Are you familiar with the method of teaching a child to sleep on 5-10-15? This is when a very small child, a baby, is left to cry alone in his crib for 5, then 10, then 15, and so on, minutes until he falls asleep. This supposedly teaches him to fall asleep on his own. When my eldest son was first born, this method was strongly promoted by nurses and doctors in Quebec. This was my first child, and I gave in. She gave in under the pressure of authority. Left him to cry. Alone, at night, in the dark. Thank God, my husband knocked me on the headmy instincts worked quickly enough, and the very next evening I took him to our bed again, and we were happy. But this one night, when I abandoned my child, he cried, and I did not come - I will never forget it. He yes, I no.
When I read “Secret Support” by Petranovskaya, I remembered this again. “Do you want your child to cope with life? This means that throughout your childhood, console him, hug him, accept his feelings. Don’t say “Don’t cry!”, don’t try to immediately distract and entertain. Help him live through the stress, staying alive, and get out of it, and not swallow unpleasant feelings and freeze off. Let him be upset, cry, be afraid, protest - and let him, with your help, learn to accept the imperfections of the world, move from disappointment and protest to consolation and reconciliation with reality” - how I regretted that I had not read these lines earlier! And also this: “Always trust yourself more than any book, and this one is no exception. You are the parent of your child, you love him, you know him, you understand him, you feel him like no one else, even if at times it seems to you that you don’t understand him at all. A specialist’s opinion is important information for reflection; it is a way to see your situation from the outside, an opportunity to see problems in the broader context of culture, tradition, and even the evolution of our species. But it’s up to you to decide what to do right now with your own baby who is crying, fighting or scared, and if your intuition, driven by love and care, says something different from the book, listen to your intuition.”
This book (by the way, the best-selling non-fiction book in Russia in 2018) is an extraordinary support for parents. She helps us understand our children better, reminds us how much we love them, even when you come home after work and they are walking on their heads, and how important we are to them. She explains how important it is not to dismiss your child's many “whys” and how important it is to talk to your children. How to become their friend and forever remain the one whom the child trusts more than others.
leave a comment