I don’t love you! You’re bad!

I don’t love you! You’re bad!

Published 29.06.2024 | By Йосиф

I don’t love you! You’re bad!

There is a common and widely used expression “checking borders”, it has become so common that we don’t really think about who checks which borders and, most importantly, for what.

“He’s just checking the boundaries” is such a hackneyed excuse that these certain “boundaries” need to be drawn with a fatter line so that it’s not annoying. What kind, and whether it is necessary, no one asks.

The child begins to check the boundaries not during the crisis of 3 years. And not even during the “terrible two-year-olds.” And from the very first day. What can I say – we are still checking the boundaries ourselves: “Well, how is He this time? Why don’t I take up running a marathon at the age of 37? Will I be able to? Will this world bend under us?”

These are good boundaries, they are worth checking and breaking. These are the boundaries of our fears, our incompetences, the boundaries of patterns and stupidities, complexes and prejudices, our capabilities and will.

And we support the child in his first inept attempts to babble, reach out with his hand to the edge of the bed and stand up in it, stand up for the first time – is it possible to imagine how he can feel this, suddenly feel a faint hope of steadfastness on these uncertain, wadded, unstable infant legs?

He had just broken the horizontal line, and we cried with unbearable tenderness, pride and emotion, and supported him by the hands, and said: “Baby, you can do it!”. And he broke the boundary of dependence on us, for the first time taking away a spoon and smearing porridge on his cheeks, and stubborn “I myself!”, clumsily pulling off such complicated, clingy, no-grab-no–way panties, trying, growing up, growing up, and we were proud, and said to the spilled soup, “Nothing, it’s nonsense, we’ll wipe it off now – but you yourself, eat yourself!”.

And they didn’t show us how we washed the floors for him – we wanted him to move forward, we supported him imperceptibly, so as not to break this fragile porcelain first pride, so that he would never feel small, awkward, stupid, flawed. So that he knows that he is a strong boy, and he will cope with everything.

There is no stronger message for a child than: “You are my strong little boy, you will succeed, I am with you.”

There are two powerful forces in this, something without which it is so difficult to live in the world, and if you want to cry now, like me, then you will understand that there will be no more teachings, no lectures, no development, no words, there is nothing stronger and more important for a child than your faith in his strength and your love and protection. They endlessly feed and will feed his two driving forces all his life – the need to conquer the world and the need to be accepted and loved.

And then suddenly, instead of the touching development of self-nutrition or sitting on a potty, he becomes 3 years old, and he learns to make independent decisions in the same way. He’s learned how to drive a tricycle, and he’s learning how to drive people.

“No, I’ll do as I want!” He says to my face. Or does it to your face.

And it covers us. All our childish prohibitions and stupid behavioral fears are covered, oh, if we don’t show him now who is the boss in the house, then he will sit on his neck.

Maybe it’s not about the owner? Maybe the owner is not the one who, using strength and experience, will crush and force you to do it your own way? But still, the one who is stronger, wiser, more generous, who has the banal maturity to see the difference between strength and direction, and not to push the force, but to continue to give direction.

When he “mastered” the burners on the stove, we did not yell or lock him in the room, we let him “spin” something else, and explained why, explained with respect and trust in his ability to understand. And he understood.

Maybe instead of “Oh so, then … (you won’t get sweets, you’re deprived of cartoons, you won’t go to the party, sit in your room until you think about it)”we will be able to stop once again and understand that he is just growing up and conquering the world. Including us.

And sooner or later, he must conquer, and we are there to protect him from gas burners and a soccer ball on the road, and not to ban him from trying to cook or play football. To set the direction, not to kill the force, it is an amazing innate power to explore, try for strength, grow up and grow.

Maybe if we said, “I see you’ve grown up and you want to decide for yourself. I can’t let you do this because it’s dangerous (cruel, insulting, harmful, and so on), but it seems to me that it’s time for you to decide for yourself whether to do it” – her desire to contradict and stamp her feet, this power of growing up, will find a way out in a new level of solutions that she now she can make decisions herself, which we will obey, and she will not need to bang her forehead against all the walls of our prohibitions.

And if there are boundaries that are worth moving, then there are also boundaries that cannot be moved. You can’t inflict empty, senseless pain, you can’t endanger yourself and others. A mother cannot stop loving a child. And we can and should, while asking ourselves the whole idea of direction, not let danger, insensitivity, cruelty into it. And we can and must continue to prove that the boundary of our love is inviolable.

Maybe he’s not just checking: “And if I do the forbidden thing, what happens?” – in his power of exploring the world, but also: “And if I do the forbidden, is Mom still with me?Is she still the mom who said, “I’m with you, baby”?

And if the boundaries of independence can and should be allowed to be broken, within a reasonable direction, then it is very important to defend this border. “You acted very badly and cruelly, it happens. Let’s think about how we can fix this.” We. You’ve stumbled, but you can handle it. Let’s think about what we’ve learned and how not to do it anymore. You’re good. You can do it. I’m with you.

When he screams in my face “I don’t love you! You’re bad!”It is very, very important that he suddenly feels that in this terrible pool of anger and loneliness, where he clumsily climbed, trying to grow up and learn how to control his mother, his mother will not leave him alone, as she did not throw him, doused with hot sticky porridge, or slapped his palms in the mud.

Mom will say, “You’re saying mean words. You’re hurting me.” And it will give him time, who has already grown up and suddenly broke such an impregnable border, to learn something important inside at this moment. And when he comes (and he will) with outstretched hands, she will accept him, without humiliating rubbing and forced artificial apologies.

https://econet.ru/articles/123532-ya-tebya-ne-lyublyu-ty-plohaya