Turinys
The purpose of the child’s behavior is avoidance
Angie’s parents noticed that she was moving away from family affairs more and more. Her voice became somehow plaintive, and at the slightest provocation she immediately began to cry. If she was asked to do something, she whimpered and said: «I don’t know how.» She also began to mumble unintelligibly under her breath, and thus it was difficult to understand what she wanted. Her parents were extremely concerned about her behavior at home and at school.
Angie began to demonstrate by her behavior the fourth goal — evasion, or, in other words, ostentatious inferiority. She lost confidence in herself so much that she did not want to take on anything. By her behavior, she seemed to say: “I am helpless and good for nothing. Don’t demand anything from me. Leave me alone». Children try to overemphasize their weaknesses for the purpose of «avoidance» and often convince us that they are stupid or clumsy. Our reaction to such behavior may be to pity them.
Tikslinio „vengimo“ perorientavimas
Here are some ways you can reorient your child. It is very important to immediately stop feeling sorry for him. Pitying our children, we encourage them to feel sorry for themselves and convince them that we are losing faith in them. Nothing paralyzes people like self-pity. If we react in this way to their demonstrative despair, and even help them in what they can perfectly do for themselves, they develop the habit of getting what they want with a dull mood. If this behavior continues into adulthood, then it will already be called depression.
First of all, change your expectations about what such a child could do and focus on what the child has already done. If you feel that the child will respond to your request with the statement “I can’t”, then it’s better not to ask him at all. The child tries his best to convince you that he is helpless. Make such a response unacceptable by creating a situation in which he cannot convince you of his helplessness. Empathize, but don’t feel empathy when trying to help him. For example: “You seem to be having difficulty with this matter,” and by no means: “Let me do it. It’s too hard for you, isn’t it?» You can also say in an affectionate tone, «You still try to do it.» Create an environment in which the child will succeed, and then gradually increase the difficulty. When encouraging him, show genuine sincerity. Such a child can be extremely sensitive and suspicious of encouraging statements addressed to him, and may not believe you. Refrain from trying to persuade him to do anything.
Štai keletas pavyzdžių.
One teacher had an eight-year-old student named Liz who used the «evasion» objective. Having set a math test, the teacher noticed that quite a lot of time had passed, and Liz had not even started the task yet. The teacher asked Liz why she never did it, and Liz meekly replied, «I can’t.» The teacher asked, “What part of the assignment are you willing to do?” Liz shrugged. The teacher asked, «Are you ready to write your name?» Liz agreed, and the teacher walked away for a few minutes. Liz wrote her name, but did nothing else. The teacher then asked Liz if she was ready to solve two examples, and Liz agreed. This continued until Liz had completely completed the task. The teacher managed to lead Liz to understand that success can be achieved by breaking down all the work into separate, completely manageable stages.
Štai dar vienas pavyzdys.
Kevin, a boy of nine, was given the task of looking up the spelling of words in a dictionary and then writing down their meanings. His father noticed that Kevin tried to do everything, but not the lessons. He either wept with annoyance, then whimpered from helplessness, then told his father that he knew nothing about this matter. Dad realized that Kevin was just scared of the work ahead and was giving in to her without even trying to do anything. So dad decided to break the whole task into separate, more accessible tasks that Kevin could easily handle.
At first, dad looked up words in the dictionary, and Kevin wrote out their meanings in a notebook. After Kevin learned how to successfully complete his task, dad suggested that he write down the meanings of words, as well as look up these words in the dictionary by their first letter, while he did the rest. Then dad took turns with Kevin to find each subsequent word in the dictionary, etc. This continued until Kevin learned to do the task on his own. It took a long time to complete the process, but it benefited both Kevin’s studies and his relationship with his father.