The “epidemic of fatherlessness” has covered Russia: how to make dads remember children

More than 50% of Russian fathers surveyed referred to the lack of time due to work and household chores, and 23% said they simply did not know how to organize leisure time with their children. However, everything is not so sad: 89% of respondents at least have a desire to spend more time with their children. But 53%, unfortunately, are sure that interesting entertainment requires money, which they do not have.

Psychologists, meanwhile, remind how harmful the father’s inattention is to the development of the child.

– The function of the father in the upbringing of the child is incredibly important and valuable. If the mother is basically the accepting, supportive side that gives the child a sense of security, then the father, starting from the age of three, figuratively speaking, takes the child by the hand and leads him into society, explains practicing psychologist Svetlana Petrenko. – Introducing him to society, the father says: I can protect you. In society there are not only good people, but also bad ones, there is a struggle, various competitions… But there are also many interesting things that you can do. Therefore, the role of the father, first of all, is huge precisely in the process of socialization of the child.

Until the age of six, a child absorbs everything that happens in the world around him. And his main teachers are mom and dad. He absorbs their attitude towards himself and their attitude towards each other. their attitude towards life. And this impression of the world remains with a person for the rest of his life, being placed in the unconscious; he lives by relying on it. And he builds his behavior in accordance with the idea of ​​the world that he received in early childhood, when parents did not even think about the fact that this could influence the formation of their child’s future.

If, suppose, a boy does not know how his father behaves, then when he grows up and becomes a father himself, it is very difficult for him to build his relationships with children. If there is no real image in front of your eyes, then it is replaced either by a fantasy, some kind of ideal, which is almost impossible to follow, or a man begins to believe that he will not succeed, because he does not know what a father should be like.

Another danger that the psychologist warns about is that if the child does not feel the attention of the pope, he develops a feeling of his uselessness. The fact is that in children under six years of age, the psyche is tripled so that everything that happens to them negatively, they take it personally. “I’m bad” because dad didn’t pay attention, “I’m bad” because dad doesn’t love me. “I am an empty place”, “they don’t pay attention to me, I am unworthy.”

– Some fathers justify their non-participation in the upbringing of children by the fact that they do not know how to deal with them, what to play.

“If you don’t know what to play with him, what to do with him, then the simplest thing is to just give him time, for example, making it a rule to talk 15 minutes a day,” advises the psychologist. – If you are very busy with work and get tired, then agree with the child that “two days a week or a day a week I do with you whatever you want” for a certain time. Give your child the right to choose what you will do with him. For example, he may want to watch a movie he likes with his dad, younger children – to play their favorite games.

But the most important thing is that at this moment you should not be bored, uninterested – you must focus on the child, delve into his interest. If you manage to imbue his interest, that will be great.

The simplest thing a dad can do is to ask a child questions such as: “What was the most interesting thing for you today?”, “What upset you (or pleased)?”. Or, more detailed questions: “Who do you most often play with during breaks (in kindergarten)?”, “If you wanted to change places with someone, who would it be, and why?”, “What will your friends do on the weekend?” – these are questions that will help you touch the inner world of your child, and at the same time he will feel that he is interesting to you, that he is valuable to you as he is.

On his example, the father of eight children spoke about the role of dad in the MK family Ivan Vecherinsky from the Oryol region (MK wrote about this family earlier). Here you need to make a reservation – their large family lives in the countryside in their house.

– First of all, the father brings up children by his own example, – Ivan is sure. – Dad works at home, and the children see. And they begin to help him as much as they can. I taught my boys to work with all the tools – and a circular saw, and an electric planer, and an electric saw, while always focusing on safety. We do everything together. We can cook soup together, and build a fire, and feed and clean the gobies.

If the father participates in the life of the child to a minimum, he will not have an understanding of the masculine principle, he will not have a male example before his eyes. A child, whether it is a girl or a boy – it does not matter, will not know how a man should behave in this or that situation. And so he will know – my dad would have done so-and-so. If a child does not know what his father would have done, he will grow up to be a defective person.

The child should have an understanding that people live to create families and procreate. And he should have an understanding of the interaction of a man with a woman, a father with a mother, and parents should show a good example of such interaction, set a high standard.

– Why do many fathers do not understand this and pay little attention to children?

– Fathers are engaged in financial support of the family, solve some global problems, and it seems to them that everything will happen by itself, that the child will grow up like that. Yes, by nature, everything will happen by itself, but only a man should work next to the children so that the children can see and imagine what he is doing.

At the same time, Ivan is convinced that the urban system of life is, in principle, unsatisfactory in terms of opportunities for interaction between fathers and children.

“Initially, everyone lived on the ground, in small settlements, and men always worked near the house, setting an example for children,” says the father of many children. – And in the cities, a man is realized, as a rule, in some narrow direction and it turns out that he moves further and further away from the family and the common cause.

Of course, this is a subjective opinion, but Ivan is convinced that in rural areas fathers (of course, we do not take into account the marginalized) have much more opportunities to be closer to their children.

“In general, you need to talk with children, and in particular, you need to be able to listen to them,” Ivan concluded. – It is pointless to engage in moralizing. Only business. Take the children with you, whatever you do, and do everything with them, teach them everything that you can yourself. Then they will grow up to be real people.

By the way, we recall that in 2021, a decree was signed in Russia on the celebration of Father’s Day – on the third Sunday of October. The purpose of the new holiday is to “strengthen the institution of the family and increase the importance of fatherhood in the upbringing of children.” According to the VTsIOM poll, in 2017 the idea of ​​Father’s Day was supported by 62% of respondents.

Public figure, executive director of the National Parents’ Committee Yuri Obolonsky took a broader look at the problem of “fathers and children”.

“In our time, often a child with living parents has neither a mother, nor a father, nor a grandmother, nor a grandfather,” Obolonsky believes. – In connection with the latest pension reform, grandparents continue to work, and moms and dads are doing business.

Today’s parents, the parents of the new generation, devote an average of 35-40 minutes a day to their children. So such an established “regulation” applies not only to fathers. According to moms and dads, the rest of the time children should be independent – spend the first half of the day at school, and when they come home, study on their own. And it turns out that, in fact, our children and grandchildren are brought up by the street, and not by parents and not by professional educators.

Among our “elite” children are taken care of by nannies, security guards and drivers, and among the representatives of the middle class who work around the clock (but they no longer have nannies and housekeepers), the children are generally left to their own devices. Often such parents try to pay off their children with money and gifts, compensating, as it seems to them, for their employment and lack of involvement in the upbringing process. There is no control over homework, literature studies, or Internet content that their child spends time on.

And as for the “ordinary people” – this is 70-80%, not to mention the poorest families, they have a catastrophic situation with the upbringing of children. Parents work around the clock, earning money for existence. They naturally do not have enough time, even if they wanted to, to work with their children.

I wish young parents to understand that happiness is not in money. It is imperative to devote time to children, because children are our future, and this is not just a red word. I believe that the best investment is when mom and dad pay attention to the education and upbringing of their children. That they study with the right teachers, be on the Internet in the right, safe content (and mom and dad know what pages they visit), and that parents and children always have a common area of ​​\u200b\u200binterest. And when parents and children have such communication, then you can be sure that everything will be fine in such a family.

To achieve all these goals, according to Yuri Obolonsky, it is necessary, among other things, to change the information policy of the state. We should have more cultural, historical and educational programs; we need to show more really authoritative personalities, honored teachers, artists… Unfortunately, there are very few such educational and popular science programs, and now they are mainly on paid content, but should be on federal TV channels.