patience, great love and wisdom. Try to become an interesting conversationalist and true friends for them.

Fellowship with children is service to children. How important it is that our life becomes pure and blessed, so that we do not pass on to the next generations our pride, absurd character, scandalous disposition. We are obliged to leave a good example for the generation to come after us, unhypocritical faith and love for God, firm hope in the Lord in all situations of life. And for this, the first Sunday school for children should be their own home, and the family - a home church.

Serving children is serving God. “Because you did it to one of the least of these brothers, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40). Our Lord Jesus Christ identifies Himself with children. “Whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me; and whoever offends one of these little ones who believe in Me, it would be better for him if they hung a millstone around his neck and drowned him in the depths of the sea ... Be careful, do not despise any of these little ones; for I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven” (Matthew 18:5-6,10). Your attitude towards children determines your attitude towards Jesus Christ! Indifference to children is indifference to Him. You curse, slander, slander your child - you curse, slander, slander the Lord. Bless the children, bless the Lord.

May each of us become an example worthy of imitation, a standard of moral purity and Christian dignity!

(he was a psychologist in the world)
Excerpts from "Anomalies" parental love"

Our parents dreamed of seeing us healthy, happy, successful. We want the same for our children. However, rash statements by adults can lay in the child's subconscious a program that prevents the child from growing into a full-fledged personality.

How often did you have to hear in childhood “You are mine”, “My eyes would not see you”, “Why am I such a punishment ...”, “It's time to become independent that you behave like a little one”? It is possible that you do not remember such words. However ... it happens that you have an important task in front of you, but you want to do something else (eat, watch TV, clean the room or wash the dishes), just not do the task you have set for yourself ... As a result, the implementation of an important task is postponed to a critical point and in order to do it, you have to commit formal violence against yourself.
Or maybe it’s easier for you to do anything for others, but ask for yourself - your tongue doesn’t turn? Are you happy to buy gifts for loved ones and spoil them with delicious meals, but you just can’t find time to do morning exercises or take vitamins?

The root of the problem is not at all in the character traits. Most likely, it is much deeper: as a child, your parents constantly put you in a situation where you felt guilty about your “selfishness”. As an adult, you continue to experience the same feeling, but without outside help.

Why is something like this happening to us? American psychologists came to the conclusion that in this form an adult is dependent on one of the parents, who at one time supplied his child with code phrases-settings. In psychology, this phenomenon is called "parental directives" laid down in the subconscious of a child up to the age of six.

Having taken up the study of parental directives, experts identified twelve main, most frequently encountered hidden installations. They are formulated by very specific words and actions of parents. Failure to comply with these instructions entails a sense of guilt towards parents, which even now, as adults, we cannot explain.
For our part, knowing these attitudes, we can try to save our children from the oppressive feeling of our own imperfection.

Setting "Don't Live"

Sounds very scary and even unnatural? Haven’t you ever heard your parents (not necessarily yours) say in their hearts: “My eyes wouldn’t see you!”, “I don’t need such a bad boy” and even “Lord, how tired I am of you!” Some "restrained" parents simply have conversations with the child about how difficult it is to raise children, how much trouble, anxiety and deprivation the parental share brings with it.

The hidden meaning of this attitude is to manipulate the child by instilling in him a constant feeling of guilt towards his parents. In a baby (and after many years in an adult), the confidence is born that he is the eternal debtor of his father and mother.
Meanwhile, the decision to have a child belongs exclusively to the parents. If they did not know that this path is not easy and thorny, do not shift the responsibility for their delusions onto the child. Now try to imagine the thoughts and feelings of a child who hears something like this ... He may well conclude that it would be better for mom or dad if he were not in the world. The child most likely will not go to suicide. But do not be surprised if, having fully imbued with the “do not live” attitude, he will receive frequent injuries in early childhood, and later he will find another way to destroy his health - alcoholism, drug addiction, gluttony ...

Another variant of the reaction to the installation “do not live” is the deliberately hooligan behavior of the child. It’s easier to feel guilty for a cause than to feel a constant sense of guilt for who knows what. In adult life, a person with a firmly mastered “don’t live” attitude will feel worthless, consider that there is nothing to love and respect him for. Perhaps he will spend his life to prove his own worth. But most likely he will live like this with a constant feeling of "badness" - even if there are no objective reasons for this.

Installation "Don't be a child"

Even the best parents rarely manage to avoid the phrases: “Well, why are you so small!”, “It's time to become an adult”, “You are no longer a child to whine over trifles.” The subconscious message is this: being a child is bad, being an adult is good.
We (at least the majority) have absorbed this message. As a result, we are afraid or do not know how to communicate with children. We have nothing to talk about with them, it is easy for us to teach and instruct them, but it is infinitely difficult to share their interests and live their life. If you feel guilty about wanting to indulge yourself or do some childish madness, the mindset of not being a child at all costs sits in your mind and poisons your life. So try not to tell your kids to "be grown up" before they are at least 8-10 years old.

"Don't grow" setting

Practice shows that many parents delight in instilling in their children a sense of their own indispensability. “I will never leave you!”, “I will always help my little child”… Children's thinking can decipher this concern as: “If I grow up and become independent, I will lose the most important thing in life - parental support.”
Growing up, a person with such a directive feels guilty for allowing himself to fall in love. These are very devoted children who agree to live with mom and dad, even at the cost of refusing to create their own family. If such a person nevertheless marries, family life turns into a nightmare for his chosen one. Often, even having entered into marriage, adult children who have not grown up refuse to live separately from their parents, and in any case they cannot imagine life without dedicating their mother (dad) to all the vicissitudes of their marital relations.

Setting "Don't think"

Does it sound familiar: “Are you the smartest?”, “Stop talking, do business”, “I'm older, I know better, listen to me - that's all!” Indeed, adults are better versed in life. They have more experience. It is much easier to shift the decision of all issues to them. Moreover, they themselves want it. Result? A person who received such an attitude in early childhood often experiences helplessness and a complete lack of ideas if it is necessary to solve the problem that has arisen. Often they are haunted by excruciating headaches that make the very process of thinking impossible. They experience a subconscious distrust of the results of their thoughts, often commit rash acts that leave a feeling of bewilderment: “How could I do this?”

Setting "Don't Feel"

In fact, this prohibition can be divided into two parts - ashamed to experience pain, discomfort and ashamed to experience emotions. Most often, emotions of anger and fear are banned: “Such a big boy, but you are afraid of a small fish!”, “How not ashamed to cry!”, “Immediately stop stomping, why are you shouting!” Result? A person experiences negative emotions, but does not know how to release them. Can't admit that someone or something made him angry. Accumulates negativity inside, breaks down on loved ones, feels "annoyed in principle."
The ban on experiencing unpleasant physical sensations also sounds very familiar: “Be patient - it will pass”, “Not sugar - you won’t melt” ... Adults who have mastered this attitude often suffer from psychosomatic diseases - allergies, asthma, migraines, inexplicable pains.

"Don't Succeed" Installation

Those who received this attitude in childhood are usually very hardworking and diligent. But they are definitely pursued through life by evil fate: at the very last moment, a business in which a lot of effort has been invested “bursts” for reasons beyond their control. They do not realize that the subconscious is to blame for the failure, which did not allow them to insure themselves, which prevented them from creating a backup option. What statements form the “failure” mindset? Oddly enough, the most innocent: "You should appreciate our work, we denied ourselves everything so that you could go to this circle, take English lessons, go to university." Such instructions are often based on the parents' unconscious envy of the child's success, although consciously they just want their children to achieve more than themselves.

"Don't be a leader" attitude

You have heard: “Keep your head down”, “Be like everyone else”, “Do you need more than anyone else?” Parents can be understood: they want to protect their child from feelings of envy and other negative emotions that a bright personality causes in strangers. But if, as a result, grown-up children are doomed to go through life at home and in the service of eternal subordinates ... There is another unpleasant consequence - a person who is afraid of leadership, even having reached some heights, is terribly afraid or simply unable to take responsibility.

"Don't Adjoin Others" Installation

This attitude is often inspired by parents who have problems in communicating with other people. They emphasize in every possible way that their child is the only joy of life, the only kindred person, the only friend. In communicating with their "only" they in every possible way emphasize its exclusivity, dissimilarity to others, and always in a positive sense. After all, many have heard in childhood: “You are not like everyone else with me.” Result? From an early age, a child gets used to feeling like a separate being. He does not merge with the team, rarely has close friends, although he can have a lot of superficial contacts. Over time, this starts to get in the way. And even an adult cannot understand the reasons for such a feeling, because he does the same as others, and tries to be like everyone else ...

"Don't" setting

“It's dangerous, I'll do it for you”, “Leave everything to mommy, you can't handle it yourself” - have you heard, I suppose? If the set has been repeated often enough and learned well, a person experiences excruciating difficulties at the beginning of each new business, even a well-known one - whether it is writing a novel, preparing an annual balance sheet, or washing clothes. These people are painfully short of time, they never learn how to plan things, they always do not have time and live in the “deadline” mode, although in fact they could do everything on time.

Setting "Don't wish"

“Wishing is not harmful!”, “Again you need something!”, “How much can you want and ask for!?” These words inspire the little person that it is bad to experience desires. Growing up, he will gladly please others and satisfy their needs, but he will not be able to ask for something for himself, all the more so - he will not be able to insist on the legitimacy of his desires. The inner barrier will not allow. It is those who have fully assimilated the "Don't Wish" mindset, who are ashamed to defend their interests in court, who are endlessly inferior in family life and at work.

"Don't be yourself" setting

Especially often such an attitude is given by parents who wanted a child of the same gender, appearance or character, but received something directly opposite. If one of the children in the family is “better” (more convenient and meets the requirements of parents more), the second one can also be inspired: “Be like a brother (sister)”, “Why your brother can, but you can’t!” and so on. The most frequent phrase that everyone has heard without exception is: “Well, why don’t you ... (write in the right one yourself)”. If such comparisons and reproaches are repeated too often, an adult can grow up who is constantly dissatisfied with himself, lives in a state of painful internal conflict, which leads to prolonged depression.

"Don't enjoy your health" setting

In many families, overcoming is highly valued. A child who goes to school with a fever deserves every encouragement. The one who allows himself to relax and rest during an illness is perceived with some condemnation. “You shouldn’t get sick, you are the mother of children!”, “Nothing that you feel bad, no one canceled your duties” - common phrases in such families. A child, and then an adult, hearing such a message, is accustomed, on the one hand, to the idea that the disease attracts everyone's attention to him, and on the other hand, to the expectation that feeling unwell will increase the value of any of his actions. As a result, such people join the army of poor fellows who stubbornly sit at work, even if a cold takes them by the throat. And they learn with chagrin that their labor feat does not deserve any praise. This becomes a reason for feeling underestimated, low self-esteem or resentment.

They say he who is forewarned is forearmed. After reading this article, you can consciously avoid words that could ruin your child's future. However, what to do if you suddenly found these settings in yourself? Trying to change your parents or sort things out with them about the mistakes of your upbringing is completely hopeless. At one time, following parental attitudes allowed you, a child dependent on adults, to adapt to the requirements of strong, big people. But now the situation has changed. The adult is you. This means that you have every right to consciously change the unconscious decisions that our own childhood imposes on us.

Psychologists have long proven that, is fundamental to his entire subsequent life. It is vital for a child that his parents love him. Without physical food, he is not able to survive, without love and acceptance, he cannot become a full-fledged person. Parents are responsible for the experience that the child will receive in the family. That is why parental love is a very significant value for both parents and children. But precisely because it is so important, it is very difficult to come to terms with its absence or lack, both for children and parents. This can lead to serious distortions: parents pass off aggression towards their own children as love, and children take this substitution at face value, as if it were true parental love, and then transfer this experience into their lives.

* A book about how you can not accept, and sometimes even not love your children, sometimes without realizing it. None of us is a perfect parent, to one degree or another we can negatively influence our child, unconsciously solving our personal problems at his expense, preventing his harmonious mental and moral development. The work of a psychologist and psychotherapist, by and large, is the correction of the mistakes that their parents made in relation to these people in childhood. As a result of these mistakes, they have problems and complexes in adult life that prevent them from being happy and fully realizing themselves.

* The average adult, probably 50 years of his life, overcomes what was laid down in the first five years of life. A person who grew up in the absence of love is more likely to seek it throughout his adult life, rather than realize the potential laid in him by God. The most wonderful thing that parents can do is, by maintaining a climate in the family in which the child feels completely loved by the closest people in his life, give the child such a measure of love and emotional support, which is enough for him to grow and develop later. on one's own.

* A growing child develops into a healthy personality in direct proportion to the amount and quality of love he receives. Just like a plant needs sunlight and moisture, a child needs love and care. Parents want the best for their children. They want to raise them happy and healthy. Why, then, do so many children grow up feeling not loved enough? After all, it is from "unloved" children that those who then "love" themselves with alcohol or drugs grow up.

* How to open these reserves of love, tenderness, trust, which you either could not give or were afraid to accept? But they have not disappeared anywhere, they are simply covered with a mask of fatigue, hopelessness, detachment, fear, resentment, pain and even aggression. How, how to open these riches of the soul for those closest to you, there is nowhere closer - flesh from flesh, blood from blood - to your children and parents who gave birth to you in this world? There are three main reasons why parents fail to love their children enough.

First: parents are in the dark about access to the source of love - God, or their ideas about God, which they pass on to children, are distorted. God seems to them cruel, punishing for the slightest offense and keeping a life-long dossier on a person in order to then present him with an account at the Last Judgment. Not being replenished with strength from the Source of love - the Lord, the parental forces of love eventually become scarce and acquire egoistic forms.

The second reason: parents do not love themselves in the Gospel sense of these words (Mt. 22, 39). People with low level Self-respecting children have great difficulty trying to give their children more love than they have for themselves.

The third reason for the lack of love for children is that parents mistakenly believe that children are obliged to live up to their expectations. Parents' feeling that their children are not up to the "right level" is often the main reason for conflict. Many parents view their children as movable property, as a form of ownership. They believe that children behave properly only when they say and do what their parents want them to do. Children's behavior, at odds with the expectations of parents, causes their criticism. This is how the foundation of his personal problems is laid in the future: many of us know people who, constantly currying favor with significant elders (boss at work, priests), try to ingratiate themselves, "justify trust." Alas, no one told them that there is no need to justify trust - it is not to blame for anything.

* Any negative or antisocial behavior of a teenager is a cry for help, an attempt to get rid of feelings of guilt, anger and resentment generated by criticism and rejection that they had to face at the very beginning of life. Peace and grace settle where divine laws live, where love lives. Love is not the one in whose arms you can suffocate, but the one that gives a person free, full breastfeeding and, most importantly, to develop. that almost all diseases arise due to unsatisfied mental needs.

* True love prepares the child as a separate, independent, and therefore living in its own way, having its own way of life, personality. The true, innermost feeling of love in a mother or father knows that it was not my property that was born, but a separate God-created personality, which, by its personal property, is not “I” and cannot be my property. It is important for a mother to realize that her child is a separate person, and not an integral part of the parent. Sometimes it is especially difficult for a woman to come to terms with this, and if she has it, then it is doubly difficult, because "my child, I do what I want, and it does not matter how old he is - twelve, twenty-three or thirty-seven."

* In order for the process of development of the psychological autonomy of a person to be completed successfully, it is necessary that his parents be literate enough, and each of them is aware of the need to help the child in his separation from his parents at a certain stage of his development. In order for a child to be able to successfully go through a "second birth", a psychological separation from their parents, they need to:
perceive the child as he is, and not as they would like to see him;
respect the desire of the child to independently explore the world around him, allow him to do this;
to encourage the expression of independent thoughts, feelings and actions (according to the age of the child);
be able to express understanding and support when the child needs it;
be an example of a psychologically mature person, openly express their own feelings to the child;
clearly define what you forbid the child to do, and directly say why, and not resort to forceful methods;
not forbid him to openly express his feelings, to recognize and understand these feelings and the need for their disclosure;
help and encourage the child's actions aimed at a healthy exploration of the world around him, using the word "yes" twice as often as the word "no";
do not fall into despair or depression if the child refuses to use your help;
do not try to live life for the child; to recognize in him an independent personality, having his own views, desires and aspirations.

* Often, many parents are perplexed about where their son or daughter has problems. Most of them are the problems of the family in which this child lives. And if the ability of parents to be happy people is incomplete or distorted, then all incompleteness and all distortions will be involuntarily transferred by them to children. When parents have unresolved psychological problems that cause anxiety, anger, confusion and other difficult feelings, they unconsciously express them towards their children. Communicating with children, parents unconsciously formulate and convey to them a lot of indirect (indirect) messages expressing their attitude towards their children, towards other people and towards life in general. These messages are called "prescriptions".

* The main significance of prescriptions is that on their basis the child makes unconscious decisions about the construction of his whole life. Many successes or failures of an adult are often based on those. Orders are either positive or negative.

* Since the child fundamentally depends on parental love and disposition, often, in order for his parents to love him, he is forced to agree with their point of view, with their prescriptions. Based on parental instructions, he makes unconscious decisions regarding himself, his life, the world around him, people and relationships with them. And these decisions can be pathological. It is important to emphasize that the experience of family relationships plays an important role for the child not only in shaping his personality and life scenario (ie, a set of typical patterns of behavior and relationships with others). It is also the most important foundation on which the child forms and builds his perception of God and fellowship with Him.

* It is certain that God is invisible and unknowable by ordinary perception. In the same time. He is our Father, Parent. We learn about what parents are like from the experience of communicating with our fathers and mothers. In this regard, we very often unconsciously transfer the experience of relationships with earthly fathers to the situation of communication with the Heavenly Father. At the same time, it does not matter what the parents say to the child about God in words; for a child, what is more important is not what he hears from them, but what he feels and experiences in his family. If parents, accustoming their child to faith, say that God is Love, but at the same time are unnecessarily strict, and sometimes undeservedly cruel with the child, then the words about love for him will remain empty and incomprehensible words. But the fact that cruelty is an indispensable part of the parent-child relationship, he will clearly learn. Moreover, he can distort his understanding of things so much that he begins to think that harsh punishments are manifestations of the very love that parents talk about. And then the logic is clear: since we are children of God, then He is our Parent, and relations with parents are full of injustice and cruelty on their part, and this is nothing but a manifestation of love. As a result, a distorted image of God is formed as a cruel and unfairly punishing being who should be feared, not loved.

* Things are different in families where parents show love and respect towards each other and towards children. Here is what N.N. Sokolova, daughter of the famous scientist-chemist and writer-theologian N.E. Pestova about her father: “How good it was for me with him! Through the caress of my father, I came to know Divine Love - infinite, patient, tender, caring. My feelings for my father over the years turn into a feeling for God: a feeling of complete trust, a feeling of happiness hope that everything will work out, everything will be fine, a feeling of peace and tranquility of the soul, which is in the strong and confident hands of the Beloved"(N.N. Sokolova "Under the roof of the Most High" M., 1999, p. 15).

* The whole universe for a small child is his family. And he comprehends the laws of the universe on the example of his own family. More precisely, relying on his own experience, he deduces these laws and further builds his life based on them. At the same time, of course, his perception of the world may turn out to be complete, rich and diverse, or too distorted, one-sided and narrow. The basis of the foundation of the worldview of each person is the prescriptions that he received in childhood from his parents. These same precepts often shape the relationship of the child with God, because we tend to unconsciously transfer to God the traits inherent in our parents. As a result, when people suddenly start talking about God, sometimes it seems that they are talking not about Him, but about their earthly parents.

* Religious hypocrisy of parents gives rise to slavery, despondency, suffering. The “letter” kills joy, freedom, simplicity, childhood, both in the family and in the church, creates an atmosphere of despondency, and “a dull spirit dries the bones” (Pr. 17, 22). Children become discouraged when they feel like prisoners. The atmosphere in some houses is sometimes so oppressive and heavy that the child literally suffocates. The parents of many of us lived in a difficult wartime, when totalitarianism raged, leaving an imprint in their minds, in their attitude towards themselves and towards people. Fate did not spoil them with luxurious gifts. They were brought up in harsh conditions of strict control and the strictest punishment. Therefore, perhaps, in the life of parents there was not much softness, tenderness, sensitivity, kindness. This can be understood: such was the time. They are children of their era, who became our parents.

* But sincere Christian parents who raise their children in an atmosphere of spiritual freedom should not be a source of despondency and irritation, but a source of love, comfort and good mood, an example of human dignity. Parental religious selfishness destroys family comfort and causes irreparable damage to the parents themselves. The neglect of children, the suppression of their personality is unnatural for a person. This testifies to the presence of a sinful condition, which must be eliminated in the life of parents by the power of the grace of the Holy Spirit.

* If a child feels love, kindness, acceptance, respect, interest in him, then he positively remembers what is happening and being said around, he is formed as a person with an excess of mental strength. If he feels himself squeezed into the grip of various “should not”, “should not”, or, even worse, he is humiliated by various statements, then sooner or later he will have the conviction that he is superfluous in this world, there will be a feeling of deep loneliness and uselessness. Therefore, wise parents treat the child kindly, caringly, give him the opportunity to feel that he is needed, that he is accepted. They do not criticize, do not humiliate, do not suppress the child, they share their life experience with him, they talk to him, as if revealing their inner secret, so that the words come from the innermost depths of the parent's heart.

* If you begin to share with your child your innermost thoughts about God, prayer, worship, repentance, communion, then grains of such delicate conversations will sink into his heart and sprout. "Christ is closer to every person than a mother is to her child. He loves us more than parents can love and love us. Every time we do something bright, pure, every time then Christ stands close, close to us"(Archbishop Ambrose (Shchurov). Word of the Archpastor. Ivanovo, 1998).

* What is love? This means that my love should be a joy, first of all, to the person I love, and not to me; my love should not lead to conflicts, problems, should not burden the life of the one I love. On the contrary, it should bring joy and help to a loved one; confidence, light and goodness. In this sense, always, in any situation, you should listen to yourself: do we really love this person or do we love our feelings towards him? In most cases, we call love our own feelings towards a loved one. Many do not suspect that these feelings can bring discord into the life of another person. Anyone who wants to bring joy with his love does not shun.

* The main task of parents is to create a friendly, happy family. In such a family, in the first place there should be a relationship of love between spouses, and only then, in the light of this love, the love of parents for a child. Success in achieving contact, emotional intimacy with a teenager largely depends on the relationship between parents. Therefore, spouses need to understand that only the cordiality and trust of their relationship can become the basis for true intimacy and warm relations with their child.

* The most important issue in raising healthy children is how much love they receive. Children need love just like flowers need moisture. It is impossible to give children too much love. The never-ending flow of love and approval from parent to child is the source of his emotional and physical health. Lack of love, real or perceived, has serious consequences. Depriving a child of love can lead to physical or emotional illness and even death. Withholding or not receiving love has a destructive effect on the child's personality. Many psychological problems in adults arise because they were not loved and approved enough by their parents (one or both).

* The powerful effect of love on children is truly amazing! There are many examples of how, in the absence of love, children stopped growing and developing. If love for a child decreases or he loses it altogether, then his emotional and mental development slows down. These mental and emotional problems manifest themselves in behavioral disorders, personality disorders, neurosis, psychosis, and serious failures that overtake them in adulthood. It can be said with certainty that the deprivation of love is the most serious problem that a child can experience in the process of personality formation.

* So, at the heart of a strong relationship between parents and a child is unconditional love. What is unconditional love? Unconditional love is when you love a child regardless of his qualities and characteristics, inclinations, advantages and disadvantages, regardless of his behavior and how much he meets your expectations, satisfies your needs. This does not mean that you should like any of his behavior. Unconditional love is when you love a child even when you don't like his actions.

* Unconditional love is the ideal. You cannot experience absolute love for a child all the time, all the time. But the closer you come to this ideal, the more confident you will feel, and the more prosperous and calm your child will grow up. Many strive to achieve the ideal of unconditional love, but there are many people who do not even know about the existence of such an attitude towards a child. The secret to raising healthy children is to radiate a continuous stream of unconditional love and approval. Explain to your child that nothing he has ever done can cause him to lose love - not God's love, not yours. Like God's love, your love for a child must be unconditional. The most wonderful gift you can give your child is to instill in him the absolute conviction that you love him with all your heart, unconditionally, no matter what he does, what happens to him. A wise parent, correcting the actions of the child, will always clarify that he does not like the behavior of the child, and not himself.

* Millions of parents today believe that their only function is to constantly prohibit the child from certain actions. Some parents, on the contrary, indulge their children, allowing them all sorts of outrages, and out of a biased attitude, out of affection for them, they try to immediately fulfill all their demands. Connivance is also the absence of love. This means that the parent loves his feelings towards the child, but not the child himself, to whom excessive parental indulgence is very harmful. If you love a child and express your love for him only in those cases when he gives you joy, then this is love with a condition. In this case, the child will not feel loved. Love with a condition will only cause in him a feeling of his own inferiority and prevent him from developing normally. Loving a child only when he meets your expectations and meets your requirements, you doom him to failure in life, he will affirm the futility of any effort to be good, because they are always not enough. He will be tormented by a feeling of insecurity, anxiety, low self-esteem, and all this will interfere with his spiritual and personal growth. Therefore, I repeat again and again: the development of a child largely depends on the degree of love of parents.

* A very important factor that complicates the relationship between children and parents is the inability of parents to express their thoughts calmly and respectfully towards the child. The ability to properly discuss a problem with a child is another important point in the parent's pedagogical art. “This is possible if, from early childhood, a dialogue is established, and not a monologue,” writes Metropolitan Anthony of Surozh. “And if a child should only be ears, and parents should only be a voice, then nothing happens. But if from early childhood parents showed interest: I'm interested in you! Your every thought is interesting to me, all your experience and all the movements of the mind and soul are interesting, explain, I don't understand ... The trouble with parents is that they almost always put themselves in such a position: I understand, but you don’t understand ... And if the parents would say (which is simply true): “I don’t understand, you explain to me - a lot could be explained. Because children readily explain what they think, if they don't expect to be immediately rounded up and proven wrong."(Antony, Metropolitan Surozhsky. Proceedings. M., Practice, 2002, p. 191). But how do you create a good basis for dialogue?

* First of all, become calm and confident. Today, many parents look depressed, hopeless, powerless. Their behavior often fluctuates between overbearing coercion, with which they try to "take action", and the inactive permissiveness of "democrats" who are afraid to limit the "freedom of the child." Do not humiliate the child in front of other people, do not tell others about his mistakes. Never, never, never go to the level of personal insults!

* Children inherit a lot from their parents, St. Philaret of Moscow says: "Those who want to have worthy children will act prudently if they first make themselves worthy parents." If we want our children to grow up kind and loving people, people with self-respect, we should treat them kindly and with love. But at the same time, they cannot be made dependent on us, parents, otherwise they will never become independent, they will not learn to accumulate spiritual strength in themselves.

* In modern pedagogical science, the types of parental activities that affect the motivation for life achievements in children have been studied. It turned out that the families from which the people who reached the heights of life came out had two features.
1. In families that raised successful people, there was an atmosphere in which the opinions of children were asked for and respected. From an early age, they were taught to participate in family decision making. They were asked what they think and feel. The proposals of the children were considered in detail. And while their opinions didn't necessarily make a difference in every case, the thoughts and ideas of the children mattered. The whole family devoted time to joint discussions and the adoption of a common decision on a particular issue. If you treat children as important and intelligent, they will amaze you with how intelligent and insightful they really are. The old adage "The mouth of a child speaks the truth" is true. Children can sometimes see situations with an objectivity and clarity that adults may not have. When you ask a child for advice in a situation, you may be amazed at the quality of the answer. The most important thing is the very fact of seeking advice - this is a sign that you respect the child, and this increases his positive attitude towards himself, strengthens self-confidence.
2. In the families of successful people, what is called "positive expectations" was accepted. Parents continuously talked about how much they believe in their children, how confident they are that they will achieve outstanding results. Telling your child "you can do it" or "I believe in you", you send him your parental blessing, help him to believe in himself. You encourage the child to make much more effort than he would have done without your words. Children who grow up in an atmosphere of positive expectations, always and in everything they do, perform better.
An important point: positive expectations are not the same as demands. Many parents think they are expressing positive expectations when in reality they are simply asking their children to meet certain standards. Demand is always associated with conditional love, with the idea that if a child does not live up to expectations, the parent's love and support will be forfeited. It is important to let children know that no matter how good or bad they do, you love them completely and unconditionally. If the child feels that with his bad behavior you can deprive him of your love, then he will be nervous and insecure. The conditional love of parents, as we have repeatedly said, forms a conviction in the conditionality of God's love, which in no way contributes to the spiritual growth of the child.

* Correcting the anomalies of parental love is, first of all, forgiving your parents, freeing your heart from the burden of resentment that we drag with us from the past. Parents sometimes do not even realize that they are to blame for something in front of us: they raised, loved, regretted ... And the child has grown up and for some reason is offended, he has problems, life seems to pass him by. We need liberation from resentment for ourselves. If the glass is full, how can you pour something else into it? If the heart is full of resentment, how can love fit there?

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Anomalies of parental love

Foreword by a Pope with Many Children: a Priest and a Doctor

When I was young, I was quite easy on the assignment that the Lord gave me in this life - to be a father. What is difficult about this? Raise children, feed, water, check that the lessons are taught so that they do not get sick. In general, nothing special. Yes, but the older they are, the more you understand what a difficult thing it is to love your children. After all, not "their" they are mine, not my property. How familiar it is to consider what is mine: my car, my apartment, my children, my refrigerator. But no! Everything I have belongs to God! This is His car, He gave it to me for a while to ride; this is His apartment - He gave it to me to live in it for a while and these are His children - He entrusted them to me for a while to help them at the beginning of their endless journey.

My children constantly remind me that they are not my property… By not obeying, by running around the apartment, fighting, breaking dishes, spilling glue on clothes…. As soon as I try to drive them into "my" limits, oh, how they desperately resist! And every time I am convinced: they are NOT MINE! These are special people, independent infinities, and I am just their earthly beginning...

I remember myself as a novice dad. Then I was looking for literature from which I could draw the principles of successful parenting. I dreamed of a "method" ... Oh, how many books I read then! And everywhere I found about the same thing: "how to do it right so that everything is right". And I honestly tried: I applied it to the icons, evoked the smell of incense, sang the troparia for the holidays as a lullaby over the bed of a sleeping baby, well, in general, I did everything in an Orthodox way. Can't say it was wrong! But even then it seemed that it was somehow a little artificial; there was always a feeling that I was imposing something on the baby, as if instead of him I was living what he wanted and could live on his own. Over time, I felt it, and, as one of my acquaintances said: “Techniques are the last century. You can honestly forget about them if you want to do business. The 21st century is the century of personality-oriented approaches. And all the methods are based on statistics and averaging”.

Now I understand it very well. And that is why then I abandoned my educational “forcing”. K.D. Ushinsky has this idea: a good teacher watches the child, and as soon as the baby wants to take a step, he, as it were, puts the steps under his feet instead of dragging him along the stairs. This is a very beautiful metaphor: it turns out that a parent helps a little person to build his own ladder of life and at the same time teaches him independence, which ultimately gives the grown-up child the ability to move up on his own, without looking back at his father-mother.

I remember how one day we, novice fathers, gathered for a bottle of soda and talked about parenting. And one of us then said a phrase that shocked me. Thinking and looking somewhere up, he said: “In general, there are no rules, you just need to constantly keep your finger on the pulse of the child ...”. Everything inside me turned upside down! This is the basic principle: my parental intuition! After all, God delegated to me the responsibility of being a dad, which means that he gave me the opportunity to feel those moments when my baby’s leg begins to rise for the next step! Trust your feelings, respect the independence of another person, even a small one, always be there and keep in touch with Heavenly Father. Until the baby himself can cry out to Him: “Our Father…” together with his dad. After that, my position as a father will give way to another, that of best friend. It was the understanding of this that turned out to be the most important for me! Now we have six...

I sincerely rejoiced when Fr Evmeny offered me to read his work. This book is truly wise and professional in every way. Someone will see in it a warning, someone will see it as a reproof, someone will see it as a blessing, and someone will see it as a reference book.

The time in which modern parents have to create is not easy . "Bad societies corrupt good morals"- it's about now! It’s scary to trust a child, to let him go far from himself, I want to constantly take care of him so that he doesn’t disappear. So it turns out that, on the one hand, there are bad communities, and on the other, compassionate parents with a vise in which they clamp the freedom of their children. The result is problem children. Childhood schizophrenia, childhood borderline states, childhood depression, anxiety - there are no number of these, greatly rejuvenated, diseases. Moms are sounding the alarm! They turn to psychiatric clinics, and to the church, and to healers, just to do something with the child, because it disappears! He smokes, drinks, does not sleep at home, and it seems that he is starting to try drugs! But we love him so much!

Here you need to carefully look into the eyes of your mother. The child did not grow up by itself. He is a branch on a tree that is rooted in the depths of the past. The family is a whole organism. And the problems of a young sprout are, first of all, the problems of the soil on which it grows. The family tree feeds on the juices of parental love. Those who want to really deal with the problems of children, let them look first of all at themselves!

The book that you are holding in your hands, in my deep conviction, today is the most successful and constructive assistant. It clearly reveals the principles by which problems in the family are solved. It is ignorance of these principles that leads to anomalies in the development of the child.

This book will help you sort out past mistakes and tell you how not to make new ones. A bad friend always criticizes and rebukes. A good adviser is one who points out mistakes and helps to correct them. Offering the basic principles to be followed, he leaves it to the blessed parental intuition to choose how to act in the current situation.

The book is also useful as a working aid in family counseling. A good psychotherapist will definitely appreciate it. Extracts from it can be used as independent teaching materials. From the very first pages, quite automatically, in the process of reading, I personally caught myself thinking that I was thinking: “this is a poster on the wall”, “this is to print for friends”, “do not forget to tell about this at a sermon”.

I wholeheartedly recommend her to anyone with children or grandchildren. It will also be useful for grandparents to seriously think about the fruits of their love, thanks to which they will be able to change a lot. I am sure that the Lord has blessed this work! Indeed, it clarifies very important principles that can be learned by watching how our Heavenly Father raises us. The author calls to learn from Him. His Word pervades everything in this book.

Priest Valentin Markov, Nizhny Novgorod,

Head of the Missionary Department

Nizhny Novgorod Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church

Return children to childhood, make up for the lack of parental love
(foreword by the priest)

I started reading the book of Abbot Eumenius "Anomalies of Parental Love" with mixed feelings. I have a habit of reading a book from the table of contents, then skimming through the text with a glance for dogmatic sedition. And if such a subjective analysis does not reveal anything soul-destructive, proceed directly to reading.

Frankly, if this book had come across to me on the shelf of an Orthodox or secular store, if it had not been for communication with Abbot Eumenius and certain obligations, I would not have read it. And in vain.

First about the first impression.

For some time now, the word psychology, I hope not without reason, has evoked an unambiguously negative reaction in me. Those courses on “Basic”, “Correctional”, “Age”, “Social”, “Pedagogical” psychology that I had to listen to at the Novokuznetsk Pedagogical Institute, as well as literature on the subject, convinced me of the complete triumph of psychoanalysis over other areas of psychology at modern stage. Based on this, an attitude has developed towards psychology not as a science, but as a worldview of lovers to justify their basic instincts.

In a word, in a different situation, one word “psychologist” would have been enough for me to close this book forever. I dare to think that I am not alone with such views. In this case, I advise you to drop your clichés and start reading.

The book that you hold in your hands is read in one breath. Many instructive life examples, without obtrusive edification and dry dogmatism.

From the first pages, my wife and I turned from appreciating the work into attentive listeners. We are a large family with six children. Two older ones are in the second grade, the third one is in the first grade, the fourth one is in the gymnasium. All four go to a music school in parallel. From Friday evening to Sunday morning, they sing with my mother during the service in our small church, so to speak, in the main line-up, since there are no other singers. Training in two shifts. The gymnasium and the music school are at such a distance that children of their age can be sent alone. Dad has a schedule by the hour: who to take where - 6-8 times a day, between services and teaching at the Theological School. Mom takes care of how to dress, feed, help do homework, put to bed on time, prepare for services, and the kids do not let themselves be forgotten ... The eldest child is always to blame, because the eldest. Children must live according to a strict schedule, do their homework at two schools, help around the house, participate in worship… What kind of upbringing is there? What is the individual approach?

The book "Anomalies of Parental Love" brings sobering. It makes you think, recognize that much has already been irretrievably lost; believe and hope that much can still be corrected. To escape from the “pious” bustle, to sacrifice something, to reconsider priorities, to return childhood to children, to make up for the lack of parental love… which is not visible from the inside.

This year is 10 years of my ministry as a priest, but I confess that the resolution of many of the situations described in the book could puzzle me. Therefore, I consider the work of abbot Evmeny very useful for novice priests like me.

The book will also be of interest to experienced shepherds, who will be able to get acquainted with the counseling practice of a brother in textbook situations. A secular psychologist will discover new values ​​here, a new world of Christian love.

Archpriest Vladimir Pivovarov,

clergyman of the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral in Novokuznetsk,

teacher at the Novokuznetsk Orthodox Theological School,

Subject: Holy Scripture of the New Testament

We all come from childhood...
(foreword by a counseling psychologist)

"Anomalies of parental love". I don’t know about you, dear reader, but this title evokes a whole range of different feelings for me: from slight fear and rejection to interest and curiosity to find out what it is about.

It would seem that parental love belongs to the categories of unshakable values, so unshakable that there is nothing to discuss here. One can only talk about various ways and methods of raising children, but not about the attitude of parents to children, since it is always assumed from the outset that parents love their child and do everything for his good. If they allow any miscalculations in his upbringing, they come from the best of intentions.

At the same time, it is practically impossible to admit the thought that the so-called parental mistakes may be based on far from the best feelings towards their children, that parents may sometimes (or even very often) not love children, but show towards them aggression. Yes, yes, precisely aggression, and not necessarily in the form of its extreme manifestations - beatings, abuse, humiliation. Parental aggression towards children can take more sophisticated forms. For example, when parents deprive a child of his individuality, forbid him to be himself, to show unpleasant feelings to them, parents. They choose friends for the child, circles in which he should go, demand from him only excellent grades and unquestioning obedience in everything, they determine for him the path that he should take in life, in every possible way support his dependence on himself. In the families of believers, this can be supplemented by strict requirements for attending lengthy services, reading the rules, forcibly dragging them onto the path of priesthood or monasticism.

And the point is not so much in the very concrete words and actions of parents in relation to children, but in the attitude that is expressed through them: after all, you can punish while loving, but you can also love in such a way that you start to suffocate from this love. The main criterion here is this: in whose interests the parent acts - in his own or in the interests of the child, whether he seeks to make the child comfortable for myself, solve their own problems due to him, or maintains independence and individuality in it.

We all come from childhood. Psychologists have long proven that the child's experience in relationships with his parents is fundamental to his entire subsequent life. It is vital for a child that his parents love him. Without physical food, he is not able to survive, without love and acceptance, he cannot become a full-fledged person. Parents are responsible for the experience that the child will receive in the family. That is why parental love is a very significant value for both parents and children. But precisely because it is so important, it is very difficult to come to terms with its absence or lack, both for children and parents. This can lead to serious distortions: parents pass off aggression towards their own children as love, and children take this substitution at face value, as if it were true parental love, and then transfer this experience into their lives.

The book that you hold in your hands helps to separate the wheat from the chaff, teaches you to distinguish true parental love from destructive, disguised as love, to call a spade a spade. The author talks about the shadow sides of parental love, about the circumstances that we often avoid not only talking openly, but also thinking about. The book is about how you can not accept, and sometimes even not love your children, sometimes without realizing it. None of us is a perfect parent, to one degree or another we can negatively influence our child, unconsciously solving our personal problems at his expense, preventing his harmonious mental and moral development.

Twelve years of practice in the field of psychotherapy and psychological counseling convinced me that there are practically no (perhaps with rare exceptions) children's problems. Behind almost every problem of a child at school, in communication with peers, with parents, one can find certain problems of relations in the family. Moreover, while working with adults, at some point I realized that the work of a psychologist and psychotherapist, by and large, is the correction of the mistakes that their parents made in relation to these people in childhood. As a result of these mistakes, they have problems and complexes in adult life that prevent them from being happy and fully realizing themselves.

A book covering these issues was written by a clergyman. I think this fact is extremely important for two reasons: firstly, because many believers and church people, including parents raising children, have driven themselves into a kind of informational and ideological vacuum. They do not perceive any other information than what can be gleaned from books sold at church kiosks. To the data of modern science, in particular, pedagogy and psychology, they treat with distrust and disdain. Another category of people is skeptical about the wisdom of the Word of God. The author overcomes this split. He very convincingly and intelligibly sets out the arguments of modern psychology, accurately and aptly confirming them with references to the Holy Scriptures. That is why it seems to me that both believers and those who are still on the path to God will be able to read the book with benefit and interest for themselves.

Secondly, in my opinion, the chapter on the church upbringing of children is very relevant, or rather, on the distortions and distortions of such upbringing, when parents try to force their children to love not so much God as church life. The theme of violence against children in this case is elevated to the rank of such high virtues that it is somehow indecent to talk about violence. And it is very important that this problem is raised by a person who is “on the other side of the iconostasis”.

The book not only discusses various parenting mistakes, but also suggests ways and means to correct them. I am sure that it will be read by parents seeking, striving for the full upbringing of their children. Any new knowledge about ourselves opens up for us the prospect of choosing what and how to do next.

It is the ability to make moral choices that is the highest gift of the Lord. And I think that the greatest reward for anyone who reads this book will be the opportunity, by rethinking their relationship with their children, to find a new point of choice for themselves in terms of how to make that relationship richer and more harmonious.

Maxim Bondarenko,

practical psychologist, gestalt therapist, Krasnodar

Open the sources of love
(foreword by an Orthodox psychologist)

My grandmother and granddaughter came to see me.

A pretty girl with an angelic appearance. The girl entered the office, looked around in a haunted manner, sat down, bent over, on a chair, and covered her ears with her hands:

“I don’t want you to talk about it, I don’t want to!”

- Something happened? I asked.

- She's a thief! - Grandmother said sternly with the air of a prosecutor pronouncing a sentence.

“Lilechka, sit in the corridor,” I asked.

“Now tell me what really happened,” I asked my grandmother.

It turned out that the girl began to take things and money from home without asking, distribute them in the yard and feed the children with sweets.

There are three women in the family: grandmother - Inna Ivanovna, mother - Alena, and Lilechka. Mom couldn't come, she's at work. The girl is brought up mainly by her grandmother, her mother gave birth to a girl when she was in the eleventh grade, she did not finish school. She works as a dancer in foreign clubs, sometimes at home she visits. When he arrives, he rewards and caresses the girl, and, as it turned out, severely beats her for the slightest offense.

When we examined Lilya, she was covered in bruises, and this was hidden under her clothes so that it was not visible.

IN psychological help all three needed it: a grandmother who lost control of the situation in the family, a mother who lost hope of arranging her life, and a child who was abused in her own family.

When parents with a child come for a consultation, then for me it is the child that is a symptom of the family’s troubles.

He, like a magnetic arrow, indicates an anomaly.

Anomaly of parental love.

I know that anomalies in the Earth's magnetic field point to mineral deposits and help to find them hidden under the surface of the earth, deep down.

Where, when, by whom is the love of children for parents and parents for children so buried, closed, hidden, mutilated that an anomaly arises?

For many years I have been doing "excavations".

I'm looking for treasures. These are unusual treasures: fidelity, tenderness, understanding, acceptance, love, devotion, conscience, fearlessness, honesty in relationships, and they have a lot of names. These treasures are hereditary goods that the ancestors collected for their descendants. But sometimes they did not have time to say the cherished word to their children, so that they began to own all this, and the transfer of the heritage did not take place.

The rupture of this connection between generations has created many problems for posterity; ANOMALIES occurred.

How to open these reserves of love, tenderness, trust, which you either could not give or were afraid to accept? But they have not disappeared anywhere, they are simply covered with a mask of fatigue, hopelessness, detachment, fear, resentment, pain and even aggression.

How, how to open these riches of the soul for those closest to you, there is nowhere closer - flesh from flesh, blood from blood - your children and parents who gave birth to you in this world?

Open and fit into your heart, tired, distrustful; find peace, the peace of your soul, the peace of your family, the peace of your land.

Your world is your house, and your world is your temple.

The book of Abbot Eumenius is called just that: "Anomalies of parental love."

We have been waiting for this book for several years.

She simply and clearly talks about the most important thing: how, how to build peace in the house; how to restore broken ties between the closest ones, how to rebuild, straighten distorted relationships; how to restore the main connection: find Heavenly Father and return to God.

The book does not promise quick cures. Even when the healing process has begun, time must pass for rehabilitation to take place, for everything to recover, to get better. Mental trauma heals over the years.

What is precious in the book is that touching on such painful and traumatic topics as the relationship between adult children and adult parents takes place carefully, with an understanding of the socio-historical conditions in which the generation of current older parents was formed. Without gratitude to them, we will not be able to live on; for we have entered into their labour, and by their labours, their prayers, their tears, and joy over us, our life lasts. They are our roots. And without roots, we're just tumbleweeds.

May Your Peace, Lord, reign, come in our souls, and come to our families, and we will see and hear each other - true and sincere. "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give you"(John 14:27), “Yes, love one another; as I have loved you, so you also love one another.”(John 13:34).

Sokolova Olga Avgustinovna,

Orthodox psychologist-consultant, oncopsychologist,

laureate of the award "For selflessness",

member of the Professional Psychotherapeutic League, Khabarovsk

Anomalies of parental love

Foreword by a Pope with Many Children: a Priest and a Doctor

When I was young, I was quite easy on the assignment that the Lord gave me in this life - to be a father. What is difficult about this? Raise children, feed, water, check that the lessons are taught so that they do not get sick. In general - nothing special. Yes, but the older they are, the more you understand what a difficult thing it is to love your children. After all, not "their" they are mine, not my property. How familiar it is to consider what is mine: my car, my apartment, my children, my refrigerator. But no! Everything I have belongs to God! This is His car, He gave it to me for a while to ride; this is His apartment - He gave it to me to live in for a while and these are His children - He entrusted them to me for a while to help them at the beginning of their endless journey.

My children constantly remind me that they are not my property ... By not obeying, by rushing around the apartment, fighting, breaking dishes, spilling glue on clothes .... As soon as I try to drive them into "my" limits, oh, how they desperately resist! And every time I am convinced: they are NOT MINE! These are special people, independent infinities, and I am just their earthly beginning...

I remember myself as a novice dad. Then I was looking for literature from which I could draw the principles of successful parenting. I dreamed of a "method" ... Oh, how many books I read then! And everywhere I found about the same thing: "how to do it right so that everything is right". And I honestly tried: I applied it to the icons, evoked the smell of incense, sang the troparia for the holidays as a lullaby over the bed of a sleeping baby, well, in general, I did everything in an Orthodox way. Can't say it was wrong! But even then it seemed that it was somehow a little artificial; there was always a feeling that I was imposing something on the baby, as if instead of him I was living what he wanted and could live on his own. Over time, I felt it, and, as one of my acquaintances said: “Techniques are the last century. You can honestly forget about them if you want to do business. The 21st century is the century of personality-oriented approaches. And all the methods are based on statistics and averaging”.

Now I understand it very well. And that is why then I abandoned my educational “forcing”. K.D. Ushinsky has this idea: a good teacher watches the child, and as soon as the baby wants to take a step, he, as it were, puts the steps under his feet instead of dragging him along the stairs. This is a very beautiful metaphor: it turns out that a parent helps a little person to build his own ladder of life and at the same time teaches him independence, which ultimately gives the grown-up child the ability to move up on his own, without looking back at his father-mother.

I remember how one day we, novice fathers, gathered for a bottle of soda and talked about parenting. And one of us then said a phrase that shocked me. Thinking and looking somewhere up, he said: “In general, there are no rules, you just need to constantly keep your finger on the pulse of the child ...”. Everything inside me turned upside down! This is the basic principle: my parental intuition! After all, God delegated to me the responsibility of being a dad, which means that he gave me the opportunity to feel those moments when my baby’s leg begins to rise for the next step! Trust your feelings, respect the independence of another person, even a small one, always be there and keep in touch with Heavenly Father. Until the baby himself can cry out to Him: “Our Father…” together with his dad. After that, my position as a father will give way to another, the position of a best friend. It was the understanding of this that turned out to be the most important for me! Now we have six...

I sincerely rejoiced when Fr Evmeny offered me to read his work. This book is truly wise and professional in every way. Someone will see in it a warning, someone will see it as a rebuke, for someone it will become a blessing, and for someone it will become a reference book.

The time in which modern parents have to create is not easy . "Bad societies corrupt good morals"- it's about now! It’s scary to trust a child, to let him go far from himself, I want to constantly take care of him so that he doesn’t disappear. So it turns out that, on the one hand, there are bad communities, and on the other, compassionate parents with a vise in which they clamp the freedom of their children. The result is problem children. Children's schizophrenia, children's borderline states, children's depressions, anxiety - there are no number of these, greatly rejuvenated, diseases. Moms are sounding the alarm! They turn to psychiatric clinics, and to the church, and to healers, just to do something with the child, because it disappears! He smokes, drinks, does not sleep at home, and it seems that he is starting to try drugs! But we love him so much!

Here you need to carefully look into the eyes of your mother. The child did not grow up by itself. He is a branch on a tree, which is rooted in the depths of the past. The family is a whole organism. And the problems of a young sprout are, first of all, the problems of the soil on which it grows. The family tree feeds on the juices of parental love. Those who want to really deal with the problems of children, let them look first of all at themselves!

The book that you are holding in your hands, in my deep conviction, today is the most successful and constructive assistant. It clearly reveals the principles by which problems in the family are solved. It is ignorance of these principles that leads to anomalies in the development of the child.

This book will help you sort out past mistakes and tell you how not to make new ones. A bad friend always criticizes and rebukes. A good adviser is one who points out mistakes and helps to correct them. Offering the basic principles to be followed, he leaves it to the blessed parental intuition to choose how to act in the current situation.

The book is also useful as a working aid in family counseling. A good psychotherapist will definitely appreciate it. Extracts from it can be used as independent teaching materials. From the very first pages, quite automatically, in the process of reading, I personally caught myself thinking that I was thinking: “this is a poster on the wall”, “this is to print for friends”, “do not forget to tell about this at a sermon”.

I wholeheartedly recommend her to anyone with children or grandchildren. It will also be useful for grandparents to seriously think about the fruits of their love, thanks to which they will be able to change a lot. I am sure that the Lord has blessed this work! Indeed, it clarifies very important principles that can be learned by watching how our Heavenly Father raises us. The author calls to learn from Him. His Word pervades everything in this book.