Comment: Russian psychologist Mikhail Labkovsky gives five tips to parents for raising a confident child.

First is “Be generous with praise, but praise correctly. Not ‘You’re the best, look how beautiful you are, not like your classmates.’ Your message should be that the child is wonderful because it’s him or her, not because he or she is the best of the best.”

My Response: That’s right. Of course, we should not instill the idea of superiority over others in a child; rather the child should feel that he is worth something on his own, and not that he is better than others. That he should be big, great, confident, kind, and so on.

Question: So you should not compare him with others and not even touch his “I”?

Answer: Yes. Standards should be abstract, not superiority over others.

Comment: I was motivated every time when I was told “Look how cool Sasha is in that class. You can do the same. Come on!” We encourage children this way. What’s wrong with that? I do not understand.

My Response: This turns a person into an egoist. Competitions are good when they make a person better than others for the benefit of others. This type of competition, however, is only for suppressing others.

Question: Do I involuntarily start thinking about suppressing this Sasha?

Answer: Yes. Why should I become better than him? I’d rather belittle him, and that way I won’t have to do anything with myself.

Question: Is this a natural response of egoism?

Answer: Yes. I need to show the child that it is necessary to work on yourself to be better, and do not suppress someone else in order to be above him.

Comment: The second advice is, “If a child committed an offense, do not speak about the child, but about the deed. The act is bad, and the child is good. I hope you have already thrown words like crooked, stupid, and shameless out of your vocabulary.”

Answer: This is a big problem for many parents who roughly point out that the child cannot do anything, that he is worthless; this deprives him of a sense of confidence, security, and inner possibility. It is very important to keep this in a child.

Many of us are guilty of this. We put pressure on the child, tell him, “You’re not worth anything, watch how it should be done. Why can’t you?” and so on. That is, we make him an absolutely insecure little man. He grows up in this way and all his life cannot get rid of this.

Question: But what if he, for example, commits a bad deed?

Answer: Smooth it over. “You did this incorrectly, in the wrong way. Maybe you could not do it differently. See now how it can be done differently.” So that he can learn from it and still have confidence.

Question: That is, not to touch the child and his little “I.” Is the main principle not to touch the “I”?

Answer: Yes. We have people exactly like that living on our planet, without inner confidence, “killed” by their parents, people who have been deprived since childhood. In order to somehow defend themselves, they make problems, wanting to rise at least a little above everyone. However, they don’t know how to do this in order to feel normal.

For this, they must suppress others, destroy others, and so on. If you take anyone who kills, tortures others, runs some gang, you will see why this happened to him.

You will look into his childhood and see how he was disfigured there in the same way.

Comment: The third advice: “Never compare him with anyone, even if the comparison is in his favor. This is the direct path to narcissism. And narcissism is the destruction to the base of self-esteem. That is, self-esteem is destroyed to the ground. The child risks growing up as a person who always compares himself to others and will suffer that someone is better than him.”

My Response: Yes. However, we still need to make sure that the child has an idea of what perfection is. And he must somehow evaluate himself relative to this perfection.

Question: Is it necessary to give the child some kind of standard?

Answer: Yes, but not in relation to others. The standard should not be a person, but a quality.

Question: How can you explain the quality to which he should aspire?

Answer: Once it was done with the help of some gods or great heroes. However, such examples can be in something specific, particular, no more than that.

Question: Should it be a quality? For example, how you used to love then, so we should come to the same love?

Answer: Yes.

Comment: The fourth tip: “Praise the child not for the result, but for the courage and effort, for the fact that he was not afraid and performed, tried by himself in the competition, made an effort, did his best. This will teach him to support himself in the future. And, by the way, it will greatly contribute to his success in adult life.”

My Response: Yes, it is necessary to support the child and inspire him. Regardless of his success, he should feel that you are behind him and confident in him, and do not require anything more from him than just his diligence, effort.

Question: That is, we should not say, “You did well, you got the first place, what a beautiful medal,” right?

Answer: Yes. Do not do that. Absolutely not. It is necessary that he was self-sufficient and happy in his actions.

Comment: But we are proud of medals.

Answer: That is our society, such a narrow, egoistic one that plays all people against each other, raises competition to such levels that a person devotes his whole life and health to this. And what is the result? We see that this does not bring happiness to anyone.

Question: Does it mean that if a child talks about his victory, then the main thing for him should be how much effort he put in, how he trained for this?

Answer: Of course. Otherwise, he will take drugs and win only with their help. This is what egoism turns each of us into.

Comment: This, by the way, is a very accurate comment. All these anabolic steroids, drugs, and everything. It is already impossible to watch sports, everything is clear there. Now there is a problem of how to hide the drug, not how not to take it.

My Response: Yes. The main thing for them is achievement in comparison to others. Except for group sports. Group sports are relatively attractive.

Question: Is it because there is a team victory there?

Answer: Yes. A single “I” is blurred among many others, and in general, the opposition of one to another is not the same as one on one opposition.

Question: What about the fact that some player still stands out? For example, Messi or someone else.

Answer: This is bad. After all, the team won. But still, at least in this way.

Comment: The fifth and most important advice: “You yourself have to have self-confidence. Parents often write to me, ‘I do everything right, praise, support, but the child shows insecurity all the time.’ Of course, each specific case should be analyzed separately, but if you really do everything for the confidence of your child and he has zero self-esteem, this is what is called ‘A wake-up call to the parents.'”

My Response: We still have to show the child in any case our trust in him, our love for him, and that we accept him as he is. The most important thing is not to destroy, not to level his “I,” and not to demand from him any great victories and achievements. Only in this case can you make him a confident, normal person.

Question: Why does a psychologist start this way: “You yourself have to have self-confidence”?

Answer: Because you are trying to embody in the child what you have not achieved yourself.

Question: Won’t it work out even if I play in front of him?

Answer: No.

Question: Do you have self-confidence?

Answer: No. An absolutely confident person is just an idiot, he must be at the level of a stone. However, I am confident that I am not confident, but I can do what I have to believe in.

Comment: This is not easy.

My Response: No one says that this can be achieved. But we should aspire for this. Life is about aspiration.

Comment: In general, this whole path is in uncertainty in the transition to confidence and again uncertainty.

My Response: The whole path is in the uncertainty of whether you relate yourself to the absolute. This is your confidence. So, there is nothing scary here. There is an upper force, you have to know how you can position yourself in relation to it, and then you gain complete confidence. Not in yourself, but in the fact that you are going with Him.

Question: That your compass keeps this direction all the time?

Answer: Of course. Then everything is very simple. You hold on like a little one to the big one’s hand.

Comment: To the teacher.

My Response: Yes.

Question: What if you are constantly shifted to the left or to the right?

Answer: It is on purpose so that you hold on to Him more tightly, so that you can see where you are going with Him and thus learn.

You are shifted relative to Him, and you must hold on tighter and align your path with Him, behind Him. In this way, you learn both from the vicissitudes of fate and from His reaction to that fate.

Question: Is this path by reason or by faith above reason?

Answer: This path is by the adhesion with the upper. He shows you two lines and you have to walk between them.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 9/3/20

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