13.4. Work with dysfunctional families

The crisis state of modern society has caused many problems in modern education. Among them, one of the most significant is the problem of raising children in the family. Among the objective socio-economic causes of problems in family education the most important are the following:

• fall in living standards and worsening conditions for the maintenance of children (a sharp socio-economic stratification of society, a constant shortage in the field of state financing of the public sector, the growth of hidden and apparent unemployment);

• reduction of the social infrastructure of childhood and a sharp decrease in the level of social guarantees for children in vital areas of spiritual and physical development;

• unresolved housing problem;

• distancing the school from children with difficult fates;

• a sharp turn in the value orientations of society and the lifting of many moral prohibitions;

• increasing the influence of asocial criminal groups in the microenvironment and society as a whole.

The family distress is exacerbated by miscalculations of family upbringing, the most typical of which are the following: 1) rejection of the child, his apparent or hidden emotional rejection by parents; 2) hyper-care, when the child is not allowed to show elementary independence, is isolated from the surrounding life; 3) inconsistency and inconsistency of education (the gap between the requirements for the child and control over him, the inconsistency of the pedagogical actions of the parents and grandmother, etc.); 4) lack of understanding of the patterns and peculiarities of personal development, discrepancy between the requirements and expectations of parents and the capabilities and needs of children; 5) the inflexibility of parents in relations with children (insufficient consideration of the situation, programmed requirements and the lack of alternatives in decisions, imposing their own opinions on the child, abrupt change of attitude towards the child during different periods of his life); 6) affectivity - an excess of parental irritation, discontent, anxiety, anxiety towards children, which creates in the family an atmosphere of turmoil, chaos, and general excitement; 7) anxiety and fear for children who become obsessive and deprive parents of cheerfulness and optimism, forcing them to resort to constant prohibitions and warnings that infect children with the same anxiety; 8) authoritarian education - the desire to subordinate the child to his will; 9) categorical judgments, mandative tone, imposing one’s opinion and ready-made decisions, striving to establish strict discipline and limit the independence of children, the use of coercion and repressive measures, including physical punishment; constant monitoring of the actions of the child; 10) hypersociality, when parents try to build upbringing according to a certain (albeit positive) given pattern, disregarding the child’s individuality, making excessive demands on him, without proper emotional contact, responsiveness and sensitivity.

Any type of family disorganization is initially predisposed to the formation of personality and behavioral abnormalities in children, as it leads to the emergence of situations that are traumatic for the child.

The only child in the family is an objectively more difficult subject of upbringing than children from large families. Usually, he matures later than his peers, and in some respects, on the contrary, he too early acquires the outward signs of adulthood (intellectualism, excessive rationalism, often turning into skepticism), since he spends a lot of time among adults, witnesses their conversations, etc.

In a large family, adults quite often lose their sense of justice in relation to children, show unequal affection and attention to them. For older children in such a family are characterized by categorical judgments, the desire for leadership, leadership, even in cases where there is no reason for it. In large families, the physical and mental stress on parents, especially on the mother, increases sharply. She has less free time and opportunities for the development of children and communication with them. A large family has less opportunities to meet the needs and interests of the child than in a single-child family, which affects its development.

In an incomplete family, children often become witnesses and participants in events or circumstances of a traumatic nature (disintegration of the parent family, living with a stepfather or stepmother, living in a conflict family, etc.). According to statistics, the share of adolescent offenders from single-parent families is from 32 to 47%, including 30–40% of adolescents who use alcohol or drugs, and 53% are involved in prostitution. In single-parent families, a large proportion of pedagogically neglected children are left unattended and, due to material and other problems, often become neglected or engaged in vagrancy.

The reality of modern Russia is the increase in the number of orphans, which the state takes care of. It is conditionally possible to distinguish two groups of orphans: children who have lost their parents, and social orphans, that is, orphans with living parents (abandoned children, children in foundlings; children whose parents are in prison for a long time or terminally ill; children whose parents are missing).

You can also select a group of children who are at risk of losing a family. These are street and street children (street); fugitives (children left from families and boarding schools); children subject to humiliation and abuse, physical and sexual abuse in families; children from families of alcoholics and drug addicted parents; children with chronically ill parents.

These and many other problems associated with the formation of personality in the conditions of improper family upbringing require a special care for children at risk. The effective solution of the problems of such families is possible only through the joint efforts of all the social institutions of society.