The boy is about to leave home. I can't do it anymore, that's the limit! Why do children run away from home? How parents should behave to avoid children running away from home - advice from a psychologist
Using harsh and sometimes cruel forms of punishment for children and adolescents, we firmly believe that we are doing them good by warning them from some kind of danger. In fact, we instill deep fear in them.
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At first they live with this fear of punishment, but then it becomes too much and it causes too much pain and humiliation. And then it may seem that it is easier to leave and run away than to be punished again.
Conflicts with relatives
“Dear ones scold - they just amuse themselves,” you may say. But your child may not agree with you.
For him, the conflict can be much more serious and painful than for some adults. You will then go to work, chat with your girlfriends, cool down, forget everything, and the next day you will be kind and sweet.
For a child experiencing internal maturation, everything can be completely different.
And the phrase “I don’t need you!” accidentally thrown out by my mother in the heat of anger! - be the impetus for leaving home.
Hypercontrol and overprotection
We love our children very much. We want the best for them and really want to protect them from the many dangers that our world is fraught with. It’s so natural when parents protect, isn’t it? So… But moderation is good in everything, and in guardianship and care too.
What is natural and normal for a preschooler may be too much for a teenager.
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Allow your child to gradually separate from you. Teach him to behave correctly in life alone, but allow him to make his own mistakes. Because otherwise, your child may at some point begin to suffocate from your irrepressible round-the-clock love, care and guardianship and may try to break out of this state.
To attract attention
Parents' conflicts with each other
When mom and dad are in conflict, they rarely think that there are at least three of them, and that the child is involved in their showdown no less than they are. Because he feels tension, because he sees and hears constant swearing.
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And no matter how much the parents reassure themselves that their relationship does not affect the child and does not concern him, because they love him as before and very much, the child himself may feel completely different. “There’s also me here!”, “You’re sorting things out with each other and forgot about me!” - he shouts with his behavior.
Inappropriate parenting methods chosen by parents
How do we raise our children? When parents, together with their children who have left home or tried to escape from home, come to see a psychologist, he often sees a completely different relationship between mother and teenager than what the parents imagine.
It often happens that those parenting methods that seem healthy and adequate to mom and dad are not.
And parents notice this only when their children already leave home (and it’s good if they return and something can still be fixed!) and when they turn to professionals for help.
Do you know stories when children ran away from home? Share in the comments!
- The situation is not easy. On the one hand, here you need to do something right away, change the state of things as quickly as possible. On the other hand, are there opportunities for this? Do parents have leverage over the child, are they ready to use their power? It happens that parents have levers of influence, but due to certain circumstances they do not dare to use them, they immediately cower, saying: “No, no, we cannot take radical measures. We can’t leave him without dinner, it’s too cruel.” The result is that children are hanging out in the streets, and it is unknown what will happen to them there. These can be much more cruel things than sitting without dinner once. Anyone who feels sorry for their children does not really care about them. If you think that the situation could be dangerous for the child, you need to insist that he does not leave home.
It’s both possible and necessary. Where does it come from that parents suddenly cease to be an authority for the child? This has nothing to do with adolescence; during adolescence, relationships only worsen - what was in the relationship before now becomes sharp and obvious. If your children don’t listen to you now in big things, it means they didn’t listen to you in small things before. They did not listen to you, and you did not bother to become parents for them. If your children do not listen to you, your requests fall on deaf ears, read Nikolai Ivanovich’s article “Teach your child to listen and obey you.” It describes in detail step by step how to teach a child to obey his parents. It doesn’t sound very nice, of course: “we force children to obey,” but parents know that in our time they are the only ones who really raise a child and are responsible for his life. Children always listen to someone, but not always to you. If it is not the parents who are raising the child, then their children are raised by television, the media, glossy magazines, peers, and their influence is not always better than the influence of their own parents.
If the parents are smart and want the best for the child, then let the children listen to what they say. This is not only natural, but also saves everyone a lot of effort and time; instead of bickering and long discussions about discipline, you can do more interesting things. On the other hand, it is necessary to reconsider your relationship with your child: monitor your behavior, how honest I really am with my child, how consistent I am in what I say, how much I myself follow the principles that I tell the child about. This is the personal work of parents: to think, monitor and, perhaps, change their behavior.
I would also advise you to go directly with your child to Dmitry Morozov and in a neutral environment, during the training, see what exactly is wrong, what pain points there are, and take steps towards it. Despite all your pain and anger, you need to spend more time with your child, talk more (about anything), listen to him more in the evening. You need to learn to listen to your child without immediately giving advice, to use the active listening skills that both I and Daria Ryazanova teach. This is the art of talking to another person without lecturing all the time. And then the child knows that he will now share something with his mother, and then she will not remember it for 10 years, especially in some difficult situation. You need to communicate like family.
If we assume that difficulties are associated only with adolescence: for example, a child feels like he is already an adult, but does not associate adulthood with taking responsibility, but associates it only with “adult behavior,” which may mean to him: “I walk.” I don’t let anyone know where I want to go, I do what I want, and my parents don’t tell me. Mom doesn’t report, and I won’t.” In this case, it is necessary to have a conversation with the teenager about the following: “If you are an adult, then behave like an adult. Growing up is not only about rights, but also about responsibilities.” Advice to parents: from the very first moments of a child’s life, when appropriate, associate growing up with both acquiring greater rights and greater responsibilities. “When you get older, you will be able to go here and there on your own, but at the same time we expect you to behave like an adult. We adults, taking care of our family, usually tell us where we are going, why, both so that others do not worry, and simply because we like to share with each other, discuss something. And you can behave just like us. Not because we control you, but because we live together, we are interested in everything that happens in our family.”
If you teach your children from childhood that you are a family, that you do everything together, you will definitely succeed!
In local media, information that a teenager ran away from home or simply did not come home appears quite often. As a rule, at the request of the parents, the entire community, volunteers and police come out to search for the child. But it soon turns out that the young man went on a spree with friends, and the girl stayed with a friend. As in the recent case with .
In such situations, first of all, parents have a question: “How to establish contact with the child after he returns home? Scold or, conversely, show excessive concern?” Why do children rebel against rules and parents, how can the latter establish relationships with them, and is it possible to avoid these unpleasant and disturbing situations in family life. Svetlana Levenshtein, a psychologist at the Center for Social and Psychological Assistance to the Population, answered these questions from the MariMedia news agency:
— There are many reasons why children run away from home: this is also the desire to learn something new, unknown. For example, someone wants to go to Africa, and someone wants to go to war - children do not yet understand what danger is, and death seems unreal to them. A child may run away from home if his important basic needs: love, respect and acceptance are ignored. They are running away from the tragedies they have experienced, the loss of loved ones, violence, abuse, the lack of meaning in life, or even simply boredom and excessive self-indulgence.
A common reason for running away is rebellion against parents and their rules. Children may run away from unfair punishments that are disproportionate to their actions, and then be afraid to come home for fear of another punishment. They run away from dysfunctional families. Moreover, outwardly, the family can be quite prosperous and wealthy. Most often, the reason for leaving home in such families is conflict, which is based on a lack of mutual understanding with parents. Mostly teenagers aged 10-17 leave. A lack of understanding of the changes happening to them leads to the fact that parents seek to delay their development, establish control, and try to restore their childish obedience, which leads teenagers to rebellion. The latter do not like being treated like little children. Girls may be unhappy that they are forbidden to use cosmetics, wear the clothes they want, or control who they spend time with.
According to Svetlana Genrikhovna, To avoid children running away from home, you should adhere to the following rules:
- choose a punishment appropriate to the child’s age and offense, try to understand the motives for his behavior;
- do not give your child excessive workload, he should have time to relax, communicate with peers, allow him to bring friends home;
- do not “act out” your problems on the child;
— educate your child to be responsible and independent, at the same time accept him for who he is and support him. Try to have him turn to you with any problem;
- never threaten to kick your son or daughter out of the house if they do something wrong. Let’s say they study poorly, start drinking alcohol, trying drugs, having sexual relations, etc.;
— try to organize the teenager’s leisure time; if he is busy with useful things, there will be fewer problems.
There are motivated and unmotivated escapes. Motivated ones are associated with psychologically understandable reasons and stem from the very situation in which the teenager found himself - he left home after a serious conflict at school. Not knowing what to do, he chooses an extreme measure - leaving. The task of the parents in this case is to explain to the child that there are many ways out of a conflict situation.
Motivated departures can turn into unmotivated ones. Withdrawal, as a form of response, can take hold, and in the future the teenager can respond to any unpleasant situation by running away from home. The teenager evaluates his new life As freedom from the hated school and home, he can earn his own livelihood, drink alcohol and drugs, and gain other life experiences.
Walking away and running away can be a manifestation of mental illness, such as epilepsy and epileptiform states, manic-depressive psychosis, schizophrenia, dementia and mental retardation.
What should you do if a teenager leaves home?
In adolescence, the desire for contradiction is very developed. Therefore, harsh measures that parents can apply to a child - locking him up - can only increase the teenager's desire to break out of the house. It is necessary to analyze why your child is better off on the street than with you? To do this, you need a confidential conversation with a teenager; you should go together to a child psychologist to understand the situation.
Among children leaving home, two categories can be distinguished. The first - the most numerous - are children, most often aged 9-14 years, from clearly disadvantaged families.
In such children, leaving home often develops into a tendency to wander, into dromomania (obsession). The second category is children aged 13-16 years from seemingly prosperous families, often with above-average income. Their reasons for leaving home have a deep psychological basis: rejection and uselessness, lack of emotional connection with their parents. Often with this act they want to attract attention to themselves.
If your child runs away, do not panic. To exclude accidents, make inquiries at the ambulance service or the police. Carefully analyze your child’s behavior and statements Lately. Find out who has seen him and communicated with him recently. Collect information about his friends and acquaintances, places of possible stay. When you find a child, try to act calmly.
Talk to your child, listen to him and ask him to listen to you. When speaking, be extremely frank and attentive. Let the child speak out, do not interrupt him, do not reproach him, even if these are continuous accusations against you. If you are truly at fault, admit your mistakes and apologize. Try not to discuss what happened, only discuss ways out of the current situation and options for your future life.
Share your plans and concerns with your child. He will perceive this as concern. Always remember that no one needs him more than you.
If you encounter someone else's homeless child on the street, do not pass by, do not turn away, pretending not to notice him. Try to speak. Report it to your local social services authority or police.
Prepared by Dilyara Belova
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You consider yourself the best parents in the world and think that your life experience is priceless, although your child, in fact, manages to learn more in a day than you do in a week. Of course, you love your child, but your love very often turns into a continuous “I-know-how-you-live-I-know-how-you-should-be.” And then you come home one day and your child has disappeared, leaving a note at best. Do you think you are not to blame for this? Whatever the case!
In Belarus, every year the internal affairs bodies of the Republic of Belarus receive about 2 thousand applications and appeals from citizens about the unknown disappearance of children. The vast majority of children who leave home or boarding institutions stay for one to three days. However, some of the missing remain untraceable for many years. Thus, as of January 1, 2014, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, 62 children were not found, 35 of them were over 5 years old, 5 were from 3 to 5 years old, 10 were from 1 to 3 years old.
Comrade parents, would you like to think about it?
You think that the most important thing in your child’s life is you, and also school. Oh, the ubiquitous teacher-is-always-right parenting conspiracy. You will never, ever prove that a teacher is just a person, and not always good and smart. You don’t even want to imagine that some future teachers enter the pedagogical school because there is less competition there, and then they teach children, hating them with all their hearts.
You don’t like your children’s friends; you reserve the refrain “they are a bad influence” for them. And it’s good if caring moms and dads say this to their children, and not to those same friends.
The children's outfits loudly terrify not only you, but also all your numerous relatives, and the innocent piercing in the navel was hidden from dad for three months.
All I hear from you is: “Do your homework, go to bed, turn down the music wherever you hang out, clean up the mess in the room, you won’t amount to anything, the way you talk to your parents, we feed and water you, wash the dishes, you’re nothing without us.” , stop chewing gum..." You can say this forever.
The most interesting thing is that you really consider this a form of expressing care and showing love. Hmm, and you, a mother of two children, at a time when these children were not yet planned, would you be glad if your future husband showed your love in such an intrusive way? Obviously, after such “courtship” you would not have gotten around to it with your children. So why do you make your parental love such a heavy burden for your children?
Children and adolescents have a very fragile, sensitive psyche. And a moment may come when, during the next brainwashing, they cannot stand it and choose only one way out - to leave home. Moreover, the question “Where?” doesn't even rise. Only the cry of “From whom?” hangs in the air.
Your child is from another planet
The fact that you live on different planets became clear to your child at the age of six. And since then he considers his own parents to be aliens, and thinks that nothing good can be expected from aliens.
And your child dreams about how nice it would be to receive the manual “How to Survive Among Parents.” And it didn’t hurt you, parents, between caring about your child’s daily bread to at least once think that, oddly enough, he is not your property.
But you live on different planets, you have huge clumps of cotton in your ears, and no hearing aids will help here.
In short, your child packs his backpack and leaves. Wonderful. And then life begins. A rather tasteless cure for illusions.
How it happens
Fifteen year old Anya left home after quarreling with her mother over her grades. She slammed the door and didn’t let anyone know about herself for five days. While the parents were calling hospitals and morgues, the sweet young lady was calmly hanging out with her friend, whose parents were on a business trip, and who, innocently stroking Anya’s parents in the eyes, said that she had not seen Anya for a long time, because she had to go to school for some reason. then she stopped. The seemingly innocent story ended badly. The girls and their classmates drank vodka at that same friend’s house. Anya was sitting on the windowsill of an open window and, losing her balance, fell down. Broke my spine. And now no one knows if she will ever be able to walk.
Sergey was the only child in the family. Mom and Dad, scientists, treated their son with adoration, he studied well and did not show himself to be criminal in any way. But starting from the sixth grade, he began to constantly run away from home. It was found in various parts of the republic, and several times even outside its borders. Parents could not cope with this; they looked for reasons in themselves and at school, in relationships with friends and first love. When Sergei turned 18, he went to serve in the army. He escaped from there several times, which already created problems with the law. Finally, we decided to contact a psychologist, who said that Sergei had a disease that did not allow a person to control such impulses and which would worsen over the years.
Olya I left my mom and dad with the firm desire to never see them again. They forbade her to meet her beloved boy Sasha, without whom Olenka, of course, could not live a day. The boy “took care” of her and settled her in the basement of a high-rise building, where their group had a “kamora” (a place for evening parties and skipping school). He fed her with cutlets brought from home and rejoiced in every possible way at her cool action. True, for some reason he did not want to join his beloved and lived quietly at home. After two weeks of such free living, a drunken homeless man came across Olechka at night. He raped her and ran away. She returned home, but it is unlikely that she will soon want to see anyone at all.
Igor ran away from his parents simply because they did not understand him. And Igor’s dad was a big police chief, a very powerful and authoritarian person. The paradox is that while the city and even the republican police were looking for his comrade, he calmly lived at the Minsk station, miraculously filtering through constant raids on street children. He made friends with the station tramps and even managed to gain authority among them. I traveled around the country and felt absolutely free and happy. When they finally returned him home, he said that at the first opportunity he would run away again. But I solved the problem differently. After ninth grade, I entered college in another city and tries to come home as little as possible.
Perhaps these stories of prosperous children will seem simply stupid in comparison with the troubles of those who escape from the beatings and scandals of their alcoholic parents, from their mothers’ constantly changing roommates, from banal hunger. But this doesn't make the situation any better.
What are they thinking about when they run away?
Few manage to escape far. There is not enough money or no money at all. There is nowhere to live, because all your child’s friends are the same prosperous children living with their mothers and fathers. Street companies frighten your child from early childhood. This good side. But there is also a bad one.
Your child is simply scared to return home. And he also wants to defend his position. OK, let him prove how small and unrestrained he is, let him slam the door and throw tantrums.
When the child is found and returns in a few days, you, of course, will not scold him. You will be very happy with him, you will walk around him on your toes and blow off the dust that has accumulated during the long walk. And then everything will start again. And it will continue again and again. Not ad infinitum. Exactly until the moment your child proves to you that he is already an adult and independent person, can make important decisions and plan his life.
Don’t wait for relapses; explain to your child that in order to change your life, you need to change yourself. No other way. He, of course, belongs only to himself, but in order to have all the rights to himself, both he and you, his parents, must know for sure that he is capable of controlling such a complex mechanism.
What should parents do when their child leaves home?
Immediately remember everything your child has talked about lately. Call all your child’s acquaintances and friends, and talk not only with the children, but also with their parents, asking them to take appropriate actions if your child appears in their field of vision. Call your relatives and friends and interview them.
Check to see if money or valuables are missing from the house. Try to determine what things the child took with him, what clothes, perhaps books. Analyze all this carefully.
If your child is discovered missing in the evening, be sure to call the class teacher, and in the morning go to school and interview all classmates. Remember or find out from your peers where and with whom your child most often spent his free time, and to whom he could inform about his plans.
If you do not see any signs of your child deliberately leaving home, call an ambulance to find out if your child was taken there as a victim of an accident. Call the police, find out if the child has been detained - children often do not have documents with them, and they do not want (cannot) say what their names are and where they can call their parents.
If all these actions do not bring results, urgently contact the relevant authorities to organize a search for the child. Go to the district police station, taking with you the documents for the child and his photographs. Write a statement at the police station and put him on the wanted list. Police officers are obliged to accept your statement upon request; do not accept any careless excuses like “He will run away and come back.”
Continue calling your child's closest friends, emphasizing that you love him very much, are worried, are waiting for him at home and are not angry at all. You can go around all your friends, talk - it doesn’t cost anything to hide a 13-year-old girl under the bed so that the parents don’t even realize that there is someone else in the house. In addition, personal contact may cause friends to “split” if they know where your child is hiding. Use cunning, say: “I know for sure that you are in the know, because Seryozha said that he trusts you with all his secrets, and if something happens, he will only tell you.”
Having found your son or daughter, do not immediately attack him with questions. But after a while, try to talk about the topic of escape, find out what caused it, try to understand your child and find mutual understanding with him. Remember that you are not a galley overseer, and your goal should not be to completely impose your views on life on your child.
The material was prepared with the assistance of psychotherapist Leonid Shemlyakov
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