Lecture
The emergence of difficult children and the development of deviant behaviour can be caused by a multitude of factors, including family ones. Below are some characteristics of the family environment that can contribute to the emergence of difficult children:
Dysfunctional family relationships: Negative relationships between family members, lack of communication, conflicts, violence or emotional abuse can have a negative effect on children's development and contribute to the emergence of deviant behaviour.
Lack of support and attention: If parents or other adults in the family do not pay sufficient attention to children, or do not support their interests, achievements and emotional needs, this can lead to a feeling of insecurity and an unwillingness to conform to norms.
Negative parental behavioural models: Children very often imitate the behaviour of their parents. If aggression, breaking of the law, drug use or other negative actions are observed in the family, children may adopt these patterns.
Lack of life goals: Families lacking clear goals and prospects may fail to foster the development of motivation and the striving for personal growth in children.
Economic difficulties: A family's limited resources can lead to stress, insecurity, and even the need to involve children in unhealthy activities in order to meet the family's needs.
Lack of models of parental behaviour: If children do not see positive models of parental behaviour, including respect, tolerance and emotional regulation, they may have difficulty developing such skills themselves.
Sociocultural factors: The cultural and social norms of the family can influence which values and standards children will develop.
Insufficient education and awareness: If parents do not have adequate knowledge about raising and developing children, this can hinder the effective teaching and support of children.
B.N. Almazov identifies four types of troubled families that contribute to the emergence of difficult children:
1) families with a lack of educational resources. These include broken or single-parent families; families in which the parents' general level of development is not high enough to allow them to help their children with their studies; and families with a low material standard of living. Such families do not in themselves produce difficult children. Many cases are known in which morally healthy children grew up in such families. Nevertheless, these families create an unfavourable background for a child's upbringing;
2) conflict-ridden families, in which the parents do not strive to correct the shortcomings of their own character, or in which one parent is intolerant of the other. In such families children often behave oppositionally, sometimes in a conflict-driven, demonstrative manner. Older children protest against the existing conflict and take the side of one of the parents;
3) morally troubled families. Among the members of such a family one observes differences in worldview and in the principles of organising the family, a striving to achieve one's own goals at the expense of others' interests, the exploitation of other people's labour, a striving to subordinate others to one's own will, and so on;
4) pedagogically incompetent families. In these families, contrived or outdated notions about the child replace the real picture of his development. For example, a conviction in the possibility of the child's complete independence, leading to neglect, causes the child discomfort, emotional tension, a desire to shield himself from everything new and unfamiliar, and distrust of other people.
Another negative example is the widespread tendency among many parents to preserve behaviour patterns from earlier stages of development that they find endearing in the older child or adolescent - for example, lower activity levels, obedience, and so on.
Social-pedagogical assistance for children with behaviour deviating from the norm includes various areas of work. First and foremost, this is educational and preventive work, which is carried out in a variety of forms. Improving the forms of educational and preventive work primarily requires shifting the emphasis from general prevention to individualised preventive work with children and adolescents and their parents. An important stage in increasing their effectiveness is the development and implementation of various educational and preventive programmes with the overall goal of managing the process of socialisation of children and adolescents, creating conditions for the child's normal development, eliminating desocialising influences, working with the deviations that have arisen, and restoring the child's status and capacity to function.
General prevention consists in identifying and establishing the causes that give rise to behaviour deviating from the norm, as well as the circumstances that favour the deformation of the consciousness of children and adolescents, and in conducting and intensifying moral and legal education and preventive work in groups.
Individual prevention and correction comprise a set of measures aimed at identifying children and adolescents prone to deviations and providing correctional and preventive intervention in order to eliminate the negative influence of conditions unfavourable to the formation of the child's personality. In this case, teachers can use a wide range of questionnaires and observation charts, many of which do not require special training to complete.
Objectives of individual preventive work with children and adolescents:
Children and adolescents with a deviant orientation have a great deal of free time that is left unoccupied, which is why the next area for improving educational and preventive work is the organisation of leisure activities for children and adolescents. Institutions of supplementary education can play a major role today in organising leisure activities for children and adolescents. These institutions offer the child wide opportunities for diverse activities in various educational fields, children's associations and groups. Through activity and communication, the child becomes aware of and satisfies his interests and needs. Preventing deviations by involving the child in the activities of an institution of supplementary education is reinforced by the possibility of creating situations of self-realisation, self-expression and self-assertion for each individual child. Children and adolescents usually adapt easily in a friendly, psychologically comfortable setting. This comfort is reinforced by the possibility of freely changing the type of activity: it is always possible to find the niche in which the child will experience a sense of success and strengthen his personal dignity. Given its distinctive nature, the goal of supplementary education in addressing the problem of children's occupation is an organic combination of forms of leisure organisation (rest, entertainment, celebration, self-education, creativity) with various forms of educational activity.
Supplementary education has traditionally interacted extensively with organisations and institutions in other subject and creative fields. Schools can serve as a base for implementing programmes of individual and group social-pedagogical prevention and correction, which should be designed for adults - educators, parents and teachers - as well as for children and adolescents.
Thus, the main directions for improving educational and preventive work with children and adolescents (the social-pedagogical aspect) can be identified:
It is important to note that the family environment plays an enormous role in shaping children's personalities, but it is not the only factor. The influence of the social environment, school, friends, and internal individual characteristics must also be taken into account when analysing the causes of deviant behaviour.
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