How is a child different from an adult? When do children become adults? How is an adult different from a child? How is the life of an adult different from that of a child?

Marina Bityanova, director of the Center for Psychological Support of Education “Point Psi”, candidate of psychological sciences, talks about how modern children have changed and what we, outdated adults, can do about it.

- Is it true that children today are different, or is this typical age-related grumbling?

Every generation of adults in all centuries said, they say, where is the world going, what is happening to children, they have changed, they are different. But the paradox of our current situation is that today's children are really different. We live in an era of changing formats of culture and thinking.

The last time something like this happened was in the 16th century, when the Renaissance began and mass printing appeared. Then, against the background of the development of science, the emergence of an analytical, bookish consciousness, we emerged as a new type of people. With the advent of mass books, people began to speak and think in print, and this greatly changed the world and people. And you and I are people of the 16th century.

And now there is another way to package information: digital. Consciousness changes following the emergence of information culture and becomes clip-like.

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

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

Clip thinking means that a person has such integral objects in his head that combine image, thought and value. In the consciousness of such a person, a very brief conceptual reference is stored about what this object or phenomenon is - this is at once a fixed visual image, and the emotions and attitude built into it.

That is, we had everything packaged separately in our heads, but modern man had it all together, we had long chains, and they had entirely packaged objects?

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

- Will their consciousness change with age?

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

- Is this clip quality a sign of immature perception?

No, it’s just that later they will be able to perceive “War and Peace” as a big video. In fact, this is also a hypothesis: we don’t know how they will grow up, because they are just growing. But I’m an optimist, I believe that everything will be fine, and “War and Peace” will be with them, it will just be packaged in some other way.

For now, we really need to pack all this into small formats, divide such works into parts: here’s a picture, here’s an idea, here’s a relationship, and try to convey it to them in this form. Clip art combines value and image, so modern children are much more integral people. There is hope that in the minds of the best of them, morality will merge with logic. But for now these are my optimistic fantasies.

The negative feature of clip consciousness is that anything can coalesce there - for example, logical value and content are not completely combined, and if there is no criticality, then they will not even notice it.

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

What kind of criticism can there be in a sterile text? Children glide along them without immersing themselves, without relating them to themselves in any way.

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

Education serves life. It should not even prepare for life - it should integrate a person into life here and now, relate to it. We can take away children's phones, put them in beautiful cages and start saying things that have nothing to do with their reality. But their psyche is structured differently from birth, it will not perceive it. They will wait until the end of this “education” and go to live, and their true education will take place where they go.

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

They are more synthesis than analytical. It is very important for them to combine everything into a whole, and they perceive information synthetically. This is unusual for us, we are mainly analysts, we need to break everything down into its component parts. In any school subject, everything is broken down to the smallest particles, children are told: this consists of this, this consists of something else. But for them this is not entirely natural.

If then the folding back into a whole does not occur, if they are not explained how it is practically applicable, they reject this information and do not perceive it.

By the way, this is another global difference between them and you and me: their relationship with the concepts of “should” and “why”. I can’t say exactly when this changed, but 20 years ago the word “should” and everything that stood behind it had powerful motivational power. The child might not want something, but he could be forced to do it with the help of this word.

Forty years ago, an adult told me: “Marinochka, it’s necessary,” and I answered: “If it’s necessary, then it’s necessary,” without really thinking about why and why. As a teenager, I could, like any other teenager, say: “You need to, you do it,” but it was a teenage rebellion against what I understood was still necessary. And now, more and more often, we are faced with the fact that we say to a child “we must,” and he looks at us - interested, calm, respectful, he has no protest - and asks: “Why?”

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

- Did the parents make some kind of massive mistake?

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

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

Now for children the norm is not that smart adults tell me what to do and I do it - they keep the norm when they understand its meaning. Nowadays, even small children need to be explained the purpose of all norms: why did people decide that this was correct, worthy, good, why was it accepted this way and not otherwise?

But adults are absolutely not ready to talk about it. They either start to get angry and instead of explaining, they give out a forecast of what will happen if you don’t do this, they scare you, threaten you, or they themselves get very upset and start talking all sorts of nonsense like “when you grow up, you’ll understand”, “why don’t you respect me at all? ", "why do you endlessly argue with me?" No, they don't argue. And they are completely respected. And they don’t try to get it done. And they are not harmful. They just really want to understand why.

Today we will look at the question: at what point does a child enter adulthood? We are accustomed to assessing this transition by time frame, by the physical and some mental development of the child. But these are only indirect indicators of growing up; the main indicator always remains unaccounted for.

What is the transition to adulthood?

Adult life is the ability to make decisions and take responsibility for them. An adult differs from a child in that he decides for himself: where to be, what to do, with whom to communicate, how to earn money, etc. And that is not all, The main difference between an adult is taking responsibility for his actions. Making a decision in itself is an adolescence, a time of mistakes and gaining experience. Once a person realizes that he bears great responsibility for his life and for his actions entirely, he can be called mature.

Thus, the transition to adulthood will be marked not by a solemn speech at school graduation, but by an internal state of composure and awareness of one’s responsibility.

As a result, the task of the parents is to prepare him for this transition, namely help the child achieve development when all his decisions become balanced and thoughtful. This means developing concentration, abstract thinking, imaginative thinking, awareness, instilling high morals and much more. And from here follow the two main problems of all modern society.

1. Instead of support, parents limit their children from growing up.

Entire generations of unconscious people are the result of improper upbringing. How do parents raise their children these days? They completely protect the child from all his mistakes. Many times I have heard phrases from young mothers: “Even though his childhood will be bright, in his adult life he will be so worn out,” “When you grow up, then you will decide, but now keep quiet.” Thus, mothers delay the transition to taking responsibility.

But the transition itself does not take place in 1 day; it is a long-term preparation of the child.

What happens as a result? The child grows up according to the time frame, he turns 15 or 20 years old, the parents insistently preserved the irresponsible child in him, and at a certain moment they begin to demand from him the fulfillment of all adult obligations.

Such an abrupt transition is a huge stress for a teenager, especially since the foundation that parents should have prepared has not been formed. A situation arises when The child is expected to make wise decisions, and he perceives himself as an adult, intelligent person , but he did not learn to think rationally and accept responsibility for his actions. Such a person has a lot of troubles in life, but the selfishness that his parents have instilled in him for many years does not allow him to admit, at least to himself, his own inadequacy and begin to really grow up.

Hence such a wild shortage of professionals among young people, hence such a fabulous number of family divorces, hence so many problems in the social, cultural and political sphere.

2. Unconscious children become parents

The second problem is connected with the children of grown-up children, that is, with the third generation. At what point can we safely say that a couple is ready to join the family? When are they physiologically developed and financially secure? Not at all.

Readiness for the birth of a child manifests itself only at the moment when the couple is consciously ready to expand the boundaries of responsibility many times over. And this responsibility is manifested not only in material support, maintaining the health and safety of the child, the main manifestation of responsibility is to do everything possible to ensure that the child is happy in his adult life and...

He knew how to make decisions that would only enhance his well-being!

And this, as we already know, means the development of concentration, abstract thinking, imaginative thinking, awareness and much more, that is, what the grown-up children themselves do not yet have.

And now a situation arises when an adult child has not yet formed himself as a full-fledged personality, but due to his years and physiological development he is already capable of having children. And, oddly enough, he turns them on...

Each person gradually goes through various periods of development throughout his life. During each of these stages, significant changes occur in his body and brain: physical, intellectual, linguistic and social-emotional. Our children strive to become adults faster, and adults, on the contrary, dream of returning to the happy days of childhood. Adult life attracts children with the opportunity to make their own decisions. Adults strive to return to distant childhood in order to again feel the taste of carelessness and fun.

There are obvious differences between the two ages: height, life experience, knowledge, coordination, etc.. But, these things only form the basis for the fundamental differences between children and adults, being only superficial differences. The fundamental differences between the two categories is the way they view the world and their willingness to question the world around them. This is what divides children and adults into two separate groups.

What causes this difference?

First, let's look at how children look and move. The child sees the world around him through new, fresh eyes. They don’t know many things yet; life will teach them a lot later. Children are taught about the world, they are told what to do and what not to do, but they never take their word for it. Little ones explore and discover everything on their own. More than once we have seen a child touch something hot or sharp, although the parents warned about the danger. Experience is a huge part of their life. The child himself needs to see that the sky is blue and the object is hot and sharp. All this helps shape it.

Adults, even though they were children, begin to lose this questioning aspect. They accept the stories they hear as fact. They don't try to analyze or figure out the truth for themselves. When an adult hears that he lives in a three-dimensional world, he will simply believe it. One of the important factors in their actions is pressure from society.

Another reason is that as children grow, they question everything that happens around them. Adults stop asking questions for many reasons that are not always fully understood. At all times there have been people who questioned what the world said. These adults were viewed as outcasts. They are different from the rest of society and are considered big kids.

The child questions the world around him and tries to understand what they are saying around him. Is it better to just accept everything or question everything? There must, absolutely, be some kind of balance between them. Each person must find this balance for himself in order to form the right qualities in himself.

Other differences between children and adults

Physical development

Adults can be expected to be large in size and have reasonable strength.

Children have:

1. Limited eye-hand coordination.
2. Thinner skin. They are more at risk of excessive heat and fluid loss; suffer faster from harmful toxins that are absorbed through the skin.
3. Baby cells divide faster, causing rapid growth. The child is more susceptible to the effects of radiation.
4. Children's immature immune systems are more susceptible to infection from certain infections.

Cognitive development

Children constantly develop their cognitive abilities. Adults already have similar mental abilities that allow them to communicate with each other naturally. If you ask adults to complete a task that requires additional information, their answer may not always be correct. Children have cognitive abilities. As they age, they constantly discover new things and their thinking becomes more abstract. Young children are very self-centered, but as they get older, they gradually learn to see the world from a different point of view.

Social development

Adults have already learned to appreciate social rules and values. Children often consider themselves the center of the universe and put their own needs and interests above others. Over time, children's perceptions will naturally change. .

Concentration

Children can be easily excited, spontaneous, and easily distracted by outside objects. Their concentration duration is very limited. Adults, learn to control your feelings and desires.

experience

Children have little or no life experience. Having lived for years, adults have collected experience in all cases and in all types of situations. They have learned to apply it where necessary.

Every person is unique, and it is vital that adults learn to understand, respect, support and encourage the unique characters and abilities of each little person.