“When a child experiences unbearable pain, he begins to develop pathological defense mechanisms. For him, this is the only way out of a life-threatening crisis, but protective forms of behavior lead to social isolation if they are not adequately understood by others in the process of communication. If the pathological reaction is not understood by anyone, then the message of the victim, like a cry for help in the mountains, returns to him, already frightened to death, with a useless echo. The task of the teacher is to understand the personal meaning of the protective mechanism and share it with the child in need of protection, so that his actions as a lonely being become social actions ... " Christel Manske « »

In her book, Christel Manske describes the observations she has accumulated over many years (more than 20 years) of experience working with children. This is a unique way of long rethinking and new perception of the child. Christel came to a deep conviction that, hThe brighter the behavioral deviations from the norm are expressed in the child, the more we have to learn from the child!Understanding the meaning of the child's defensive reactions and sharing it with him is the most important task of a close adult.

Wonderful psychologist Yulia Borisovna Gippenreiter in his article About the causes of emotions. "Jug" of emotions » gives a scientific justification for the causes of destructive emotions, compactly packing them into a vivid and well-remembered metaphor of a “jug”. This scheme helps to understand the mechanism of negative behavior of both an ordinary child and a child with special needs of psychophysical development. I invite you to go inside this "jug" to try to understand, to feel what a special child experiences while in our society.

So, we sink to the bottom of the emotional jug. ( Ι∨ level). It forms sense of self-worth (in the terminology of V. Satir). This is the most important "jewel" given to us by nature - feeling the energy of life: "I am!" or “It is I, Lord!”. Together with basic aspirations (“I am loved!”, “I am good!”, “I can!”), It forms the initial feeling of oneself - a sense of inner well-being and energy of life!

Being in the cold conditions of our society, a special child loses the most important thing - sense of self worth!

Christel Manske compares the life of a special child in society with the life of a hedgehog in hibernation: in order to survive, he needs to reduce cellular activity to a minimum. « Our society does not want to accept them. The parents understood this. The teachers understood this. The teachers understood this. The judges understood this. The children understood this. Every day they roll the stone of prejudice uphill. Having reached the top, they break down, because they have no opportunity to plan their future life. None of us can endure everyday neglect and indifference from society without losing anything ... "

The first thing a child loses is the opportunity satisfaction of the needs associated with life in society (ΙΙ Ι emotional jug level). We are talking about the satisfaction of such vital needs as the need V love, understanding, recognition, respect. Yu.B. Gippenreiter writes about this: “Human society, despite the millennia of its cultural development, has not yet learned how to guarantee the psychological well-being (not to mention happiness!) To each of its members”. With regard to children with special needs of psychophysical development, this statement is 200% true. “Special children face an insoluble problem: they are not welcome in our society because they are considered mentally handicapped. writes Christel Manske. - Their heroic and desperate attempts, in spite of their “inferiority”, to develop at least a little bit, no one wants to notice or recognize”.

If at least one of these needs (for love, understanding, recognition, respect) remains unsatisfied,pain, resentment, fear, annoyance (ΙΙ jug layer). All these feelings are suffering: there is a greater or lesser share of suffering in them. Most often, the child cannot directly say about his suffering, about what he wants. Most often, to inform us of this, he resorts to the use of various protective mechanisms and the destructive emotions that accompany them.

This is what comes to the surface, what is directly visible and observable by us ( Ι level): anger, anger, aggression (protective mechanisms by type of behavioral deviations), as well as protective mechanisms depressive and autistic type of response.

It is pointless to fight the child's inadequate behavioral reactions until we restore his sense of self-worth, until we give him a chance to rehabilitate himself, to become an independent and self-confident person. " This is what we need to convey to a special child., Christel says, we hope he will be ok. And each problem he solves is a path to his rehabilitation. "

What prevents us from treating a special child in this way?!

January 31 School of foster parents again gathered their students. This time the topic was "Lessons of communication with a child. A jar of" emotions. "Many of those present were at the lesson for the first time, there werethose who are just going to take the child into the family. After getting acquainted, all the participants of the School listened to the message, tried their knowledge in practical classes, took part in games and exercises, and most importantly, shared their burning questions and problems.

Target:to teach parents to understand the causes of emotions, competent from an educational point of view, the repayment of negative emotions.

Lesson plan:

1. Game "Let's say hello".

Goal: Relieve muscle tension, feel like a member of the group.

2. Familiarity with the purpose and topic of the lesson.

3. Presentation on the topic.

4. The game "Caller"Purpose: to facilitate the discharge of anger in an acceptable form through verbal means.

5. Practical part.

Purpose: the ability to apply theoretical knowledge in practice.

Situation analysis.

• Recommendations for parents "Jug of emotions",
• “Steps of love. Children learn from life.
• Jug of "emotions".

7. reflection of the lesson. Tea drinking.

Message:

In previous lessons, the image of the "glass" helped us talk about the experiences of children and parents. We compared a calm state with an empty glass, and strong excitement, resentment, anger or joy - with a full or even overflowing glass.

We are now ready to better understand causes of emotions .

Let's start with the most unpleasant emotions - anger, malice, aggression. These feelings can be called destructive , since they destroy both the person himself (his psyche, health), and his relationship with other people. They are constant causes of conflict, sometimes material destruction, and even war.

Let's depict the "vessel" of our emotions. Let this time it will be in the shape of a jug. Let's place anger, anger and aggression at the very top of it. Here we will show how these emotions are manifested in the external behavior of a person. This is so, unfortunately, familiar to all name-calling and insults, quarrels and fights, punishments, actions “out of spite”, etc.

Now we ask: why does anger arise? Psychologists answer this question somewhat unexpectedly: anger is a secondary feeling, and it comes from experiences of a completely different kind, such as pain, fear, resentment.

Let's look at it in detail.

we placed experiences of pain, resentment, fear, annoyance under feelings of anger and aggression (layer 1), as the causes of these destructive emotions (layer II of the "jug").

Note that all the feelings of this second layer are passive: they have a greater or lesser share of suffering. Therefore, they are not easy to express, they are usually hushed up, they are hidden. Why? As a rule, because of the fear of humiliation, to seem weak. Sometimes a person himself is not very aware of them (“I’m just angry, but I don’t know why!”).

To hide feelings of resentment and pain is often taught from childhood. Probably, you have heard more than once how the father instructs the boy: “Don’t cry, it’s better to learn how to hit back!”

By the way, this "harmless", at first glance, advice is the beginning of the path along which, if you go without looking back, you can reach the principle of "an eye for an eye"!

However, let us return to our jug ​​and ask: why do “passive” feelings arise? Psychologists give a very definite answer: the cause of pain, fear, resentment is in the dissatisfaction of needs (layer 3).

And what are the needs of the child - every person, regardless of age, needs food, sleep, warmth, physical security, etc. These are the so-called organic needs. They are obvious, and we will not talk much about them now.

Let's focus on those related to communication, and in broad sense- with human life among people.

Here is an approximate (far from complete) list of such needs, which are usually mentioned by the participants in our classes themselves.

Any need on our list can be unsatisfied, and this, as we have said, will lead to suffering, and possibly to "destructive" emotions.

Let's take some example.

Suppose a person is very unlucky: one failure follows another. This means that his need for success, recognition, maybe self-respect is not satisfied. As a result, he may develop persistent disappointment in his abilities or depression, or resentment and anger at the "culprits".

And this is the case with any negative experience: behind it we will always find some unfulfilled need.

Let's go back to the jug and see if there's anything below the layer of needs? It turns out there is! This is the 4th layer - a disadvantage unconditional acceptance. That is, there is some common denominator”, which makes each of us more or less an optimist or a pessimist, more or less believing in himself, and therefore more or less resistant to the blows of fate.

Scientists have discovered and proved several important facts. First, they discovered that self-esteem (we will use this more familiar word) greatly affects a person’s life and even destiny. So, children with low self-esteem, but quite capable, study worse, get along poorly with peers and teachers, and are less successful later in adulthood.

Another important fact: the foundation of self-esteem is laid very early, in the very first years of a child's life, and depends on how parents treat him. If they understand and accept him, tolerate his "shortcomings" and mistakes, he grows up with a positive attitude towards himself. If the child is constantly “educated”, criticized and drilled, his self-esteem turns out to be low, flawed.

The general law here is simple.

In childhood, we learn about ourselves only from the words of those close to us. any need on our list can be unsatisfied, and this, as we have said, will lead to suffering, and possibly to "destructive" emotions.

A person needs: to be loved, understood, recognized, respected: to be needed and close to someone: to have success - in business, study, at work: so that he can realize himself, develop his abilities, improve himself, respect myself.

In this sense, small child No inner vision. His image of himself is built from the outside; sooner or later he begins to see himself as others see him.

However, in this process the child does not remain passive. There is another law of all living things at work here: to actively pursue that on which survival depends.

A positive attitude towards oneself is the basis of psychological survival, and the child constantly seeks and even fights for it.

He expects confirmation from us that he is good, that he is loved, that he can cope with feasible (and even a little more difficult) things. Let's write it all down as the basic aspirations of a child and of any person in general (sing IV in our jug).

Let's see how these aspirations show up in the daily lives of children.

Here, a parent in a temper throws to his son: “You are a bad boy!”, To which the kid, stamping his foot, objects: “No, I’m good!”

A three-year-old girl, seeing her grandmother's angry face, demands: "Say: a bunny!" “Bunny” in the home language means affectionate: “You are my good one,” and it is absolutely necessary for a girl to receive this confirmation of love at critical moments.

Whatever the child does, he needs our recognition of his success.

Everyone knows how a baby looks and looks (when he still can’t speak), and then he constantly asks with direct words: “Look what I did!”, “Look what I already know!”. And starting from the age of 2, he already has the famous: “I myself!” - a demand to admit that he can do it!

Let's place at the bottom of the emotional jar the most important "jewel" given to us by nature - the feeling of the energy of life. This is some feeling of inner well-being or trouble that the baby really experiences. It is enough to see how he meets a new day: with a smile or crying.

Remember: with every appeal to the child - with a word, deed, intonation, gesture, frowning eyebrows and even silence, we tell him not only about ourselves, our condition, but always about him, and often - mostly about him.

From the repeated signs of greeting, approval, love and acceptance, the child gets the feeling: “everything is all right with me”, “I am good”, and from the signals of condemnation, displeasure, criticism - the feeling “something is wrong with me”, “ I am bad".

Let's take a look at one story.

“The father of a one-year-old child talks about such a case. His 11-month-old son was left in a crib with a table next to it. The kid somehow managed to climb over the back of the bed onto the table, where his father found him when he entered the room. The child, swaying on all fours, beamed triumphantly, and dad was seized with fear. He ran up to the baby, grabbed him sharply, put him in his place and severely threatened with his finger. The child wept bitterly and could not calm down for a long time.

“I suggested to the father,” the psychologist continues, “try to get into the skin of your son and imagine that you are 11 months old. And here you are, baby, for the first time in your life (!), having expended heroic efforts, got out of a boring bed into a new unexplored territory. What would you feel? The father replied: "Joy, pride, triumph." “And now,” I continued, “imagine that a person dear to you, your dad, appears, and you invite him to share your joy. Instead, he angrily punishes you, and you have no idea why!”

“My God,” said the father, clutching his head, “what have I done, poor boy!”

This example, of course, is not about the fact that it is not necessary to protect the child from falling off the table. It is about the fact that, protecting and educating, we must be aware of what message we are sending him about him now.

The child most often perceives punishment as a message: “You are bad!” Criticism of mistakes - “You can’t!”, ignoring - “I don’t care about you”, and even - “You are unloved”.

The child's mental piggy bank is constantly running, and the younger he is, the more indelible influence of what we throw into it. Fortunately, with small children, parents are more affectionate and attentive, although with them it is not always possible to avoid mistakes, as in the case just described. But as the child grows older, the “educational” string begins to sound stronger, and sometimes we stop caring about what accumulates in his “treasury” of self-esteem: the bright gifts of our warmth, acceptance and approval - or heavy stones of shouting, criticism, punishments.

Unpleasant emotions - anger, anger, aggression. These feelings can be called destructive, since they destroy both the person himself (his psyche, health), and his relationships with other people. They are constant causes of conflict, sometimes material destruction, and even war.

Let's depict the "vessel" of our emotions in the form of a jug. Let's place anger, anger and aggression at the very top of it. Here we will show how these emotions are manifested in the external behavior of a person. This, unfortunately, is the name-calling and insults familiar to many, quarrels, punishments, actions “out of spite”, etc.

Now we ask: why does anger arise? Psychologists answer this question somewhat unexpectedly: anger is a secondary feeling, and it comes from experiences of a completely different kind, such as pain, fear, resentment.

So, we can place the experiences of pain, resentment, fear, annoyance under the feelings of anger and aggression, as the causes of these destructive emotions (second layer of the "jug").

At the same time, all the feelings of this second layer are suffering: they contain a greater or lesser share of suffering. Therefore, they are not easy to express, they are usually hushed up, they are hidden. Why? As a rule, because of the fear of humiliation, to appear weak. Sometimes a person himself is not very aware of them (“I’m just angry, but I don’t know why!”).

To hide feelings of resentment and pain is often taught from childhood. Probably, you have heard more than once how the father instructs the boy: “Don’t cry, it’s better to learn how to hit back!”

What causes "painful" feelings? Psychologists give a very definite answer: the cause of pain, fear, resentment is in the dissatisfaction of needs.

Every person, regardless of age, needs food, sleep, warmth, physical security, and so on. These are the so-called organic needs. They are obvious, and we will not talk about them now.

Let's focus on those that are associated with communication, and in a broad sense - with the life of a person among people.

Here is an approximate (far from complete) list of such needs.

A person needs: to be loved, understood, recognized, respected; that he was needed and close to someone; so that he has success - in business, study, at work; so that he can realize himself, develop his abilities, improve himself, respect himself.

If there is no economic crisis in the country, let alone war, then, on average, organic needs are more or less satisfied. But the needs just listed are always at risk!

Human society, despite the millennia of its cultural development, has not learned how to guarantee the psychological well-being (not to mention happiness!) to each of its members. And yes, it is a very difficult task. After all, the happiness of a person depends on the psychological climate of the environment in which he grows, lives and works. And yet - from the emotional baggage accumulated in childhood. Unfortunately, we do not yet have compulsory communication schools. They are just being born, and even then - on a voluntary basis.

So, any need on our list can be unsatisfied, and this, as we have already said, will lead to suffering, and possibly to "destructive" emotions.

Let's take an example. Suppose a person is very unlucky: one failure follows another. This means that his need for success, recognition, maybe self-respect is not satisfied. As a result, he may develop persistent disappointment in his abilities or depression, or resentment and anger at the "culprits".

And this is the case with any negative experience: behind it we will always find some unfulfilled need.

Let's go back to the diagram and see if there's anything below the layer of needs? It turns out there is!

Sometimes, when we meet, we ask a friend: “How are you?”, “How is life in general?”, “Are you happy?” - and we get in response: "You know, I'm unlucky", or: "I'm fine, I'm fine!"

These answers reflect a special kind of human experience - an attitude towards oneself, a conclusion about oneself.

It is clear that such attitudes and conclusions may change with the circumstances of life. At the same time, they have a certain "common denominator", which makes each of us more or less an optimist or a pessimist, more or less believing in himself, and therefore more or less resistant to the blows of fate.

Psychologists have devoted much research to such experiences of self. They call them differently: self-perception, self-image, self-assessment, and more often self-esteem. Perhaps the most successful word came up with V. Satir. She called this complex and difficult to convey feeling a sense of self-worth.

Scientists have discovered and proved several important facts. First, they discovered that self-esteem (we will use this more familiar word) greatly affects a person’s life and even destiny.

Another important fact: the foundation of self-esteem is laid very early, in the very first years of a child's life, and depends on how parents treat him.

The general law here is simple: A positive attitude towards yourself is the basis of psychological survival.

Basic needs: “I am loved!”, “I am good!”, “I can!”.

At the very bottom of the emotional jug is the most important "jewel" given to us by nature - a sense of the energy of life. Let's depict it in the form of a "sun" and denote it with the words: "I am!" or more pathetically: “It is I, Lord!”

Together with the basic aspirations, it forms the initial feeling of oneself - a sense of inner well-being and the energy of life!