Envy in children and how to deal with it. Advice from a psychologist. Envy in teenagers, we talk about possible causes. Envious child
Everyone experiences envy: both adults and children. However, envy is different. If this condition occurs from time to time, when a person doubts his abilities or experiences uncertainty, there is no need to sound the alarm. But if the feeling of envy begins to prevail over others, then it can thoroughly ruin life.
Your child is a little envious person. How to determine this?
Often, an adult cannot even imagine that his child is consumed by envy - the object of the child’s passion seems so insignificant to him. However, even at the most tender age, this feeling can be not only strong, but also long-lasting, and most importantly, destructive. It is important to understand in time that your child is jealous of a friend. Childhood envy has several appearances.
Practical actions. In anger that he does not have such a machine, a child may spoil someone else's toy or break a craft for which his friend received the praise of an adult.
Imitation. The child really likes the thing that his friend has, and he begins to ask his parents for exactly the same thing or creates it in his imagination and demonstrates to his loved ones the invented actions with its use.
Criticism. This is an attempt to reduce the value of what is the object of envy. “There is nothing special about his victory”, “This doll is ugly, I have a hundred times better at home” - statements typical for such behavior.
Ignoring. An attempt to protect oneself by creating a real distance between oneself and the desired object: the baby refuses to play with it if a friend offers it, and generally tries to communicate with other children, and not with the owner of the object of envy.
Disguise. This method is often used by older children, from 7 to 16 years old; preschoolers cannot do it. This kind of envy is more difficult to recognize. An envious person is not happy for a friend who has achieved success in something or has become the owner of a new gadget, but he wholeheartedly sympathizes with the failure or breakdown of the desired thing.
The origins of envy
What causes envy? On the surface, of course, is an object (for example, an expensive gadget) or an event (for example, an interesting trip abroad or winning a competition) that is in the life of a peer, but not in your child. Healthy envy is a fleeting feeling that combines joy for a friend and the desire to repeat his achievements.
” If a child is jealous for a long time, persistently, painfully, then the problem, of course, is not the tablet or the cup. The child wants attention, approval, respect and, finally, love. So chronic envious people almost always suffer from low self-esteem: the child thinks that he is the worst in everything, and believes that the coveted prize will immediately correct the situation. However, due to the same low self-esteem, he is afraid to do something to achieve good results - the result is a vicious circle.
If parents notice that their child is full of envy (although this does not happen often in such a situation), they begin to treat the symptoms, not the cause: they scold the child for unworthy feelings or try to make him happy with an expensive toy. This does not solve the problem, because in fact, this does not result in more love and attention. In order to correct somewhat damaged parent-child relationships, a lot of work is needed, it is advisable to involve a psychologist in it.
Envy, go away!
Another situation: parents do not help the child overcome envy; moreover, they themselves instill this feeling in him, literally teaching him to envy everyone and everything. If you are sure that in general everything is fine with your child and he is not characterized by low self-esteem, but you do not know how to teach him to correctly respond to other people's successes, then here are some useful tips.
The most correct way is personal example. If you allow yourself to speak about your acquaintances in a negative way, to neutralize their successes and achievements, your children will absolutely be envious.
Help your child understand his feelings. Let him know that everyone gets angry, angry, or jealous from time to time and there is nothing to be ashamed of. Admitting that you are jealous is the way to overcome this destructive feeling.
A good method of dealing with envy is to reveal the child's personal potential. The more he does what he loves, the more successful he becomes and the fewer reasons for envy he has.
Show what envy can lead to - using the example of book or cartoon characters.
Praise your child, emphasize his strengths and positive sides, pay attention to his victories, no matter how small. This will help you develop a positive attitude towards others - a good vaccine against envy!
Remember! To prevent your child from becoming jealous, you should never do the following:
Don't compare him to anyone. This leads to the fact that the child begins to constantly look back at others and evaluate his position on the scale of success.
Don't make a cult out of things. Instantly buying the same thing that other children have will lead to an increase in the child’s demands, and envy will not disappear anywhere.
Don't support boasting. This will not increase the child's self-esteem and will not make him a leader among children, but he may become arrogant and swaggering. True authority is earned by deeds, not by expensive things or boastful stories - convey this idea to your child.
Envy is familiar to all people, regardless of age. However, a child, unlike adults, is sometimes unable to understand that one cannot get what one wants. And, of course, he is very nervous. Is it possible to teach a child to curb this feeling and even benefit from it? In principle, envy is a natural experience, but in a certain concentration it becomes dangerous. If a person is constantly in a state of dissatisfaction, then his character deteriorates, and the quality of life is significantly reduced. It seems to him that everyone lives better than him, and he is the only one unhappy. Therefore, it is better to start fighting envy when it is in its infancy, i.e. in childhood. We need to help the child cope with this negative feeling and become a more harmonious person.
Children's envy
Envy necessarily has a specific source - the object of envy. For children, these are usually either things (first toys, beautiful clothes, then mobile phones, tablets), or life events (when another child won a competition, participated in a concert or competition, or someone had a brother, etc. .). Manifestations of envy can be different:
Practical actions- damage, destruction, removal of the object of envy. Let's say a girl made a beautiful plasticine picture of a butterfly, and the teacher praised her work. On the same day, the craft that was “on display” was ruined by roughly smearing the image with their fingers - apparently, someone’s soul could not stand someone else’s success. . If envy becomes completely painful, it can even lead to theft.
Imitation- an attempt to recreate the object of envy. This could be the purchase of the same item. For example, a child saw an interesting toy from a friend and asks his parents to buy the same one. Or the baby begins to pretend that he has such a toy and tells how he plays with it.
Criticism- devaluation of the object of envy. A child may say: “Nothing special,” “Your doll is ugly, I have better ones at home.”
Ignoring- avoiding the object of envy (self-defense). For example, a boy was jealous that his friend brought a new model of car to the garden. And instead of playing with a friend, he runs away from him or plays with other guys, supposedly not noticing him.
Disguise- envy may not look like what it is. For example, an envious person may willingly sympathize with grief, because it is easier than rejoicing at someone else’s success, which the envious person is simply not capable of.
Absence of external manifestations - envy can hide. At the same time, a person (both a child and an adult) may not realize that the true reason for his bad mood and negative feelings is envy.
Roots of the problem
Envy is born from dissatisfaction: “Someone has something that I don’t have.” But it happens that it arises suddenly: the child lives calmly, is happy with everything, and suddenly discovers something in another that he did not know about until now, but that he liked so much that he immediately wanted to have it. Since our world is filled with things and benefits, anyone can fall into such a trap.
How to explain to a child that envy is bad? To do this, you need to figure out: envy is bad - for whom? Of course, a person who is envied may suffer: he notices the envious person’s hostile glances on himself, hears whispers and giggles behind his back. But still, the one who envies suffers the most: eternal dissatisfaction spoils the mood.
First of all, you need to understand why the baby is jealous and when the problem arose. And sometimes you have to put a lot of effort into challenging your child to talk.
7 KEYS TO SUCCESS
When it becomes clear that a child is experiencing envy, you must first explain to him that he is not bad at all. It is worth telling your child honestly that sometimes all people - both children and adults - are jealous. Sometimes this becomes a revelation for a child. However, another extreme is also possible, when the child is sincerely convinced that everyone around him is doing nothing but envying each other, that this is how the world works. We need to let him understand that every person has both good and not so good. Every person has a choice. And therefore we should not be horrified, but work on ourselves.
How can a child deal with envy?
There are several effective ways:
Shift the child's attention to himself. If you “go on the attack” simply on a feeling of envy, then you will only be able to fight a private manifestation of personality. Therefore, it is necessary to teach the child to transfer attention from others to himself. Try to find out together what interests him personally, what brought him joy before the “arrival” of envy. Motto: “Mind your own business first!” will help realize his personal potential. After all, what all negative heroes do at all times is to interfere with other people’s lives and destroy the world of others. Often this happens precisely out of envy.
Organize your baby's life. If a child has a busy life and is engaged in activities that are important to him (drawing, music, sports, etc.), envy will not be able to settle in his soul for a long time. After all, the basis of happiness is satisfaction. Therefore, you need to be attentive to the organization of your child’s life, help him choose clubs and sections, and enroll him in a music, art or sports school.
Lead by example. If the child’s loved ones constantly compare people and criticize them, then the child becomes “infected” with this attitude towards the world. Therefore, it is necessary not only to raise a child, but also to work hard on oneself. It’s like in the example with smoking: if a child’s parents smoke, then no matter how many words they spend explaining to the child that smoking is harmful, their own actions will cancel out all the correct words, and the child will most likely also become a smoker.
Find time to talk. If your child expresses a desire to communicate, do not brush it off by referring to business. Have an open conversation with your child about life (usually such a conversation can develop from a difficult question asked by the child). Together, try to understand the situations that arise for your child in kindergarten, in the yard, or at a party. The opinion of a significant adult is so important for a child that it often helps to see the situation in a new way. Also, don’t be afraid to give examples from your own life or from the lives of adults you know - usually children listen to such stories with great interest, they are very concerned about “how it all ended,” i.e. how a person managed to get out of an unpleasant situation. Specially selected books and films will also help with this.
Distract from bad thoughts. Organize fun leisure time for your child so that he does not get hung up on negative experiences. Although sometimes this can be difficult: a child cannot always get out of the well-worn rut of “self-pity” and even in an amusement park remembers the object of his envy, and can begin to think (and say) something like this: “But Petya is having a better rest - his dad is in Disneyland carried…” It’s worth making an effort to distract your child and help him relax.
Learn to be aware of your feelings. Understanding and admitting that you are jealous is already half the battle in getting rid of this bad feeling. Of course, this is difficult for a child, because even many adults do not live fully consciously. Nevertheless, it is necessary to help the child ask questions correctly, analyze life events, analyze feelings, and look for possible ways out of the situation.
Awaken ambition. Sometimes envy serves as a kind of incentive to achieve goals. (“Do you want to dance like Rita? Let’s sign up for a choreography studio.” Or “Misha was again praised for reading fluently? If you want, let’s practice after kindergarten - and gradually you will become no worse at reading.”) But in fact, this is a cunning move at all not required. You shouldn’t take someone’s life as a guide. We need to look for our own solution.
And repeating and imitating is the same as wearing someone else's clothes and living in someone else's house.
So, the main thing is not the fact of experiencing envy itself: there is nothing to be ashamed of, since everyone tends to get angry, angry and, of course, envy from time to time. It is important what happens next: will a person succumb to this feeling and his life will begin to pass under its influence, or will he make an effort and be able to switch to the positive - learn to appreciate what he has and go his own way. If parents convey this idea to the child’s consciousness, he has every chance of becoming strong, kind and free in the future. In a word, happy.
Anticipation of something pleasant protects against envy. For example, once every three months you can allow your baby to make a list of 5 desired things. And he must choose only one. And the parents name the deadline for the dream to come true.
Typical mistakes of parents
There are things you should never do:
Compare the child with others
Never, under any circumstances, compare your baby to others. Indeed, in this case, the child, who until then considered himself significant by definition, may begin to look around at others. And when someone compares himself with others, he can no longer stop and does it constantly. This distorts his life. In this case, the following paradox takes place: even if the child is objectively at his best, he will already habitually consider the other person better (“You are good, I am bad”). The situation becomes especially difficult if the child is shy by nature. So it’s not far from an inferiority complex.
Cultivate materialism
If you notice that a child has begun to envy a friend because he has some interesting toy, maybe you should buy the child the same one before he begins to envy “in full.” But we must always remember that this is still a vicious path: you can’t buy everything. Often, the more a child has, the more he needs, and requests are constantly multiplying and growing. Should we indulge this and take part in this massive race for things? Of course not! But this is easier said than done. After all, then, like it or not, you will have to oppose yourself to the others...
Making a braggart out of a child
There are parents who help their child take the path of arousing envy by buying the newest and “coolest” things that they can brag about (bragging is the “other side of the coin” of envy: a braggart likes to be envied). Usually such a baby is followed by a flock of children who dream of trying the “desired fruit” (say, playing on the phone), and the owner enjoys such power. This unreasonably inflates his self-esteem.
Parents should try to instill in their child the idea “You need to appreciate what you have.” Long explanations won't help here. So you will have to spare no time in playing to show your child the value of familiar objects and toys.
Envy is common to all people, regardless of their age. However, it is necessary to distinguish between envy as a feeling that can arise rarely, during periods of doubt and uncertainty, and envy as a stable feeling that accompanies a person throughout his life. To prevent your child’s short-term envy from turning into a real problem, “I am a Parent” shares tips on how to avoid this.
How to understand that a child is jealous?
The expression of children's envy is usually very predictable. The object of envy is either some things (clothes, toys), or life circumstances (when a child’s peer wins a competition, receives praise for his actions from a teacher or teacher, etc.) A child’s feeling of envy can be recognized by the following manifestations: practical actions, imitation, criticism, ignoring or disguising.
Practical actions are damage, destruction or removal of the object of envy.
For example, when one child angrily breaks another’s toy just because he doesn’t have one or stains a drawing drawn by another child, for which he received praise from the teacher.
Imitation is an attempt to recreate the object of envy. If a child really likes a new car that was given to his friend, he begins to demand that his parents buy him exactly the same one. Or he fantasizes that he already has it - he tells mom and dad how he plays with it.
Criticism manifests itself in a demonstrative devaluation of the object of envy. For example, a child may say: “Nothing special,” “Your toy is ugly, I have better ones at home.”
Ignoring is a kind of attempt to protect oneself. If a child is jealous of a new construction set that one of the kids brought to kindergarten, he deliberately tries to get as far away from the desired thing as possible: he refuses to assemble the construction set with the owner, pointedly does not talk to him, runs away to play with other children, etc. d.
Older children (7-16 years old) often use the disguise of envy. Little kids are simply not capable of this. This kind of envy is the most difficult to recognize. An envious child will not be happy for his friend for whom his parents bought a new toy or fashionable gadget, but if the owner of the toy loses or breaks it, the envious child will sympathize with his grief with great pleasure.
Sometimes children's envy may not have external manifestations at all, but it still spoils the child's life and mood. In such a situation, the child himself may not even suspect that the cause of his negative emotions is actually envy. In such cases, only a child psychologist can help him understand his feelings and their reasons.
Where does envy come from?
The root of childhood envy is simple dissatisfaction. The child lives calmly, is happy with everything, and suddenly discovers something in someone else that he liked so much that he immediately wanted to have it. And here envy appears - he has it, but I don’t.
About the same thing happens when a child begins to envy someone else’s success. His peer won the competition, received a prize and universal recognition, but no one pays attention to him. Naturally, he begins to envy: he also wants to be noticed and appreciated.
In some cases, it is the low that is the root cause for the manifestation of this negative feeling. Children with low self-esteem feel that they are worse than others in everything, and have no choice but to envy. Self-doubt prevents them from taking any action to become better, or achieving the results that cause envy. In such cases, parents will have to work, first of all, with the formation of adequate self-esteem.
How to help your child cope with envy?
The best example is personal. Children almost always copy the behavior of their parents, so if you yourself often discuss the acquisitions of your friends in a negative way, criticize those around you and constantly compare them, do not be surprised that your child turns into an envious person. No matter how much you tell him that this is a negative and destructive feeling, until you yourself stop envying others, your child will not stop doing this.
Teach your child to be aware of his feelings. Explain to him that there is nothing to be ashamed of, since everyone tends to get angry, angry and, of course, jealous from time to time. It is important not to give in to this feeling, but to understand and admit that you are jealous - that’s already half the battle in getting rid of this bad feeling.
Help your child realize his or her personal potential. If the child is busy with something, there will simply be no time left for envy.
Using the example of negative characters from books or cartoons, show your child what this leads to. Such heroes usually meddle in someone else's life and destroy someone's happiness just because of this feeling, which is not easy to cope with.
Develop a sense of self-confidence in your child, praise him, name all his positive aspects, then he will have a positive attitude towards others. And the lack of some things will not be a difficult test for him, he will be happy that he is loved.
To avoid developing feelings of envy in your child, check out what you should never do:
Compare the child with other children. Such a comparison only leads to the fact that the child begins to live with a constant eye on others, and sometimes even blackmails his parents.
Create a cult of things. Many parents, seeing that another child has a new car, immediately try to buy their child the same one, hoping that in this case envy will not take hold of them. However, over time, children's demands grow and grow, and mom and dad find themselves in a vicious circle.
Teach your child to brag. Some mothers and fathers try to increase their child's self-esteem by buying him the best things to make him feel special among his peers. As soon as such a child appears in kindergarten with an expensive toy or comes to school in new exclusive clothes, a crowd of children immediately rushes after him who want to chat with the “cool” guy or girl. Naturally, the “coolest” person likes his privileged position, he gets used to it, and eventually grows up to be an arrogant and boastful person. Remember that true love and respect can only be gained by deeds and behavior, and not by expensive things.
Victoria Kotlyarova
