Alice Miller: What is laid down in childhood determines our actions in adulthood. Laws of adult life In adult life, thereby
Stories about ten classmates who were friends until their gray hairs will most likely remain only in films. At one not-so-wonderful moment, you will discover that with many of those with whom you shared your most intimate. And all your new friends are your colleagues. Because in adult life you have neither the time nor the desire to get involved in adventures, since you are generally tired of people.
2. You will have to develop a system for evaluating yourself
As a child, you get used to the fact that there is always a moderator of your behavior next to you. The teacher gives grades, parents give candy or a belt. And you learn to balance between personal interests and attempts to please an adult, but at the same time you see a framework within which you can return if something happens.
In adult life, there will be significantly fewer guidelines and you will have to develop them. There are some things you won't be praised or scolded for, and you have to know for yourself what is acceptable and what is not in order to continue to respect yourself.
3. Fear of doctors does not go away with age.
You used to be afraid of the doctor because he would look into your mouth and give you a painful injection. Over the years, the fear has not gone away, there are simply more reasons for panic.
4. Your body will betray your age.
From the point of view of social life, 25 is the new 18; at 30, life is just beginning, and one cannot dare to call sixty-year-olds old men and women. But your body will think differently. One day - and quite early on - you will feel that something is wrong with him. In another couple of years, you will know exactly what is wrong with him, and realize that it will only get worse. You will have a first aid kit with medicines for all occasions, and you will know exactly where your compulsory medical insurance policy is.
5. Your metabolism will change
It doesn’t matter how much you could eat and not gain weight: a handful or a bucket. As you age, you will have to eat less to maintain weight because your metabolism...
6. It's impossible to feel old enough.
The argument “when I become an adult” will never lose its relevance, it’s just that one day it will become embarrassing to say it out loud. No miracle will happen on the day you turn 18, 21, 30 years old. You just one day find yourself in a difficult situation, decide to ask adults for help and realize that the most adult here is you.
7. Even your dream job is first and foremost a job.
The things you love will sometimes annoy you, and this applies to work too. Your dream position will require a lot of work and take up a huge amount of time. The difference between a great job and just a job is that you will at least sometimes be thinking about what you are doing.
8. People won't interfere in your life any less.
The hope that as you get older they will finally stop lecturing you will not come true. Everyone around you will still think that they know better how to live your life. Only if earlier for approval it was enough to study well and not dye your hair green, now the list of social expectations will not fit in a notebook of 48 pages. At a minimum, people will think that for some reason you are interested in knowing their opinion.
9. You will discover gaps in technical literacy.
You can be surprised all you want that parents have never learned to write SMS, until you discover that you yourself are several steps behind teenagers. After all, why master a new technology if the old one works great?
10. You will dream of solitude
A little adulthood and a fun holiday in Ibiza will no longer be a priority in your holiday plans. Your choice is a remote village somewhere in the forests of Finland, or better yet on the Moon, and there is no mobile connection.
11. You realize that everyone is mortal.
None of your relatives bear the surname MacLeod, so you always understood that your parents would die sooner or later, and so would your life. But with age, this fact moves from the realm of knowledge into a clearly realized inevitability. You will sympathize with friends, receive messages about the death of classmates, read the news and know that any moment of your life could be your last.
12. Successful pop and football stars are younger than you
In many professions, 13 years is the age when it’s too late to start. But you continued to secretly hope that a model scout would meet you on the street and be speechless from beauty, or that your passion for street football would develop into something more. And then you suddenly discover that even the contestants on scandalous TV shows are younger than you, not to mention the real rising stars.
13. Good grades at school and university do not guarantee a successful career.
Red covers of education documents do not guarantee anything at all. Only government agencies will look at your diploma, because they have a strictly regulated hiring procedure. In commercial companies, it is more important to have an up-to-date . And it is quite likely that yesterday’s poor students will manage excellent students, and not because of connections, but because they really know better what to do.
14. You can't buy everything for yourself.
As a child, it seems that if you had your parents’ money in your pocket, you would buy yourself a stuffed puppy, a model of a tank, fashionable jeans, the latest model of a computer, and basically everything you want. But, firstly, as you get older you will realize that you simply don’t have enough for everything. Secondly, you no longer need a stuffed puppy and a tank model.
15. You can eat sweets for breakfast, lunch and dinner, but you won’t
Sweets are an inexpensive pleasure. They are more affordable than vegetables or quality meat. But you will often eat chicken with buckwheat instead of chocolate, because now you know everything about calories and...
16. You can throw away the ice cream because it doesn't taste good.
Even your favorite delicacies will be divided into tasty and tasteless for you. For complete happiness, just ice cream is no longer enough for you, you need the same thing.
17. Love doesn’t have to be one and last a lifetime.
Parting with your first love will be very difficult for you. Most likely, you will even decide that you will never experience such strong feelings again. However, you will fall in love again and feel very happy.
18. Birthday is not such a fun holiday.
Even if you do not experience any complexes about the inevitable growing up and openly state your age, there will be dozens of people around who can overshadow any holiday. They will say what it was time to do at your age, and what is now forbidden, joke about old age wrinkles and gray hair, hint at a quick walk towards the cemetery. And when you say that you will figure out for yourself whether to wear a miniskirt after 25 and whether to ride a bicycle after 40, you will be considered a boor. Therefore, the birthday will become, first of all, a holiday of unpleasant communications.
19. You can stay without a family for a long time and not suffer from it
As a child, it seems that 25 years is a very old age and by this time you need to start a family and have children. At the same time, at almost any age you can find that.
20. Parents’ bad predictions will not come true.
Your life will turn out at least normally: the apartment will not become overgrown with dirt, you will find a normal job and will be able to be responsible.
What things from adult life came as a surprise to you? Share in the comments.
As a rule, all children really want to become adults. It seems that then life will be easy and carefree. But this is not entirely true, or rather, not at all true. As you move through the stages of your life, you will certainly learn that there are some hard truths in life that people tend not to acknowledge until they are confronted with them. Consider this article to have warned you about ten things you'll have to deal with as you become a full-fledged adult.
1. An adult is not invulnerable.
One can have great memories of skateboarding and kickboxing one enjoyed in their youth and enjoy showing off the scars that were "collected along the way", but the older one gets, the less one's body will be able to recover from the exploits of one's youth, and the more regrets having done some of them.
2. Patience is a virtue
We live in a world that breeds short attention spans and greatly limits a person's ability to be patient. But the longer you wait for the good things in life, the better they will be. Rushing to the finish line or taking a big step right away is a sure way to miss out on a lot of valuable lessons and cheapen what you've accomplished along the way. Slow down.
3. You are responsible for yourself.
The shocking reality that people face as they grow older is that all the little things that you took for granted as a child require actual effort on your part. When a light bulb burns out, the magic won't happen and a new one won't be waiting for you in the kitchen drawer. You should actually go out and buy light bulbs. The same applies to food, medicine, soap and much, much more.
4. Your metabolism slows down
As you age, your body will become less efficient at converting food into energy and will store more fat. You can't eat McDonald's forever. Learn to cook healthy food. Run regularly. Your body will thank you.
5. You will lose touch with people.
The fact that you are now friends with your classmates, classmates or roommates does not mean that you will actually always communicate. You will lose touch with at least a few of these people. Your real, best friends will be nearby, but a surprising number of people will fade into the shadows.
6. You will work with people you hate.
Another great place to apply all the patience we talked about earlier is the workplace. No matter what you do, no matter where you go, people you don't like will find you. They will have a terrible sense of humor or no sense of humor at all. They will be angry and vindictive. Do your best not to let them ruin your opinion of everyone else.
7. Your interests will change
You will become one of those people who until recently were mercilessly ridiculed while studying at a university. This is one of the most subtle and surprising things about growing up, but over time you will enjoy watching TV shows about construction (or cooking shows) and comment with genuine interest on the material from which the countertop is made. But don't worry about this. It's better to just get into it. It's more fun than it sounds.
8. The world won't slow down for you.
Another hard truth about the world is that it moves fast. The march of progress demands that we move forward. And if you can't shake off bad habits, you may simply fall behind the flow.
9. You will have less free time
One of the greatest injustices of the world we live in is that as teenagers we have unlimited time for adventures but no money to fund them, and as adults we have money to do things what we want, but there is no time for it. And yet, life is not built on the race for material wealth, but on relationships and experiences, although the world will try to make you forget about it.
10. Everything will be monotonous
One of the easiest traps to make adult life turn into a routine. Obviously, it's important and even nice to know what's around the next corner, but don't let your life get too boring. You will have to make a conscious effort to look for something new and spice it up. Inertia is hard to overcome, but it's worth it.
Employers and university teachers are increasingly complaining about the lack of independence of modern youth. Today, even 25-year-old boys and girls are not ready to be adults: to take responsibility, cope with problems without outside help, and look for non-standard solutions. They wait for ready-made instructions, take failures too hard, and at the same time consider themselves superstars. Hard work is not for them: representatives of the new generation want to get everything at once. Many are completely dependent on their parents and are in no hurry to start their own family.
Why is this happening? Julie Lythcott-Haims, dean of first-year students at Stanford University and author of Let Them Go, believes the fact is that we ourselves do not give our children freedom. If parents completely control the child's life and try to protect him from all troubles, he will not learn to be independent. Therefore, do not expect that an infantile teenager will miraculously mature as soon as he turns eighteen.
Never before in history have parents looked after their children as much as they do now. We try to do everything to make them successful and self-confident, but the results are the opposite.
When you praise your child for the most insignificant achievements, allow him everything, constantly tell him that he is smart, and in any situation you are ready to instantly rush to help, be it a conflict with peers or a difficult homework - this is one extreme. Of course, this way he will not learn to be independent and will not understand how important it is to make efforts to achieve something.
The second approach is also related to overprotection, but manifests itself differently. Parents, on the contrary, create too many rules, put pressure on the child with authority and plan his every move. They decide what and when he will do, what university he will go to, what faculty he will enroll in. It is unlikely that all this will make a person happy and responsible.
If in both cases children grow up unadapted to adult life, then what should we do? Julie Lythcott-Haims advises looking for a middle ground. There are four parenting styles: dismissive, permissive, authoritarian and authoritative. Neglect is the worst option (parents do not care about the child at all). Permissive and authoritarian, as we just found out, do not lead to anything good. But let's talk about authoritative in more detail.
An authoritative parenting style requires parents to be attentive to their child's feelings and allow them to act independently. At the same time, they set strict but fair rules. Adults who use this method never say, “Because I said so.” Instead, they explain why they made a particular decision and can compromise if necessary.
All this allows the child to develop the ability to self-control, which is so necessary in adulthood. It is this skill, according to modern researchers, that determines whether a person will become successful. In the book “Coming of Age,” psychology professor Lawrence Steinberg explains how to help a teenager learn to manage himself. Here are three basic rules:
1. Show your love. Do not hesitate to tell your child about your feelings for him, do not skimp on affection, help him believe in himself. Take an active part in his life, ask about what is happening to him. Be an understanding communicator who is ready to listen and support. But don’t give your teenager ready-made solutions; he still has to find them on his own.
Try asking leading questions: “How would you deal with the problem? Okay, what else can you do?”
2. Set rules. There is no way to do without them, because otherwise the child will not understand what behavior is considered acceptable. Set your expectations very clearly. Don't say, "You have to clean your room." Instead, say, “Dust, mop the floor, fold your textbooks neatly, and put your dirty clothes in the laundry.” All your expectations should be logical and fair. Don't be afraid to discuss them with your teenager and listen to his opinion. Sometimes it really is worth making a compromise. If your child breaks a rule, you can punish him, but not too harshly. Under no circumstances should you use physical force, show excessive anger, shout or humiliate.
3. Gradually release control. As they grow older, allow your child to act more autonomously and give him more freedom. Let him learn to control himself without your help. Praise for effort, not for results or personal qualities. And in case of failure, focus on what the teenager did well and discuss what could be done differently next time.
These three principles only work in combination with each other. Permissiveness will not help a child develop the skill of self-regulation, nor will total control on the part of parents. Without love and understanding, you will not succeed either.
Some more helpful thoughts from the book Let Them Go:
It is necessary that the child master some life skills before adulthood, otherwise it will be difficult for him to get used to independence. A teenager should be able to do housework, cook dinner, communicate with strangers, resolve conflicts, navigate the city, fill out forms, and so on.
This scheme works perfectly: first you do it for him, then together with him, then watch how he copes on his own, and finally stop controlling.
Games are an important element of a child's development. This is how he explores the world and learns to think outside the box. It is wrong to schedule a teenager’s day minute by minute, burden him with various sections, additional educational courses and deprive him of free time that he can devote to playing with other children.
Without critical thinking, it is difficult to succeed at anything and completely impossible to create something new. If you want your child to grow up, teach him to think, and not to unquestioningly follow other people's instructions. For example, you can ask him to find five ways to solve a problem. Ask questions about the world around you, discuss literary works and films, analyze different points of view.
A psychologically mature person is not afraid to make mistakes. Don't try to protect your child from any trouble. Do not instill in him the idea that he is the most intelligent and talented from birth. People with this attitude experience an intense fear of not meeting expectations. And if they fail, they become disappointed and despondent, instead of drawing conclusions and looking for a way out.
Allow your teenager to make mistakes and cope with problems on their own, and praise them for their efforts. Then he will be able to take difficulties calmly.
In order for a teenager to become independent and happy, do not force a university and a specialty on him. Let him choose what interests him, even if you don't agree with this decision. If a child has not yet decided, the book “You Can Do More Than You Think” will help him find himself, discover his strengths and narrow the circle of suitable professions. Well, for those who dream of starting their own business, it wouldn’t hurt to read the bestseller “Why didn’t anyone tell me this at 20?” . Its author, Doctor of Science Tina Seelig, teaches to look for new ideas, experiment, solve problems and perceive life as a challenge.
Another important skill, without which it will be difficult for an adult to survive in the modern world, is the ability to properly manage one’s time. As much as you might like it, don't give your teen a ready-made schedule. This is, of course, easier. But it is much more useful to teach your child to make to-do lists, set priorities, and deal with distractions. An excellent assistant will be the educational notebook “Planning”, which contains useful exercises on time management. You can start with this:
“During the day you have to do a lot of things that can be done in less than four minutes. Think a little and write down all these mini-to-dos. Or time how long it takes you to do certain things. When we come into contact with things we don’t like, we often overestimate their scale and therefore put them off until later. Complete each of the four-minute tasks as soon as they arise. The matter will be completed quickly, and you will have another reason to be proud.”
It is equally important that the child be able to defend his position and communicate with other people on equal terms. These are precisely the qualities that many millennials lack.
Today, no one is surprised that parents learn about the rules of admission to a university, stand in line with applicants, and fill out documents. Then they bother you with calls to the dean, and a few years later they go to interviews with graduates. Are teenagers really unable to cope with such simple tasks? Why do they seek protection and support from adults? The fact is that modern children are simply not used to acting independently. Give them more freedom (not at 18, but much earlier) - and they will gain inner strength. The “Self-Confidence” notebook with interesting and unusual exercises will help you work on resilience and self-esteem. Let's share one of them:
“Ask a stranger which restaurant to choose. This exercise will help you approach strangers with confidence. Take a pen and paper, choose three people you like, for example on the street or at a train station, and ask them to recommend a restaurant to you. Find out the name of the restaurant, address and price level. Ask your interlocutor's favorite dishes. Write it all down and thank the person.”
You may think that your child faces too many pitfalls and disappointments in the real world, so watch his every move. But there is nothing to be afraid of. Just a few decades ago, it would never have occurred to parents to fuss so much around their children. In fact, it is much more dangerous to not prepare a teenager for adulthood at all. If you want to raise a self-sufficient, confident, happy and responsible person, you will have to overcome your fears.
5 mental traumas from childhood that hinder us in adulthood are betrayal, humiliation, mistrust, and injustice. He describes them in his book “5 Mental Traumas” , who prevent you from being yourself" Liz Burbo.
Traumas are the consequences of painful childhood experiences that shape our personality as adults, influence who we are, and determine our ability to overcome adversity.
We must admit to ourselves that we have mental traumas and stop masking them. The longer we wait for recovery, the deeper they become. The fear of reliving the suffering that happened to us prevents us from moving forward.
Unfortunately, quite often our emotional and mental health is destroyed in childhood. As adults, we are not aware of what is blocking us. We do not understand that the presence of mental traumas that we received when we first met the world prevents us from moving forward.
1. Fear of abandonment
Helplessness is the worst enemy of a person who has been abandoned. Imagine how painful it is for a defenseless child to experience the fear of loneliness, to be left alone in a world unfamiliar to him.
Subsequently, when the helpless child becomes an adult, he tries to prevent a situation in which he will again be left alone. So any person who is abandonedin childhood, will increasingly move away from their partners. This is due to the fear of experiencing mental pain again.
Often these people think and say something like this: “I will leave you before you leave me,” “No one supports me, I can’t stand it,” “If you leave, you may never come back.”
Such people need to work on their fear of loneliness. This is the fear of abandonment and fear of physical contact (hugs, kisses, sexual relations). You will help yourself if you drown out the fear of loneliness.
2. Fear of rejection
This trauma prevents us from opening up to our feelings, thoughts and experiences. The appearance of such fear in childhood is associated with rejection received from parents, family or friends. Pain as a result leads to incorrect self-esteem and excessive narcissism.
This fear triggers thoughts of being rejected, being an unwanted family member/friend, and therefore being a bad person.
A rejected child does not feel worthy of love and understanding. He isolates himself so as not to face suffering again.
Most likely, an adult who was rejected as a child will become a runaway. That is why he needs to work on his inner fears, which provoke panic.
If this is your case, try to learn how to make informed decisions on your own. This way you will stop worrying about people moving away from you. You will stop taking the fact that someone forgot about you for a while personally. In order to live, you only need yourself.
3. Humiliation is one of the mental traumas that comes from childhood.
This wound occurs when we feel that other people do not accept us and criticize us. You can seriously hurt a child by telling him that he is stupid, bad, or incompetent, and by comparing him to others. Unfortunately, this happens very often. It destroys the nursery and prevents children from learning to love themselves.
This personality type often develops into a dependent personality. Some people who experienced humiliation in childhood become tyrants and selfish people. They begin to humiliate others - this is their defense mechanism.
If something like this has happened to you, you need to work on your freedom and independence.
4. Fear of trusting another person after betrayal
This fear develops after people close to the child do not keep their promises. As a result, he feels betrayed and deceived. It develops mistrust, which can transform into envy or other negative feelings.. For example, a child feels unworthy of promised things or things that others have.
Such children grow up to be perfectionists and lovers of controlling everything. These people like to double-check everything, leaving nothing to chance.
If you faced similar problems as a child, it is very likely that you feel the need to control other people. This is often justified by having a strong character. However, this is just a defense mechanism against another possible deception.
These people often repeat their mistakes, confirming other people's prejudices. They need to develop patience, tolerance towards other people, the ability to live calmly and distribute authority.
5. Injustice
A sense of injustice often develops in children of cold and authoritarian parents. This creates a feeling of powerlessness and worthlessness both in childhood and in adulthood.
Albert Einstein expressed this idea perfectly in his famous statement: “ We are all geniuses. But if we judge a fish by its ability to climb trees, it will spend its entire life thinking it is stupid.”
As a result, children who have suffered from indifference and coldness grow up to become tough people. They do not tolerate half measures in any area of their life. They also feel very important and powerful.
These perfectionists are fanatical about order. Often such people take their ideas to the point of absurdity., so it’s difficult for them to make informed decisions.
To solve these problems, you need to get rid of suspicion and emotional cruelty. to learn to trust others.
Now you know all five of the most common mental traumas that can negatively affect your life, health and block your development. Having learned about them, it is much easier to begin to recover mentally.
First required step: admit to yourself that you have one of these mental traumas, allow yourself to be angry with yourself, and give yourself time to overcome it.
Photo: Audrius Merfeldas/Rusmediabank.ru
The other day, my friend had an argument with her ex-lover, they seemed to have broken up, but they seem to communicate and seem to be “friends.” The conversation turned to the topic of “adult life”, and I was once again surprised and convinced how different people look at the same things differently. For example, a topic like: “Girl (no longer a girl, almost a grandmother), it’s time for you to grow up and understand that adults do this and that.” Since the author of this article does not consider himself an arbitrator and cannot give an unambiguous answer to this topic, that is why I would like to consider all the options and, if possible, not be too emotionally immersed in “adult life.” Through the eyes of a friend and the eyes of a man.1. Cheating in marriage.
Through the eyes of a friend: unacceptable, because cheating completely destroys the main thing in marriage, namely, trust. They say that one betrayal can be forgiven, and even then not all people are capable of this, but when the “beautiful half” is cheated on every three years for three years and she knows about it, this community can hardly be called a marriage.
From the author: In fairness, I want to note that my friend, with her correct (or incorrect?) attitude towards marriage, sits alone like an owl. One of her marriages fell apart precisely because her husband cheated (her friend did not forgive). And all subsequent relationships were unsuccessful, since men “preferred polygamy,” and she, you see, does not want to be checked at the veterinary dispensary every quarter.
Through the eyes of a man: Marriage is a joint household, a common life, a joint vacation, joint children and joint grandchildren. This is when one big one gets together and they have a great time together. Cheating in marriage only strengthens the marriage, because a smart wife should understand: temporary “love” and a legitimate soul mate are completely different things. A woman who agrees to the role of a mistress should know her place, and a smart wife should not ask questions to which she is not ready to hear the answers. A man is sure that he cannot divorce his wife, even if he has fallen in love with another, because family is sacred, and there can be many “loves”, like half-cut dogs, throughout life.
From the author: In fairness, I want to note that the man has a close-knit, strong family, a lot of “tasty” family photos on social networks and complete loneliness in his soul (in his own words).
2. The main thing is that the suit fits.
Through the eyes of a friend: The main thing in a person is his inner world and his actions. If you said “you are my air,” then be so kind as to suffocate if this woman is not around. Or don’t talk, no one pulls your tongue. If you said that you love a woman more than life itself, then love her, and don’t leave her in trouble, coming up with petty and funny excuses. By the way, my friend also had a question: does a man love this woman if, having learned about her pregnancy, he technically merges? Through the eyes of a man: the main thing is that the suit fits, so that everything looks beautiful and natural and, in principle, it doesn’t matter what the man says, because he can change clothes at any time. An adult is a person who knows how to change his mind. Did you say that I love you? Yes, I did. But it will be more beautiful for a woman to solve all her own problems, as well as common ones (like pregnancy), while everything should look beautiful and not strain the man. And there is no need to hold a man to his words.
3. My hut is on the edge.
Through the eyes of a friend: a person should always remain a person, even when there are only “low-level managers” around. This applies to both work and personal relationships. You cannot abandon a person in trouble, especially a loved one. My friend hates cowards and tries to tell the truth.Through the eyes of a man: an adult understands that leaving a “sick-unfortunate-in-trouble person” in time is wise and adult-like. You can’t carry all the “substandard” on yourself, but it’s better to observe from the side “it floats or doesn’t float.” If it floats out, it means you can communicate again, since in life (in adult life) there is a law that says that the strongest wins. A coward is one who did not want to break the silence if it would bring him trouble, which means he is not a coward, but a sage.
From the author: the man has achieved in life what ordinary people consider the attributes of success. Apartments, cars, Italian (emphasis on the cost of the faucet, voiced by a man in conversation) plumbing and, as it were, a career in an unloved but profitable business.
4. Love is a carrot.
Through the eyes of a friend: love is a gift that is given very rarely in life, and even then not to everyone. For the sake of love, it is necessary to take action, to be close to your loved one in sickness and in health and to share his fate. Love is the highest value, and we all, one way or another, live in the name and for the sake of love.
Through the eyes of a man: love is like a holiday, and there can’t be a holiday all the time. We've celebrated for an hour, and we can go home. And people live without love, because love is a passion that lasts three years, and then everything is like everyone else. For the sake of love, you don’t need to do anything at all, you can just scratch with your tongue and... Why strain for something that doesn’t exist in principle?
From the author: And women really love him. Of course, not everyone, but those who love him are enough for him. He is surrounded by attention, clean socks and borscht.
From the author of the article: After reading all the pros and cons, I thought that somehow a man manages to think that “adult life” and “meanness” are synonymous. Did your friend really not grow up, but remain a reflective teenager?
