The psycho-emotional development of a small child depends entirely on communication - first with parents, then with teachers and peers. Underestimation of the importance of communication by parents is fraught with serious consequences for the baby: from an inferiority complex to inhibited development of speech and psyche. Unfortunately, many parents believe that educating a child is the task of kindergartens and schools, and they themselves are assigned a modest role as monitors of progress and class attendance. In fact, the psychology of communication between parents and preschool children plays a decisive role. This is how kids receive the most information, learn to adequately assess and respond to surrounding phenomena, develop character, patterns of behavior in society, moral attitudes, values, and much more.
Don't think that young children don't understand anything. They are well versed in intonations and moods, acutely feel negativity from their parents, and worry if they are brushed aside.
For a preschooler, the loss of continuous communication with parents through communication is tantamount to the loss of all reference points at once. In early childhood, any events and phenomena are assessed through the prism of parental reactions. These reactions are recorded by the child's subconscious and projected onto the child's behavior. This is why children from dysfunctional families are aggressive - they simply copy their parents’ behavior, believing that this is how they should behave with people.
Up to 1 year
Young children are very serious about communication. Verbal interaction with mom becomes more harmonious. In fact, this takes up a significant amount of their resources. But for now this is quite uncontrollable communication. The child mirrors us. He tries to repeat sounds and facial expressions, he becomes more active when he sees attention paid to him.
It is in the first year that attachment is formed - emotional communication in which the child receives satisfaction of his needs for care, attention, love, and security. Attachment is a necessary condition for the normal development of a child.
In the first year of life, a child’s communication is mainly situational and personal. That is, the specific interaction of a child with another person. And the most important thing in such communication for a child is emotions. Can an older child create those same positive emotions? If so, then such communication will be very cool both to develop the baby and to help children begin to build their relationships.
1-2 years
But pay attention, in the first year of life the child is a passive participant. From the age of 1, a child has 3 priority areas in development:
- mother (or the person who cares for him);
- study of the surrounding world;
- movement.
What changes in communication are taking place:
- The child becomes a more active participant. He already knows how to initiate communication himself, knows how to hold attention, and attract attention. But he certainly continues to watch adults. Adults are an example, a model of how to communicate.
- Now, in addition to situational-personal communication, another type of communication is being added: situational-business communication. This is a completely new interaction - communication, which leads to cognition, to the development of space, manipulation, etc. This is where it’s great to include an older child. Because crawling, throwing, rolling - all this is interesting for the baby to do. But most importantly, it teaches him a new way of interacting with his sibling. Of course, playing together with older brothers and sisters does not in any way cancel out interaction with mom, dad and other close adults.
- At this age, children react very poorly to prohibitions. But at the same time they follow simple and clear instructions very well. Therefore, when helping children play together, teach the older child to speak and show how to do it. And use the same principle in the game yourself. After all, the older child will copy him, and your communication with the child will be easier and more constructive.
Unfortunately, scientists have not conducted studies of young children's interactions with their older siblings at such an early age. But they studied the child’s interest in other children.
It is from the age of 1.5 that a child begins to need to communicate with other children. Please note - a need. That is, until this age (it is clear that this is a very approximate, approximate period) the child was a passive participant. The elder suggested interesting communication - he communicates. No - and no communication. And now he himself will show interest, strive to attract attention to himself, and react to the actions of his sibling.
But for now the baby, of course, is still just a baby. Therefore, his attempts to communicate will still be far from real communication. What could it be:
1) Study of the object and a living toy.
The baby will examine, touch, feel the older child. Look at eyes, teeth, ears, etc. The child plays the same games with adults. But we are very different from our children, even older ones. We can be patient, change it carefully, or stop playing altogether if we don’t like it. But our older children don’t know how to do this yet. Some children show jealousy towards their younger ones. Therefore, our assistance should be aimed at the following:
- we teach the baby to act carefully (stroking, looking, not touching, etc.);
- we teach the elder to carefully remove the hands of the younger;
- We ourselves correct and control such interaction, avoiding unpleasant feelings for the elder and offense for the younger.
Read more: Crises in family life by year
2) Observation and imitation.
The baby actively begins to copy the older child even when he does not direct his actions towards the baby. These may be attempts to repeat actions, gestures, copying intonations or speech (most often, children at this age cannot yet correctly repeat the words of their elder, then they will imitate speech, depicting a conversation with sounds).
How might this be interesting for a senior? Show him how the baby tries to be like him, to be the same as him. Most often, children take this as a sign of recognition, love, and good attitude. And this encourages them to communicate with the baby more, using positive emotions.
However, this is not always the case. There are children who are very jealous of such imitation. If they are old enough to articulate their feelings, this is what they say:
- “I don’t want him to repeat after me”;
- “Only I say so”;
- “Mom, don’t let him do like me.”
What does this mean? About the fact that the older child is not confident in himself, that he is loved, that he is successful and that his parents need him. And that means we need to pay attention to this problem. And only then establish relationships between children.
3) Joint emotionally charged actions.
Most likely, you have observed this more than once, when as soon as one child starts running and laughing, others join him, even if they are completely strangers. Here emotions worked like a trigger. They turned out to be an invitation to interaction.
Children can communicate this way with adults, but from the age of 1.5 years this also works in relation to other children. Moreover, when the baby wants to communicate with other children, he himself begins to act according to this pattern. For example, jumping and screaming, making loud noises, scaring, fighting... This is all an invitation to communicate. His experience says that others respond to this!
How can we use this age characteristic of a child?
Firstly, offer the older one various normal, appropriate games of this kind: running around screaming, jumping and squealing, clapping and grunting... in general, everything that both the older and the younger child will like.
Secondly, if we notice that the baby begins to provoke the older child into such a game, but it is unsuccessful (negative interaction, the game interferes with the older child, etc.), then quickly regulate the process. Or switch it to yourself: “Sasha is busy now, let’s go for a run.” And, of course, immediately start running.
Or replace a negative manifestation with something acceptable. Don't fight, but bang on pots. Do not throw sand at each other, but throw it into a bucket, etc.
It is important to understand that communication at this age is not regular, not constant, it very much depends on the situation, mood and many other factors. That is, we are not always able to organize it in such a way that everyone is happy. This means they must be ready to play the role of a buffer and take on the baby and communication with him, and not expect that children will be able to interact normally with each other.
Both parents need to know this
If the child’s mother continues to interfere with their communication, she, in accordance with Art. 5.35 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation faces a fine of 2,000 to 3,000 rubles for the first time, and a fine of 4,000 to 5,000 rubles for the second time or even arrest for five days.
3. In case of failure to comply with a court decision, the measures provided for by the legislation on administrative offenses and the legislation on enforcement proceedings are applied to the guilty parent. In case of malicious failure to comply with a court decision, the court, at the request of a parent living separately from the child, may make a decision to transfer the child to him based on the interests of the child and taking into account the opinion of the child.4. A parent living separately from the child has the right to receive information about his child from educational organizations, medical organizations, social service organizations and similar organizations. The provision of information may be refused only if there is a threat to the life and health of the child on the part of the parent. Refusal to provide information may be challenged in court.
From 2 years
Children's communication is activated simply because the baby has already gained the necessary experience. He already knows how to play various story games, he has already developed speech, the need for communication, and the ability to communicate is slowly gaining.
But most importantly, he imitates others well. This is the most favorable time for building independent games between children. The younger one is ready to play with the older one, repeat what is shown to him, etc. But, of course, this does not mean that everything will work out for them right away. Vice versa! Right now, the role of an adult is very important. Right now they are especially actively learning to interact with each other. And this process goes on for more than one day, or even one year. Psychologists identify a period of up to 4 years.
What is the most difficult thing at this time, what we need to pay attention to, what we need to teach children:
- address each other by name or by the role the child plays;
- resolve conflicts, look for a way out of difficult situations;
- take turns;
- sympathize with each other;
- treat each other kindly;
- see your partner’s advantages, his strengths.
Read more: What to do if your parents forbid something
And one more important point that we cannot forget about. For children under 5 years of age, the main component in communication is emotions. They are the ones that matter most to the child. That is, if communication causes strong emotional experiences, not necessarily positive, the child will strive for it again and again. If communication is unemotional, then it is of little significance and of little interest to the child.
But the need for emotions does not mean that the child himself knows how to manage them! Vice versa! Until the age of 5, children are predominantly impulsive, spontaneous, and completely unstable in their emotions. And if it's fun together, it makes a great game. But if the emotions do not coincide, if the interests of all players in the game were not met, frustrations and experiences can be very violent.
And here, without a regulating adult, a good game will not work. It is very important for us to learn to intervene in a situation in a timely manner, to prevent it from escalating into aggression or a fight, and to teach children to cope with both contradictions in the game and their own experiences.
Psychologist's advice
- Praise only for actions. To prevent a child from growing up spoiled, you should not praise him for what he did not achieve on his own. It is important that the child understands what he did to deserve praise and can repeat it. In addition, there must be a clear understanding that approval is acquired through hard work.
- Scold without touching the person. There is a big difference between “I am bad” and “I did something bad.” A bad deed can be corrected, but a bad person is a stigma. Unless your goal is to stigmatize your child and create a false negative perception of himself, be careful in your language.
- Be authoritarian only when there is no other choice. Negotiating with children is not a sign of weakness, as some fathers think. A child who is forced to do something by force will suffer from a sense of injustice and will harbor resentment. In adolescence, this resentment will spill out, and domestic despotism will come back to haunt you a hundredfold, because it will become a universal justification for anything for the child. A child may start smoking and skip school only because tyrant parents prohibit it.
A theater studio for children 5 years old helps them develop not only self-confidence, but also leadership qualities, the ability to work in a team, competently defend their point of view, and manage emotions.
3-7 years
In the period from 3 to 7 years, the child very actively masters different methods of communication. And if up to 5 years of age these are the first steps, then from 5 years of age the accumulation of experience begins. The child learns to interact with other people. And his experience, how well he manages to communicate, greatly influences his ideas about himself!
At about 5 years of age, communication with others becomes qualitatively different again. Now it is important for a child not only to be accepted and understood. It is very important to him who exactly he communicates with. Communication becomes personal. The most important thing is that the child now craves mutual understanding, empathy, and the experience of similar emotions and states.
Remember the wonderful cartoon “Kitten Woof”, where the kitten Woof and the puppy Sharik were afraid of a thunderstorm together. This is just a very typical example for communication between children aged 5 years and older.
What is especially valuable in this period. The child is finally ready to understand the motives of another person. Right now it is important to him how his playing partner feels, whether he was upset or happy, why he acted this way or that way. It is at this age that we need to help the child not only name what happened (we quarreled, Masha was offended, Kolya got angry), but help the child understand the reason: why did we quarrel? What was Masha offended by? What made Kolya angry?
And this kind of work to understand the reasons for certain situations is the most important at this age stage.
How to do this:
- ask clarifying questions;
- offer to imagine what he himself would do in the place of another person.
And gradually we are adding the second most important component to it. It’s not enough to understand the reason, you need to understand what could have been done...
Here we can suggest playing out the situation like a small theatrical performance. No, you don’t need a scene, it’s enough to depict how all the characters will speak and behave.
What most often prevents children at this age from communicating?
- Poorly developed coherent speech. When a child cannot clearly explain his desires and interests in the game. When it is not possible to reach an agreement precisely because the child cannot formulate his thoughts and feelings.
- Lack of awareness. When a child simply does not understand what he actually wants. That is, most often it looks like this: I don’t like this game, I don’t want to communicate like that. But exactly how he wants... the child does not know.
We must help both children. This is our area of responsibility: to help the child develop sufficiently.
Can 5-7 year olds play on their own? Yes, sure. But this does not negate our assistance to them in situations where they themselves cannot understand the reasons or find a solution that will suit all interested parties.
And one more important nuance. Children 5-7 years old give preference in communication to their peers. They are the most attractive and effective partners now. Therefore, a child may refuse to play with a child of a different age.
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Communication with children 7-12 years old
What happens next, after 7 years and up to 12?
These skills are being improved. The main role here is played by communication with peers during study. The teacher and how learning is structured now play a huge role. By the way, this is not just about school. Trainer and training, teacher at a music or art school...
Any training is very important now. And it has a serious impact not only on the development of the child as an individual, but also affects his ability to communicate and is transferred to communication in the family. Yes, we must admit that now the family is forced to take into account to a large extent the influence of the environment on the child.
What points are especially important at this age, what should we pay attention to:
- how to attract the attention of your interlocutor, how to address another person;
- show the need to understand the position of the interlocutor;
- teach techniques for seeking agreement and making decisions.
At this age, the child reconsiders his attitude towards communication. If before this, at the age of 5-7, he was happy to communicate with someone who was simply often nearby, with whom he regularly spent time together, now he already chooses according to a different principle. Now, at 8-12 years old, the most important partners for him are those who help him, respond to requests and share interests.
Therefore, it is possible to involve a child in communication with a baby at this age if the baby is at least partially included in the interests of the elder.
Example. If the eldest son of 8 years old enthusiastically plays with robots, then the baby should also be involved in these games, and then the eldest will be happy to initiate him into the intricacies of the world of robots.
Another example. If a 9-year-old girl watches a cartoon about ponies, then you should try to include the baby in games about ponies. And it doesn’t matter that he won’t understand this cartoon now, but to play with the horses... why not.
Love, care and concern
Your thoughts and actions should be permeated by unconditional parental love. Only in this case will all communication be built on a disinterested feeling. All aspirations and actions that a person performs while in a state of love will certainly lead to success. It is unlikely that a loving parent will start a conversation with the phrase: “Will you get it from me now?” The parent’s mood is indicated, the child has prepared for defense, now he is only defending himself. Try to avoid such statements when communicating with children.
What is unconditional acceptance
Complete indifference is not welcome; here it is important to understand the difference between calmness and outright indifference. Your indifference plays a detrimental role, the child withdraws, and it is almost impossible to make contact in such a situation.
