"A LITTLE MUNCHKIN CAME TO HIS FATHER…"

The complex nature of "synchronizing" individual and social ideas has been successfully drummed into our heads since childhood: "The family is a social unit". And children - our future - are an integral part of this unit. Can we say that those principles of education that are impressed upon us from childhood are sacrosanct if there is a need to review our priorities? How have the traditions of child rearing in Azerbaijan developed and what changes have they undergone through time?

Where is the rational balance?

This is what the psychologist Humay Axundzada says: "Drawing from my work with families and children I believe there is chaos in our upbringing of children in today's society. Parents - mostly young families - are trying to raise their children based on respect for the child, consideration of his opinion and his upbringing as a separate individual, but at the same time they are unable to find a rational balance, frequently going to the extreme, which means losing the very fibre of upbringing and their own authority. The fact is that as well as the need for him to be respected and considered, there is also a need for someone stronger on whom he can lean and with whom he can identify". At the same time, the psychologist says, one should take into account that the child's need for someone strong does not mean that adults should be too strict or degrading towards them. At the root of this lie the mechanisms of self-identification with senior members of the family of the same sex (this usually continues up to adolescence when, on the other hand, the child experiences a desire to stand up to his parents). Therefore, in order to establish their identity children need figures. If these figures prove to be weak or inadequate, disharmony will arise.

On this point there are also advantages in the traditional method of rearing children with its strict rules which should be adopted. But at the same time, Humay believes, it is difficult to describe in a single word the sheer chaos which has overwhelmed parents. Families tend to have a better concept of how things should be but a lesser idea of how these concepts should be implemented. "If a person is critical of the way children have always been brought up in his family, then he tries to make sure that everything is done differently in his own family. But still, some parental rules turn out to be too deeply ingrained. After all, one can see only one model of upbringing," the psychologist says - "the one that was adopted in one's own family. You have to have an inner strength, creativity and courage to break this pattern."

Rufat Aliyev, a facilitator and organizer of a number of educational projects, also believes that child rearing today should not be approached in the same way as our grandparents did. Time, conditions, opportunities and technology have all changed and, whether you like it or not, one has to adapt to realities. Of course, one has to consider experience worldwide and there are plenty of theories to define the principles of successful upbringing. "In any era and in any country there is only one basic principle in upbringing and that is to love your own child!" the expert says. To achieve this, he explains, you have to be very well aware of who the child is and to understand its feelings and needs.

However, it is precisely in this aspect that the expert mentions one trait that is peculiar to our parents: "For them the child is everything, and that includes the realization of their own desires and plans. Such parents approach child rearing in the same way as they would be carrying out a successful project which sooner or later will bring them dividends and the child, therefore, becomes a tool of the parents." According to Aliyev, the great tragedy for the whole of the area that used to be the Soviet Union was that the Soviet system ineffectually set the objective and projection that only the state can bring up a child "in the proper way" - impersonal, hard, all-knowing. In the whole period of its existence it took the child away from its parents (to the nursery, the kindergarten and the school) to give parents the opportunity to work unhindered for the common good and build communism. During the period of openness, in the middle of the 1980s, details began to emerge of this process of education which until then had been hidden behind the school walls. It was revealed that 93 per cent of children who left school suffered from various psychosomatic disorders.

The second negative aspect of this system was the fact that it gave rise to a generation of parents who had no idea whatsoever what proper child rearing was (and that means a child having enough to eat, being properly booted and clothed and getting to school on time). The whole weight of upbringing lies on the shoulders of the educational establishments (whether they can handle this function is another matter), i.e. the child becomes part of a machine which is supposed to control him and make him an average and very convenient part of the social unit. The result is that we have an unenlightened parent who thinks more about making a living than bringing up a child. We are now seeing the pay-off: a depressing number of smokers, alcoholics, druggies and aggressive, unsettled and helpless people who are unable to find their place in life. What's the solution? Is it possible in today's conditions to find a proper balance between a child's upbringing and the "social factor"?

Learning from mistakes

There is a solution, of course, the expert reassures us.  Go straight back to the child, look at its demands and its needs (and not just material needs). One must interact with the child, read to him, discuss what you have read, play with him, talk with him, and do household things together. The child should spend as much time as possible with his parents. Nothing happens by itself and in bringing up a child there are two factors - the family and the school. Where there is a deficiency with these two, there is a third - the environment, a factor whose influence is always best kept to a minimum.

The problems of today's education and child rearing lie in a shift of priorities. The result is that parents are thrown from one extreme to the other: they either let things drift ("he'll grow up like we all had to") or, on the other hand, "drilling" him hard, sitting him behind a desk practically as soon as he is born. The main objective is to develop the child's capabilities, not force knowledge down him, but teach him to learn, to perceive the world, to be inquisitive and curious. "Create more opportunities for your children to learn, expose their capabilities, take them to clubs and on nature trips," Aliyev advises. He says that a child's hidden capabilities are bound to be revealed if you are attentive and sensitive towards him. In today's world, the traditional approaches have become outdated. Today's parents must stop and think what kind of member of society and citizen they want to bring up. One of the specific traits of this departure from "common trends" is the fact that the average Azerbaijani family is becoming more individual, is losing touch with the social unit and there is no positive inter-action with the life of society above what is necessary.

Generally speaking, in an age of disorientation young parents more than anyone need to choose the right direction. And they, the parents, were the children of the 1980s and 1990s, that "lost generation", whose childhood happened to be during the collapse of the Union and the difficult realities of the post-Soviet period. That is why it is difficult to saddle them completely with the blame for some of the "twitches" in methods of child rearing. The question of bringing up future generations "without separating them from the parents" must become one of the directions of state social policy. And if it happens that "the munchkin comes to the father" and the head of the family is always attentive to the child's words and questions, then there will be fewer problems in the upbringing of children.