Parents are a child’s guides into the social world. It is the parents who introduce the child to rules of behavior that help them adapt to unfamiliar situations and establish contact with other people. The child’s success in the social world—the ability to build relationships, choose friends, accept group rules and games, and follow routines and expectations in social institutions—largely depends on how well the parents themselves are adapted and how effectively they build a bridge between the family and society.
Let us try to understand which parenting style best helps a child establish contact with the social world so that this contact supports, rather than interferes with, the child’s own inner developmental trajectory.
Problems that a child experiences within the family may be hidden or denied by the parents themselves. A child is part of the family system, and the child’s difficulties are often connected with the fact that from birth they are involved in a family structure to which they must adapt.
After birth, the child exists in a symbiotic relationship with the mother, on whose emotional and physical state they are completely dependent. Only gradually, with their first steps, does the process of separation from the mother begin. Later, together with the mother or another caregiver—perhaps a nanny—the child begins to encounter the social world: first during walks, sometimes in playrooms, developmental classes, or similar environments, and eventually in kindergarten and school.
It is precisely when encountering the social environment that a kind of test of adaptation occurs—both for the child and for the family as a whole.
During walks the child meets other children, while the mother (or another caregiver, usually from about the age of one) meets other adults. Children imitate the behavior they observe to a remarkable degree.
If an adult greets others and behaves openly toward other children and adults, the child perceives that these contacts are safe. If the adult communicates, smiles, and interacts freely, the child learns that communication can bring pleasant emotions. If the adult is closed off from contact, anxious that someone might harm their child, avoids greeting others, and generally behaves cautiously, the child receives the signal that the external world is hostile and that one must be wary or withdrawn.
Since I often spend time on playgrounds with my own children, I have observed many different forms of interaction between adults and children. Quite often I have seen situations in which a child happily begins interacting with other children—climbing playground structures, joining games—and the accompanying adult (most often a grandmother) tries to take the child away as quickly as possible under various pretexts.
A child is an active explorer. If this exploratory impulse is not suppressed but instead guided by safety rules, it later develops into cognitive curiosity, which plays an important role in academic success. Safety rules should not be introduced through intimidation designed to frighten the child into obedience. Rather, they should be explained in a way that helps the child understand possible consequences, preferably by referring to the child’s own experiences and using language appropriate for their age.
By the age of two, most children already understand what pain is and what happens when someone becomes ill.
In social interactions, difficulties often arise in establishing boundaries and distinguishing between what belongs to oneself and what belongs to others. These issues sometimes lead to conflicts, occasionally involving the parents themselves. This often occurs because adults themselves may have confused boundaries.
It is important for the adult to understand that boundaries also exist between parent and child. If toys were bought for the child and the child considers them their own, then they are indeed the child’s toys, and it is up to the child to decide whether to share them. Parents should not make this decision on the child’s behalf.
Many parents assume that while a child cannot yet speak, they can decide for them whether another child may take the toy. Sometimes even when the child protests, parents insist that sharing is necessary, warning that otherwise the child will not have friends.
It is important to allow the child to make their own choice. There is no guarantee that your child wants to be friends with the particular child who wants their toys.
The same principle applies to other children’s toys. If a parent asks permission from another child before taking a toy, the child learns that not everything belongs to them and gradually learns to ask for permission themselves.
However, sometimes the emotional bond between parent and child is so strong that the parent finds it extremely difficult to set limits. They cannot tolerate the idea that their child might be refused something, might suffer disappointment, cry, or have a tantrum.
Parents who strive to ensure that their child is always comfortable and never hurt—those who fear playground conflicts and sometimes even avoid kindergarten for this reason—often demonstrate protective or avoidant behavior. In other situations such parents may even become involved in conflicts themselves.
As a result, the child does not encounter what psychoanalysis calls the principle of reality — the understanding of how real social interactions function. Instead, the child remains in an illusion of omnipotence, reinforced by the parent’s support. The longer this illusion persists, the greater the frustration the child experiences later when interacting with the external world.
In reality, the adult’s task in social interactions is to demonstrate possible strategies for effective interaction. For example, a child can ask for another child’s toy. If permission is denied, they can offer to exchange toys, suggest playing together, or postpone their desire. If obtaining the toy proves impossible, children of this age are usually easily distracted and can shift their attention elsewhere.
Social skills are not taught somewhere separately in kindergarten or school. These institutions are places where children demonstrate and further develop the social skills that are already forming.
Parents often entice children to attend kindergarten by emphasizing that there are many toys there, but they rarely mention that there are also many children who want to play with those same toys.
By the age of three, children with normal development usually have a strong social motivation. They want to attend kindergarten, communicate, and make friends. However, this does not occur if the mother and child remain in a prolonged symbiotic relationship. In such cases both mother and child cannot tolerate the anxiety associated with separation.
The child worries about the mother—“How will she manage without me?”—and also worries about themselves, since the world seems unsafe.
One of the most common indicators of prolonged symbiosis is when the child continues sleeping in the mother’s bed at this age or later. Such children often have difficulty adapting because boundaries remain blurred. They struggle to understand that other people—other children—are separate individuals with their own desires, which may conflict with their own.
Another important aspect of a child’s adaptation is the ability to accept losing and to accept guilt.
Parents who strongly identify with their child often react to a child’s loss not with empathy but with protest and aggression toward those they consider responsible for the child’s defeat. Yet what the child truly needs is to know that the parent accepts them both as a champion and as someone who loses—that the parent loves and values them regardless.
It is important that the parent can experience sadness and disappointment in such moments, yet still find the strength to continue, maintain hope, and continue believing in the child.
The experience of guilt is also often difficult to manage. Parents sometimes struggle with their narcissistic attachment to their child and cannot accept that their child might be the one who caused harm, might be wrong, or might bear responsibility for a conflict.
Many people—particularly in post-Soviet societies—find it extremely difficult to cope with feelings of guilt. More often guilt is denied or projected onto the victim (“the victim is to blame”). The illusion of one’s own absolute innocence is easily transmitted to the child through parental behavior.
Parents frequently assume the child is always at fault in conflicts, although this is not necessarily the case.
The ability to take the child’s perspective and to apologize when the parent is wrong, as well as discussing conflicts after emotions have settled, helps develop the child’s capacity for reflection and thoughtful evaluation of their actions.
Discussing literature together can also help children understand such emotions. What definitely does not help is forcing a child to apologize through coercion.
I recently witnessed a situation illustrating this. A five-year-old girl bit another girl in a swimming pool for no apparent reason. Instead of apologizing, the girl’s grandmother arrived and began attacking everyone around her, including other children. Later, at home, she physically punished the child herself. This behavior only confused the child further about what her behavior meant and how she should respond when she is at fault.
The structure of such families resembles a “mafia-like” system: if someone belongs to “our clan,” they are defended against the outside world at any cost, but within the clan punishment awaits them. A child raised in such an environment may develop aggression toward the outside world precisely because they cannot feel safe anywhere—neither outside nor within the family.
Children differ greatly in temperament, emotional development, and intellectual abilities. Yet every child will eventually need to live in society, become an independent person, and leave the parental family.
The foundations of adaptability are laid in early childhood—within the family and through the family. Much depends on what kind of guides we become for our children between the family and the world: conductors, semi-conductors, or isolators.