What are modern children like? Children of today are less patient, more spoiled and lonely than previous generations.

Modern child - what is he?

Modern preschoolers -it's something extraordinary.

We often say: today's children are not what they used to be. But how often do we think: do we ourselves remain the same? We, like our children, are changing - together with the world around us, together with the latest technologies along with the hectic pace of modern life.

What are they - modern children?

Modern children:

It's just that modern children have a modern childhood!

Parents are having a hard time right now. We all want to have good earnings to create excellent conditions for the child. We are very busy, often late at work, and the child is not enough parental attention. Try to spend more time together.

Modern children are neither difficult nor easy. They are ordinary children who, like a hundred years ago, still need the warmth of their mother's hugs and reliability. daddy's hands. Every day, when we come home from work, we can give the child toys, but in years to come, he will fondly remember not a series of dolls and cars, but the evening when the whole family decorated the Christmas tree, went skiing or went fishing.

Each child is a unique, unique world - it is a person who has his own point of view, his unique abilities and the task of adults is to find the time and desire to learn to understand this world, help him grow up, preserving and protecting this uniqueness.

On the topic: methodological developments, presentations and notes

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The rag doll and its role in the life of a modern child.

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What is he - a modern child

The world is changing - children are changing too. New means of raising children: cooperation, motivation, control. Modern children need help, but for growth, difficulties are no less necessary, problems from which ...

If you think about tomorrow- this grain, if for 10 years ahead - plant a forest, if for 100 years - raise children. (Folk wisdom)
Parents and teachers experience significant difficulties in the upbringing and education of modern children: diagnostic techniques, which were previously successfully used by them, today do not reflect the current level of development of the child. If earlier a 5-year-old child assembled a picture from 5-6 parts, and this was regarded as normal development, then today children at 2-2.5 years old easily assemble puzzles from 12 parts. Should this be regarded as giftedness or as normal development?
Grandparents often turn to teachers for help, who “do not understand: how to raise their grandchildren”, since the methods that they used to raise their children “do not work anymore”.
According to teachers, children "have changed a lot for last years”: “they have low concentration of attention”, “they cannot concentrate for a long time”, “they do not hear the instructions of the teacher or pretend not to hear”, “very mobile”, “they are difficult to organize”, “think differently”, etc. The problem of hyperactivity and the causes of its occurrence is especially sharply discussed.
Parents and educators note that today's children "show increased motor activity and hyperactivity", as a result of which "they have reduced attention", "children do not want to follow the instructions of adults" and "protest, up to aggression, if they are forced to do something".
Most parents blame the educational system for all the difficulties that arise, but those who are involved in the educational field blame their parents. Psychologists believe that neither one nor the other can be blamed, since the whole thing is to blame for what happened. modern world, our entire high-tech accelerated civilization.
We note only some features of the modern world, which, of course, have an impact on the upbringing and development of our children:
changes in the ecological environment.
changes in the information and technological space (information and computer technologies). Nowadays, the filter that previously separated children from the outside world, and really allowed them to be a little bit of a child, is becoming thinner thanks to television and the Internet.
socio-cultural and economic conditions and their impact on modern family and educational space. Interestingly, the higher the cultural level of the family, the greater the stress received by children, since the children themselves perceive the stress received by their parents every day.
The modern world is constantly changing. The rate at which our lives are undergoing transformation is much faster than it was twenty or thirty years ago. Our children grow and develop in the post-industrial information society. From birth, they are faced with modern high-tech achievements. All technical innovations become the life of the younger generation. How does technological progress affect the psyche of a child? What is the modern child? Today, scientists are seriously puzzled by this question.
Since the time of the classics, reflections on the conflict between fathers and children have been known. Discussions on this topic continue, and, in all likelihood, will never stop. Babies were ignored in these disputes, as it was generally accepted that they were innocents. angelic creatures who need to be groomed and cherished. But relatively recently, adults began to notice that these kids are not at all the same as they were before.
Before for all the kids before school age good heroes were Ilya Muromets, Ivan Tsarevich, villains - Koschey the Immortal and Baba Yaga. For many modern children, the good ones are Spider-Man, Batman, Captain America, and the villains are Galactus, Outlander and other monsters, and for many adults, everything modern heroes, both good and evil, just some monstrous freak monsters. And this, of course, is not all the differences between the children of past years and modern preschoolers. Such children are incomprehensible to many adults and cause anxiety. Scientists are trying to help adults (and not only scientists, sometimes just people who think that they understand the issues of education), write various programs and works on the upbringing and development of modern children. But the behavior of adults who seek innovations in education does not always bring joy to children. Looking around, we less and less notice the joyful angelic looks of the younger generation. Maybe they need help?
Many modern children are able to do things that their peers could not do even 10-20 years ago. But not because mental development has become different or the children themselves have changed: but due to the fact that the requirements of adults to what should be perfect child. If earlier a sympathetic, kind and honest little man was considered such, now an intelligent and independent Person is considered such. Therefore, today's children begin to lag behind the development social emotions- empathy and sympathy, aesthetic experiences and feelings, but intellectual emotions are very developed - surprise, joy from knowing the world and self-knowledge, etc. Self-conceit is growing.
It's in emotionally, but in volitional - what? Weakness, and brought up by their own parents. Basically, they show their will where something needs to be achieved from adults, but not where it is required to submit their behavioral motives to the public “should” or “should not”. In addition, despite the sense of self-reliance and independence brought up in them (by the way, it often concerns only the expression of their desires and opinions, and not practical orientation in the world around them and the corresponding competence), they often have an inferiority complex (paradoxically: and this elevated level conceit) and are afraid ... that they are not loved.
Most common problem V Lately- disharmonious development. This is a lag in the development of the emotional-volitional sphere (children are infantile, dependent, motivation is reduced) against the background of intelligence developed by age.
The inability of children to play attracts attention. Modern children would like to learn how to play themselves, but they cannot: today, the children's subculture has actually been destroyed, which would pass on gaming experience to younger and older preschoolers from one generation to another. mixed age groups almost none in kindergarten. In the yard, they do not add up (and parents are afraid of this like fire, preferring to take the child with all kinds of sections and circles). In a family, most often there is one child with whom adults have no time to play, or they prefer to engage in more important activities for his development - reading, writing and counting (you can still draw and make crafts together, but this is already the "ceiling" of the creative activity of parents). Meanwhile play activity- the leading activity of a preschool child, which determines the specifics of the social situation of the child's development: the development of the social position "I and society".
Experts note that in many modern children, emotions are manifested in a negative aspect - babies show aggression towards the world around them. About psychological help with such children in recent years has really become more. Modern children are more prone to stress. This is also affected by frequent birth trauma, and life in big city, and troubles in the family where the child lives.
A child does not come into the world as a blank book. Baby already given character. How many children - so many characters. We do not send children into the world. We can only spoil or save them. The main thing, according to psychologists, is not to strive to return what cannot be returned, but simply to convince children that they can do a lot, and as a result, self-confidence should return to them, which will undoubtedly help to live.

If you think about tomorrow - this grain,

if 10 years ahead - plant a forest,
if for 100 years - raise children.
(Folk wisdom)

Today, the process of changing educational standards is actively underway, the ways and means of teaching children are changing. Principle one - modern children - modern education. And modern children - what are they? More and more often you can hear that they are somehow different. Let's see what's wrong with them, shall we?

According to the teachers, the children “have changed a lot in recent years”: “they have a low concentration of attention”, “they cannot concentrate for a long time”, “they do not hear the teacher’s instructions or pretend not to hear”, “very mobile”, “it is difficult for them to organize”, “think differently”, etc. The problem of hyperactivity and the causes of its occurrence is especially sharply discussed.

Parents and teachers note that today's children "show increased physical activity and hyperactivity", as a result of which "they have reduced attention", "children do not want to follow the instructions of adults" and "protest, up to aggression, if they are forced to do something ".

Most parents blame the educational system for all the difficulties that arise, but those who are involved in the educational field blame their parents. believe that neither one nor the other can be blamed, since the entire modern world, our entire high-tech accelerated civilization is to blame for what happened.

We note only some features of the modern world, which, of course, have an impact on the upbringing and development of our children:

• changes in the ecological environment.
• changes in the information and technological space.
• socio-cultural and economic conditions and their impact on the modern family and educational space.

The modern world is constantly changing. The rate at which our lives are undergoing transformation is much faster than it was twenty or thirty years ago. From birth, children are exposed to modern high-tech achievements. How does technological progress affect the psyche of a child? What is the modern child? Today, scientists are seriously puzzled by this question.

. Here are some features of modern children:

1. They are less independent. They do not know how to make decisions, make choices and conclusions without the help of adults, they believe that there is no need for this.

2. Now in the development of children, the emphasis is on the development of memory, and not on verbal-logical and abstract thinking. This is partly due to the preparation for passing the tests. They do not calculate well in their minds, because there are many other devices that will do it for them. Modern child they don’t even know their neighborhood well, and this affects the development of spatial thinking, which they develop at the computer, so they are poorly oriented.

3. Children are highly educated in the field of information communications. They know more than their parents, and there is a huge difference between them. They easily and quickly perceive information, they have a faster reaction, better developed attentiveness. But write school essay- a problem, because you need to collect information, systematize and come up with a plot. Informationally, they mature earlier, and socially - much later. Many graduates are completely dependent.

4. They communicate little “live”, they talk, it is difficult to make contact. If the child is stuck on the computer, then he has big problems with communication, but this does not mean that he will not learn to communicate. He will do this, but a little later or when it is vital.

5. The ability to resolve conflicts is very poorly formed. After all, in the yard he had a fight with a friend, and he had to go and put up. On the Internet, you do not need to do this, you can simply not answer, go to another site. And in the end, you don’t know how to put up, or compromise, or cooperate, or talk, or explain yourself.

. 6. They are shy. The computer does not teach to overcome this complex, only personal communication.

7. They have problems with emotionality, it is not enough. Many do not understand what is bad, painful, very scary. What we experienced at 6-9 years old, modern children experience at 10-12 and more traumatically.

Previously, for all children of primary school age, Ilya Muromets, Ivan Tsarevich were good heroes, villains - Koschey the Immortal and Baba Yaga. For many modern children, the good ones are Spider-Man, Batman, Captain America, and the villains are Galactus, Outlander and other monsters, and for many adults, all modern heroes, both good and evil, are just some kind of monstrous freak monsters.

8. These kids are less romantic and more pragmatic. Their world is filled with material values.

9. They rarely make independent decisions; their parents decide everything for them.

10. These kids are more talented. They have more opportunities to develop their abilities, starting from schools early development. They can find any information at any time. The modern world is a world of individuals, and these children have everything for its development that children of past generations could only dream of.

And this, of course, is not all the differences between the children of past years and modern schoolchildren. Such children are incomprehensible to many adults and cause anxiety. Scientists are trying to help adults, write various programs and works on the upbringing and development of modern children. But the behavior of adults who seek innovations in education does not always bring joy to children. Looking around, we less and less notice the joyful angelic looks of the younger generation. Maybe they need help?

Many modern children are able to do things that their peers could not do even 10-20 years ago. But not because the mental development has become different or the children themselves have changed: but because the requirements of adults to what the ideal child should be have been transformed. If earlier a sympathetic, kind and honest little man was considered such, now an intelligent and independent Person is considered such. Therefore, in modern children, the development of social emotions begins to lag behind, but intellectual emotions are very developed - surprise, joy from knowing the world and self-knowledge, etc. Self-conceit is growing.

This is emotionally, but in the strong-willed - what? Weakness, and brought up by their own parents. Basically, they show their will where something needs to be achieved from adults, but not where it is required to submit their behavioral motives to the public “should” or “should not”. Attention is drawn to the inability of children to play. Modern children would like to learn how to play themselves, but they cannot: today, the children's subculture has actually been destroyed, which would pass on gaming experience to younger and older preschoolers from one generation to another. In a family, most often there is one child with whom adults have no time to play, or they prefer to engage in more important activities for his development - reading, writing and counting (you can still draw and make crafts together, but this is already the "ceiling" of the creative activity of parents).

The main problem of the modern child is that the cultural environment in which he develops, the exploitation of the huge potential of his memory occurs to the detriment of the vital at this age personal development based on love warmth and attention to his personality.

That is why the main task of educating younger schoolchildren today is the preservation (or revival) of the conditions in which the child plays with peers, cooperates with other children in solving various cognitive problems, shows cognitive initiative, satisfies his own curiosity, develops his own imagination and creative abilities.

All this can be ensured by implementing in everyday practice a system-activity approach to learning, which is a tool for the implementation of the Federal State Educational Standard.

MKDOU "Child Development Center - Kindergarten No. 3"

Novousmansky municipal district

Voronezh region

What are they, modern children?

(from work experience)

Educational psychologist

Lukina L. I.

2016

What are they, modern children?

Today's children differ from previous generations more than ever: nothing like this has ever happened in the entire stretch of history known to us. I read this sentence in methodological guide and completely agree with him. For 30 years of work in preschool decided to analyze the issues of previous years. Discussed this with colleagues. Indeed, it has become more difficult to communicate with children, requirements and requests need to be thought through and discussed.

Feelings of guilt are absent, and they do not admit that they are guilty, only they are right in everything. They almost do not react to coercion, notations, prohibitions, on the contrary, they make their own demands.

They completely forgot about corporal punishment, and if you ask a child if they are present at home, then the children declare with a smile that this cannot be.

There are few measures to which they respond. And this is a completely different punishment, like deprivation mobile phone and games on tablet and computer. As well as the acquisition of new toys and far from cheap.

They respond, in kindergarten, to respect - respect for them as reasonable individuals, as partners in educational process. I really like it when they are invited to evaluate themselves. In the younger and middle groups, it is only they who are good and do everything right. But in the older preschool age already admit their mistakes, but only after the assertion that no one will scold them for being wrong, and you yourself will evaluate and decide how to act. And in this moment you can't say the right thing. This needs to be done in another activity. With the help of conversations or playing etudes in psycho-gymnastics.

They are able to accept good decisions they just need help.

They expect respect and love from us. Children are very sensitive to intuitive level when a loving teacher is with them and when he is only fulfilling his official duties.

In addition, they like to be treated like adults. Honesty, trust, frankness and sincerity are brought up by the most simple methods on behavior change - but only if adults want to do it together with children. serious attitude to a child may be unusual for many. Since the old stereotypes "as I said it will be" - this should remain in the past.

Children need to be understood. The best way get to know children - communicate with them! Verbal communication will not replace anything. Talk and explain more, answer questions and ask. This is what is lacking in communication between children and parents.Parental attention deficit is the most serious problem modern upbringing.

Adults should pay more attention to them, take the time to understand them, respect their rights, allow them to learn from their mistakes rather than from a system of punishment and rewards, use even children's mistakes as an opportunity to instill confidence in them. in itself. Such educational moments can only be with confidential conversations. And becoming a child's friend is not so easy.

Only being attentive to feelings, experiences, to children's inner world children, adults can expect that they too will become attentive and responsive to their problems and the problems of other people. a huge role play here personal examples from the life of adults and discussing them with children - this is education by example. They listen with great interest to the stories that I had and ask a lot of questions.

A good idea is that we should not educate children, but cooperate with them. The results of such cooperation will exceed all expectations. If parents really have something to say to their children, it should be done easily, without tension and with joy. Then they will learn it faster.

child in modern society Every day he encounters a huge flow of information, some of which he absorbs with pleasure. But such excessive loads, including in kindergarten, affect the physical and mental health modern children.They just live in such a time. This must be taken into account by adults and be as attentive as possible to what information should be given to children, and what will be superfluous.Be attentive to any ideas your child has.. The first thing a child needs is parental education.

- Marina Rostislavovna, is it true that today's children are different, or is this a typical age-related grumbling?

- Every generation of adults in all ages said, they say, where the world is heading, what is happening with children, they have changed, they are different. But the paradox of our current situation is that today's children are really different. We live in an era of changing formats of culture and thinking. Last time a similar thing happened in the 16th century, when the Renaissance began and mass printing appeared. Then, against the backdrop of the development of science, the emergence of analytical, bookish consciousness, we emerged as a new type of people. With the advent of the mass book, people began to speak and think in print, and this greatly changed the world and man. And we are people of the 16th century.

And now there is another way of packaging information: digital. Consciousness is changing after the emergence of information culture and becomes a clip.

In itself, this word is neither bad nor good, it is ascertaining. They bring a negative meaning into it, and clip consciousness is just another type of information packaging in the head.

In our heads of people with higher education of the 20th century, information is packed into logical chains. The more educated a person is, the longer and more complex these chains are. In addition, having built some kind of sequence, we then develop an attitude towards it - whether it is a value or not a value. We also have a separate figurative perception: someone has an image, someone does not.

Clip thinking means that a person has such integral objects in his head, in which an image, thought and value are combined. A very brief conceptual reference is stored in the mind of such a person, what this object or phenomenon is - it is both a fixed visual image and emotions and attitudes built into it.

- That is, we had everything packed in our heads separately, and modern man- all together, we had long chains, and they had completely packed objects?

– Yes, our thought was a chain, because it was long. We could read War and Peace and keep it in our heads. Now they cannot read this novel, but not because they are weak. This is not their way of knowing. They need short, concise, containing full information texts. And that's what we don't understand. We create textbooks that do not match their perception of the world, so they reject them.

- That is, "War and Peace" should just be thrown out and forgotten, or should it be compressed, made more meaningful and packed into separate short blocks?

– If we want to convey these emotions and knowledge to them, “War and Peace” must be compressed for them. By the way, I am sure that in the future many of them will re-read this book, as there are people who re-read the novel at a conscious age now.

Will their consciousness change with age?

“They will already be able to do it. Now they are still young, they are learning. They need to mature, for this they need to create some kind of large conglomerates for them to fit "War and Peace", so that they can first perceive this book as a whole, so that they can pull out some image and meaning from there already now, which of them will remain after school and, perhaps, will force them to return to it later.

Is this clipping a sign of immaturity of perception?

- No, it's just that later they will be able to perceive "War and Peace" as a big clip. In fact, this is also a hypothesis, because we do not know what they will grow up to be, because they are only growing. But I am an optimist, I believe that everything will be fine, and "War and Peace" will be with them, it will just be packaged in some other way.

So far, we really need to pack all this into small formats, divide such works into parts: here is a picture, here is an idea, here are relationships, and try to convey to them in this form. In clipness, value and image are combined, therefore modern children are to a much greater extent integral people. There is hope that in the minds of the best of them morality will merge with logic. But for now, these are my optimistic fantasies.

The negative feature of the clip consciousness is that anything can grow together there - for example, the logical value and content do not fully connect, and if there is no criticality, then they will not even notice it.

Therefore, it is especially important for modern children to develop criticality, which school does not do now either. Criticality can only be grown on a text that contains an error or takes some liberties, there must be something distorted in it so that it can be noticed, and the school is used to giving sterile texts.

And what can be critical in a sterile text? Children glide over them without plunging, without relating them to themselves in any way, according to any school texts- scientific, journalistic.

Why don't we install strict regime use gadgets and computers and not continue to grow them in a way that we can understand? After all, the system in which we are taught has been tested, it works, it gives a certain result: a person with a good memory, with a multifaceted perception of the world.

“Education serves life. It should not even prepare for life (this is also, in my opinion, big mistake- consider that education prepares for life) - it should build a person into life already here and now, correlate with it. We can take away children's phones, put them in beautiful cells and start saying things that have nothing to do with their reality. But their psyche is arranged differently from birth, it will not perceive it. They will wait for the end of this "education" and go to live, and their true education will take place where they go.

Marina Bityanova. Photo: tochkapsy.ru

You them: it is necessary, and they you: why?

– In addition to main feature modern child- clip consciousness, about which you said, what else is characteristic of the thinking of the new generation, what is unusual for us in it?

– They have more synthesis than analysts. It is very important for them to unite everything into a whole, and they perceive information synthetically. This is unusual for us, we are mostly analysts, we need to decompose everything into its component parts. In any school subject, everything is decomposed to the smallest particles, children are told: this consists of this, this consists of something else. And for them it is not quite natural.

If then there is no folding back into the whole, if they are not explained how it is practically applicable, they reject this information, do not perceive it.

By the way, this is another of their global differences from us: their relationship with the concepts of "should" and "why". I can’t say exactly when this changed, but 20 years ago the word “should” and everything behind it had a powerful motivational force. The child could not want something, but he could be forced to do it with the help of this word.

Forty years ago, an adult told me: “Marinochka, it’s necessary,” and I answered: “If it’s necessary, then it’s necessary,” without really thinking about why and why. IN adolescence I could, like any other teenager, say: “You need it, you do it,” but it was a teenage rebellion against the fact that I understood that it was still necessary. And now, more and more often, we are faced with the fact that we say to the child - “it is necessary”, and he looks at us - interested, calm, respectful, he does not have any protest - and asks: “Why?”

For them, “must” has lost its motivating power, and until you explain to them why, their internal volitional mechanism does not start.

Did your parents make some kind of massive oversight?

– No, something has changed in the environment. The world has become very pragmatic, precisely in terms of focus on achieving the goal. Now every action must have some purpose, a result.

– And this does not indicate a fall in the authority of an adult?

- No, the children respect us very much, it's just that every time they sincerely try to understand - why? If you explain why, they will say: oh, of course, and they will do it. It’s not even about the benefit for them personally - it’s important for them to simply understand the purpose of the action. I think that this also comes from digital culture - everything is purposefully and logically built there, and this pragmatism is very typical for modern culture, and not in a primitive sense - the satisfaction of one's needs - but in a broader sense: as a purposefulness.

Now, for children, the norm is not that smart adults tell me how to do it, and I do it - they keep the norm when they understand its meaning. Now even young children need to be explained the purpose of all norms: why do people decide that this is right, worthy, good, why is it accepted this way and not otherwise? But adults are absolutely not ready to talk about it. They either start to get angry and instead of explaining, they give out a forecast of what will happen if you don’t do this, they scare, threaten, or they themselves get very upset and start talking all sorts of nonsense like “you will grow up, you will understand”, “why don’t you respect me at all? "," Why are you endlessly arguing with me? No, they don't argue. And they are quite respectful. And do not try to bring. And they don't harm. They just really want to understand why.

Adulthood is not a reason for respect

- Many adults, especially teachers, complain that today's children look at an adult not from the bottom up, as we looked at, and not even on an equal footing, but from the top down. And teachers in this situation are lost, they do not know how to work with them.

“Children slip out of this pressure only because adults try to put pressure on them. And adults see it as disrespectful. “You don’t obey me, which means you don’t respect me” - this is our direct equal sign with kindergarten. This is absolutely unfair to children. “He does it out of spite” is another wording. It is surprising when they say this about a three-year-old child or explain how harmful, capricious, greedy he is.

- If we are talking about the school, this is “disrespect”, maybe the child’s reaction to the fact that he is not interested here, that there is no format he needs here? Why, then, will he look at this adult with great respect, opening his mouth?

This is another important thing for understanding modern children. The higher the intellect, the less a person unconditionally accepts another from a status point of view - he must have a reason to respect him.

People with high intelligence are prone to equality, by default they consider everyone equal, and in order for them to respect someone, that is, they perceive them as deserving special treatment, respect, and so on, this person must show some special qualities.

If I understand that you are smart, good at something, that you are an expert, I understand why you are respected.

Even children, if they have high intelligence, expect a person to do this. The mere fact that someone is an adult does nothing to move them toward respect. For a modern child, adulthood is not a reason to single out anyone in particular. This is typical for this generation precisely because among them there are more children with high intelligence. If you remember your youth, gifted children have always been strange in this sense. They said about them that they do not keep the norm, that there are no authorities for them, but since there are more and more of them in the environment, this becomes part of it.

There is much more dignity in these children.

- What should be the current life guidelines of modern children? If we used to build a coherent logical chain “good grades - admission to the institute - good job- a successful life", which did not cause us any doubts, now this harmonious system is broken down by the fact that for a child, for example, a good job does not mean a successful life at all, but for him an example of success in life is to live in Goa and study remotely what you like.

Yes, they have completely different meanings. For your child, for example, it may be a desirable goal to change jobs in different areas every year. Here everything has changed a lot, the children realized that we are lying when we talk about the presence of these regular connections “assessment - institute - work - happiness”.

- And now you can’t intimidate them with the fact that “if you don’t do it, you will become a janitor”?

- No, but I think it's just wonderful, because it seems that today you can educate only on the basis of dignity and respect, and not on obedience and coercion. As parents, we have an amazing opportunity! In general, I see in these children much more self-esteem than we have, and it is not grown by us, but some kind of coming from within. I generally like them very much. The only thing that probably upsets me is that they stopped rebelling. I remember how teenagers rebelled in the early 90s, how interesting it was with them. But these are interesting in a different way.

- Why did this happen? Maybe they are not destroyers, but creators?

- They say that this generation - the millennium generation - is less focused on competition and social achievements and more on self-realization, on its understanding. But the problem is that if they are not given a variety of cultural patterns of self-realization, then all this can turn into very primitive things. Actually, education now, it seems to me, should give them abilities, competencies and various examples of how they can realize themselves in this life, because they are very interested in it, very much.

- In my opinion, this is an unbearable task for parents of 30-40 years old: what vector can I set for my child from the 21st century, I, a person of the 16th century? It seems to me that it was much easier and more convenient for our parents: in front of each student there was a carrot - a good university, but today its value has become dubious.

– I don’t mind talking to a child about a good university, but it seems to me that one should not talk about the fact that this is a guarantee of a good job and happy life but about what he gives today. The university does not give a profession at all, but gives brains, the ability to solve problems. And the child understands perfectly well that a good educational result of a university is precisely your brains, which you will either form over the years or not.

To do this, you use, among other things, extracurricular opportunities that the university provides. How to choose supervisor? How to prioritize courses? How to look for a job? How to present yourself? This, by the way, is also the same modern question: why? Why go to university? In particular, to give yourself more time to develop yourself and form those competencies that will be your capital. The ability to think is capital, higher education forms it, but in no way gives a profession.

- All generations of parents have about the same ultimate goal in relation to children - that the child be happy, only a different understanding of this happiness. How can I solve this problem now, what should I broadcast to him?

– The happiness of a child at all times is the feeling that he is loved, a sense of rear, freedom, the absence of fears, the ability to think broadly. In short, happiness is in freedom and in the feeling that you are loved. And here the task of parents is not instrumental at all, their task is to form in a person a sense of dignity, a sense of freedom and security at the same time.

Learn to do ten things at once

- How else are these children different, except for pragmatism, the desire to see expediency in everything and clip thinking?

“They definitely have a different sense of space. I don’t know yet what this threatens us with, but they have an understanding that they have the whole world in their pocket, they have no boundaries, they easily move from reality to virtuality and back, and this, of course, makes them other people. They have a much higher flexibility of thinking than we do, because the world requires multitasking. They can do twenty things at once. This requires very fast switching, keeping yourself in every project, at every reference point. They think very quickly, because of this they are not always productive.

– What to teach these children, how to help them be more productive?

- In conditions of multitasking and rapid change of activities - time management, concentration, ability to concentrate.

- That is, not to say that this is bad, and not to force them to do one task at one time, “first complete the exercise, and then grab the phone”?

- In my opinion, this is no longer theirs, so you just need to teach them so that they can perform these tasks most effectively. Explain that if you are in the middle of doing homework I was distracted by the phone - ok, but what did you do to return to that point in the textbook from which you left? (I am now offering a very primitive example.) Mark this place for yourself, tell yourself some key phrase that you will return to, write something down. They need to be taught how to organize their activities in conditions of multitasking, organization of thinking.

- Yes, but we ourselves do not know how, we are generally transitional.

- We can't. That is why there should be professional educators I don't think parents can do it. That's why I really like that now I'm getting into education - not because of a good life, but because of the crisis - a lot of people from business, business consulting, business trainings have come.

In business, no one will shout that multitasking is bad, in business they will figure out how to make it productive. They come and start teaching time management to the children, and the teacher demands: “No, until he finishes doing the task, let him not think about something else!” For a teacher, this sequence is important, but for a person from business it has not been important for a long time, they help children with the technologies that have been developed in business, although it is time to develop them at school.

Teach to rest

What else do these children have difficulties with, what do they definitely need help with?

– Due to the fact that they are multi-taskers and multi-stationers and quickly switch from one to another, they need to be taught to rest. Since the brain works, they exploit it. I thought about it when one of my daughter's friends got caught on soft drugs and went to jail. I knew it good boy. I began to spin this story back to understand why he sat down on it. It turned out that he wanted to be active for several days and not sleep in order to be in time everywhere: to a party, to a club, to earn money, to chat with friends ... To do this, he began to take all sorts of brain-stimulating substances. This is, of course, dangerous. They need to be taught to rest, relax, switch off.

– How to teach it?

“We need to give them skills, tools. In Japan, for example, a meditation course is required at school. IN European countries there is a relaxation course - a mandatory lesson where children are taught relaxation techniques, release from internal tension.

- They do not have a natural mechanism that says: “That's it, stop, the brain is tired, let's roll on the carpet and play”?

- Up to 10, up to 12 years, yes, then no. And with high motivation, he stops working altogether.

– In my opinion, what you are talking about manifests itself in adults as well. Many of us have become multi-stationers, many - often the same people - have forgotten how to rest, many have ceased to perceive large texts, many complain of memory ...

Yes, this is a global process. I was able to adjust to the fast temperament processes and enter into this situation of multitasking unlike many of my peers. And yes, I feel that I do not remember everything, but because what I have to remember is many times more than before. Compare how much you memorized in the three problems that you solved, and how much is now in fifty. We just had more material to memorize, so we started using improvised means - planning, reminders, and so on.

But it makes no sense to compare us and children, because we have learned this multitasking - the world offered us this when we have already developed as people, and they have no choice, for them this is the norm.

After all, we also came to this world, to which our parents reacted with suspicion, because there were already many things in it that they were unaccustomed to.

I remember, almost 25 years ago, my mother said about my daughter: “My God, she is two years old, and she turns on the TV with buttons.” For her, it was a miracle, because she could not understand these buttons. And now I also look at how my great-nephews have their fingers running on the touch screen for a year already.

And recently, a married couple with a baby of seven months was sitting opposite me, and they showed him photos on the tablet. I sit and understand that something in this picture is not something that is happening, from which my professional brain explodes, and I understand that the child scans the photographs with his eyes, which 25 years ago these children were not able to do at all. According to the standards of 25 years ago, the children did not look around the images in the photograph, they did not read them yet. But when I saw that this child cheerfully looks at the photos, I realized that the world is changing.

These 4-, 5- and 6-month-olds grow up very differently, they are preparing to live in a different world, probably preparing for the chips that they will implant. Well, they will implant and implant, but our task will remain the same: to help the child become happy in the world in which he enters.

Help understand what intimate relationships are

- We talked about the weak points of modern children in rational and cognitive terms, but is there something in the emotional, social, and possibly moral sphere that they “sag” in due to their “novelty”?

- Yes, sure. In social terms - this is still my hypothesis as a social psychologist - it seems to me that they have lost the boundaries of intimacy. Due to the fact that they have a huge number of quasi-friends on the Internet, they have no understanding of the criteria for intimacy in relation to the person you call a friend. They have a lot of contacts, behind which closeness and openness to each other are often lost, or - another option - they open up to everyone in a row, consider everyone friends, or emotionally do not mature to friendship. Here, it seems to me, the only help is that parents themselves should be close to their children in order to give them this experience, to demonstrate what it is like to be close people, and not just live in the same house.

- And show by example what relationships with friends look like, I guess? Here are our close friends, they come to us once every two weeks, we go on vacation together, sit in the evenings with a guitar, help each other ...

- Yes, that's how I treat them, they are dear to me. So that the child can see how you show this closeness to each other, how you protect them, how you trust them. Encourage when such relationships arise in children with peers, help to see this inside. I think this is very important. They got a little lost due to the abundance of contacts. Another difference from us is that they are much less individualistic than we are, because it is easier for them to create a social community around themselves. This is their ability: the ability not to be included in society, but to create it: to find their own, unite with them, give rise to such groups.

“But this is a virtual community.

– Still, it is very important, it is an opportunity to find your own. But real closeness children lose, and so far it seems to me that this impoverishes them emotionally.

Explain what is good and what is bad

Do they have difficulty with moral concepts?

- Yes, they are undergoing serious changes with values. Here is a child growing up in a good family. Before school, they keep him in such a valuable pen: it’s like this here, it’s so accepted here, as it is with us - this is good, but if some bad guys appear nearby, they simply block them from the child, turn their backs to them, don’t take them into this sandbox. For some time he grows in this homogeneous field of values, and this is very healthy.

Then he comes to school and is convinced that everyone lives differently. His family also used to tell him that people are different, but at the same time they explained what was good and what was bad, and showed what was right for us like this. Then he goes into adolescence, starts throwing objects and shouting to his parents: “You live not like that! I will never live the way you do! ”, - in general, rebel against the norms. Good smart family she doesn’t really argue with this, she says: “Of course, of course, we love you very much, you rebel, and we will wait, we will stand.”

It expands the space a little, but in some places it stands still, and a reasonable mother, allowing a teenager a lot of things, at some point stands in the doorway and says: “I won’t let you in!” And he steps back, realizing that apparently, indeed, he is not here. Having rebelled and becoming an adult, he suddenly suddenly realizes that he also wants to build his family just like here. He had the experience of living in value worlds and the experience of relating to other worlds, the experience of rebellion and the understanding that this is good for him.

And now imagine that in the 90s and 2000s quite a lot of children grew up who did not have all this, because the parents of those years, either frightened, or not agreeing with each other, or completely lacking time, these value worlds were not built for children.

These children did not really rebel, because there was nothing to rebel against. And now they play with death in adolescence, participate in all sorts of dangerous things.

But teenagers have always done it.

- Psychologists say that today's teenagers have much more games with death and extreme hobbies. Maybe because they used to rebel this protest at some simple things, such as "I will not wear this hat", and this was enough for them to splash out their "I". In general, many parents have ceased to raise children in the simplest sense of the word - to explain to the child what is good and what is bad.

– I thought it was a conscious desire of our generation of parents to give children maximum freedom.

- It seems to me that someone deliberately allowed, and someone just worked so hard that he had no time.

Therefore, now children have grown up who did not have the experience of normal value maturation.

It is completely unclear how they will build their values. I do not at all think that they will all grow up as immoral people, but it is obvious that their acquaintance with values ​​and the acquisition of their own system of values ​​will occur differently. How? Don't know. How will they raise their children without having this experience in their own childhood? This is a completely new situation. Perhaps today the role of education is precisely to help children discover this world of values.

- In principle, the same literature as a subject, it seems to me, is precisely what it does.

- Only values ​​​​do not tolerate edification - they need to be lived and felt. Values ​​are always attitudes. Therefore, it is not enough to explain to you what Pierre feels here and what Natasha feels. Excessive edification in the presence of internal emptiness in a child does not really respond in terms of value, it is not very constructive. We need to look for other forms.

I really like this form of social practice. I was in Germany in an elite school, and these well-fed, prosperous German children have three mandatory social practices in high school (15-18 years old). The first year they work in kindergartens. The second year they work in scary places - in hospices, in baby houses and so on. And in the third year, they themselves choose the place of practice, only justify why.

- And what does it give?

- The child must build an activity that is inherently valuable, that is, when they come there, they have no other goal than to help. This is a meeting with myself helping and an honest answer to the question to myself - what am I doing here, how do I react to it? How do I feel when I look at a person in a vegetative state? There you don’t need to work for the result, you don’t need to compete with anyone and prove something, there is the main challenge - how do you feel about this?

Naturally, adults talk to them a lot. Therefore, when I hear about volunteer children's movements, I feel very good about it - of course, provided there are smart adults. This is one of the most powerful forms of value development in the school.

- I support it very much, the only thing that I personally do not like is the idea of ​​introducing volunteer books and increasing points for the Unified State Examination for participating in charitable events.

- This is a Protestant culture, and I do not know how such an initiative will take root in our soil. For Europe, this is normal: you do a good deed, and it counts for you. Being kind should be profitable - this is the position of Protestant ethics. For our culture, this is not quite a familiar idea. It is a matter of beliefs and beliefs. Should being kind be natural or beneficial? For Orthodox culture it is natural to be kind to a greater extent ... Maybe that is why we have so few kind people.

And other features to consider

– Do these children have any other features that we, their parents, should know about?

“They have a lot of small but interesting things that make them different from previous generations. For example, the number of left-handers is growing in the world.

– Not because they stopped retraining?

- No - more lefties are born. The left-hander is more peaceful, more emotional, more cooperative than the right-hander. And right-handers are more aggressive in the broadest sense of the word and more competitive. Non-retrained left-handers are essentially more peaceful in general.

- And retrained?

- Overtrained, sorry, unfortunate.

- Why?

“Because they weren’t allowed to develop naturally. Unfortunately, lefties in the system were not retrained until the end of the 20th century.

Is it good that they stopped?

- This is wonderful. They stopped breaking, they were recognized as right. Thanks to this, the climate in the world began to change, because an unretrained left-hander carries his own vision of the world. And now there are more of them. Today, every seventh person on the planet is left-handed, and before that there was every tenth person.

Lefties process information differently. We don’t retrain them now, but we still lose them at school, because the left-hander doesn’t think in logical chains, he thinks in such holistic schemes, he needs to immediately understand the whole frame in order to then slowly deal with it. If information is given in fragments, the right-hander retains it, but the left-hander does not. They need visual models, arrows, pictures.

What other funny little things are there?

- There are a lot of owls among teenagers. And this is not a learned "owl" that appeared due to the fact that they were forced to become owls - this is a more organic physiological rhythm for them, and night for them is the period of the greatest brain activity. Now more and more children are born with evening or night activity.

It turns out that we now give the time of their greatest productivity to social networks and comics, and teach them when they are still actually sleeping.

Perhaps that's why they are very obedient at school - they just haven't woken up yet. In our country, experiments are being conducted when high school students are taught in the evenings. And children have very good results, however, it is hard for teachers. And high school students sleep in the morning, go to school by four, and until 11 pm they are like cucumbers. Then they go to bed at about an hour and get up at 11-12.

- But in principle, the modern world without borders has a lot to offer them - for example, trading on the stock exchange somewhere in Tokyo, where it is day just when we have night.

- Certainly! How many Indians are there working in America as programmers...

- And what is the reason for these changes - left-handers, owls?

Nobody can say why. We can simply fix this fact that there are more of them. Of course, it is interesting to understand the reason, but my position is ascertaining: if this is so, then let's think about how to help these children become happy.

Xenia Knorre Dmitrieva