How family and school become a neurotic factory

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

During their studies in elementary school, the assessment of their personality is rapidly declining in children. If in the first grade 43.7% of children have high self-esteem, then by the fourth grade the number of self-confident falls to 24.2%. The number of students with low self-esteem, on the contrary, increases from 30.2 to 36.6%. What's happening?

- What, completely stupid ?! What have you done ?!

- I wanted…

- What did you want?! They told you in Russian: first you write your surname, and then your first name. And you? Why is it all the other way around ?!

- I thought…

- You need brains to think. And you have no brains, since first you write a name, and then a surname. Sit down. Deuce! Give me a diary!

- I forgot it …

- What-oh-oh-oh? !! Have you forgotten your head at home ?!

This dialogue between teacher and student could have happened in any Russian region, in any school. Probably every second person can remember their school history when they explained to him about “forgot my head”. But our cases are still particulars, they are not so convincing.

They told me about the results of a large-scale study conducted among younger students. Typically, such projects involve one hundred, two hundred, in very rare cases, a thousand respondents.

And here - tens of thousands of respondents. Moreover, the responses of the same children in the first grade and in the fourth grade were compared. All in all, very cool research, you can trust it.

Not all data have been processed and published yet. But one very important conclusion can already be drawn. During their studies in elementary school, the assessment of their personality is rapidly declining in children.

If in the first grade 43.7% of children have high self-esteem, then by the fourth the number of self-confident falls to 24.2%. The number of students with low self-esteem, on the contrary, increases from 30.2 to 36.6%.

Roughly speaking, in four grades of elementary school, the child is convinced that he is a complete insignificance. And these numbers are a much more serious reason for panic than the exam and other reforms.

The main tool in lowering self-esteem is grades. I forgot my notebook - a deuce. Instead of "2 + 3" I wrote "3 + 2" - two. He looked out the window at the two sparrows. I did not hear the teacher - a deuce. Climbed into the margins of the page - a deuce. For the teacher, this is just the number "2".

For the child, the diagnosis: he is bad, he is unworthy, because of him the grandmother is sick, and the father and mother filed for divorce. Shouts about "stupidity" and "what will come of you" are added to the marks. They finally affirm the child in the thought of his worthlessness. As a result, we get an inferiority complex on a national scale.

You can, of course, say: they say, this is how it should be, everything is correct - the parents of the children pamper, instill in them all sorts of nonsense that they are smart and wonderful, and the school returns to the harsh reality. This would be true if we really lived in such a terrible world. Fortunately, the adult world is not as rigid as the school one.

The school breeds a huge army of people with low self-esteem. The lion's share of our problems follows from it: drunkenness, unwillingness to take initiative, aggression, indifference. Even megalomania often stems from an inferiority complex. If a person shouts: “I am the coolest here, and whoever does not agree with this will now get in the face!”, It means that his self-esteem is greatly underestimated, because the one who has it high is unlikely to shout about it.

I do not exclude that nationalism in all forms - from beating Uzbeks in the streets to fighting American influence in the State Duma - is also the fruit of low self-esteem. For a person who is not sure that he is good and loved, it is important to prove that he belongs to some particularly outstanding race or country. Self-confident people can live comfortably, even admitting that their state or nation has often been wrong.

I got to the point of global politics. Probably, now we need to mention Putin or, in extreme cases, the Minister of Education and Science - criticism of the state will, of course, bring an extra hundred likes and slightly increase my self-esteem, but we should not start with her. And with … well, for example, with myself.

We are all complicit in this crime. How many times, meeting a son or daughter on the doorstep, we say non-human: “Hello! How glad I am to see you! ", And the monstrous:" Well, what are the grades in school? Hopefully there are no twos?"

Each of us regularly lowers the self-esteem of our children, our colleagues, our friends, our parents. I'm not an exception. And I'm ashamed.

It is not so easy to embark on the path of correction.

We chronically fail to praise. We have a duty "well done!" But we know how to scold brightly, juicy and varied. We are professional specialists in the production of inferiority complexes …

After these lines, I decided to correct myself at least a little. And he wrote out a set of praises for those around him:

“You have a great article! I think it will delight many readers."

“Thank you for washing the dishes. You have no idea what a thrill it is to have dinner in a clean kitchen."

“You did it so well! Personally, I would hardly have succeeded."

“I'm so glad you bought me a chocolate bar. Now it will be much more fun for me to live and work."

"It's still great that I work with you."

Uh … These five sentences were harder for me than the rest of the text. Still, it is much easier to produce low self-esteem than to fight it.

author G. Tarasevich