Social and psychological problems of intergenerational relationships. The problem of intergenerational relationships and ways to solve it

What is the essence of family hierarchy?

Causes of problems in intergenerational relationships

How can a young family get out of the influence of the older generation?

In the context of conflictology: age and generation.

Specifics of generational conflict in Russia.

Generational conflict: stability and variability.

Constructive function of generational conflict.

Interaction of generations in modern Russian family complicated by a crisis that has affected the economy, politics, culture, and social sphere. In the conditions of the post-Soviet transformation, society is anomic: many old social norms have been rejected, but new ones have not yet been fully formed. The older generation finds itself in a situation where there is practically no transfer of material and spiritual heritage to successors. Negative deviant behavior is on the rise among young people. The middle generation, which usually plays the role of a “buffer” between them, also does not have a stable social status. The upbringing of young people is completely left to the discretion of families, among whom there are those who are not ready for this. Many parents tend to shift responsibility for intergenerational relations to school, the media and other social institutions, and therefore withdraw themselves from resolving contradictions with their children. This and much more creates quite a lot of preconditions for the aggravation of intergenerational relations in the family.

The empirical studies carried out made it possible to identify people’s attitudes about what the relationships between generations should be in a modern family (see Table 3).

Table 3

Guidelines for how relationships between generations in a family should be

Relationship options	Distribution of responses on average and by age group, % of the number of respondents, total 1200 people
Relationship options	Average	Youth 14-30 years old	Middle generation 31-55 years old	People over 55 years old
Mutual assistance between generations is necessary in a family, even if they live separately from each other
Younger people need to listen to the advice of their elders, but they don’t have to follow them in everything
Elders must respect the opinion of the younger generation
Family relationships depend not on age, but on the personal qualities of relatives
Relationships between generations in the family should be equal
You need to put all your strength into your children.
Relationships in the family depend on the specific situation and circumstances
Younger people should always obey their elders
Everyone (parents, children, grandchildren) should live as they want

Note.

For interaction to occur, the mutual expectations of the subjects must coincide. People often call this situation in the family mutual understanding. It is usually achieved when individuals are familiar and clear about each other's interests. The extent to which parents and children understand and are willing to support each other’s values and norms is shown in Table. 4. Note that in table. 4 does not present the opinions of the age group over 55 years old, since many of them have parents who have died, so their answers are difficult to compare with the answers of younger people.

Table 4

Children's attitude towards parents' interests

	Distribution of answers from children of different ages, %
Answer options	Average
I understand and share the interests of my parents well
I understand the interests of my parents, but I don’t share all of them.
I don’t always understand my parents, but I’m ready to support any of their interests
The interests of my parents are alien and incomprehensible to me

Note. Respondents could select multiple answers, so the total exceeds 100%.

As can be seen from table. 4, most people (67.9%) understand the interests of their parents, but not everyone shares them. In addition, the degree to which a generation of children understands and supports parental beliefs varies with age.

Undoubtedly, for optimal interaction in the family, a reciprocal willingness of parents to understand and support their children is necessary. The revealed attitude of elders towards the interests of the younger generation is presented in Table. 5. The age group under 31 years old was not taken into account due to the fact that they do not have children or they are very small.

Table 5

Parents' attitude towards children's interests

Note. Respondents could select multiple answers, so the total exceeds 100%.

Judging by the data in Table. 4 and 5, the degree of mutual understanding between parents and children (when they are close to each other’s values and norms) is quite high. For example, 50.5% of children understand their parents well and share their interests, and 50.1% of parents treat their children the same way. For only 4.2% of children the views of their parents are alien and 6.4% of respondents do not perceive the views of their children. However, in case of misunderstanding of the positions of the other side, elders show more compliance: 47.1% of parents are ready to support their children in such a situation, but among children only 37.7% expressed readiness for support.

In 2008, the author interviewed 1,200 people, 72% of them were residents of Moscow, 28% were residents of the Moscow region. The sample is quota by gender and age: it represents men (48%) and women (52%) of three age groups: youth 14–30 years old (31%), middle generation 31–55 years old (35%), people aged 56 years and older (34%). 49% of respondents are married; 28% were single and unmarried in the sample; widowers and widowers 9%; divorced 8%; 6% of respondents live in an unregistered “civil” marriage. 31% of childless respondents; single children 25%; two-children 34%; 10% of large families with three or more children. 36% of respondents have grandchildren. The sample includes employees (24%), pensioners (23%), students (21%), workers (12%), heads of government and non-government organizations (9%), commercial workers (7%), as well as housewives and unemployed (4%). Among the respondents, Russians and Orthodox Christians predominate (66%). The study was carried out with the support of the Program of the President of the Russian Federation (project MK-4433.2007.6).

Introduction

Generational conflict manifests itself both at the level of society, in social institutions, and at the family level.

A historical excursion into history shows that the 18th century acutely posed the problem values of children's life ; in the 19th century (80s), such a category gained public recognition, like adolescence ; at the beginning of the twentieth century - youth ; in the 20s of the twentieth century - old age. In the middle of the twentieth century, sciences appeared: acmeology- the science of flourishing, maturity, patterns and mechanisms of human development at the stage of his professional maturity, gerontology- science of old age, andragogy- the science of adult education. Interest in old age, and therefore in the conflict of generations, is increasing in the twentieth century.

What is characteristic of the 20th century for Russia? What is it especially about our country that worries and excites the consciousness of people who take responsibility for resolving the conflict between generations?

First, let us highlight the problems common between generations (as a gap that leads to increased conflict potential in society), dominant in all countries:

continuity and transmission of cultural values from generation to generation;
familiarization with family values and socially significant ones (education, healthy image life);
transfer of property by inheritance;
degree of dependence and responsibility between generations;
state policy in relation to different generations;
the relationship between traditions and social innovation in society.

Modern research shows that some of the main factors in generational conflict are the following:

lowering the social status of older people;
changing the nature of work in industrial society, as a result of accelerating the pace of scientific and technological progress;
youth devaluing the accumulated experience of older generations;
the spread of an unspoken state policy of removing from work older people who have reached retirement age.

These trends contribute devaluation of old age in the eyes of the younger generation and strengthening of gerontophobic (fear of age) attitudes in the mass consciousness.

Does a person feel his age? When and under what circumstances does he begin to pay attention to his age? What is the relationship between age and generation?

Concept "age" acts as a sign of belonging to one generation , however, belonging to the same generation does not mean equality of age. In S. Ozhegov’s explanatory dictionary, “generation” is relatives of the same degree of kinship in relation to a common ancestor; secondly, people of similar age living at the same time. A.I. Afanasyeva defines a generation as “an objectively developing concrete historical set of people close in age and formed in the same historical period, characterized by specific demographic features.”

The concept of “generation” is most fully revealed by I.S. Con. He identifies several meanings of this concept:

degree of descent from a common ancestor (genealogical generation);
peers, i.e. people born at approximately the same time.
contemporaries, i.e. people of different ages living at the same time.
the period of time from the birth of parents to the birth of their children.

So, generation is a concept that denotes different aspects of the kinship and age structures of the historical development of society.

The generational approach in sociology involves analyzing the coexistence of three life dimensions in social situation: generations of young people, generations of mature people and generations of old people. The existence of three different times represents forward movement, development. Otherwise, history would have stopped and the possibility of radical change would have disappeared.

The sociocultural environment of intergenerational relations either reduces the distance between generations or leads to total distancing, leading to a crisis.

An attempt to avoid these extremes prompted philosophers to justify the “ethics of discourse”, i.e. e. the doctrine of morality, which makes problems of communication and discourse its content. It is the “ethics of discourse” that orients representatives of different generations not towards discord and degradation, but towards unity, responsibility, consent, and communication. This is about cooperation, not about helping older people or teaching younger ones.

The term "age" is used wherever there is a need to record processes and changes occurring over time. Age-related processes are considered from three perspectives:

Individual development.
Social-age processes and age structure of society.
Age symbolism.

Some scientists believe that it is impossible to make a clear division between ages: all changes occur smoothly, the features of one or another time are intertwined and seem to grow into each other. Conditionally border childhood and adolescence can be called the time when a person begins to show meaningful interest in the opposite sex.

Adolescence developed into youth over the course of several years. Marriage was considered a sharp and well-defined boundary between youth and maturity. Life was invariably divided into two halves: before wedding and after the wedding, when The whole way of life and human life changed dramatically.

Old age as a special period of human development has historically evolved. A fundamentally new discovery of old age has occurred. It began to be viewed as an equal human age among other human ages, not reducible only to decay processes, but an independent and special age in its characteristics. Arthur Schopenhauer in “Aphorisms of Worldly Wisdom” formulates one of the key ideas. Its essence lies in denying the existence of an age periphery, since each age is part of the core of life and has its own pragmatic values that combine positive and negative aspects. The philosopher focuses attention precisely on the positive moments in old age, a person more skillfully protects himself from misfortunes, he is able to enjoy the present, finding joy even in the little things, thanks to life experience a person learns to look simply at things and accept them for what they really are , handles time sparingly. The old man is balanced, reasonable, insightful, freed from the worries of youth. Old age in modern semantic orientation denotes a certain stage of individual life, equivalent in relation to other stages, of significant duration.

In 1962, a symposium of gerontologists approved age gradations, then adopted by foreign scientists: 40-60 - average age; 60-75-old age; 75-90-senile age; over 90 are long-livers. Old age as a phenomenon of human life is represented by two qualitatively different aspects of its existence: biological and social. Biological old age is a natural phase of individual development, and social old age is the final stage of the age structure of society. Social old age- there is a person’s inability, due to age, to provide himself with everything necessary. As a result, there is a transition to someone else's dependency. This widespread understanding and definition of social old age is widespread in both domestic and foreign science.

In the structure of social old age there are formal social prefects b (“passport”) – characterized by a given person crossing the official age “limit of old age”, but maintaining the established lifestyle and social status.

The picture of the position of an old person in society, as evidenced by the history of mankind, changed dramatically: it was full of brilliance in some periods and filled with darkness in others. It would be comforting if the evolution of the situation of old people went in one direction - towards improvement. However, it is not.

In ancient times, old people did not die of natural causes. Because in the then struggling communities of people, there was no room left for those who, due to physical weakness, ceased to be a full-fledged participant in the production of food. In the era of civilization and in the early stages of cultural development, the central figure was the mature man. He was a connoisseur of the surroundings and the owner of long life experience and, because of this, was an object of respect in primitive times. But, with the onset of old age, when his strength and memory refused to serve him, the stock of this experience and knowledge became unusable. Then the helpless old man was abandoned to the mercy of fate, so primitive societies were societies without old people . P. Holbach notes that such a custom existed among nomads: old people who could not follow the nomadic tribe were deprived of their lives. C. Helvetius pointed out the destruction of old people by wild tribes that subsisted on hunting. They killed old fellow tribesmen who could not participate in hunting animals. In Little Russia, the custom of getting rid of old people was also practiced. They were taken to a remote place in winter and lowered into a deep ravine. At the same time, they were placed on the bast so that when lowered they would not break or linger on the slope.

When this custom was banned, they began to resort to isolating old people in an empty hut, where they died of hunger and cold. In an era when old people were killed en masse, infanticide was also widespread for similar reasons. Because children and old people were on the periphery of public life. In ancient times, as in our time, there were conflicts between generations - primarily between adjacent generations, fathers and children. The fathers, warriors, did not want to give way to their children who had undergone initiation; they resisted this in every possible way, because they still felt strong and energetic. The ritual of initiation arises in the culture of mankind as a means of harmonizing the psychology of relations between the older and younger generations. It is impossible to give an exact answer to the question of when they stopped killing the elderly. The extinction of this cruel custom is associated with economic progress and, therefore, different nations occurred at different times.

American anthropologist and ethnographer L.G. Morgan divided all human activity into three main eras: savagery, barbarism and civilization. He announced the postulate that “all great epochs of human progress coincide—more or less directly—with epochs of expansion of the sources of existence.” It is believed that one of the most important factors that contributed to saving life the elderly began to use fire. The ability to cook food reduced the previously widespread infanticide. The position of the old people changed: they helped the women look after the fire and were the keepers of the fire.

The next historical event that had a positive impact on the fate of the elderly was start of class agriculture . The old man preserved the food supplies of his fellow tribesmen and was needed by his tribe.

Over time, not only do the elderly stop being destroyed, but the younger generation begins to show respect for them. Scientists speculate that this may be because in the early stages of civilization, reaching old age was quite rare. Old people were respected as the richest people in personal experience, historians of the family, guardians of long-standing traditions, educators of people, mediators between the living and the dead, and masters of ceremonies. The ancient Greeks associated old age with wisdom, this made the old man an essential figure in society, an elder, his functions included governing the country and leading the education of the younger generation.

Socrates valued conversations with old people: from these conversations one could learn about the life path the old people had traveled, which the young people still had to go through. In the process of the formation of human society, the first socio-political hierarchy arises, based on the gender and age principle. It manifested itself in various standards regulating the behavior of seniors and juniors. The norms of the former were associated with high social prestige, with positions of power in society, while the norms of the latter are with subordination. The cult of ancestors appears, which is, apparently, historically the first ideology that consolidated the dominance of elders in society. It was believed that the magical power of an individual increases as he grows older and reaches its maximum when he passes into the status of an ancestor, that is, after his physical death. Using this power, it was believed, the elders could punish the younger ones for disobedience. With the development of the political sphere, with the advent of leaders, it was their ancestors who were prescribed great magical power; the leaders, and then medieval monarchs, acted as the fathers of society. It should be noted that even where the cult of ancestors was not so developed, the old people were considered close to the deities, and had what was supposed to be mystical power. They were the keepers of ritual and religious knowledge, which largely determined their authority. The old people also remembered precedents, which was used in judicial practice. They did not share their knowledge, but kept it to themselves, which turned the old people into monopoly owners of important social information. This in turn strengthened their high position in society. Old people enjoy the greatest influence in the era of so-called classical antiquity (the triumph of old age - in ancient Hellas and ancient Rome). Here for a long time gerontocracy was established, its expression was age qualification required to occupy positions in the governing bodies of the state.

Plato and Aristotle said that old people should rule.

But the power of the elderly and respect for them did not at all mean the manifestation of concern for the broad masses of elderly people. A class slave-owning society, by its very nature, could not show true humanism towards all old people. The lot of Roman slaves who managed to live to old age was starvation, which these outcasts of society were subjected to on one of the Tiber islands. Even free citizens could count on very little help from society in old age.

In the 20th century, the situation of old people worsened significantly. In the course of historical development, a stereotypical image of an old man was formed. Ideas about old age in social, psychological and biological aspects have expanded. Respect for age, which was still the rule in the last century, is disappearing, giving way to indifference or even a certain kind of hostility towards old people. Society denies respect to old people. Our society makes old age a devalued period of life. The opinion that old people are useless consumers; by their existence they contradict the fundamental principle of the development of modern civilization, where everything is subordinated to the search for profit.

Therefore, the continuity of generations did not always follow an ascending line. Contrary to the established opinion about the harmony of relations between generations in the traditional Russian community, their relations were characterized by quite strong tension, and sometimes turned into outright conflict. This was especially evident during the holidays. During the Christmas season, for example, young men often attacked adults, and their aggression was in the nature of cruelty. The most favorite prank of village youth should be recognized as covering the gates and doors of huts with all sorts of village rubbish, firewood, logs, plows, etc. Having taken up this task in a whole crowd, the mischievous people will so block the exits from the huts that in the morning all the owners will find themselves captive.

The disruption of the natural mechanisms of transmission of social information from elders to younger ones at the level of the entire Russian society, in which the younger ones ignored the will of the elders, was clearly recorded by the largest writers of this period. F. Dostoevsky states the lack of harmony in society between generations, in which the older ones should dominate the younger ones.

History shows that there is a problem of struggle for power between the old and the young belonging to the ruling class. The old had experience, knowledge, memory, and the young had strength, health and good adaptive abilities. Thus, in traditional societies, the place of each person was determined from the moment of birth, and the ways of interrelating generations and passing on experience were also determined and unchangeable. A different picture is observed in modern dynamic society, which constantly confronts each new generation with new problems and tasks of self-affirmation and choosing the paths of its development. In such a society, the experience of previous generations cannot fully meet the challenges of the present and future. The mechanisms for transmitting experience change, as a result, the “image” of each generation is formed.

In the classical culture of Russia, the problem of generational change, the problem of fathers and sons, was a curse weighing on both, reaching the point of parricide - like in Dostoevsky.

The conflict between generations is removed by Christianity, which begins with the understanding that Christ came to fulfill the commandments of the Father. “I am not against the Father, I came to restore the Laws of the Prophets...” In Christian culture, a continuity of generations appears, each of which, creating the new, takes into account, transforming, of course, the old. Dostoevsky writes that only Christianization can become Russia’s protection from all troubles.

The generational conflict became particularly acute in the 20s of the twentieth century. The younger generation rejects the value ideals of the past and contrasts it with their own picture of the world.

Thus, in different historical periods, attitudes towards old age were different. This is due to the different roles of the legal principle, different degrees of development of democratic institutions, and the specifics of cultural traditions.

An old man is at the same time a sub-human and a super-human, an idol, and an unnecessary worn-out thing. In the public consciousness, old people were either exalted to the role of saints, or degraded to outcasts, merging with the poor, wretched, and useless.

There are two fundamental points of view on the relationship between generations:

in modern society there is a big difference between generations and this gap is increasing;
the idea of growing intergenerational differences is illusory. Nothing new has happened in this regard.

Any society at all stages of development is characterized by the so-called “fathers and sons” contradiction. You can safely classified as eternal. In modern culture there is a pronounced layer of innovations that constantly hack and rebuild the cultural tradition, thereby complicating the processes of socialization and human adaptation to the constantly changing conditions and demands of life. The complication of sociocultural reality is accompanied by a breakdown of traditions and norms. And this problem is not biological, but sociocultural. This is the problem of changing the methods and types of continuity, the rejection of continuity, the destruction of tradition, and therefore the destruction of culture. Culture can only develop based on traditions . A change in the types of continuity and attitude towards tradition is not at all associated with the denial of one’s own history; it presupposes the development of an ideal and the search for means of life that are adequate to it. The idea of age and attitude towards age had a direct impact on the entire social life state and on the life of every family.

Family like social indicator, is the first and most sensitive social organism to all changes in society. Currently, the family is undergoing demographic, cultural, socio-economic changes, which are reflected in intra-family ties

In Russia over the past 15 years there have been deep values changes. We can say that there has been a break in the centuries-old tradition of Russian society, which is so painful not only for older people, but also for all other members of society.

In Russia, almost every family has « White spot"in memory of their ancestors. This was facilitated by wars (civil and Great Patriotic War), famine, state terror (dekulakization, resettlement of peoples, and then the Gulags). Therefore, the younger generation was increasingly placed in a situation of uncertainty both about its place in the family and in society. It was forced to either develop its own ideas about the world and protest or adapt to the powers that be.

Reforms in Russia and destabilization in the country, force a person to survive, which forms in the minds of the younger generation an attitude towards the older generation as dependents. Young people do not have a clear idea of the life of the older generation and often dramatize their social position. In the mass consciousness, both in hidden and explicit form, the attitude towards elderly people as a useless category population. In fact, the state implements strategy to oust elderly people age from spheres of access to prestigious values, power, and other resources, as well as the peripheral position of their problems. Society's attention is focused more on the problems of young people than on the problems of people of retirement age. (Although the Law on youth policy not yet adopted in Russia). There is a transformation in the attitude of young people towards the older generation in the direction from traditionally respectful to non-traditional, not typical for the Russian mentality, condemning, blaming, rejecting. Elderly people turned out to be an abandoned generation, deprived of sympathy, empathy and help from their own children and grandchildren.

In the public consciousness (in the CIS, including Russia), such a concept as “private property” appeared relatively recently. Most people did not have private property and the consciousness and psychology of the owner in Russia had not yet been formed. And since in family relationships the presence of property and the fact of its transfer by inheritance are becoming increasingly important, old people who have nothing to leave their children as an inheritance find themselves unnecessary to anyone.

But rich people involved in business also have their own specific conflicts and problems. regarding the transfer of property. One of the problems is how to transfer the business to your children, who do not want to continue the business of their parents, but want to spend the capital at their own discretion.

Therefore, the specificity of the generational conflict in Russia at the level of social institutions is manifested in the following facts:

devaluation of old age in the eyes of the younger generation;
search family values, both spiritual and material;
transfer of property by inheritance;
displacement of older people to the periphery social life;
children do not accept the values and lifestyle of their parents.
increasing sociocultural distance between young and old.

In Russia, older people gave their entire lives to society, and it left them on the threshold of old age alone with their problems. Old people have become a burden for society, while society owes them its present day, because just yesterday they spared neither effort nor labor in order to increase the material and spiritual wealth of the people and ensure their tireless development. It is the activities of people who have now crossed the threshold of old age that have given young people the opportunity to receive education and vocational training, that is, the most important foundations for the existence of society. Old people pass on to the young not only the benefits they create, but also experience and knowledge. In inheriting these benefits, the young should not forget that sooner or later they will also grow old. Serious changes have taken place in Russia. The sharp cultural leap that occurred as a result of the development of market relations led to a certain social isolation of old people, to the loss of a permanently established status and respect. The old man acquired an unduly low status, and respect for old age dropped to almost zero. Old people found themselves in the position of being ridiculed, bullied, and persecuted. Such phenomena as “senile crime” have appeared, manifested in antisocial behavior, an impetus given by a society that rejects old people, makes them feel and realize their uselessness, which leads to the spread of suicide among them. In recent years of the development of Russian society, we are dealing with the transformation of the relations of the younger generation towards the older: from traditionally respectful to unconventional condemning, blaming, rejecting, at best, absolutely indifferent. This problem is especially relevant today in Russia

The life cycle of each person is characterized by multifaceted variability. It includes such phases of life as: childhood, adolescence, mature age and old age. At different stages of life, a person plays different social roles - child, student, worker, parent, grandfather.

Childhood, adolescence and youth are periods of apprenticeship, assimilation of the norms and values of a given society.

The period of maturity when norms and values are assimilated as fully as possible in accordance with individual capabilities.

During old age, the individual lags behind the process of changing social structures (they change much faster than the aging individual is able to adapt to them). The identification of different age stages has a sociocultural history. Not all of the stages accepted in modern age stratification appear simultaneously; their set in different periods of history is not equivalent and not identical.

It seems very important to consider intergenerational relationships in the family, which is important for both the younger generation and the generation of older people. The family is the main element in the system of relationships between generations. Throughout a person’s life, the family is the first and last support for him - a “launching pad” at an early stage of life and a “last refuge” at a late age. The family performs a number of important social functions such as:

educational (socialization of the younger generation),
function of spiritual communication,
social status (provides a certain social status to family members),
leisure (mutual enrichment of interests),
emotional (receiving psychological protection, emotional support).

Currently, there are strong changes in the economic life of the country; the older generation devotes itself entirely to work, trying to survive in our difficult times. In this regard, such an important problem arises as a decrease in the educational function of the family. Of course, it’s good when grandparents take care of children. The assistance provided by older young family members is very diverse. Most often it is expressed in caring for young grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The importance of this help can hardly be overestimated. Here is the advantage of individual education, the value of close communication with the child in the first years of life, and a great guarantee of protecting him from diseases that are so common in preschool institutions. But when the younger and older generations live together, there is often a lack of understanding of each other. The reasons for the lack of mutual understanding are objective differences associated with new social conditions, differences in views on life, mismatch of values and psychological characteristics of older and young people. The younger generation is disidentified with their grandfathers both as carriers of the ideas of the past, and as authorities in the family, guidelines in life. This leads to tension in the institution of the family, with which the vast majority of the older generation still identifies. One can only wish that in every family the “conflict of generations” would be resolved on the basis of a wonderful fusion of love for children and respect for old age. But, unfortunately, this is often not the case. There is information about domestic violence over elderly people different forms: physical, emotional and economic. Instead of an unsatisfied need for communication and care, the older generation experiences humiliation of dignity, loss of respect and, as a result, a desire to protect themselves from conflictual relationships with their offspring, and in most cases, older people and their children strive to live separately from each other.

Thus, old age can be considered as stable and sustainable element in the life of a generation, as the main link in the mechanism of continuity of social relations, culture, morality, and experience. The attitude of younger people towards older people can be considered one of the indicators of the level of culture of a society. Stereotypical statements and opinions regarding old age are an indicator that reflects the dominant concept of a person in a given era and in a certain cultural circle. Our era carries within itself the cult of youth. A person’s value is determined by the ability to act quickly and effectively, and easily adapt to new technologies and innovations. The cult of the pace of newness does not favor old people. And old age itself acquires negative traits. Old people can't keep up with the pace modern life, which is changing and carries many risks. Old people do not have the strength to fulfill the various responsibilities and roles that life puts forward; they are drowning in the chaos of information. Therefore, the young generation must realize that they, as a changing element in society, need a stable component, which is also needed, first of all, by their children, family and society, in which each person will pass through different age groups and come to old age.

Generational conflict is a universal theme in human history. It is based on the primordial traits of human nature and is perhaps an even more important driving force of history than class struggle, some researchers note.

Many psychoanalysts believe that the generational conflict is based on the eternal rivalry between father and son (Oedipus complex), mother and daughter (Electra complex). The young man not only competes with his father, but also rejects him as a model and renounces his sociocultural inheritance.

Representatives of avant-gardeism see in youth counterculture the only reliable, effective, radical opposition to everything stagnant and conservative in society. All these explanations of the essence of the generational conflict, as well as subjective assessments of young men who tend to exaggerate the degree of their differences from their elders, must be supplemented by an analysis of objectively existing differences and their causes.

What are the reasons for the aggravation of contradictions between generations?

In the 60s, two poles emerged in the assessment of intergenerational differences: “the great gap” and “nothing new.” The conversation so far has been mainly about conflicts and their causes in relations between generations, but the starting point at the moment is continuity in the development of the human race. Firstly, young people, whether they like it or not, will always rely on the traditions and experience of past generations.

Secondly, intergenerational relations and cultural transmission always include counter flows of information and activity both from parents to children and from children to parents. The meeting of generations can be more or less joyful. Today, in the context of informatization of society, youth interpretation of cultural heritage is gaining great importance.

Thirdly, while recognizing the importance of both of the above trends, one must be wary of exaggerating the pace of cultural renewal. The deep layers of culture, traditions, forms of life, families, which have developed over thousands of years, become obsolete more slowly than innovations in the field of technology, science, and computer science. Thus, the essence of intergenerational relations cannot be either “absolute renewal” or “absolute rupture” - both would mean a social catastrophe. The task is to harmonize relations between generations in their continuity. However, refusal of inheritance, ingratitude, consumer attitude of children towards parents, egocentrism, inability to dialogue - these extreme manifestations of the isolation of the new generation can strike at the very foundations of civilization. The structure of youth requests for help in critical situations shows the desire of youth to independently solve problems on their own. But often this attitude is purely consumerist and threatening, which interrupts communication between generations for a long time.

The main task in the conflict of generations is the joint education of old people and young people to the rapidly changing conditions of social life without a rigid hierarchy, without violence, while maintaining respect for each other, with the obligatory assertion of authority and gratitude to their old parents, to older people, with trust and love for the growing person.

Society is assessed by how it treats the elderly, children and disabled people, as well as by the forms in which conflict between generations occurs. If society follows a civilized path, then it is forced to create a social system for supporting the elderly - pensions, nursing homes, etc., and talk about instilling mercy. It is in the conflict of generations that new niches are discovered where specialized educational influence is needed to prevent destructive conflicts and generate new value-semantic and activity niches for interaction between generations. Without special regulation at the level of ideology and institutions of socialization to ensure a gradual change in basic values, one can obtain or, moreover, provoke a social crisis provoked by an eternal conflict of generations.

Learning to understand others, and, above all, the older generation, is the most important social problem. Broadcasting moral standards without understanding their essence and meaning is a pointless exercise. Speaking about the degree of possible influence of the older generation on young people, it is necessary to emphasize the importance of such factors as the measure of youth’s trust in the older generation and the measure of trust in youth.

The attitude of society towards the elderly is an indicator of its civilization. Society bears responsibility for the social, physical and material condition of its elderly members. The conflict of generations can be considered as a benefit if it is realized that it is in this spontaneous and eternal conflict that the older and younger generations will be able to discover and realize the personal level of the achieved culture and the degree of civilization of society. Grandchildren will be able to see HOW old people (their grandparents) pass away with dignity and honor and how their children (grandchildren’s parents) see them off with dignity and respect. For this is a “living transmission of knowledge” from mouth to mouth and this is a constructive function of the conflict of generations; this function cannot be assumed by the state, since only the people themselves form and transmit cultural patterns formed in the eternal conflict of fathers and children. Generation conflict should not be scary or alarming thinking man. The eternal conflict of generations can be viewed constructively from the point of view of developing humane relationships to the pinnacle of love, morality, care and value of each age. In a generational conflict, there is no point in looking for someone to blame; it is much more important to formulate the RESPONSIBILITY of each person for his own future, for the future of his children and for the future of all humanity.

Lyubov Tsoi, Candidate of Sociological Sciences,
Director of the Moscow School of Conflictology
"Conflict management in management consulting"

posted in the section: family management

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Problems in relationships between representatives of different generations, unfortunately, are quite common, and conflicts can arise not only when newlyweds and their parents live under the same roof. Relations between generations can be strained even when everyone has separate housing, because parents often try to manage young families “remotely.”

Questions about relationships with the older generation usually concern how much representatives of this generation should influence the life of a young family. As a rule, older relatives claim greater power, while the younger generation seeks to limit this power.

How to limit the power of the husband's/wife's parents in the family?
How to gently tell your own parents that you don't need them active participation in your family life?
What kind of distance with the older generation will be healthy and allow the new family to exist according to its own laws, without losing family ties?

This article examines the causes of problems between generations in the family and possible ways their decisions.

The topic of power, the right to influence important decisions (raising a child, leisure, lifestyle) is a question of hierarchy of relationships. When hierarchical relationships are clear, the family is in calm, understandable relationships for each member.

In most cases, when the composition of the family changes (marriage, the birth of a child, the death of one of the relatives), the system of hierarchy of generational relations in the family moves somewhere and changes. Often, upon marriage or the birth of a child, a hierarchical conflict begins between representatives of the older and younger generations. Popularly, it is often known as conflict with mother-in-law or mother-in-law. These two situations, richly reflected in folklore, often have precisely this background: a protest against the excessive power of an older family member.

Generally: hierarchy is the result of a natural process of competition. Sometimes, when two people have equal chances of leadership, there is a constant strong struggle for power. And then it is more difficult to live in a family, because everyone is busy with military operations, the purpose of which is to establish their primacy and the right to make decisions.

Many people have actually been fighting for years against the power of the older generation, tormenting themselves with worries that their own parents or their spouse’s parents do not want to take the place where they would like to see them. The older generation, as a rule, expresses feelings of resentment, complaints about the ingratitude and complete unreasonableness of the “children.”

To understand how this conflict between generations can be resolved, we need to consider the very essence of the hierarchy.

Hierarchy is a system of subordination of lower elements of the system to higher, more influential elements of the system. A hierarchical structure is the result of competition between people and living organisms in general. The principle of the triumph of the strongest organisms applies everywhere, including in the family.

The one who gets to the top of the hierarchy is the one who is stronger, who has more resources, a higher readiness to act, more strength, skills, energy, and readiness for transformation. This person ends up in charge simply because his natural characteristics are suitable for leadership.

Is there a "correct" hierarchy? Is there evidence that, for example, a person of a certain gender, age or social status should be at the head of the hierarchy? For example, is it possible to assume that a man must always be at the head of the hierarchy, because this has been the case for centuries? And is it right to try to build your family hierarchy according to this model, even if the real characteristics of the men in the family do not correspond to their high purpose as a leader?

Talk about the fact that there are correct configurations of the hierarchy that one must fit into is reminiscent of Krylov’s fable “Quartet,” where the characters believed that all they had to do was sit in the correct order and they would be able to play beautiful music. Equally unconvincing are attempts to forcefully promote to leadership a person who is suitable only on formal grounds (for example, an older man), but who does not correspond to the format of a leader in his human qualities.

Hierarchy is a law of nature, and the one who is right to be there is at the head: the most energetic person, ready to make decisions and take the risk of taking responsible actions. At the same time, the gender and age of a person (unless it is a child) are not decisive!

The question may arise about how traditional societies have maintained a certain hierarchy for centuries with clearly defined roles and relationships of all generations. After all, in traditional society there were no questions about who should be the head of the family and who should be obeyed. How was leadership stability ensured under these conditions, and why were there fewer hierarchical conflicts between different generations?

Most likely, the matter is in the tradition of education, which has not changed for very long periods of time. And this educational tradition from the very early age people were assigned certain roles that formed the very basis of a person’s personality. A woman brought up in this tradition was trained in a subordinate role from the very beginning of her life; her natural hierarchical aspirations were simply extinguished by a series of educational influences. The woman initially saw herself in a subordinate position. Moreover, especially strong female members of human society still controlled and influenced the situation. However, this was done using “feminine methods”: with the help of intrigue, through manipulation of members of society vested with power. A woman with natural leadership abilities could be a significant figure in traditional cultures. However, she used the methods that society accepted and did not challenge the formal leadership of men.

The clear rules about power in the family that traditional cultures provide reduce anxiety because everyone knows where they belong. The same applies to the relationships between generations in the family with elders. As a rule, in traditional cultures there are quite clear laws about who should be obeyed and until when. Moreover, as a rule, a new family member is accepted as the lowest member of the hierarchy. A daughter-in-law or son-in-law is accepted as a junior member of the family; they usually have very limited power. The state of affairs, when older people claim more than the younger ones want, is very traditional. So the authority of the “older generation” has a rich history.

IN modern world the situation with power in the family is more flexible; there are no regulations about who should obey whom and whose rules to play by.

Of course, certain rules still exist, but they are much more different in different families, determined more by family history than by the prescriptions of society. Obviously, this situation has both pros and cons.

The problem of generational conflicts arises when young people who create a new family, have a child in this family, claim greater independence from their elders, i.e., grandparents. This situation is very common.

Relationships with children often become a stumbling block between parents (grandparents) and children (parents of the child). How to treat, what to teach, how to dress, what to prohibit? Parents are sure that it is their direct responsibility to decide this, but the older generation has its own opinion on this matter. Why is there a conflict between different generations when the elders do not cede the right of decision to their children?

Before we consider ways for a new family to become more autonomous, let's consider the reasons why older family members remain in leading positions and do not want to give up primacy.

Some of these reasons lie on the surface. Since leadership in the family, the highest hierarchical position, is the result of natural rivalry, then the one who has more life resources, who is stronger, ends up in this position. According to other members of the system, he may have a wide variety of shortcomings: have a bad character, be insufficiently smart and educated, act unethically. However, he has energy, a thirst for action, and a desire to lead. In addition, he may have other important resources in his hands, for example, a material or time resource. It is very difficult to remove the older generation from power if you live on your parents’ money or on their territory, they look after your children or actively help with the household. In these cases, the desire for power is supported and strengthened by other types of resources (time, money).

As long as the young family is financially or in some other way closely connected with the older generation, in fact dependent on them, the older generation's claims to influence will be powerful. Parents and representatives of the older generation can be very active; they are often more active than younger family members. Their positions in life and aspirations may indeed exceed those of younger family members.

Another no less important, but less obvious reason for the power of the older generation is infantile psychological dependence on elders in the family. A person may be dependent on his parents due to the fact that he is psychologically nourished through this channel. Of course, with a normal relationship between an adult and his parents, he certainly feeds on warm feelings from this relationship. A painful situation of an inextricable but burdensome connection is created when ties with parents remain basic throughout a person’s life. That is, the connection with parents, relationships with them do not fade into the background, giving way to more intense connections with one’s own family, but remain as close and extremely important as in childhood, without being diluted by other influences. Then the person considers one of his parents to be closest to himself, and remains, as it were, more like a child their parents rather than becoming the husband or wife of their other half. There are many such examples; an adult person still remains in a childish position towards his own parents, and this is often considered normal. This situation is fueled by the energetic support of the older generation. “You are always little to me!”, “You are always a child to me!”, “Mother will always be the main person in life!”, “No one will be closer than mother” - such phrases do not seem unusual in our culture.

Interestingly, a situation of psychological dependence is not necessarily accompanied by a warm relationship with parents. She has an intense, tense, but not necessarily good relationship with her parents. Often this is a situation of eternal dispute, confrontation, an attempt to take revenge, prove something or gain recognition from parents. Relationships between different generations, namely relationships between children and parents, can be the main relationships in a person’s life for many years, throughout life. The following two examples describe different configurations of close communication with parents.

Psychological dependence on parents, even without financial reasons, affects how serious the role the older generation will play in your family. Often people are not aware of this psychological dependence precisely because the relationship with their parents is not particularly warm. In this case, a person may believe that there is no question of any dependence on them; on the contrary, he acts contrary to the instructions of his parents and does not follow their way of life.

The main sign that psychological dependence is present is the large amount of mental energy that exists in the relationship. It is not so important what kind of tension this is: whether a person is close to his parents and prefers their company to the company of all other people, or, on the contrary, cannot be in the same room with his parents. In both cases, we can talk about unfinished emotional processes between a parent and his adult child.

If an adult plays the role of a child in a relationship with his parents, then the parents will strive to exert their “parental” influence on him. If you constantly ask for support, seek help, ask for advice, or are very bullying with your parents, their parental instinct awakens. After all, this is how either children or teenagers behave - weak members of the family system who need to be controlled. The parental instinct gives rise to a position of power, from which an elderly parent acts if his child demonstrates infantile behavior.

Distribution of answers from parents of different ages, % from the total number of respondents, 1200 people in total

Answer options

76 years and older

I understand and share the interests of my children well

I understand the interests of children, but I do not share all of them

I don’t always understand my children, but I’m ready to support their interests

The interests of my children are alien and incomprehensible to me

There are three basic strategies to help you get out of a situation in which the older generation has too much influence on your family.

1. Strengthen relationships in your family.

The most typical situation is that only one of the spouses is dissatisfied with the claims of the older generation, while the second does not see anything special in them.

Distancing is often seen as the right way out of situations where communication is unpleasant. This is an understandable and, in a sense, logical way out. The problem with generations in a family, however, is that at the same time people want to influence those from whom they distance themselves, and this becomes impossible. Having withdrawn from communication at the external level, a person leaves within himself an unresolved conflict between representatives of different generations, in which he remains all the time until he communicates with the family member from whom he has distanced himself.

Those family members who are stuck between warring parties are in a special position. In the example given above, the husband must go over to the side of one of the women, which is practically impossible for him. A so-called conflict of loyalties is created when it is impossible to join one of the warring parties without feeling like a traitor to the other side.

If you are worried about your relationship with the older generation in your family, then you should direct your energy not to proving to others how wrong they are, but to improving your relationship with your other half. The situation of conflict with the older generation is usually different: the spouses move away, while losing the opportunity to communicate and support each other.

Steps to help you strengthen your family's space:

Create your own unique traditions. Of course, continuity family traditions- this is a great value that needs to be preserved. However, each family is unique and must create its own traditions. They may include the traditions of parental families, transform them, supplement or change them. The traditions that you created will help strengthen that unique space between you, which is called family. New families should generate new rules, inheriting (but not copying) the experience of the previous generation.
Make decisions together and communicate them on behalf of your family. Let others know what actions the family will take.
Spend some of the holidays separately from the older generation, allow yourself to create holidays to which no one except your family is allowed.

2. Get rid of psychological dependence.

Psychological dependence and an infantile position in relations with parents can provoke their excessive involvement in your life and family affairs. We do not always understand that we support this situation with our own behavior.

Analyze your attitude towards your parents (or your spouse’s parents).

Are you trying to prove something to your parents in words or actions? Do you often argue with them?
Do you often feel indignant at your parents’ unceremonious statements and their categorical instructions on how to behave?
Do you call your parents often, sometimes several times a day?
Do you prefer to spend everything free time with parents?
Do you feel a strong need to tell your parents about important choices in your life before making a decision?
Do you get very upset if your parents don't approve of your actions?
Do you often return in your thoughts to those episodes when your parents treated you badly?
Do you feel that, against your will, you are following your parents’ attitudes, reproducing their style, repeating your destiny?

If you answered “yes” to most of the questions, then you have signs of psychological dependence on your parents.

Psychological dependence is not equivalent to love and affection between people, often it even complicates the manifestation of these feelings.

Getting rid of psychological addiction is a deeply personal issue; it is a process of personal maturation. It cannot happen quickly; as a rule, it takes time. Often this process is natural, it occurs over the course of your life, through awareness of your personal values, analysis of life experiences, decisions made. If you feel that psychological dependence is becoming a generational problem that is preventing you from living the way you want, then the best solution for you is to contact a psychologist.

3. Work on your viability in life.

Dependence on the older generation often exists on the basis of the insolvency of the younger one. The way out in this case is to strengthen one’s position in life, provide the material base for one’s family, and geographically separate oneself from elders.

A person himself chooses which hierarchy he belongs to, in which areas he will compete for primacy. At his own will, as a rule, he can leave one hierarchy and join another. So, for example, a person can join or separate from the hierarchy in a profession, sport, or any area of skill. You can also separate from the family system by creating your own system.

With material, geographical separation, you create your own hierarchy, where you can take a place that matches your strengths and ambitions. Instead of being part of a large system in which you are somehow not satisfied with your place, you can create your own system and occupy a more enviable position in it.

Often the decisions of a young family that wants to separate serve precisely the idea of togetherness, a single family system. For example, a family gets together on weekends and holidays, buys real estate together, plans vacations, and reports on all important decisions. It is important to understand this and not make decisions that serve an undesirable situation of dependence on your parents. If, for example, you are oppressed by the excessive guardianship of your parents, their constant interference in the affairs of your family, then the decision to buy an apartment in the same building will most likely worsen the situation.

Increasing independence from the parental family does not mean a break with it. A healthy psychological distance ensures calm and warm relationships in the family, while symbiotic relationships are fraught with unnecessary tension and constant external and internal showdowns. Many traditions of our culture inhibit the growth of human autonomy and prevent his psychological separation from his parents. And this applies not only to children growing up in the family, but also to adult family members. The older generation can unconsciously (and sometimes quite consciously) keep children close to them, keep them “to themselves.” It is no secret that for the older generation this is becoming a way to get rid of loneliness, prolong active life, and fill their lives with meaning. “My whole life is in children”, “I can’t live for myself, only for the sake of children”, “Children are my only joy in life” - such and similar attitudes are not considered undesirable in our culture. These and similar attitudes do not so much strengthen ties between representatives of different generations as they contribute to unhealthy dependence and make it difficult for “children” to grow up. It is very difficult for a person who is taught from early childhood that he is the only meaning, joy and support of his parents to separate from these parents in order to create his own family. Being the “only joy”, the “meaning” of his parents’ life, he does not have the internal psychological right to leave this life, separating from his parents, he experiences a feeling of guilt. For such a person, the idea of moving away from parents can look very dangerous and undermine the basis of family ties. Sometimes you can see how your own family, and sometimes your whole life, is sacrificed for connections with parents.

Delimiting one’s own psychological territory, the space of a new young family, ultimately improves the situation. A crisis accompanies any growth, including the development of a young family, its separation from the extended family (family of parents). During a crisis, as described in detail in the first part of the book, a transformation occurs in a person’s inner world and his connections with others. Parental family during this period, the so-called “empty nest crisis” is experienced, when children leave and you need to look for new content in your life, without keeping the children nearby.

If a young family separates successfully, this will ultimately have a positive impact on all family members, and the participants in the system will move on to a new stage of life. Creating your own family with your own rules, realizing your separateness from the older generation will allow you to:

bring your family together;
will make relationships with elders freer and warmer. Now that positions have been determined, no one needs to fight for independence or power, play a double role and hide negative feelings;
send your vital energy to achieve their own goals, without wasting it on a war for power in the family.

In the family environment, in communication, in the dialogue of different generations, the real development of the psyche of children takes place and at the same time the mental life of parents changes significantly. In the modern world, the family often finds itself at the crossroads of social and economic problems of society; she is the main protector of the individual, a refuge and a foundation, although she herself experiences internal painful contradictions. Parent-child connections are of utmost importance for understanding the current structure of the family, its current state and directions for future development.

The influence of parents (usually the mother) on the mental development of the child has been closely studied since the 20s. XX century Parental love has innate biological components, but in general, parental attitude towards a child is a cultural-historical phenomenon, a historically variable phenomenon that is influenced by social norms and values.

Let's consider several theoretical approaches to understanding the role and content of parent-child relationships, formulated by different psychological schools. Let us present them in the form of “ideal” models of correct, successful relationships between parents and children. By model we mean a more or less holistic idea of how these relationships should be built; a kind of set of principles that parents should adhere to in order to raise their child “well.” We have identified at least three groups of approaches to family education, which we conventionally called: psychoanalytic, behaviorist, humanistic models. When presenting our approaches, we will adhere to the following scheme:

* theoretical origins, psychological theories underlying this view of the essence of parent-child relationships;
* representatives of the direction, authors of programs for “educating” parents, books, trainings, etc.;
* key concepts;
* main tasks, main goals that parents as leading persons should keep in mind family education;
* methods of education and specific methodological techniques for influencing the behavior and personality of a child, proposed by the authors of this area;
* special points that the direction’s developers consider it necessary to pay close attention to; characteristics behavior of children that parents need to take into account, or fundamentally important difficulties, etc.

Additionally, we will consider the ideas of the so-called folk developmental psychology, embodied in the work of pedagogical movements and parent clubs in modern Russia.

"Psychoanalytic" model of family education

In the classical psychoanalysis of S. Freud, the influence of parents on the mental development of the child is given a central place. In the first years of a child's life, parents (and especially the mother) are those with whom the most important early experiences are associated. Parents' normal, everyday child care activities have important psychological effects.

The method and completeness of satisfying the biological needs of the baby at the stage breastfeeding, providing him with the opportunity to receive pleasure from sucking lays the foundations for trust, affection, and activity in relation to other people for the rest of his life. Flexibility, tolerance, reasonable demands of parents in the process of teaching a child to use the toilet, to be neat, and supporting the child’s efforts to control himself contribute to the emergence of adequate forms of self-regulation, positive self-esteem, and even creative thinking.

Excessive, insufficient or inadequate satisfaction of needs and the presentation of demands in the early stages of psychosexual development leads, according to Freud, to clearly expressed peculiar deviations in personal development (for example, forms of infantile, “residual” behavior are fixed for a long time, “oral-passive” behavior develops or “anal-retentive” personality type).

Of particular importance for the formation of the personality structure and the emergence of the superego is the nature of relationships with parents at the age of three to six. The dominant psychosexual conflict of this stage, the “Oedipus complex” (in girls, the “Electra complex”) consists of experiencing a feeling of love, an unconscious desire to possess the parent of the opposite sex and eliminate the parent of the same sex. According to the opinion, it leads to overcoming the complex and to the formation of a more mature personality structure

Freud, identification with a parent of one’s own gender, borrowing his norms and values, increasing similarities in actions and intonations.

It is the first three stages of personality development that are of key importance. Communication with parents in early years, their influence on ways of solving typical age-related contradictions, conflicts and failures of adaptation affect later, manifesting themselves as characteristic problems already in an adult. Negative childhood experiences lead to infantilism, self-centeredness, and increased aggressiveness, which constitute personal preconditions for difficulties in fulfilling one’s own parental role and for rejection of one’s own child.

American psychologist E. Erikson considered the formation of a person’s personality throughout his life from birth to death. Based initially on psychoanalytic premises, he came to the conclusion about a more rational adaptation of a person to the social environment, about the need for each individual to resolve, rather than psychosexual, but psychosocial conflicts, to overcome life’s difficulties. Moreover, in the early years a person experiences significant influence from the family, and later from the wider social environment: neighbors, classmates, school and other social institutions, cultural and historical conditions.

In the first stages of life, the child is mainly in the zone of parental influence. The foundations of the formation of a healthy personality - a basic sense of trust in the world (internal certainty), autonomy (independence, a sense of expanding possibilities of self-control), initiative (the ability to “attack” a task for the sake of experiencing one’s own activity - motor and social) - develop under the conditions of a competent parental position (confidence , reliability, encouragement independent actions) and increasing the psychological space controlled by the child himself.

It is important to note that in adulthood, fulfilling the parental function (in the narrow sense - in relation to one’s own children and in the broad sense - caring for the younger generations of society, about their future) is one of the most important areas of personal development. Productivity and generativity of an adult, understood as helping children in their development, are opposed to inertia, stagnation, and personal degradation in adulthood. The achievements of descendants, children, grandchildren, and students make an important contribution to a person’s sense of personal self-realization in old age.

E. Fromm’s point of view on the role of mother and father in raising children, on the characteristics of maternal and paternal love, has received wide recognition.

Mother's love is unconditional: the child is loved simply because he is. This is a passive experience; maternal love does not need to be achieved. The mother herself must have faith in life and not be anxious, only then can she convey to the child a feeling of security. “In an ideal case, mother’s love does not try to prevent the child from growing up, does not try to assign a reward for helplessness”1. Father's love for the most part, this is conditional love, it is necessary and, what is important, can be earned by achievements, fulfillment of duties, order in affairs, compliance with expectations, discipline.

A mature person builds images of parents within himself: “In this development from mother-centered to father-centered attachment and their final synthesis lies the basis of spiritual health and maturity”2.

Key concepts of the education program from a psychoanalytic point of view: attachment, security, establishing close relationships between children and adults, creating conditions for establishing interaction between the child and parents in the first hours after birth.

The attitude of F. Dolto, a representative of the Parisian school of Freudianism, towards the child’s personality is extremely respectful, even reverent. She strongly emphasizes that the mother should strive to establish contact with the newborn, and specifically verbal contact. Sometimes this is truly a matter of life and health for the baby, who suffers extremely during forced separation from his sick mother, but calms down, according to Dolto’s observations, if the reason for the temporary separation is explained to him.

Dolto sees the main difficulty in children going through the stages of personality development not in children, but in parents. Difficult parents are overprotective, authoritarian, forcibly holding their growing children in the nets of possessiveness. An analysis of childhood memories, methods of teaching in kindergarten and school, the characteristics of upbringing in a single-parent family, attitudes towards money and punishment, all the details of a child’s life reveals the psychoanalyst’s enormous interest in childhood, recognition of the enduring importance of children’s stages of development. To share this position means to be imbued with these feelings by every parent, every specialist working with children.

In the works of the psychoanalyst D.V. Winnicott, the main attention is given to preventive work with parents, developing the correct basic attitudes. We are not talking about some kind of strict system; rather, on the contrary, this is advice to parents who are discouraged by book wisdom and the numerous new pedagogical recommendations. Parents are encouraged to trust more “intuitive wisdom”, to be natural, but consistent and predictable. It is important not to ignore the findings of other parents in a similar situation, to share your experiences with someone, which will allow you to look at them more realistically, as something that many encounter. Winnicott discusses such obstacles in relationships with children as periodic irritation with the child and subsequent feelings of guilt because of this. He is convinced that this is a normal phenomenon, because of which he should not reproach himself; just "enough" good parents", sincere people are more important than mechanical perfection. The author dwells on the transformation of relationships with a child as he grows up. In his opinion, developing parenthood involves passing through stages from the complete loss of personal independence of the parent (mother) to the appearance of small child until her recovery in the fight against the claims of a teenager. As a result, an independent, full-fledged personality of the child is formed next to the personality of the parent.

As specific methods, the psychologist pays attention to the relationship between education in the “yes” basis (finding possibilities for resolving situations) and in the “no” basis (introducing the concept of “impossible”), between which an optimal balance must be found. A father should not replace a mother; he has his own role in raising a boy and raising a girl. The author considers the following questions to be fundamental:

* child safety (external from the world and internal, personal);
* jealousy of brothers and sisters;
* moments of transition of a child from one developmental situation to another (from family to kindergarten, to school);
* infantile habits, which are proposed to be considered as supports in difficult situations and not to eradicate them, but to find out the causes of developmental delay;
* teenage provocations (theft, behavioral disorders) as a test of the reliability of parental control and supervision, which is still in demand.

The representative of psychoanalytic pedagogy, K. Bütner, considers not only the traditional sphere of family education for psychoanalysis, but the relationship between family and institutional education, in particular the growing influence of videos, cartoons, games, the toy industry, etc. Although it is difficult to talk about any final solution to this issue that worries many parents, its very formulation in the context of the emergence of completely new toys (such as Tamagotchi) and hobbies (Pokemonomania) is very relevant.

The roots of transactional analysis, developed by E. Berne, go back to psychoanalytic theories of personality. The author emphasizes that transactional analysis has done a lot to clarify the language of psychoanalytic theories. Thus, he distinguishes three states of “I”: child, adult and parent - as ways of perceiving reality, analyzing the information received and reacting.

All three principles in a person’s personality, according to Berne, develop gradually and in interaction with the surrounding social environment. A child is spontaneity, creativity and intuition, everything that is most natural in a person. Adult - systematic observations, rationality and objectivity, following the laws of logic. The position of a parent in its structure corresponds to the category of superego in Freud's theory of personality and includes acquired norms of behavior, habits and values.

When family members communicate with each other, three main types of interactions are possible - complementary transactions, in which communication occurs at the same level; intersecting (cross) transactions, in which the states of the parties do not correspond to each other; hidden transactions, in which information during communication is transmitted in a hidden form.

The author emphasizes that the key to changing a child’s behavior lies in changing the relationship between the child and parents and changing the family’s lifestyle. Parents themselves must learn to analyze social relationships in the family; introduce the child to the concepts of transactional analysis and methods of their application in practical life situations in other social spheres; creatively and cheerfully involve children in the process of learning about themselves and others; Show respect for children, support in them an attitude of happiness, satisfaction with themselves and life.

“Behaviourist” model of family education

The roots of this trend go back to behavioral psychology (J. Watson, B.F. Skinner). The main emphasis in the model is on the child’s behavior technique and discipline.

An experimental study of the emergence of new forms of behavior in “a living piece of meat capable of giving a small number of simple reactions” allowed J. Watson and other behaviorists to come to the conclusion that the human psyche has a minimum of innate components, its development depends mainly on the social environment and living conditions, i.e. from stimuli supplied by the environment. The environment was considered as the child’s immediate environment, a situation consisting of specific life situations, which in turn consist of sets of various stimuli and can be decomposed into chains of stimuli. External and environmental influences determine the content of a child’s behavior and the nature of his development. Hence the main thing is the special organization of the child’s environment.

Watson emphasizes the need for a scientific approach to education: “Humanity would undoubtedly be greatly improved if it could suspend the birth of children for twenty years (except for children brought up for experimental purposes) and devote these years to an intensive study of the laws of child development, and then, on the basis of the acquired knowledge, begin new education, more scientific and with more advanced methods”1.

The central problem of the concepts of social learning that arose on the basis of classical behaviorism is socialization as the process of transforming an initially asocial humanoid being into a full-fledged member of human society, as a progression from a biological state to a social one. The problem of acquiring new social behavior is the main one. How does socialization occur, i.e. transmission of forms of behavior, norms, motives, values, emotional reactions? The main answer is the result of learning.

The radical representative of behaviorism B. Skinner recognized two main types of behavior: respondent (as a response to a familiar stimulus) and operant, determined and controlled by the result that follows it. Thus, according to Skinner, there is no free will of the individual; the behavior of an individual is under the control of the social environment. The method he developed of successive approximations, or shaping, is based on reinforcing behavior when it becomes similar to the desired one ( token system rewards).

R. Sire used psychoanalytic concepts (suppression, regression, projection, identification) and the principles of learning theory to analyze the influence of parents on the development of the child. He examined the formation of the infant’s psychological dependence on the mother in dyadic interaction, the formation of various forms of dependent behavior (seeking positive and negative attention, the desire for constant confirmation, touch, presence nearby, etc.), and later - in preschool and school age- stages of overcoming childhood variants of addiction. Mother and father act as the main reinforcing intermediaries, identifying behavior that needs to be changed, helping to learn more mature forms of behavior.

A. Bandura, a neobehaviorist, a representative of the social-cognitive direction in the study of personality, answering the question about the mechanisms of socialization, assigned a special role to learning through observation, imitation, imitation, identification and through modeling. For him, parental behavior is primarily a model for extracting some common features, rules of behavior, a role model for the child in trying to build his own behavior. Reinforcement is necessary to maintain behavior that has emerged from imitation.

The main ideas of organizing education as behavior therapy are that parents are considered, on the one hand, as elements of the environment, and on the other, as agents of socialization and “designers” of the child’s behavior. In order to modify a child’s behavioral reactions, one must learn to analyze behavior in terms of incentives, consequences, reinforcements, and rely on the conditioned expression of love for the child.

Methods and techniques of educational influence

1. Method of modification, retraining. The art and science of this approach is to isolate small elements of behavior, highlight the positive aspects and try to approve them as much as possible.

The initial stage of such retraining is the assessment (diagnosis) of the child’s behavior (the state of his skills). It is necessary to take into account children's individuality from the point of view of factors of motivation (reinforcement): which of them is the most effective for each particular child. Ways to shape behavior: positive reinforcement - encouragement, reward; negative reinforcement - punishment; no reinforcement - zero attention. In most cases, approval is used for doing the right thing (in the form of adult interest, encouragement and praise, or material reward or assignment of points, symbolic reinforcements). In addition, parents are encouraged to use techniques to ignore or withhold reinforcement for children's unacceptable behavioral responses. The difficulty with these methods is that they are only effective if they are applied consistently and very precisely. Negative sanctions are used to suppress inappropriate behavior.

2. The modeling method assumes a transfer effect of desired behavior, and the parent is a model of correct actions.
3. The incremental change method is based on the idea that obvious changes in behavior are achieved as a result of steps, each of which is so small that it is almost the same as the previous one.

For example, this method is used to eliminate excessive attachment to objects in many autistic children. For example, one seven-year-old autistic boy insisted on always wearing a big leather belt, which significantly limited his activity. The child's mother was asked to gradually shorten the belt centimeter by centimeter at night, and also insist that at certain pleasant moments for the child, such as meal time, he put the belt aside. After two weeks, he was completely satisfied with a piece of leather 10 cm long, which he put aside if necessary.

4. The desensitization method was developed to overcome fears and phobic reactions in children and is used as a variant of the method of gradual changes.

This method of behavioral training is based on two principles: a) a combination of anxiety-provoking stimuli with the experience of relaxation and pleasure, which should gradually displace the feeling of fear; b) systematic movement from the least exciting situations to the most stressful ones, causing maximum anxiety. Desensitization techniques have been used with great success in the correction of conditions such as animal phobia, fear of water, school phobia and fear of food.

The treatment of a boy who was very afraid of dogs is described. At first he was presented with small furry animals, such as guinea pigs, which caused him almost no anxiety, and then gradually, after the boy got used to such stimulation, the situation became more complicated until he was able to meet and pet large animals without fear. playful dogs.

5. The time-out technique, or time-out, is used as an alternative to punishment methods.

Thus, the parents of two little boys who were constantly stubborn and “destroying” everything around them were able to use time-out as a effective method impact. Children were punished for disobedience with five-minute time-outs, and if children behaved well, their behavior was reinforced either by parental approval or financial rewards.

6. The “hypercorrection” technique is aimed at eliminating the damage resulting from negative offenses and mastering the exact opposite, correct forms of behavior. The method of restorative hypercorrection requires that a child who is different destructive behavior, eliminated the consequences of his misconduct. For example, a child who throws food on the floor may be asked to wash, scrub, and wax the floor. According to the positive activity overcorrection method, a child who throws food on the floor can be asked to set the table at the appointed time and help arrange the food.

Representatives of the behaviorist school believe that the parents' display of warm and tender feelings to the child must be conditional. However, critics believe that because a child learns to act only for rewards, this becomes his value system, and he exhibits desirable forms of behavior only when it is profitable.

“Humanistic” model of family education

One of the most famous approaches to understanding upbringing in the family was developed by A. Adler, the author of the individual theory of personality, which is sometimes considered as a predecessor of humanistic psychology.

According to A. Adler, man is a social being, personality development is viewed primarily through the prism social relations. The personality theory developed by A. Adler emphasizes that every person has an innate sense of community, or social interest (i.e., a natural desire for cooperation), as well as a desire for excellence, in which the uniqueness of the individual and the creative properties of the human being are realized. I".

The foundation of personality, or lifestyle, is laid and firmly established in childhood, based on efforts aimed at overcoming feelings of inferiority, compensation and development of superiority. Family atmosphere, attitudes, values, mutual respect among family members and healthy love (primarily the mother) contribute to the development of broad social interest in the child. A. Adler views education not only from the point of view of benefits for the individual family and the child, but also as the activity of parents, which significantly influences the state of society as a whole.

The basic concepts of family education, according to Adler, are: equality, but not identity between parents and children, both in the field of rights and in the field of responsibility; cooperation; natural results.

A follower of A. Adler was the teacher R. Dreikurs, who developed and concretized the scientist’s views and introduced the practice of consultations and lectures for parents. He saw the tasks of parents raising their children in:

* respect for the uniqueness, individuality and integrity of children from a very early age;
* understanding children, insight into their way of thinking, the ability to understand the motives and meaning of their actions;
* developing constructive relationships with the child;
* finding your own methods of education for the purpose of further development of the child as an individual.

The methods of education formulated by Dreikurs continue to be of interest to parents. Parents should build their relationships with their children on their sincere support, but they should not allow unlimited freedom. In collaboration with the child, you need to determine everyone's duties and responsibilities. The established restrictions create a sense of security in the child and give confidence in the correctness of his actions. Children should not be punished, since punishment breeds the same bitterness as coercion; You can't offend with words. Rejecting punishment as a disciplinary measure that involves the superiority of one person over another, parents can use other corrective techniques: the development of logical consequences, the use of rewards.

When solving specific problems, the psychologist suggests observing the following principles: non-interference of parents in conflicts between children; equal participation of all family members in household chores; understanding by each family member that he is responsible for the order in his room and his things.

Dreikurs pays special attention to the interpretation of negative behavior of children directed at parents and teachers. At the same time, the forms misbehavior are seen as misguided approaches in which children try to find a place within the family or group and provide a sense of belonging, security and acceptance.

Negative behavior has very specific goals.

Demand for attention different ways, including causing anxiety, causing irritation, especially if children see this as the only way for their parents to notice them and take care of them.

Demonstrative disobedience is a consequence of children’s false conclusion that they can assert themselves by insisting on the fulfillment of their desires, proving their strength in confrontation with adults.

Revenge, retribution, the desire to hurt others sometimes seem to be the only way for children to feel “important” and significant.

Asserting one's insolvency or inferiority, demonstrating real or imagined powerlessness helps one refuse communication, assignments, and responsibility.

Many defective types of behavior - poor academic performance, laziness, bedwetting, lying, theft - can be an expression of the desire for one of the listed goals. An adult, having expressed his assumption to a child about the reasons for bad behavior, must be attentive to his emotional manifestations, focus on a spontaneous reaction, a special smile or sparkle in the eyes, a recognition reflex. Then, at an appropriate time, you can try to reveal the meaning of the action in a hypothetical, non-judgmental manner. With this approach, children can gain a new understanding of their actions, relying on the logical reasoning of an adult.

In order for children’s defective goals to change, parents need to overcome the usual desire to increase pressure on the child and creatively approach the search for adequate methods of establishing Yezhov-like, constructive relationships.

In line with the ideas of Adler and Dreikurs, there is a program for developing positive discipline for children, which was developed by teachers D. Nelsen, L. Lott and H. S. Lenn. The main ideas of education, in their opinion, are as follows:

parents’ control of their own behavior (including acceptance of duties, responsibilities, regime, established order);

recognition of the right to own life- for both parent and child;

maintaining a sense of dignity and respect for oneself and the child;

The long-term goal of education is the formation of healthy self-esteem and life skills of children so that they are full members of society and happy people. This goal should constantly guide parents in finding answers to countless problematic situations.

The key concepts of this education system are cooperation, complicity; creative, flexible approach to different children; emotional honesty; atmosphere of love, encouragement, encouragement. To achieve positive behavior in children, psychologists advise parents:

* use joint family discussions of family problems and achievements;
* asking the child about his problems (instead of explanations and statements), this contributes to the development of thinking and criticism skills. Ask children questions only if there is a genuine interest in the child's opinions and feelings. You cannot ask questions as “trap” if the parent knows the answer in advance;
* when criticizing a child, it is better to use I statements: “I noticed that you didn’t brush your teeth. Let's do it now";
* give children the opportunity to choose between at least two acceptable options. As children grow older, the number of alternatives should increase;
* do not force or punish, but educate, allowing children to feel the natural or logical consequences of their actions. The natural consequences are simple: if a child stands in the rain, he gets wet; logical consequences require parental intervention: if the child does not put dirty clothes into the laundry basket, the parent does not say anything, but does not wash these clothes;
* apply non-punitive methods of behavior correction (time-out, establishing a connection “additional opportunity - additional responsibility”, including a sense of humor, replacing excessive verbosity with correct action).

The authors pay special attention to the fact that the negative behavior of children is a consequence of erroneous goals, and typical difficulties in the formation of responsible behavior are the effective completion of tasks (the child rebuilds behavior, begins to fulfill agreements, but it is not enough for a long time) and an adequate attitude towards mistakes made, feelings about this.

In the USA and other countries, T. Gordon’s model of family education, called “Parent Effectiveness Training” (TER), is popular. On its basis, original versions of psychotraining have been created, for example, by American psychologists J. Bayard and R. Bayard, and Russian psychologists Yu. B. Gippenreiter, V. Rakhmatshaeva, which we will also use when describing this model.

The basis of T. Gordon's views on family education is the phenomenological theory of personality of C. Rogers, who believed in the original ability of man for goodness and perfection. K. Rogers argued that a person is characterized by the need for a positive attitude, which is satisfied when the child experiences approval and love from others, and the need for self-esteem, which develops as the first need is satisfied. The condition for the healthy development of a child is the absence of a contradiction between the ideal self (the idea of how loved you are) and the real self (the actual level of love).

Rogers considered the most important concepts of the family education model to be the manifestation of sincere, true feelings (both positive and negative) by all family members; unconditional acceptance of your feelings and the feelings of loved ones; devotion to your inner self.

The main ideas of education of K. Rogers.

* Parental love has different levels - it is love-care for the physical well-being of the child and love-care in relation to his inner self, to his ability to make individual decisions.
* Parents should strive to influence the values and beliefs of children, leaving them free to choose specific actions.
* The style of communication in the family should be based on openness, freedom, and mutual respect.
* It is necessary to teach the child to cope with problems independently, gradually transferring to him the responsibility for finding and making decisions.
* Parents must learn to accept help from their children. According to K. Rogers, for positive interaction with

With children, parents need three basic skills: to hear what the child wants to tell the parents; express your own thoughts and feelings in a way that the child can understand; safely resolve controversial issues so that both conflicting parties are satisfied with the results.

Methods and techniques of education developed by T. Gordon.

* Any problem is solved by parents together with their children, this avoids coercion and gives the child a desire to continue to participate in family affairs. The solution to the problem occurs in a multi-stage manner: the problem itself is identified and defined; options for resolving it are being thought through; each option is weighed; the most suitable one is selected, ways to solve the problem are found; the possibility of success is assessed.
* The most important question for determining the line of parental behavior is whose problem? It is necessary to analyze for whom the solution to this problem is of immediate importance - for the parent or for the child. If the problem is a child, then he has the right to make a decision and experience all its consequences, immediate and long-term.
* Modeling method - providing a child with a role model in love and care for his inner self. (Please note: while the name is similar to the method of social-cognitive learning, in this case we are talking about the fact that the content of the transfer should not be specific behavior, but interest, care, attention to one’s own inner world that a parent exercises towards himself.)
* Encouragement, support for the child’s ability to make independent decisions. Refusal to require children to strictly follow their instructions.
* It is recommended to think and talk about your children in terms of specific characteristics and facts of their behavior, and not in terms of the “permanent” personality traits that are usually assessed. For example: “Jimmy didn’t say hello to my friend” instead of “Jimmy is shy and impolite”; “Katie left her things in the living room” instead of “Katie is sloppy and inattentive to others.”
* React to children’s behavior that is unacceptable from a parent’s point of view with the help of I-messages, statements containing only the expression of the parent’s own feelings, but not accusations, notations, orders, warnings, etc. For example: “I'm too tired to play with you” instead of “You're just an obnoxious child”; “I need silence so I can read a book” instead of “Stop yelling or go to your room.”

Fundamentally important warnings concern the inevitability of the consequences of parents’ use of force in the form of various defensive reactions of children (open disobedience, vindictiveness, aggressiveness, withdrawal, embitterment, humility, sycophancy, lies, lack of communication, avoidance, etc.). The strategy of connivance also leads to negative results. When choosing the strategically correct path of transferring responsibility to the child, parents are warned about the specific difficulties of this path, especially its initial stage: the desire for freedom is accompanied by fear of it, and often children go to provoke the negative attention of their parents.

Implementing T. Gordon's education system in " Practical guide for Desperate Parents,” R. and J. Bayard offer a paradoxical approach to common problems adolescence, such as skipping school, failing in school, running away from home, lying, sloppiness, theft, “bad friends”, etc. According to the authors, a parent should take care of himself, turn to his inner self, thoroughly reconsider the forms of communication with a teenager, and improve the culture of communication, including speech. Gordon's approach has been criticized for being overly optimistic about the abilities of a person, especially a child, who is left to solve his own problems.

Yu. B. Gippenreiter presented a modification of T. Gordon’s model of family education, taking into account the patterns of mental development discovered in Russian psychology. “Communication lessons” between a parent and a child include the following topics: what unconditional acceptance is, how you can and should help a child, how to listen to a child, how to relate to parents’ feelings, how to resolve conflicts and maintain discipline.

The theory of family education, developed by X. Jainott, is focused primarily on practical assistance to parents, on developing their self-confidence; he offers specific advice: how to talk to children; when to praise and when to scold a child; how to teach him discipline and hygiene; how to overcome a child’s fears, etc.

The central ideas and key concepts of H. Jainott's model of education boil down to the following: the most complete knowledge by adults of themselves, awareness of their own emotional conflicts; acceptance and approving attitude towards the child’s personality and feelings; parents' sensitivity to the child's emotional states and experiences, the desire to understand him.

Educational methods proposed by X. Dzhainott.

* Fundamental denial of universal methods of education, ready-made formulas of response.
* Honing communication skills and ways to penetrate the child's feelings.
* Consistent and reasonable determination of the boundaries of what is permitted in the child’s behavior.
* Open and sincere expression of your feelings, emotional reactions in response to the behavior and actions of children.

V. Goryanina, step by step, leads parents from authoritarianism as a principle of education to trust and mutual understanding, to responsible behavior of children. These stages of “growing up” of parents are associated primarily with in-depth personal work on oneself.

A. Fromm expresses similar ideas: a parent must first of all control his own behavior; raise a child without suppressing his personality; strive to understand the reason for the child’s behavior; convey to the child the belief that we love him and are ready to help.

The key concepts of his parenting model are respect; closeness with parents; manifestations of love.

A. Fromm emphasizes the importance of education in the first years of life; he is convinced that love is necessary not only towards the child, but also between other family members.

He assigns a special role to the father in upbringing - to be an example of a man, to form in boys a masculine attitude towards life, but at the same time not to make excessive demands.

The author draws special attention to parents to the need for physical contact with children (hug, kiss, pat on the shoulder); for continuity in conveying to the child a feeling of love and sympathy, which requires a reduction in irritability over trifles; to a sincere willingness to share time, knowledge, experience with children, and not “make sacrifices.”

The main ideas of family psychotherapist V. Satir are related to the understanding of the family as the center of the formation of new people, so you need to learn to be parents. Key concepts used by the author: family successful, successful and problematic; complexity of family interaction; family system open and closed; parent leader and parent boss. According to V. Satir, parent-child relationships should be built according to the laws of effective personal communication. A parent should not be a boss, but a leader who is called upon to teach the child general ways to solve problems independently. Education should be aimed at developing in the child the most valuable intellectual personal qualities: uniqueness, expressiveness, strength, sexuality, participation, kindness, realism, responsibility, independence, prudence.

Models of parent-child relationships in “folk developmental psychology”

In recent years, interest in the so-called folk developmental psychology has increased abroad and in our country. Folk developmental psychology studies the views, ideas, beliefs and attitudes of parents, the mechanism of their influence on child development. Particular attention is paid to non-traditional education systems, represented by informal associations of families that promote and implement certain pedagogical ideas. Among the modern psychological and pedagogical movements popular in Russia, “Conscious Parenthood”, the pedagogy of B.P. Nikitin, “Moral Psychology and Pedagogy”, and Orthodox family education stand out.

They are based on philosophical and pedagogical concepts that help parents feel true happiness and joy from communicating with their child, and understand his uniqueness. At the same time, various and dissimilar methods of education, means and methods for implementing the educational process are offered.

The Conscious Parenting movement began in the early 1980s. as an alternative to domestic medicine. Central to this direction are the ideas of I.B. Charkovsky, which are being implemented by a number of parent clubs. The initiative usually belongs to the woman.

Great importance is attached to the period of intrauterine development, the process of childbirth and the first year of life. The conception and birth of a child are considered as events, to some extent magical, sanctified by involvement in the cosmos. From the moment of conception, a child is a spiritual being. The foundations of personal development are laid in the early stages, in the prenatal period. Hence the awareness of the responsibility of parents and their desire to rebuild the family’s lifestyle so as to make it more natural, to “reunite with nature.” For this purpose, swimming in open water, walking barefoot, physical exercise, and aquatic preparation of a pregnant woman for childbirth are used. A pregnant woman and her husband should take care of a balanced diet and especially psycho-emotional balance. Water births at home are encouraged, and future parents undergo special training for them; childbirth is perceived as a holiday surrounded by some kind of ritual. In the first minutes of life, the child, not yet separated from the mother, is put to the breast. Among the specific procedures promoted by this trend are a child’s prolonged stay in the water, a series of dives, and sets of physical exercises for a baby: baby yoga, dynamic gymnastics. The value of breastfeeding is emphasized and early toilet training is encouraged.

The ideal of movement is a physically and mentally healthy child, living in harmony with nature and people. The slogan “Only me and my child exist” encourages parents not to pay attention to sidelong or perplexed glances, judgment of others, and to boldly try new ways of caring for and interacting with their child. The family’s lifestyle is not disrupted with the birth of a child; the child is always and everywhere with his parents. However, parents are obliged to choose the type of leisure that would suit their infant.

Some time ago, Charkovsky’s ideas were actively discussed in the media. Currently, the number of such publications has decreased significantly. There is no statistical data on the characteristics of the physical and mental development of children within this educational system. The assessments of the parents themselves are also contradictory. Methods for further guiding the development of a child beyond the first year of life have practically not been developed. Many parents feel confused about their older children and note their negative personality traits and selfish tendencies.

B.P. Nikitin’s pedagogy develops ideas that the author himself and his wife, Lena Alekseevna, came to back in the 60s. XX century Feeling dissatisfied with the existing system of education and healthcare, they began to build their own approach, which is based on an analysis of the upbringing of seven children and grandchildren, taking into account the experience of mistakes and achievements. Much attention is paid to infancy and early childhood.

The authors strive to inspire parents, strengthen their self-confidence and develop the ability to understand the needs of the child and build the educational process on this understanding. The mother should not confront the baby in the name of “rules”: feeding on demand, sleeping next to the mother is possible. However, in parallel, stimulation of the child’s activity begins - from the moment of searching for the nipple and creating conditions for the baby’s physical activity. Hygienic skills are instilled from the first days of life. Hardening is carried out in a simple and natural way, when panties become the child’s main clothing at home. The slider is already given the greatest possible independence: the child has the right to get burned and fall. Peculiar business card of this pedagogical direction - sports complex(rings, horizontal bar, rope, rope ladder) as an integral condition for organizing a family’s lifestyle. Parents are role models; they strive to involve the child in household chores, sports activities, and take care of the child’s early intellectual development.

The approaches of “Moral Psychology and Pedagogy” and education in an Orthodox family are strikingly different from those discussed above. The goal here is not to develop any amazing abilities of children - intellectual or physical. The focus is on the values and ideals of the child and other family members.

The laboratory “Moral Psychology and Pedagogy” by A. Ts. Gar-maev arose in the 80s. XX century The goal of its activities is the revival of family traditions, strengthening the moral principles of human society. Priority belongs to spiritual values, family, and not social problems. The main virtues of a person are following duty and the ability to help someone who needs support.

To educate the soul of a child, according to the author of the concept, is possible only through “living”, through the personal example of parents in Everyday life families. Self-education of parents, their spiritual growth is the key to success in raising a child. The conceptual apparatus of the direction is peculiar: good, way of life, normal and unsettled family, innermost person, living. Hierarchy family relations, respect for elders, discipline, obedience and love are the main components of a “situated” family, and the selfishness of parents is a consequence of problems that arise in the family. The author offers systems of classes and exercises aimed at awareness of parental egoism and ways to overcome it. He also attaches great importance to pregnancy and childbirth, but the emphasis is on the spiritual growth and self-improvement of the mother, her humility, meekness, and calmness. Childbirth is seen as a manifestation of the mother’s generosity or selfishness, willingness or unwillingness to endure, endure pain, and think first of all about the child.

Educational techniques are simple - this is the process of living in a harmonious, properly organized family, jointly solving the most important issues family councils, participation in socially useful work, for example, restoration of churches. The physical development of children is given subordinate importance as the ability to endure “bodily discomfort.” The rules of parental behavior are few: a ten-second pause before making a remark to the child; a three-day pause after a comment before continuing the conversation on this topic (or abandoning it); and patience, patience, patience.

The Orthodox family is built on Christian principles. Marriage, matrimony is, first of all, a martyrdom of each member of the union. The burdens of husband and wife increase with the appearance of children. However, the sacrament of marriage promises the triumph of good. Husband and wife are destined for different roles in the family; they are two halves of one whole with their own merits. The head of the family is the husband, father, he is aware of his responsibility for the family before God. The second role is assigned to the wife. A woman’s value lies in her warmth, sensitivity, flexibility of mind, and humility. The purpose of the family is to have and raise children; no success of parents in their professional activities will atone for their sins in raising their own children. A perfect child only comes from a perfect marriage.

The main means of education are prayer and the example of parents, their inner spiritual life, overcoming individualism, selfishness, “in-depth spiritual life for everyone, working on oneself, walking before God.” The main educational efforts are aimed at the state of mind of children, their ability to live virtuously and modestly.

So, having examined the “ideal” models of interaction between generations of parents and children in the family, let us summarize some basic provisions.

The problem of family education of children takes on different meanings from different authors. This may be a problem of de/is/co-parental relationships, when in the first place is the child’s personality, the influences he experiences, internal experiences and “character-forming” consequences. In other cases, the researcher’s focus is on the figure of the parent, his leading role in interaction, and the difficulties he encounters.

In “psychoanalytic” and “behaviorist” models, the child is presented rather as an object of parental effort, as a being who needs to be socialized, disciplined, and adapted to life in society. The “humanistic” model implies, first of all, the assistance of parents in the individual development of the child. Therefore, parents’ desire for emotional closeness, understanding, and sensitivity in their relationships with children is encouraged. Education is considered as an interaction, joint, general, mutual activity to change the circumstances of life, one’s own personality and, as a consequence, the personality of another person. When becoming a teacher, a parent must start with himself, by changing his perception of the child as an imperfect “outline” of a person. Only respectful, trusting upbringing, but one that assigns a certain amount of responsibility, can lead to the optimal formation of a child’s personality.

Both foreign and domestic authors actively call for pedagogical education and parental education. Books, manuals, guides “for desperate” or simply thoughtful parents not only contain recommendations on what a parent should be, but also offer ways and techniques for personal self-improvement.

Research work on the topic:

"Relationship between generations"

Performed:

Teacher of the highest qualification category

in the flute class of the MBU DO "Children's Art School" of Nizhnekamsk

Galautdinova Liliya Makhmutovna

Nizhnekamsk

Content:

Introduction

ChapterI. Theoretical and methodological foundations for the study of intergenerational interactions

1.1 Theoretical and methodological traditions of studying intergenerational interactions

2.2 Conflict, its causes and typology

Conclusion

List of used literature

Introduction

Relevance of the work. In the 21st century, the problem of relationships between generations has become noticeably worse. The problem of continuity and conflict in the relationship between “fathers” and “children” can be considered as the interaction of counter flows of information and activity, as features of the transmission of cultural values from generation to generation. It always exists, but the content of the problem, the severity of the contradictions, is of a particularly specific historical nature. In modern society, there is a transformation in the attitude of younger age groups towards the older generation in the direction from traditionally respectful to non-traditional, not characteristic of the Ukrainian mentality, condemning, blaming, rejecting. At best, we are talking about an absolutely indifferent attitude, both at the state and at the everyday level.

The family is the first and most individual level of relationships between different generations. Currently, the family is undergoing demographic, cultural, socio-economic changes, which are reflected in intra-family ties. As family ties matter less and less, old people often find themselves unwanted.

Destabilization in our country, the focus of people’s consciousness on survival affects how the younger generation perceives the elderly.

Young people do not have a clear idea of the life of the older generation and often dramatize their social position, giving rise to prejudices and creating stereotypes, which, in turn, is projected onto intergenerational relationships. In the mass consciousness, both in a hidden and in an explicit form, the attitude towards older people as a useless category of the population is fixed; a model is widespread in the public consciousness, which is characterized by the approval of a strategy of ousting old age from the sphere of access to prestigious values, power, and other resources, and a peripheral position their problems.

The degree of development of the problem. The complexity of studying the relationship between generations necessitates a multidisciplinary approach to this problem: sciences such as sociology, demography, genealogy, pedagogy, ethnography and psychology study generations. Each of the specific sciences solves the problem in its own context.

A special place in the process of studying intergenerational relationships belongs to sociology, which studies the characteristics of generational status (the status and role of people of different ages in a given society, their potential, features of intergenerational transmission of culture, problems of generational unity, solidarity, adaptation of each new generation in the sociocultural information space) .

The sociocultural approach includes a historical and cultural analysis of the forms of intergenerational relationships and the study of the influence of the sociocultural environment on the distance between generations. However, the current stage of research into the problem of intergenerational interactions is characterized by insufficient development of some of its aspects. Until now, there has not been a full study of the factors that impede successful intergenerational interactions and the practices of intergenerational interactions. The mechanisms of social construction of the image of old age, as well as the ways of interaction between representatives of old age, seem to have been little studied. different ages within a modern four-generation family. Family conflict relationships generation

Section I. Theoretical and methodological foundations for the study of intergenerational interactions

1.1 Theoretical and methodological traditions of studying intergenerational interactions.

Each person's cycle is characterized by multifaceted variability. It includes such phases of life as: childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age. At different stages of life, a person plays different social roles - child, student, worker, father, grandfather. Childhood and adolescence are a period of apprenticeship, assimilation of the norms and values of a given society. The period of maturity is the period when norms and values are assimilated as fully as possible in accordance with individual capabilities. During old age, the individual lags behind the process of changing social structures (they change much faster than the aging individual is able to adapt to them). The identification of different age stages has a sociocultural history. Not all of the stages accepted in modern age stratification appear simultaneously; their set in different periods of history is not equivalent and not identical.

The concept of “generation” includes a whole complex of psychological, moral qualities both millions of people and the personal qualities of its most prominent representatives. Considering a generation as a whole, as a kind of “subject,” we, of course, sacrifice differences in experience, outlook, and education between people of the same age, but at the same time we emphasize the differences between generations. Different generations have different values, different views on the same things.

So, generation is a concept that denotes different aspects of the kinship and age structures of the historical development of society. The exclusive rule of sociology is the study of the characteristics of generational status (the status and role of people of different ages in a given society, their potential), the characteristics of intergenerational transmission of culture, problems of generational unity, solidarity, adaptation of each new generation in the sociocultural information space, the relationship of generational structures and institutions with other formations - national, gender and class.

The generational approach in sociology involves analyzing the coexistence of three life dimensions in a social situation: the generation of young people, the generation of mature people and the generation of old people. The existence of three different times represents forward movement, development. Otherwise, history would have stopped and the possibility of radical change would have disappeared.

The sociocultural environment of intergenerational relations either reduces the distance between generations or leads to total distancing, leading to a crisis.

In the sociological literature there are two poles of interpretation of intergenerational relations:

1. In modern society there is a big difference between generations and this gap, reaching the opposite, is increasing.

2. Ideas about the growth of intergenerational differences are illusory. Nothing new has happened in this regard.

1.2 Family as an institution of social inheritance

One of the manifestations of the social ill-being of modern society is the breakdown of intergenerational ties, leading to the loss of universal norms and values embodied in customs and traditions.

The problem of intergenerational relations became especially acute throughout the world due to the rise of the youth and student movements in the 60s and 70s. twentieth century, which became one of the manifestations of the growing crisis of modern civilization.

Many studies have appeared, the focus of which was “generational conflict”, “generation gap”. The essence of this phenomenon has been interpreted differently.

Thus, the American sociologist L. Feuer believed that the “conflict” of generations is a universal theme of human history. It is based on the original traits of human nature and is perhaps an even more important driving force of history than the class struggle.

Modern specialists living in the electronic world are often unable to talk about anything with people who have not received special technical education.

They supposedly no longer need the firm hand of a leader. The information aspect of the problem has not yet been realized. In any case, technological progress, informatization of the way of life (from leisure, education, production, politics to the spiritual world of man and from childhood to old age) significantly affect the life of people, often striking a blow to the advantages of traditional wisdom and the authority of the elderly.

According to S.N. Parkinson, technological progress does not take into account seniority. If previously the knowledge and skills acquired in youth were enough for a person to last his entire working life and the new generation learned from the previous one, social status and specialty were most often inherited, then with the introduction of an innovative type of life activity the situation changes.

The relationship between past, present and future takes on a new meaning. Given the necessity and even greater value of taking into account the experience, knowledge, and traditions of previous generations, an orientation towards the future, towards the inevitability of changes in one’s professional, social, family and kinship destiny, becomes increasingly important.

Secondly, neglect of the past is becoming more and more dangerous, since each new generation must master it in ever greater completeness. The older a civilization is, the more past it has behind it, the more experienced it is and the more important it is. historical meaning. It is the primary means of preserving and prolonging an aging civilization, but not because it provides recipes for new life complications, but because it prevents us from repeating the naive mistakes of the past.

Thirdly, conflict in relations between generations is determined by the type of education of “complacent undergrowth”, for whom there is an innate feeling of lightness and abundance of life, devoid of any restrictions.

Excessive benefits, but not excessive worries, themselves disfigure life activity and produce defective natures of “darling”, “heir”. He considers his mental and moral level to be more than sufficient; he does not feel responsibilities, does not know difficulties or worries.

Fourthly, the family, the interaction of parents and children, ancestors and descendants, plays a special role in intergenerational relations. The situation that would make it possible to overcome the generational conflict is far from comforting.

It is interesting that when spouses have children, the intergenerational conflict smoothes out.

Thus, already 41.2% of spouses with children living together with their parents described their family relationships as “in our family everyone loves and understands each other” (Figure 1.3).

This is likely due to several factors:

with adaptation to existing living conditions;

with the birth of a child, spouses switch to parenting processes, intergenerational conflict fades into the background;

Perhaps family members also feel the benefit of generations living together, which lies in the opportunity to provide real help to each other.

Intergenerational relationships at the micro level of social connections, in the family, are especially significant, since, unlike a large social group, in a small social group, people’s relationships are of a direct nature. It is very important for every person to know their past, their genealogy, and the life history of their ancestors.

The main thing in intergenerational relations is the ability of each generation to adapt painlessly into a single sociocultural space without a rigid hierarchy, without violence, disrespect on the part of “fathers” for children, with the obligatory affirmation of the authority of older people and trust and love for a growing person.

From the point of view of relations between generations, the world is now experiencing a unique historical period, the essence of which is that for the first time a four-link, four-generation structure has developed in society. Never before in history has such a situation existed; it arose in the twentieth century. And hence a number of extraordinary, from the point of view of traditional socialization processes, consequences.

Firstly, previously there was one working generation - “fathers”, and the younger ones, that is, “children”, were raised by “old men”. Thus, the “fathers” provided all material life, and the function of socialization was performed by the old people, raising their grandchildren. Now production is changing, hard physical labor is no longer needed, but accumulated experience and knowledge, or even just patience and complaisance, are in demand. Now older people are involved in production, they are needed there and are often more preferable. They no longer want to raise grandchildren. The “fathers” also work, and it turns out there is no one to take care of the “children.” Therefore, there was a need for other forms of socialization.

On the other hand, for example, a person is 60 years old, but he is not going to die yet, he is in good health. But there are no jobs for such people, because there are already others, young people, who also want these jobs. The objectivity of the conflict is obvious. That is why socialization is a matter of expanded social reproduction of society.

Secondly, the emergence of a 4-generation structure led to a new structuring of social space and time. The previous, traditional three-tier structure - grandfather, father, son - had traditional forms and mechanisms for transmitting sociality. And when the fourth generation appeared, it turned out that new social-generational roles were not spelled out in these mechanisms. How should each generation communicate with the others? What unconditional authority will the grandfather have if he himself is a “son”?

Thirdly, the problem of “fathers and children” is complicated by the fact that with the development of electronic means and communication networks, children are becoming similar in their capabilities to adults, and here three generations at once become adults and three become children, “young people”. Accordingly, the problem of intergenerational conflict as a relationship between two generations in modern conditions turns out to be incorrectly formulated.

And if we take as a basis the nuclear family, the separate living of families of different generations, then the problem arises: how, with whom and in relation to whom does the child identify himself? Grandmothers and great-grandmothers find themselves outside the family, becoming strangers. The spread of nursing homes in modern times is precisely the Western solution to the issue of the generation gap, when young people - children and especially grandchildren and great-grandchildren - do not accept old people as their neighbors and relatives. And the old people themselves don’t even want to babysit their grandchildren, thereby exacerbating the alienation.

This raises another problem - the risk of disintegration of the unity of historical and social space and time, which is not possible without meaningful interaction between people of different generations.

Section II. The problem of intergenerational relationships in the family

2.1 The main problems of intergenerational relationships in the family

Accordingly, intergenerational conflicts in the family are, first of all, conflicts between parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren. Obviously, conflicts between parental and young families (including along the lines of “mother-in-law-daughter-in-law”, “mother-in-law-in-law”, etc.) can be classified as intergenerational, as well as between family members who are permanently or for a certain period of time legally equated to blood relatives, for example, between adoptive parents and adopted children, adoptive parents and children.

Conflict is interpreted in Russian sociology as a clash of opposing interests, goals, views, ideologies between individuals or social groups; the highest stage of development of contradictions in the system of relations between people and social institutions.

It seems that these definitions are quite applicable to family intergenerational conflicts.

The family, being one of the most important elements of the social structure, in modern Russian sociology is considered as an association of people based on marriage or consanguinity, connected by a common life and mutual responsibility.

Family relationships are relationships between spouses, parents and children, and other relatives, and the family is represented as the unity of marriage, parenthood and kinship.

To this it is necessary, in my opinion, to add that a family can include relationships based not only on marriage and kinship, but also on adoption. Although legally the latter is equated to consanguinity, in fact it is not. Therefore, from the standpoint of generational conflict, consanguinity or adoption can be of fundamental importance when studying and working with families.

In addition, in modern society, sexual, marital and reproductive behavior are not always interconnected into a single behavior aimed at creating and functioning of a family. So-called family groups are also common, in which at least one of the elements from the trinity “marriage-parenthood-kinship” is missing (single parent, childless marriage, spouses with one child, etc.). Moreover, cohabitation without marriage registration is becoming more and more common, sometimes not excluding the joint birth and (or) raising of children.

However, in the public consciousness, the meaning of “family” is often attributed to such forms of joint living and housekeeping: an incomplete family (without one of the spouses), a childless family (in relation to a married couple without children), an “ordinary family” (i.e. . a married couple with one child who does not have the element of “kinship” due to the child’s lack of siblings), “ civil marriage"(in relation to cohabitation, although it is a civil marriage that has undergone state registration and has the corresponding legal consequences), etc.

Perhaps this indicates the increased loyalty of society to various forms of family life that do not cause obvious acute contradiction with today's social structure. In modern Ukraine, the everyday understanding of family not only goes beyond the scientific, including various forms of family groups and cohabitation, but is even used in the practice of state and public structures. Therefore, when researching family conflicts generations, we cannot ignore this fact.

Family conflict refers to certain relationships between family members, generated by the contradictions of its development and functioning as a system through which they are resolved. Family conflicts include conflicts between spouses, parents and children, and conflicts with members of the older generation. Family conflict arises over the family’s performance of its functions, the psychological structure of family relationships, the definition of family goals and development tasks at each stage of the family’s life cycle, the family value system and its compliance with the individual values of family members. Family conflict is perceived and experienced by family members as a divergence, a clash of their interests, goals, needs, etc.

Cause

% of respondents
(more than 100%)

1. Addiction to alcohol of family members (one of them)

2. Incompatibility of interests and goals of the parties

3. Material problems

4. Immoral behavior of family members

5. Housing troubles

6. Violation of satisfaction of personal needs of the conflict participants

7. Household difficulties

8. Health problems among parents, children, grandchildren

9. Different social status of generations

10. Features of culture of behavior and traditions

11. Distance between generations

The personal prerequisites for the emergence of intergenerational conflicts indicated in Table 2.1 are extremely difficult to separate from family problems and characteristics, which can also, to varying degrees, provoke generational conflict (Table 2.2).

Table 2.2 -- Causes of intergenerational conflicts, depending on family characteristics

Cause

% of respondents
(more than 100%)

1. Living together in cramped conditions

2. Marrying the “wrong” person

3. Lack of harmony, mutual respect, friendship in the family

4. Interference of relatives in family life

5. Improper upbringing of children in the family

6. Children growing up

7. Divorce or separation of parents

8. Conflicts between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law

9. Marital conflicts

10. Children creating their own family

11. Conflicts between mother-in-law and son-in-law

12. Inciting conflict by outsiders

13. Redistribution of family property

14. The struggle for power and influence in the family

15. Introduction to remarriage

16. Lack of grandchildren

17. Sibling conflicts

18. Death of one of the spouses

19. Adoption of a child

20. Birth of grandchildren

However, intergenerational conflicts in the family depend not only on personal and family characteristics participating, but also on social prerequisites. In Fig. Table 2.1 shows the opinions of the respondents we interviewed about what social processes can stimulate generational conflicts.

Figure 2.1 -- Social factors contributing to intergenerational conflicts

Almost half of the respondents emphasize the different values of the young, middle and older generations as a source of their conflicts. Many point to the socio-economic crisis and political instability in the country. But what is more alarming is the spiritual crisis, which respondents describe as a decline in morals, which, from their point of view, is observed in the fact that there is little respect for age in society; preference is often given to new trends rather than time-tested experience; the total number of conflicts in society has increased.

The modern family is not similar to the traditional patriarchal one, and, according to survey participants, society now values individual success more than family well-being; a multigenerational family is considered a relic of the past, a forced form of living. All this contributes to generational conflicts in the family and society. And only 6% of respondents believe that intergenerational conflicts in the family do not depend on social processes. According to others, the changes taking place in modern society are making intergenerational conflicts in the family more frequent and deeper, and social conflicts between generations in society inevitably affect family relationships.

A generational conflict can potentially be established even before the creation of a given family, arise at a certain stage of its life cycle, or even after the breakup of the family between its “fragmented” parts. It is of interest to study conflicts depending on the stages of the family life cycle at which they arose: at the time of marriage of young spouses, with the birth of the first child, with the birth of subsequent children, with the marriage of one of the children, with the birth of grandchildren, and finally with death one or both spouses-grandparents. In addition, intergenerational conflict can be associated with a moment of disruption in the normal life cycle of the family at any of its stages (for example, due to divorce, infertility, death of a family member). Either the origin of the conflict between “fathers and children” is associated with one stage of the family’s life cycle, its manifestation with another, and its resolution with a third, etc.

The attitude of the immediate environment to intergenerational conflicts in the family can be examined using the example of studying the refusal of adult children to care for elderly needy parents (Table 2.3).

Table 2.3 -- The attitude of the parents' immediate environment towards
that children abandoned them (in%)

Attitude

Entourage

Relatives

Friends

Neighbours

Social workers

Colleagues

Support children's decisions

Indifferent to the relationship between children and parents

Children are judged

Provide parents with various assistance

Trying to reunite parents with children

I don’t know the attitude of those closest to me

People from my immediate circle do not know that my children abandoned me

I don’t have information about representatives of my immediate circle.

Total:

100

As can be seen from Table 2.3, when children abandon their parents, it is mainly relatives who support the children’s decision. Accordingly, the help from them is minimal. Probably the relatives are most aware of the background to the conflict that unfolded before their eyes. Or they themselves could directly or indirectly influence the children’s adoption of such a decision. Colleagues (former) of parents are the least likely to support or condemn the children’s decision. Perhaps because family and professional behavior are usually separated in modern society. Colleagues are the least aware of other people's family problems. Their attitude to the conflict is usually unknown.

Neighbors and friends show the greatest indifference to family affairs. In our culture, it is not customary to bring family matters into public discussion. Although those same neighbors are more likely than anyone in their immediate circle to condemn children for their actions. Social workers, as part of their duty, cannot remain indifferent to the problems of their clients. They are more likely than others to try to reunite generations; this is their professional task. Although, judging by the data in Table. 2.3, an attempt to reunite “fathers and sons” is often futile in the case of children abandoning their parents as a far-reaching generational conflict.

2.3 Consequences of family conflicts

Socially prohibited forms of manifestation of intergenerational conflicts, apparently, can lead to the most severe consequences. A sociological survey conducted made it possible to identify a number of such forms: psychological pressure of the conflict participants on each other (63% of respondents think so), emotional alienation of generations (28%), physical impact on each other in the form of physical violence, blows, beatings, etc. (27%). Illegal forms include material deprivation (taking away money, property, denial of necessary material support, etc.) - 26%; refusal of generations from each other (up to the complete cessation of contacts and mutual intentional harm) - 26%; social isolation, i.e. being left without care and help, expulsion from the family, boycotting, etc. (22%). Sometimes disrupted relationships between family generations can manifest themselves in the form of sexual harassment along the lines: stepfather-stepdaughter, father-in-law, daughter-in-law, etc. - 8% or in other forms (incest, etc.).

Generational conflicts can have a number of negative consequences for society, family and individual. According to the survey, 71% of respondents are convinced that intergenerational conflicts in the family can be passed on from generation to generation, and, according to 53%, depending on the family members themselves, 12% depending on circumstances external to the family.

Do intergenerational conflicts affect the possibility of having children in a family? 42% believe that they have no influence; 26% - that they hinder; 5% contribute, and 27% found it difficult to answer this difficult question. Respondents were much more confident in characterizing the impact of generational conflicts on raising children in the family. The majority of respondents are confident that generational conflicts can worsen the educational process in the family, or that in some ways they improve and in others worsen education. Only 8% believe that intergenerational conflicts have no effect on raising children.

Considering the lack of definition of intergenerational family conflicts in modern dictionaries, we propose to consider that intergenerational conflict in the family is a type of social interaction between descendants and ancestors (grandparents, parents, children, grandchildren, etc.) belonging to a social community based on marriage ( cohabitation) and/or kinship (adoption), in which there are fundamental differences between them (age, socio-economic, ideological, political, subcultural and others), there is no agreement, contradictions in the system of family, individual and social values are aggravated and a mutual clash occurs incompatible needs, interests, views regarding the performance by the family (family group) of its functions, the structure of family relationships, determining the goals of family development, etc.

The basis of intergenerational conflicts in the family can be both generational contradictions (for example, a significant age difference), and family-group (for example, the struggle for leadership in the family) and family-institutional (problems of implementing reproductive and socialization functions) contradictions, as well as personal (clash of characters of family members, etc.) and other (gender, material, status, etc.) contradictions.

IN pure form intergenerational conflicts in the family probably practically do not occur; this is most likely caused by the fact that the family is a system in which all elements of marriage, parenthood and kinship are interconnected. In addition, throughout the life cycle of a family, conflict, as an integral part of social interactions between people, can be actualized in a variety of forms, including intergenerational. Moreover, generational conflict can act as both a cause and a consequence of other types of family conflicts. That is, intergenerational conflict is part of human conflicts that arise in the processes of development and decline of the family institution, as well as the functioning of the family as a small group.

An important task for family and society is the settlement and prevention of socially unacceptable forms of intergenerational conflicts that lead to negative consequences for the individual, family and society. In the opinion of the family members surveyed, this requires both state and public measures and personal, family efforts. The state and society should help in solving housing problems of young spouses (58%), economic problems of families (low wages, unemployment, rising cost of living, etc.) (39%), development of social services for families (12%), family counseling (11 %) and much more, which requires stability in the state (29%) and relevant legislative and law enforcement standards (7%). Family and individuals are required to provide mutual assistance between generations (57%), improve the culture of relationships in the family (33%), etc. In modern society, it is possible and necessary to regulate family intergenerational conflicts.

Conclusion

The problem of generations is one of the eternal ones, and this problem is not biological or even demographic, but sociocultural, or cultural-historical. In this sense, the term “generation” itself is vague. It conveys, first of all, people’s involvement in certain social events (processes) that significantly influence the life of society, and the associated commonality of goals, socio-psychological attitudes, and value orientations that characterize the specifics of their mentality. We are talking about changes in the methods and types of continuity, the cultural and historical meaning of which is highlighted by the attitude to tradition. In conditions of sharp social changes, of course, the conflict of generations is more clearly revealed, since age characteristics affect the ability to adapt to changes, so that sociocultural characteristics seem to be intertwined with demographic ones. But this does not mean their identification at all.

Such identification is fraught with nihilism, i.e. substitution of changes in types and methods of continuity, destruction of tradition, and therefore the destruction of culture, because culture can develop based only on traditions. Generation is a temporary category. The change of generations is the flow that goes through history, ensuring the transfer of social information, culture, and accumulated experience from one generation to another. But the specific nature of the relationship depends on historical conditions. Therefore, a historical approach to the problem is extremely important. Each society, each era develops a certain type of intergenerational relationship and certain mechanisms for the transmission of culture over time.

In a traditional society, the place of each person was determined from the moment of birth; the problem of personality does not stand there as an independent one; the ways of interrelating generations and transferring experience are defined and unchangeable.

The picture is different in modern dynamic society, which constantly confronts each new generation with problems and tasks of self-affirmation and choosing the paths of its development. In such a society, the experience of previous generations cannot fully meet the challenges of the present and future. The mechanisms of transmission of experience themselves do not remain unchanged, and the “image” of each generation is formed accordingly. Since generation is a temporary category, the problem associated with the attitude of each generation to the past, present and future is inevitable. For Ukraine this is a particularly acute problem. The rejection of the ideology of the past led to the collapse of the “connection of times”, the sense of belonging to the history of one’s country, one’s homeland. Thus, the sphere of relationships between generations in modern state society is difficult to analyze, and an integrated approach is needed here: it should be considered from philosophical, psychological, cultural and specific sociological points of view. The main range of modern problems of intergenerational relationships in our society is determined by the history and transitional state of society itself.

Changes in the country that completely reject the experience of previous generations lead to conflict and a gap between generations. Currently, there is a process of mastering the idea of individuality as the most important social asset. This process goes in two directions: on the one hand, economic entrepreneurship, on the other, the sphere of private life, personal connections and relationships. At the same time, young people have some starting advantages - plasticity, freedom from stereotypes, a real supply of friendly forms of communication. It is the elders who experience the greatest social and emotional deficits. There are differences in the value orientations and preferences of young and old, which are manifested in the preferences of the private and public spheres of production and consumption. The division of generations is facilitated by the fact that the younger generation took advantage of the opportunities for upward mobility, while the older generation slid down the status ladder.

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