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In his first letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul advised spouses to abstain from marital intercourse during fasting: “Do not turn away from each other, except by consent, for a time, to exercise in fasting” (1 Cor. 7:5). Church canonical rules establish abstinence in big holidays and on Sundays (starting from the evening of the previous day), because on these days spiritual life is offered (in any case, it should be offered) to the Lord.
From the incontinence of parents (especially during Lent!), children are born weak, susceptible to various diseases and imprinted by the intemperance of their parents, as the Monk Isidore Pelusiot wrote in the 4th century. The Optina elder Hieroschemamonk Ambrose writes in one of his letters: “The illness of your wife is your own fault: either you did not honor holidays in marital relations, or did not observe marital fidelity, for which you are punished by your wife’s illnesses” (Collected Letters to Lay People; Letter 105).
Violations of spiritual and physiological laws relating to married life (for example, incontinence during menstruation, pregnancy) carry with them punishment for the violators themselves and have a bad effect on their offspring.
But adulterers and fornicators prepare a more terrible fate for themselves and their children. Many people know that their children up to the fourth generation pay for the sins of their parents (Num. 14. 18; Ex. 34. 7). This is how Scripture shows the fate of the children of sinners: “Children of sinners are disgusting children and communicate with the wicked (aren’t we complaining about our own children that they got involved “with the street” and began to wander around the basements?). The inheritance of the children of sinners will perish, and disgrace will spread along with their tribe. The children will reproach the wicked father because they suffer disgrace for him (and the children feel this subconsciously). Woe to you, wicked people who have forsaken the law of the Most High God! When you are born, you are born into a curse; and when you die, you receive a curse as your inheritance. Everything that is from the earth will return to the earth: so the wicked will go from curse to destruction. People cry over their bodies, but sinners and bad names will be blotted out” (Sir. 41. 8-14).
Nowadays there is a lot of talk about drug addiction. And, probably, they will never stop talking, just as they will never find its social causes and methods of treatment. For the causes and cure are in the spiritual life of people. Drug addiction statistics have revealed an obvious pattern: children whose parents:

1. They had abortions.
2. Participated in the destruction of churches and monasteries.
3. Affected by the vices of fornication and sodomy.
4. As teachers, they raised children in atheism.
5. As medical workers, they performed abortions and used methods against childbirth.
6. As media workers, they carried out propaganda against childbirth.
7. They didn’t love their children.
8. They drink and steal.

But of all the sins that fall most heavily as a “generational curse” on descendants, is the sin of fornication: “The children of adulterers will be imperfect, and the seed of the wicked bed will disappear. Even if they live long, they will be considered nothing, and their late old age will be without honor. And if they die soon, they will have no hope and no consolation on the day of judgment; for the end of an unrighteous generation is terrible” (Wis. 3:16-19). And then Solomon explains why: “For children born from lawless cohabitation are witnesses of depravity against their parents when they are interrogated” (Wis. 4.6).
“The house of the harlot leads to death, and her paths to the dead; none of those who enter her returns or enters the path of life” (Proverbs 2:18-19). The Holy Fathers identified the sin of fornication as the third most serious sin after murder and renunciation of Christ. Moreover, they called the person who committed fornication not just a sinner, but a faller. Here is how Elijah of Crete shows this distinction: “Whoever has gone astray in some way returns again. For example, if someone stole his neighbor’s property with his hands, then with his hands he can distribute his property to the poor. This also happens in other sins. But he who has sinned against chastity returns not in the way in which he fell, but in another way, that is, by crying, fasting and groaning. Therefore, prodigal sin is actually called a fall” (Lestvitsa, p. 134 M., Sretensky Monastery, 2002).
Let us not forget that prodigal thoughts are also sin (Matthew 5:27-28). So the Monk Euthymius the Great noticed a prodigal demon in one of the brothers of the Lavra and rebuked him in the name of the Lord. The brother immediately fell to the ground, foaming and raging. When the brethren approached this place, the monk said to them: “Do you see this brother, who lived holy from his youth until now in the purity of his body?” Now, having weakened a little, he lustfully thought about carnal sweetness, enjoyed those bad thoughts, and now he was given over to the demon... Let us understand his misfortune, and let everyone know that even if someone does not touch someone else’s body, he commits fornication with his mind, accepting bad things. thoughts, holding them, deigning to them and enjoying them - he is a fornicator, and a demon possesses him. Now let's pray for our brother...
The Venerable Abba Dorotheos in his book “Soulful Teachings” shows why fornication is serious sin: The Monk Hilarion expelled a demon from one girl and asked this demon why he did not return to the young man who had sent him to this girl through witchcraft. And the demon answered: “My comrade, the lustful and prodigal demon, already lives in this young man.” And as is known from the teachings of the Holy Fathers, weak demons are replaced in a person by stronger ones.
Why does the Lord punish this sin so cruelly? The answer is given by the prophet Hosea: “Their deeds do not allow them to turn to their God, for the spirit of fornication is within them, and they have not known the Lord... They have betrayed the Lord, because they have given birth to other people’s children” (Hos. 5:7). God punishes just as severely the fathers who “indulged themselves in shameful things, and themselves became vile, like those whom they loved... And even if they raised their children, I will take them away, for woe to them when I am removed from them!” (Hos. 9. 10-12).
“Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I, then, take away the members of Christ to make them members of a harlot? It won't happen! Or do you not know that whoever has sex with a harlot becomes one body with her? for it is said: the two will become one flesh” (1 Cor. 6:15-16).
Sometimes I hear: “Well, God is so merciless... why doesn’t He forgive us?” But is it really not possible to see in such an “opinion” simply naked egoism, enormous selfishness, and not love of God? To which I answer: “What did you do to prevent God from moving away from you?”
And is it not because of the increase in fornication in recent years that the number of mentally retarded and simply untalented children has increased so sharply? I believe that this topic is still awaiting further research, but from my own life observations I can note the pattern that in so-called “civil marriages” and among mothers who have “fed up” their children, children have a difficult and sad fate.
The number of illegitimate children is growing everywhere. In the Perm region in 2002, such babies accounted for 46 percent of the total number of newborns [Business Prikamye, April 1, 2003], in 2005, only 20 percent of the total number of families were single mothers, plus 18 percent of families based on established paternity.
Those who prevent marriage without good reason, the word of God places among the people who are especially sinful (1 Tim. 4:3). Single life will be especially common before the end of the world, from which one can already see the demonic effort towards this.
Maybe we can draw the right conclusions for ourselves and for those who are dear to us, so that it does not happen that God will save our misfortunes for our children? (Job 21:19). And the words of the wise Solomon would be fulfilled: “The crown of old men is the sons of sons, and the glory of children is their parents” (Proverbs 17:6).

Reader question:

More and more often people have a question... a question with bewilderment: WHY DO CHILDREN DIE?
Why, for no apparent reason, unexpectedly for everyone in good families Do children and teenagers commit suicide? Why do children drown and die in accidents? Moreover, this comes as a shock not only for adults, but also for children (although they perceive death a little differently than we do). What is this: the work of an NP or all karmic work-offs, or maybe the influence of third-party connections that affect children’s suicides?

And yet the main question that I want to get an answer to is WHY DO CHILDREN DIE?

This is a delicate question, so when reading the answer, please do not get hung up on the details, do not put everything under the same brush, do not look for those to blame, and do not paint it as good/bad. The topic can be expanded into a whole book with examples, general rules, exceptions, etc. However, there is one single rule: it usually varies, and I recommend sticking to it.

Let's start with the basics:

Why do people even die?

A confluence of MANY circumstances, the main one of which is the lesson learned for incarnation, but there are others, incl. the reluctance of the soul to continue to go through earthly lessons, a planned experience, a lesson for loved ones, various errors and omissions (eg inattention to road rules and fingers in a socket), wear and tear of the body, etc. Single psychological traumas and/or constant stress lead to diseases and are usually the root causes of the soul’s decision to leave the earthly shell.

Contrary to popular belief, the souls of children are just as experienced and responsible for themselves as the souls of adults, and sometimes more, especially now. If they leave the material world earlier than we expected, this does not mean that this was not decided by them in advance. Nothing happens for nothing, accidents are not random, they are patterns that we are not aware of.

Because they remember what hard way they have to, they remember life “there” and are not at all looking forward to another immersion in material reality, although they understand that they themselves signed up for this. Their connection with the subtle world still remains until a certain age and the memory of their tasks () still remains open.

In addition, children are strong empaths; they feel tensions in space and the psychophysical states of loved ones. First of all, they feel parental tension and stress in any form, as well as the very environment around them, which often leaves much to be desired, especially in major cities.. The lack of mutual understanding and love in the family is extremely influential here, and because... Nowadays, many people give birth “pregnantly” and often, the child experiences extreme grief from the very beginning, thereby prompting the soul to look for a way out.

As our studies of childhood diseases have shown, illnesses often develop due to the inattention of the soul itself when choosing a body or tasks before incarnation. The chosen conditions turn out to be too complicated, especially if the clan has been severely fined and its branch needs to be stretched out and the karma of the ancestors worked off. Usually, a lack of experience in the physical worlds plays a role here, but there are also plenty of deceptive ways, although at some level the lesson was still discussed. I will publish the results of the study later, but for now

Case study:

A 54-year-old woman came to the session. She was the last of three triplet sisters, one of whom left this world during childbirth, and the second, by the age of 4, developed a brain disease (I don’t remember what exactly now), which prevented her from developing normally, which led to her early departure at the age of 45 ( 9 years before the session).

During pregnancy, due to the triple load, it was not clear whether their mother would survive, and she actually almost died during childbirth, miraculously surviving. However, then, within 10 months, their father passed away from cancer. You can imagine the situation. The ward wanted to know why this happened, what the punishment was for.

It turned out that all 5 mentioned (the souls of parents and children) usually incarnate together as a family. At the same time, their lesson for this life was this: children had to live life with only one parent.

Thus, according to the original plan, the mother really had to pass on to another world during childbirth, but at the family council up there, in their own way internal reasons, it was decided that the father would leave, their roles changed.

The soul of the first child (who passed away as an infant at the entrance to incarnation) did not want to go through such a traumatic experience and retreated until it was too late, until it completely entered the physical world and the connection with the subtle was closed.

The second sister, who passed away 9 years ago, decided to teach herself an extra-hard lesson in the development of the disease, and thus leave a special mark on this incarnation, so as not to repeat such difficult scenarios again. With all this, it was the three sisters who had to choose which parent should leave...

Abortion and medicine:

Q: If something happens to a woman during pregnancy and she loses her child, what happens to his soul? Does she remain like that, biding her time, or is she born to other parents?

The very concept of medicine in our world is extremely controversial. In fact, it does not heal (it does not solve the root cause of the problem and does not restore integrity), but only removes the symptoms, thereby prolonging the life of the body of the soul, which through illness must realize its lesson, or has decided to leave physics altogether for its own reasons. There are a lot of controversial ethical issues here, which we will look at later.

And in conclusion, let's look at the concept of "death" using the example of what we call murder, from:

Imagine the situation:

You are the soul of the energy world, without a body, omnipresent, omnipotent, immortal. You have long experienced all possible development options in your own reality and want adventures to the very fifth point that you “didn’t have” in the first place (time does not exist in these worlds).

You are invited to descend into the world of matter, acquire a body, form, become limited in capabilities, and most importantly - “mortal”!

How is it, mortals? Is it possible to reach the end, to disappear into nothingness? - the soul will ask
“If you don’t try, you won’t know,” they will answer her.

The soul takes the proposed list of options and chooses, say, Earth for its journey. Options include experiences of mother, father, child, magician, artist, nun, priestess of love, killer, victim, creator and destroyer, and much more. But going into someone else's world without your own is boring and, perhaps, scary (although there is no fear there either, it is...). Therefore, you throw out a multidimensional vibrational cry "Hey! Who's with me?!"

We - the related stream responds - We will go with you!
-I want to experience the experience of a victim, I want to know what it’s like to be killed. Can you help me with this?
-Of course we will help! And then we’ll switch places, - a familiar light pulse vibrates
-Agreed! - you answer and rush into all the troubles with your newfound head.

This whole process is also preceded by separation from, awareness of oneself as an individualized particle of the Absolute, development of the necessary vibrational characteristics, structuring and much more.

And now, imagine, you are on Earth! Local kindergarten the soul opens its doors to you and allows you to follow the path you so desire. Your physical body is killed by an old friend from the spiritual family, although you do not remember him, in order to obtain the most “real” experience. Only later, having met with his “former” killer somewhere on lilac cloud cosmic emanations, you discuss how you felt at the moment of losing your most important property, as it seemed to you all your life - your body. And then it turns out that you have dozens, if not millions, of bodies. So is it worth being sad one by one...

Attention question: can you blame the one who volunteered to help you undergo this much-desired experience?

Love your children and don't be afraid of anything. This is all they need for a long, bright and joy-filled life.

PS:

The world is full of contradictions and, of course, for the parents of a deceased child, all these explanations will be an empty ringing, if not an insult.

However, let's look at the situation from this side:

When we send our children to kindergarten, they cry and rush home with all their might; for them this is a HUGE trauma, comparable to death, and no intelligible explanations usually work. But parents KNOW that this will be better for the child, he will learn to communicate in society, find new friends, etc. (we omit the horror stories about bad teachers, mandatory vaccinations, etc.). They do not know about our “good” goals, they consider parting to be evil, and us ourselves as traitors. But we are more experienced and “know better!”, right? So can we be angry at the world for teaching us lessons that we don’t fully understand? at this stage, after all, we are just children too?

In nature, there is the concept of apoptosis - a regulated process of programmed cell death. Old cells die to make room for new ones. This process is fractally manifested at all levels of our reality, simply in a more complex interweaving of cause-and-effect interactions. Is it good or bad?

You can’t just take and divide everything into good/evil, as we are used to and love very much. All things are neutral, and labels are assigned to them by the human ego. What is beneficial for an individual, he calls good, what is unprofitable is evil, especially when it comes to property (and, unfortunately, many equate children with property). If a fox gets into the chicken coop and drags the chicken away, it's bad for the chicken, for its owner, but good for the hungry foxes who need to survive. This is the first information layer.

On the second layer, the owner will finally seal the hole in the fence and save the rest of the chickens from possible death, and the victim of the fox’s tyranny will go into a new incarnation as a being of a higher order. Patrikeevna will have to look for other ways to obtain food, thereby honing her hunting skills. And there are a LOT of such layers, the situation can be expanded ad infinitum.

“Evil” always acts in favor of good, and “good” always acts in favor of evil, they are inseparable like day and night, inhalation and exhalation, compression and expansion. Everywhere you can find its pros and cons.

ATTENTION!

Reality is multidimensional, opinions about it are multifaceted. Only one or a few faces are shown here. You should not take them as the ultimate truth, because, and at each level of consciousness and. We learn to separate what is ours from what is not ours, or to obtain information autonomously)

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• DatsoPic 2.0 2009 by Andrey Datso

  Is God to blame for the evil that occurs?
  In human existence, such an approach is widespread that the world is full of evil, and God allowed it, therefore God is to blame for this evil and human suffering.

  This approach does not carry anything positive; moreover, it plays into the hands of those who are interested in further corruption of the morals of society. Therefore, we should never forget that by creating man, God made him perfect and sinless. The understanding of evil and its influence was alien to man. However, God gave him the choice to obey God or disobey. If Adam had submitted to God, then the problem of the existence of evil and violence would not have arisen. Man was destined for happiness immortal life in communication with God. By rebelling against God, he changed his entire life and the life of all mankind. “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, so death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12).
  

  Therefore, one should not blame God for what is the creation of human hands.
  

  Why does God take away a child?
  

  This question is asked by inconsolable parents who have lost the meaning of life after the death of their beloved child. However, the very formulation of the question is extremely incorrect: after all, God is not a representative of the guardianship authorities to take away a child for one reason or another. Did Christ take children from their parents during his earthly life? He, due to his capabilities, does the opposite - brings him back to life. deceased daughter the head of the synagogue, resurrects the son of the widow of Nain. It is not God who takes away children, but death. Moreover, in the Holy Scriptures there is a direct indication that death is the enemy of Christ: “The last enemy that will be destroyed is death.”
  

  Therefore, when answering such a question, we need to recall that death came to us through sin, when a person deviated from good. Therefore, when children die, you should not call God to account. It is not God who is to blame, but the anger of people, from indifference and disregard, hardness of heart.
  

  Sometimes God takes the trouble that breaks out, sometimes this does not happen. Now we are not allowed to understand this. However, it is not God’s fault that a child dies. And if God, in the mind of man, is an enemy who takes away children, then who can protect from such an enemy... Such thoughts have an absolutely destructive effect on a person and are quite capable of driving him to madness.
  

  For a believer, death is not the same thing as for an unbeliever. For an atheist, death is a complete cessation of existence, but for a Christian, death is the beginning of a new life, infinitely better than the earthly one. Only faith can console grief-stricken parents, because an Orthodox person knows what awaits his child in his new life.
  

  In moments of despair and unbearable pain from loss, it is worth reading the words of theologian Alexei Ilyich Osipov, who suggests looking at the situation with different eyes. If you imagine that a mother and son are lost in snowy weather, their lives are constantly in danger, and suddenly a rescue helicopter arrives, in which there is only one free seat and one person is offered to be saved. Will the mother do everything possible to save her son?
  

  If we draw an analogy with our situation, then this “helicopter” periodically takes our loved ones, relatives, friends from us and carries them away. Having remained alive, we still do not know what dangers we will have to endure during our earthly life. Every Christian knows that he is a pilgrim on earth, and earthly life is the way home. Death is presented as just a temporary short separation, after which everyone will meet again: “we have no permanent city here, but we are looking for the future” (Heb. 13:14).
  

  How to console parents in grief?
  

  The Bible answers, “Weep with those who weep” (Rom 12:15). After all, at the moment of grief, complicity and empathy are so important. This is not given to everyone, but help without such complicity is impossible.
  

  Since the loss of a child is the worst evil that can befall a mother, then, wanting to help her at such a moment, you need to know that only sincere participation in someone else’s suffering can bring relief. If you are not ready to suffer with your mother, but have a burning desire to help, you can simply pray for those who are suffering. And ask the Lord to give them consolation, ease their mental anguish and give strength to their spirit. After all, prayer - turning to God - is asking for help.

  Greetings to everyone on the blog pages
  Why does God take innocent little children? For whose sins do children die? Why does God allow babies to die?
  This is the series of questions I heard at the funeral of our little parishioner baby Verochka.
  Yes, this is how it happens, and the baby was not two years old, one might say she didn’t even see life, but the Lord took her to him. Yes, when an innocent baby dies, even a believer has questions: is there a God in the world? Where was He at that moment, where did He look and why did He allow it? First of all, this is a test of faith for the believer.

  When an adult dies due to some serious and long-term illness, or when we lose our elderly, we realize that the cause of a serious illness is the person himself, and even when, you understand that there are no guilty parties here - it’s just the turn to pass on to another world . It’s hard for us to lose loved ones, both young and old, but when a person dies who has lived life and understood what life is, for some reason it is easier for us to find the answer - why the Lord ordered this, or why the person died before reaching a ripe old age.
  

  Please note, when a person dies at a very old age, by his own death, we do not look for those responsible, we do not ask any questions, everything seems to be as it should be. And if a person dies in middle age, we also understand everything logically, although we are looking for the culprits - it could be the environment, bad habits, doctors’ mistakes, and so on, the list will be long.

  For some reason, it’s always like this, when someone dies, we look for the culprits, we look for the reason, and because, realizing that there is God above us and he is omnipotent, we ask the question - why didn’t God save the baby? Why didn’t he save him, since the child had not sinned in anything? Some are in despair because there has been a misfortune in the family, they see this will of God as not fair, saying this - it would be better if you took a drug addict, or a murderer, a lawless one! Yes, so we see from our side, we have lost a little man who did not even have time to sin, to see the fullness of the world.

  True believers will not blame the Almighty; of course, they have a number of questions: whose fault, for what sin did the Lord allow such grief? Heartbroken parents are looking for answers to their questions, but we don’t know the answer. Let's remember one moment from the Gospel about the man born blind: “And as he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked Him: Rabbi! Who sinned, he or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, “Neither he nor his parents sinned, but this was so that the works of God might be revealed in him.” . (John 9:1-4)

  Yes, many questions arise, but we will not receive answers in the near future.
  
  There will be a lot “maybe that’s why...” « or maybe because... “And if we look for answers to why such grief is the death of a child, then it will not become easier for us. We do not know the affairs and plans of God, we cannot foresee our future even half an hour in advance, we cannot know anything for sure, especially the future of our children. We do not know God's providence.
  When such grief comes to a family, we need to realize that we live in this world temporarily, and we have real eternal life precisely when the soul is separated from the body, because our body is only the clothing of our soul. After the separation of soul and body, the human soul remains alive.

  It is clear that while we live an earthly life, we measure everything with an earthly yardstick, we think with earthly thoughts, we guess with earthly primitive guesses, we feel with earthly – bodily things. Naturally, we are so sad to part with the bodies of our loved ones, yes, yes, it is with bodies that we part, but our loved ones, their souls are alive and forever in our hearts, in our memory.

  And if you consider that the baby’s soul is pure, the baby is for his short life did not have time to sin, then the soul of the baby remains with God. Parents need to remember that when a baby dies, they have a prayer book in Paradise.
  It is very difficult and even useless to console grief-stricken parents, no matter what words of consolation are spoken, they will not help, the main thing is support from family and friends.

  We must remember that everything that does not happen in our lives is only by the will of God, a good example from the Old Testament about the long-suffering Job (book of Job) as words of consolation, and answers to questions can be found in this book.
  And finally, I will write: The most important thing is to see all the works of God, and to see in God, first of all, a merciful father, and not a formidable judge.

  – Natalya Vladimirovna, let’s start with how a child, in principle, perceives death at a young age. Does it exist for him or is it some kind of abstraction?

  – Contact with death for small child- this is a touch on categories that are completely incomprehensible to him. In general, we must start with the fact that a small child, under five years old, thinks of himself purely egocentrically. For him, the world is a continuation of himself. Remember how a child plays hide and seek. He covers his eyes with his palms or hides his head behind the curtain and says: “I’m hiding, look for me.” If he does not see himself, then he is invisible.

  Suffice it to recall the remarkable observation of Jean Piaget, the famous Swiss psychologist, which showed the level of egocentric consciousness of a small child. To the question “Do you have a brother?” the baby answered: “Yes, I have a brother.” “Does your brother have a brother?” - asked the psychologist. The answer was: “No, my brother doesn’t have a brother.” In other words, of course, the small consciousness perceives everything as an extension of itself. In this regard, he is immortal, eternal. As well as all those close people who are next to him. Anything that destroys this feeling of such totality, harmony, eternity, is quite emotionally charged and can cause deep and long-lasting consequences.

  There is a Hollywood film that tells the story of a woman suffering from multiple personality disorder. The psychiatrist who worked with her discovered a striking connection between her illness and the severe trauma she experienced as a child. Her grandmother died, and her mother considered it obligatory for the little six-year-old girl to be present at the funeral.

  The child did not want to, was afraid and hid under the house, in the basement. But she was discovered, forcibly pulled out of hiding and forced not only to attend her grandmother’s funeral, but to approach her, dead, lying in a coffin, and kiss her.

  And from that moment strange things began to happen to the child, which later developed into serious mental disorder. When the psychiatrist managed to heal a long-standing childhood trauma, the woman’s life changed, the illness went away, and mental integrity returned.

  A thoughtless invasion, without experience and understanding, into a small and fragile children's world can be very traumatic. Moreover, it seems that an adult does not do anything like that. For example, a child asks: “Mom, are you going to die?” He had not yet been to a funeral, had not encountered the topic of death, had not lost anyone yet, but he had heard something somewhere. They read fairy tales to him, and this understanding of the finitude of life entered into him; he asks internal questions that his parents do not know how to answer.

  Very often, during consultations, adults ask me the following questions: “My little son asked me: “Are we going to die? What will I do if you die? What should I answer? And I say: what do you do in such a situation? I, he says, avoided answering.

  – Is this wrong? If you don't know what to answer?

  - Of course, if you don’t know what to answer, it’s better to avoid answering. Because when you start saying: “Well, yes, we will die, we will be buried in the ground and eaten by worms,” this is a disaster for the child’s psyche. The child perceives the world in an incredibly colorful way; the child’s thinking is very concrete. He imagines very well how it will be and experiences strong emotions.

  Therefore, everything depends on a very specific situation - what kind of child, what is the situation in the family, why does he ask this question.

  – Have your children asked you this question? What did you answer?

  – My child asked me a question: “Are you going to die?” I said: “I will live for a very long time, you will already become an adult, you will already have a beard, you will have your own children, and I will be old, I will get tired of everything, I will walk with a stick, we will sit down, agree, and then I will I'll die." That is, I framed the answer as a joke. Strictly speaking, my verbal answer was not as important as the intonation and mood with which I spoke about it. Because for a child who is asking such complex internal questions, it is very important for an adult to demonstrate a calm attitude towards this.

  – If an adult is confident, then there is nothing to be afraid of?

  – Yes: since an adult reacts so calmly to this topic, it means it’s not scary. It sets the attitude, the mood, the general outline associated with this issue. The child has no stability, no confidence in life, no boundaries - he lives here and now, in this moment. And it is very important for him to feel through an adult some restrictions, the boundaries that an adult sets for him, and this confidence in the future. Then these frames will begin to be his own frames. If a parent has anxiety, fear, or his own lack of processing of these issues, he conveys to the child not just some words, but precisely his own anxiety.

  – Parents often want to protect their children from difficult topics – pain, death: after all, even at 12-13 years old they are still small, they live in a very happy world... Do you think it’s right to just not talk about death?

  - It's an illusion. A child asks questions of life and death quite early, he just does it differently than an adult - more poetic, philosophical, romantic. I would even say, more religiously, if we talk about religion not as a certain confessional affiliation, but as a perception of the universe as a fairy tale, when all living things are somewhat similar to the ancient perception of the world.

  Child psychologist and teacher Alexander Lobok showed that eternal questions about life, death, eternity, and love are inherent in a child from a fairly early age - from 6-7 years old. These questions live in the child’s soul, but, as a rule, adults themselves are afraid of these questions, and even more afraid of talking about them with the child. As a result, the baby remains alone in this thinking. But if an adult is able to calmly accept such a child’s question and openly, but appropriately for the child’s age, talk to him about it, then the child experiences relief, because he is not alone trying to get to the answer, but there is an adult next to him.

  It seems to me that such conversations are very important, because in this way we create some kind of common space, build trust in the relationship between us and our children. Trust is a complex category. A child trusts, but an adult no longer trusts, does not trust the world. And as a result, his own child thinks that there is something wrong with the child!

  If a parent really tries to see the child’s world, complex and beautiful, not at all primitive, then this world opens up to him. And in it there is life and death, pain and joy. Everything is as it should be - like in a fairy tale. Here is Baba Yaga, a magical princess, a hero who defeats evil - all the archetypal images have been in us since childhood.

  "Dad went very far..."

  – Let's move from theory to practice. Someone close to you dies in the family... Naturally, an adult tries to protect his child from this pain. What mistakes could there be?

  – Let’s say that a grandmother or grandfather dies in the family, God forbid, one of the younger people, for example, a dad. And very often adults choose this strategy: they say small child that dad had gone very far.

  I will give you a slightly different example, concerning a story that is not as tragic as death, although internally it can be perceived just as painfully. For example, a child has a stepfather and a stepmother. Or the child is actually adopted. His parents carefully hide the degree of relationship from him. There are a lot of stories that show to what extent this is wrong in psychotherapeutic terms... Here is a small child brought in with very simple problems: he remembers information poorly, does not listen. The psychologist, as a rule, draws with him, and the child talks about his experiences through the drawings. Here he draws a dark forest through which he walks and makes his way.

  - And where are you going?

  “I’m looking for mom,” says the child.

  The psychologist asks the parents: “Is he adopted?” “How did you know? We don’t tell this to anyone!” The fact is that inside the child feels some truth about you. Emotionally, at the level of experience, he feels that something is wrong. And they are trying to tell him that everything is fine.

  There are a lot of such stories. I spoke with adults who had the most severe consequences of this kind of situation: psychosomatic problems, social phobia, severe neuroses - all this snowballs.

  – That is, adults are trying to protect and not injure the child...

  – And they will injure him even more! The truth, expressed competently, never hurts. A lie hurts much more. Because we feel lies not with our brains, but with our hearts.

  – How then is it correct to talk to a small child about death?

  – In conversations about death, religion has always played a special role, especially with a child, whose picture of the world is entirely mythological, fairy-tale. You can say: “Dad has gone to God, he looks at you from heaven, he prays for you, he is your friend, he is alive, you can talk to him.” What would an atheist say about death? For him, the person has died, the person no longer exists, the connection is lost forever. And then you can add in accordance with the atheistic perception of the world: a person will turn into grass, worms, butterflies, a cycle of substances will occur in nature... For a child, such an answer is horror! For him, it’s a disaster to separate forever. For his mind, the thought that there will never be a mom or dad again is unbearable.

  One day an adopted girl whose mother had died was brought to me for consultation. The child was brought in because she is aggressive, is not friends with children, and is hostile to everyone. I look at her and understand: this seven-year-old child has already experienced such horror... It is not clear whether she had a father, it is impossible to find him. But there was a mother, and she died. And the man who adopted her (initially adopted her together with his wife, but then they divorced because the wife could not accept the child, and the girl remained with her adoptive father) did not understand what to do, how to help her.

  When I started talking to her, I saw what pain lived in her. I started telling this girl:

  “Mom is there, she’s alive, she’s just alive with God. And she sees you, she knows everything about you, she watches you, she prays for you, you just have to try to feel it, think about it, talk to her in your mind.”

  And suddenly she said an amazing thing: “I can’t hear my mother, because when I try to do this, they interfere with me.” "Who's interfering?" "Children". This is where aggression towards children comes from! She studies at educational institution at the boarding house. It is clear that there is resentment here: after all, these children have parents, but she does not. But at the same time, she explains to herself this way: “They prevent me from hearing my mother.”

  We agreed with her that she would talk to her mother every day, write letters to her, that is, she would return her to herself.

  

  “How can you be offended by your mother?!”

  – Surely the child also has a feeling of injustice: why was my mother taken away from me? Even if they say to him: “God took my mother,” it still seems unfair - why did he take it? I prayed, but my mother died...

  “God took my mother away” is a bad phrase, you should never say that to a child! We don’t even say that to ourselves, but “The Lord allowed it.” We tell the child that mom was sick and she couldn’t cope with the illness, so she left.

  The child will still have a grudge against the parent. Grandparents are always more mature, older, their departure is perceived more gently by the child, and when a parent, a young person, leaves, there is a huge resentment towards the parent. As that girl said: “Why did my mother leave me?” I told her: “Mom didn’t leave you, she couldn’t overcome the disease. She just couldn't. The disease turned out to be stronger. She did not abandon you, she is next to you not with her body, but with her heart and soul, with her love.”

  That is, here it is necessary to avoid the topic related to offense as much as possible. Although we must understand that the child will definitely have this resentment. You can’t say: “How can you be offended by mom, dad, God?” What does “how can you” mean? He is offended, which means he can do it!

  When a child is in severe trauma, we have no right to aggravate it with guilt. By saying “How can you be offended!”, we push the child into this feeling of guilt. But he’s just in pain, he’s very sad, he wants to feel loved one, hear his smell, his voice, but this is completely different. Both Kübler-Ross and Frederica de Graaf write about this: first – denial, then anger, resentment, then despondency and inhibition, then acceptance. These are all stages of grief.

  – How long can these stages take? And are they the same in a child as in an adult?

  – No, with a child everything happens much faster! It just depends on how the adult interacts with it. Roughly speaking, any parent just needs to not be lazy and take a textbook on developmental psychology, see what a child can do at three, five, ten, understand the level of thinking, perception in at different ages. It is no coincidence that geometry begins to be taught in the 7th grade, because abstract thinking is formed only by this time.

  Before that, the child’s thinking is concrete. So the conversation should be the same. Here is dad or mom - with you, you can talk to them, write letters. He will ask: “Can they write to me?” “No, they can’t write to you, they can tell you, but you can hear.” And the child will hear, I assure you.

  You see, it is more important for a child to survive than to be destroyed. If we feed everything that preserves him, he clutches at this straw. “Anyway, mom is with you, she loves you so much, she prays for you all the time, now you have such an incredible protector in heaven.” He will say: “I don’t want her to be in heaven, I want her to be here!” And we continue to stick to our line: “Yes, and I want her to be here. But she's not here. So let's look there."

  One boy told me incredible, poignant words about the death of his beloved grandmother, which I remembered for the rest of my life.

  He said: “I cried so much when she passed away, I loved her so much, and suddenly I had a dream of her sitting on a cloud, looking at me from there and smiling.” What is this? Did the Lord send him such a dream? Or was his soul trying to heal? I think it's both.

  Because the psyche is, in some way, a gateway to another world. The Lord knocks on the other side, and we open the door on this side. Here we must give the child the right to be offended, angry, and not tell him: why are you doing this? We must tell him: “Yes, and I feel it, but still... let’s look now from the other side.” That is, you need to help the child find support in this intolerable position. Because the child is looking for these supports, but often cannot find them himself.

  – What kind of rituals could there be? Let's say something connected with the personal belongings of a mother or grandmother, with what mom loved?..

  – Yes, of course, you can take your grandmother’s favorite cup and say: “Grandma left this cup for you, so that now when you drink tea from it, it would always be with you.” Here is the watch that your mother gave you; when you look at it, you can always know that in this watch your mother’s love is ticking.” The child needs these reference points! I think this is a very important line, it helps the child get used to it and reconcile. In principle, a child accepts changes much faster than an adult - the totality of the psyche saves him.

  – What about going to the cemetery? With a funeral?

  – Let’s say a child really wants to go with us to his grandmother’s grave, after the funeral. So he comes to the grave and asks: “Where is grandma?” What should I say to him: “Grandma lies in the ground”? This is terrible. But what is the correct answer then?

  – This is truly terrible! You can say it differently: “Grandma is above us. She is with God, looking at you from heaven. And here - special place, a place of memory, we come here all together, in the summer we plant flowers, take care of this place. She looks from the sky and smiles, glad that we came.” Gradually the child will begin to become aware of what is happening, but this should happen gradually, naturally.

  As for the funeral, you need to understand that this will be a serious test for the child. He will be very frightened by a dead body, which is completely different from a living one. I don’t know: is it worth subjecting the delicate psyche of a child to such tests? But if he wants to go with adults, or rather, he doesn’t want to be left alone without his family, then perhaps it’s worth taking some kind of assistant who will insure the child and take charge of him if something happens. We need to think through this point very carefully.

  Although it is very difficult when we lose a loved one. We ourselves are in grief, and then there are the children. But we must understand that we are adults, we have much more opportunities to control ourselves. And a child is an absolutely naked, small and defenseless creature! If we can't take care of him, there's basically no one else to take care of him.

  The model of experience is set by adults

  – Indeed, what can we do if an adult himself is in a state of shock, cannot come to his senses after the death of, say, his wife or his husband... But we also need to support the child, explain to him. But he can’t, it’s hard for him to cope with himself. What to do?

  – Of course, in this case, one of the close people should take on this burden. Close relatives need to understand that the future of the child depends on their involvement, on their emotional concern and mercy. No more and no less. God forbid, dad died, mom, unfortunately, in such cases is often in a state of insanity - and she has every right to be so. This means that someone close to you should take care of the child.

  – But a child shouldn’t see his mother in a deranged state in such a situation?

  - Of course you shouldn't. But she is not in this state all the time, and her loved ones should help her get out of it.

  Often they prefer to take the child away, to take him somewhere, to his grandmother, for example. But it seems to me that this cannot be done, the child cannot be taken somewhere even in this case. Otherwise he will feel completely out of touch.

  Yes, mom is sad and cries, but he is also sad, he also feels bad. The child and mother are connected, and together they must survive the passing of a loved one. If she hugs him, they cry together - that's good. But it happens the other way around: she cries in one corner, and he cries in another, God forbid, in another room or even in another apartment. The model of experience is still set by adults: either grief is experienced together, or separately, everyone scatters in different corners. Grief either unites if people face it together, or divides if everyone copes with it on their own.

  – It happens that a person needs to be alone for some time...

  - Certainly! It's about not that he should totally hold the other in his arms.

  Let's imagine completely specific situation. Mom is in serious condition from the loss of her husband. They decide to take the child to the village to live with his grandmother, and as a result we get a complete break. He cannot be taken to the village to see his grandmother! You can take him somewhere for a day or two, and then bring him back. When we see that mom has come to her senses a little, we need to tell her: you can’t completely relax, you have a child, pull yourself together. Yes, your loved one is gone, but your child remains. This is about life, it is important for her too. This will give her mobilization and inner strength to simply pull herself together. And then this child must be brought home, at this moment he and his mother can cry together and hug. This is the meeting point! It definitely has to be there. And, as a rule, it doesn’t happen.

  Not long ago I counseled a man who had experienced the death of his wife. He came with a very clear request: his daughter is 16 years old, and she has completely gotten out of hand, exists completely separately. And her mother died 1.5 years ago. The first question I asked: how did you cope with the death of your wife? And from the story I saw that he experienced her completely separately from his daughter. The first thing I said: you should talk to your daughter about her mother’s departure, because she is alone in this grief, and you are alone.

  

  Do not look for those to blame, but recognize your pain

  – One of the articles described a very difficult situation when a woman’s beloved husband died – he crashed in a plane crash. And his brother was supposed to fly instead, but he didn’t. And this woman, in her terrible grief, shifted all the blame onto her brother and hated him, and the children witnessed this. Why is this situation so scary?

  - Let's leave the stove. What gives rise to this kind of reaction? Let's imagine a situation where what you said happened. The wife knew that her husband’s brother, a more distant person to her, would fly on this plane, but her husband flew. And crashed. I have already talked about the stages of grief: first denial, then resentment and anger. She is at this moment in the transition from denial to anger. She should blame someone for this grief. Anyone! Someone needs to pay for this and answer. This, unfortunately, is often and quite natural. It is no coincidence that these stages are described; almost any person who is faced with the tragedy of losing a loved one goes through them. And this is normal, but getting stuck in them is not normal, and many get stuck and stuck for years, or even for life.

  – What causes you to get stuck?

  “We are held in them by our ego, we feel sorry for ourselves, we are sad, we do not agree with what happened, and therefore we need to find the guilty, the extreme ones. But this path is a dead end - the ego is called to circle around itself, around its own pain, its own loss, it does not allow one to escape from the captivity of egocentrism. The only way out is to forget a little about yourself, your pain, your loss. Find the courage to admit that there is no one to blame for the death of a loved one. What happened is a mystery that requires openness and trust. And only the personality in us is capable of this, and not the ego at all. A person is able to think about others, what they feel, what is difficult for them. And this breakthrough is saving for a person, it transforms grief into wisdom, pain into compassion, sadness into hope.

  If we return to the woman, then with her is her child or her children, who also lost a loved one - their father. Moreover, by her behavior she sets a certain way of relating to what is happening. Who knows, maybe in many years they will begin to blame others for what happens to them or their loved ones. Can such an attitude be called Christian? Obviously not.

  But what exactly is the Christian path, and why is it so difficult? Because we have to choose not the easy road, but sometimes the difficult one, not natural reactions, but unnatural, or rather, supernatural.

  We want to immerse ourselves in our pain, because we have lost a loved one, a loved one, and we have to think about others, about their pain, about their suffering... It is very difficult, but this is Christianity.

  We must take ourselves by the scruff of the neck, pull ourselves out of the resentment and just wake up. And understand: I’m just suffering insanely, I’m in incredible pain, and no one is to blame for this. If the children just see my pain, and not an attempt to blame someone, it will be a much healthier situation for them, it will be correct. They too will be able to feel their pain, mourn it, move through it and come out. Then, having gained this experience of meeting their own pain and getting out of it, they will also feel the pain of another person. And they will become compassionate, merciful people. If they get stuck in this pain, if they say that someone is to blame, then they will not be able to feel the pain of others.

  – You mentioned the Christian attitude towards pain, the Christian way. How do you feel about the words “you are Christians, why grieve so much? Why are you crying like that? - such an attempt to console, to shake up a grieving person?

  – This is a terrible phrase, in my opinion, absolutely merciless! You see, Christ wept over Lazarus. God cried like a man when he lost a friend! And when a person loses a loved one, and they say to him: “You know that he didn’t die, stop killing yourself like that,” this, excuse me, is neurotic religiosity. It is formal and external, not internal. Before us is a person, not a robot, he is not a totally spiritual being. He experiences loss in body, thoughts, emotions...

  When my beloved aunt, who was practically my second mother, passed away, I could not remove her number from my account for many years in a row. mobile phone. As a completely grown man! It was deep melancholy, both as a child and as an adult, because my aunt was a huge figure in my life who taught me to love. Her loss will never go away for me emotionally. But that doesn't mean I don't understand that she is with God. I ask her for help when I feel bad. Her and mom's.

  It seems to me that when we have a person in front of us who has lost a loved one, in a truly Christian way we would simply hug him and cry with him. Share his pain. This is precisely a much more Christian gesture when you can be with a person in his pain. Take part of his pain upon yourself, and not tell him that everything is wonderful or how to worry correctly.

  – As a rule, people who say that have not experienced anything like this themselves, right?

  - Certainly. These are absolutely theoretical things.

  

  “What a blessing that we were able to say goodbye”

  – The death of a loved one can be sudden, it happens that he passes away gradually, and adults know about his imminent death. How to tell children about this? There are situations when a parent is afraid to tell the truth and does not bring them to say goodbye to, say, dad to the hospital, but simply to visit him. And although each participant in this last meeting understands that it is the last, this is not said. It is not right?

  – Frederica de Graaf wrote amazingly about this in her book “There Will Be No Separation.” Everyone should read this book, because we will all, one way or another, face death in our family. And we must know how to deal with this. I completely agree with everything she writes there. She has been working in a Moscow hospice for 12 years, and before that she had extensive experience working in a London hospice. So she says that saying goodbye is extremely important. The child has the opportunity to see a living parent, not in a coffin, not this body, which does not look like your loved one, but alive.

  – Even if he is in serious condition?

  - Yes. Now there is a law that allows relatives to go to intensive care, but previously they were not allowed. It's terrible when someone leaves and you can't say goodbye. Although historically, traditionally, farewell has always been a part of life. When the person left, all the relatives came, approached him, took him by the hand, cried, and said some words to each other. This is an incredibly important point.

  There is a book by Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann, “The Liturgy of Death,” an amazing work, and he writes exactly the same thing there. He writes that culturally, death has traditionally been within life. Only in last times the fear of death appeared when there was a loss of connection with God, and religion became a private matter for everyone, such a devaluation of sacred space and ultimate experiences occurred human life. As a result, death occurs in closed doors- in the hospital, in intensive care, where no one is allowed. And the man leaves alone. It's just a disaster. From so many people I hear: “What a blessing that I was able to say goodbye!” and “What a pain it is that I couldn’t say goodbye, I didn’t see my loved one before leaving.” It's always the same phrase.

  – But if you remember my question about the children who were brought to their father, but were not told that he was dying. After all, the children still saw their father, is this not the same thing?

  “If they had been told that they were going to say goodbye, they would have behaved differently: they would have allowed themselves to feel what they already felt.” They would take him by the hand, cry next to him, and there would be a secret meeting. You can’t deprive a person of this moment. A separate topic is whether to lead small children. It all depends on what kind of child it is. Strictly speaking, this is the responsibility of the parent. There are children who are not worth leading.

  – What are these?

  – Very sensitive, impressionable, highly vulnerable. But if the child is normal, strong, healthy, of course, when mom and dad are not in tubes, not on last stage illness, he needs to be brought to say goodbye. Just recently Frederica talked about this. She told how one very courageous military man left. Rarely does anyone leave like that. It was painful - he had lung cancer, he was breathing heavily, for two whole months he could only sleep while sitting - and no moans, complaints, or whims. He asked his family to come, his children and his wife, and told them: “My dears, soon I will not be here, you must stick together, be together. I love you very much". Frederica spoke simply in superlatives about this care. She said so: he left like a warrior. And such care for children is a fantastic example of both life and death.

  But when they start telling the children: “Let’s go, let’s visit dad, he’s not feeling well,” and at the same time he dies, then the children feel a lie, and lies always separate! Adults, recalling their childhood, when they lost their loved ones, say: “I felt that he would leave. I had a dream, I just knew...” So that’s how it is.

  – When parents don’t say anything, does it give rise to mistrust?

  – This, first of all, gives rise to a feeling of deep loneliness. I am alone in my grief. And then - not distrust, but alienation. The man closes. After all, they lie to him about the most important thing. And it closes. If it's a child, it simply slams shut.

  How do teenagers feel?

  – Natalya Vladimirovna, how do teenagers react to the death of loved ones, they are not little children anymore? How to talk to them about this?

  – We must proceed from what the teenage world is in general. This is a world of searching for yourself, searching for your identity. That’s why there is a lot of maximalism, sometimes nihilism, struggle with the world of adults, with parents. The social context and peers are extremely important for a teenager. It is with them that such experiences are discussed, less often with adults. But this is often due to the fact that adults have failed to build friendly, warm relationships with their grown-up children.

  Here specific example. The family has three children. The middle child passed away - cancer. Left behind is an older sister, a teenager. It’s one thing to bury mom and dad, and another thing to bury your child. It’s simply impossible to survive, it’s unbearable for a parent! Mom tried to hold on with all her might, but the loss of a child can topple even a very strong woman. Dad completely collapsed emotionally. As a result, this girl was left alone with herself. As far as I can tell, she still hasn't come out of this experience. This experience of meeting death was stuck in her, although almost 10 years had passed. She still has problems - in communication, with suppressing emotions. She does all sorts of extreme sports, and this is always the edge between life and death.

  – What does extreme sports give such a person, what need does it satisfy?

  – As I understand it, this is repressed pain: she is trying to somehow compensate for it, to feel herself on the edge.

  If a teenager experiences this trauma or loss like this - with friends, and very often - and withdraws into himself, without mourning, without talking about it with his parents - a powerful emotional barrier arises between him and his parents. Because the most important thing that happened to them, they experienced apart. In addition, it will remain an unlived trauma, repressed into the unconscious. This means that this is a time bomb, the mechanism of which will tick and tick and is ready to explode at any moment. There can be a variety of consequences - emotional “collapses”, social problems, even psychosomatics, phobias, etc.

  – As for psychosomatics: there was such a difficult story when his father was killed in front of a boy, and a few months later this guy fell ill with oncology...

  – Yes, this is suppressed unbearable pain. Therefore, a child at any age should talk about his experiences with adults, with loved ones.

  – Natalya Vladimirovna, if the topic of death is so difficult even for young children, why do teenagers treat the topic of suicide so easily? If at the same school someone jumped off the roof, why is this considered heroic? Why is this so easy to understand? This is a related topic, but still...

  – It is necessary to separate the deep reaction and the demonstrated reaction. There are such scary things as fashion. Do you understand? Suicide fashion. There are many such stories on the Internet that generate waves of discussions. After all, everyone writes about this, talks about it, and now this poor man who committed suicide becomes a hero. It’s not he who is the hero, but they make him a hero!

  Recently, one boy told me that he took pills, in general, practically playing with life and death. And the situation was not about pills at all. He had absolutely no contact with his parents. It turned out that it was his silent cry: pay attention to me! He played to this limit, and such a suicidal “game” with pills was just a cry towards his parents, who did not see or hear him.

  The boy drank large doses of antidepressants that were at home, but no one called an ambulance. How can you not notice this? You had a full bottle of antidepressants, and suddenly you have half a bottle. The parent represses the information that his bubble is half full. It's scary to think about it. And the fact that the child drank is not so scary. This is how it happens: “My pain is more important to me than the pain of my loved one, that’s what stops me. I’ll pack it in beautiful form and say that I’m afraid to injure my child by asking the question: “Are you swallowing pills?”

  If we talk deeply about this problem, I think teenage suicide is not about death. This is about a severe discrepancy with your own life.

  – Is this always due to misunderstanding between parents?

  - Not only... First love that didn’t happen, betrayal of a close friend, some kind of boycott was announced, the whole class is not talking. This is confusion in front of life, from which a teenager finds such a way out... If you ask him: “Do you understand that suicide is the end?”, he will not answer. Because for him it’s a bit of a game: oh, I’ll die, let it be worse for them!

  – How then can you talk to a teenager about this topic?

  – This is a completely separate topic. You shouldn’t talk to your child about this, but about how he lives. About his life! What happens to him, what he loves, how those around him treat him.

  I spoke with one woman whose father beat her mercilessly throughout her childhood and adolescence. She admitted that she was on the verge of suicide for two years. She said: “When I turned 14, and he began to beat me as if I were a child, it was not so much painful as it was humiliating. I started thinking about suicide.” This is a step of desperation, of course.

  I’m not talking about these terrible things and subcultures that simply zombie the minds of children, where the word “death” is pronounced like the words “candy, theater, walk.” It's like such an adventure. “Let’s play this adventure.” This concerns these terrible things associated with Internet subcultures, quasi-realities in which something completely creepy happens...

  But in any case, you need to talk to the teenager, take an interest in him and his life.

  

  When to see a psychologist

  – In what case should a child facing the death of a loved one be taken to a psychologist?

  – In my opinion, given what is happening with society now – and today it cannot be called healthy – a visit of an ordinary, healthy child to a psychologist once a year, in my opinion, is the absolute norm. Just as the concept of medical examination was introduced earlier, so, in my opinion, it is necessary to do the same with psychological counseling: here, too, we need our own medical examination. Parents may not notice something, may mistakenly believe that they are doing everything right, and often come to a psychologist with their child when the situation is almost irreversible.

  So it’s absolutely normal to come for a consultation once a year, the psychologist will tell you: “Everything is fine, relax” or tell you what could be corrected. After all, the child very often cannot formulate what worries him, and a hidden problem emerges in drawings and some projective diagnostic techniques. And it is easier to fight any weed while it is small than when it has already grown in all directions and began to bloom lushly.

  When there is a trauma in the family, such as a serious illness or the death of someone close and very significant to the child, of course, it makes no sense to immediately take the child to a psychologist. It is necessary to create an atmosphere of trust and shared grief that is experienced by loved ones together.

  When people can cry to each other. When they can share with each other what happened because it happened in their common family. When this stage has already been passed, it would be very reasonable to take the child for a one-time consultation, so that the psychologist says: “You have coped with the least possible losses for the child” or “Go several times to help neutralize and complete those repressed traumas that are not obvious in the unconscious.” behavior and speech of the child."

  – Let’s explain: is an experience displaced into the area of ​​the unconscious when consciousness cannot cope with it?

  - Absolutely right.

  – How long does this take?

  – I would say this: the child, as a mentally integral being, does not want to repress anything, and does not have the experience of repressing it into the unconscious. On the contrary, he rather quickly and openly asks some questions and tells his parents, for example: “I hate you, mom!” This is a high degree of anger about some reason. How do parents usually respond to this? They shout, interrupt, hit me on the lips. What it is? This is a ban.

  The child is still an immoral being; he says immoral things. We must first find out what caused this reaction. Then say: “Let’s come to an agreement. “I hate” is a very difficult word, strong. You can’t hate tomatoes or cats,” and so we gradually introduce the child into a certain moral and cultural context.

  If we teach him to block and repress experiences and emotions, at first he will resist this. And when he learns to do this, he will do it automatically and instantly. As soon as he encounters pain. Therefore, if such a repression mechanism is launched, it is impossible to return everything back without working with a psychologist. The person has already lost contact with his soul, one might say.

  I recently read an interview with a very famous comedian, extremely popular. Quite a lot has been written about him in various media that he allows himself to make jokes where they are completely inappropriate: he does not feel the line between where a joke is a joyful thing and where it is total inappropriateness, even offensive. He said something amazing in this interview: “People who call themselves psychologists believe that the tendency to joke all the time is a neurotic defense against the pain that lives inside. But I don’t agree with this!” And then he gives the following example, apparently from personal experience: “When I was at the funeral, they asked me: “Why are you so sad?” - he said and laughed at this anecdotal story from his life.

  Of course, from this text we can conclude that he is a deeply depressed person. And he says this directly: “When I’m not joking, I fall into a colossal degree of despondency and depression. That's why I joke all the time." It's his choice. His way of coping with himself. But it is absolutely obvious that this person is, in fact, deeply and seriously traumatized by something.

  And if he takes the position that one can joke always, everywhere and for any reason, no psychologist will help him, because he does not even have a request for such help. But I think that sooner or later his life will push him to understand that a joke does not save and help in all situations. That you sometimes need to turn your face to pain, to grief and gain much more than by turning away from pain and grief.

  – Turning your face to the pain is the only thing the right way go through it?

  – As scary as it sounds, yes. Because the phrase “Remember death” is, in fact, about life. It is correct when, when we lose someone close to us in the family, we experience this loss together, when this person remains in our family, his photograph hangs on the wall, we remember him, we live without losing touch with this person. Like the ancient Christians in the cemetery it was written “so-and-so is alive, so-and-so is alive”: the first thought when reading this inscription is about this person’s meeting with Christ, joy about him. If this is in the family, it reaches another level of depth of mutual understanding. Health increases in the family. And also warmth, support, love. And vice versa, if everyone in the family begins to remain silent, laugh it off, block this topic, cry in the corners, this is a serious blow to the family.

  

  Move on with your life: stepmothers and stepfathers

  – Let’s assume that some time has passed since the death of a loved one, and we need to move on with our lives. What mistakes are there, what can be done wrong?

  – This is a very delicate topic. The fact of our parenthood is not that we are already parents. We become parents all the time, it's a process, not a fact! At some point we may be parents, but at some point we may not be, while being one according to legal parameters. This requires great inner sensitivity.

  It happens like this: a person in the family left, the child survived this loss, coped with it, did not force it out, he lives on. There are photographs of one of the departed parents. And the parent has not yet coped with the loss, he is still there. I had this experience, it was very difficult. When her incredibly beloved husband died, she was left with two teenage children, a junior and senior teenager. And the wife, living behind this husband, as if behind stone wall, finding herself without him, turns into a child who... is nursed by her own children.

  – Where do they get the resource for this?

  – They have no resource, but they also have no way out! And this is a doubling of the loss. You lost your father and you lost your mother. She is alive, but she is so lost in her grief that she does not eat, does not wash, does not leave the room, does not work, does not talk to anyone. They feed her, wash her, and try to bring her back to life. And this is a monstrous situation... I don’t want to blame anyone here - everyone has their own limit of strength. But it is important to remember that not only we, but also our children have a limit of strength, and not to shift your burden onto them. This is our adult responsibility to them.

  – Should an adult always remain an adult in order to be a support for his children?

  - Certainly. A child should not grow up like this, in leaps and bounds.

  – Could it be that the father or mother died, and the second spouse is trying to replace them, to become both mother and father for the child? And how correct is this?

  – Here you still have to start from the child. If we come from a child, we will never go wrong. If it seems to us that he needs his mother, that he is sad, then we need to talk about her. And if we don’t know whether he’s sad or not, and we start talking, then we open this wound, try not to let him calm down, we remind him of this all the time. And vice versa, it happens that he wants to talk, remember about it, but it seems to us that enough is enough, time has passed.

  Everything we think about another is our fantasy. You need to ask someone else about other things, you need to be sensitive and attentive to your own children. They themselves will make it clear what they need.

  – It often happens: the mother leaves, and after some time the stepmother comes to take her place. What are the pitfalls here?

  – I have encountered a situation of this kind in my practice. Mom died, and 1.5 years later the man, a widower, married a woman who began to struggle to replace his children’s mother. Be good and attentive, do everything for them. And the children rebelled! The father said: “Well, how can that be! She tries so hard, but you don't accept her. Such selfishness!

  And when they came for a consultation, we began to talk with her and with him, it turned out that she actually did not see the children point-blank. The main, deep motive is to be a good wife to your husband so that he is satisfied. And the children feel it. They lost their mother, who was their own, oriented toward them, who thought about them, and gained a stepmother, who, in fact, curried favor with her husband.

  – What should a stepmother do in such a situation? She cannot replace a mother, but at the same time she cannot help but take care of the children - they are one family!

  – And it shouldn’t be replaced, that’s the point! She can never replace her mother. Yes, naturally, you need to have a lot of patience and sensitivity, because the stepmother did not give birth to these children, did not raise them, did not spend sleepless nights with them when they were little. But she has the opportunity to love them. And they have the opportunity to love her, not as a mother, but as Aunt Masha, for example, do you understand? Our dad's wife. Aunt Masha should become an older friend, a person they can trust.

  – But comparisons are still inevitable...

  – When a child says: “But my mother didn’t do that,” the stepmother should say: “What did your mother do? I'm not your mother. I don't know if I can do like your mom. I probably won't be able to. How can we arrange for you to accept what I do?” It seems to me that the key word here is respect: respect for these children, for their grievances, for their intolerance and anger. This is inevitable, because it hurts them to see dad next to another woman. It hurts them to see that some other aunt is eating from their mother’s plate. This is not about my aunt. It's about their pain. When she understands that their outbursts are not addressed to her personally, that it is simply about the pain that is in them, she will no longer have to defend herself. She does not attack them in response to their complaints against her, she says: “I understand you, this is very difficult. But we need to do something further, live together.”

  “Some people almost ask their children for permission: “Can I marry this woman?” or “Can I marry this man?” Is this worth doing?

  – I think not. It turns out that the responsibility for such a step is shifted onto the children. This doesn't mean you shouldn't talk to your children about it. But when we package it into a permission form, it's not very good idea. We confuse the roles: we turn children into parents, and we ourselves become children. You could say: “I will never forget my mother. I will always love her, but enough time has passed, it’s difficult for me to be alone. Life requires solving a lot of problems. I find it difficult…"

  Usually, the child needs to be accustomed to this woman, she should come to the house sometimes, you can go on vacation with her. Children are not fools. They all feel and understand that dad is going to marry her. She is not yet in her mother's place. She's just a guest. And it’s easier for them to settle down with her, because in this position there are no obligations. They are slowly getting used to it.

  If she behaves correctly, delicately, carefully, but at the same time firmly, then a certain atmosphere of contact gradually arises. Then the father can say: “Guys, this is how things are, mom is mom, she will always be here, this is always her home” - that is, you need to make it feel that no one is changing anyone for anyone. “But life requires some kind of movement, so here is Lena. I want to marry her. What do you think?" That is, we are not trying to ask them to make a decision, we make the decision ourselves, but we make it clear that it is important to us what the children think about it. It's a subtle difference, but it's there.

  – It happens that children themselves propose to a widowed father to marry or a widowed mother to marry...

  – It seems to me that this is always completely surprising, touching and providential! We need to take a closer look at this aunt or uncle whom children offer us; perhaps the truth is spoken through the mouth of a baby. The Lord somehow pushes dad towards this woman, for example.

  In such a difficult situation, when children lose their parents, and we bring in their place a person with whom there is no contact, this is terrible. Therefore, of course, it should not matter how the children react to our new husband or wife.

  If we feel that the child has chosen, and this person can become dear and close to me, perhaps this is a providential path.

  – Is the trauma associated with death reversible? How reversible are its consequences for a child of any age?

  – I would reformulate this move.

  Pain makes us human. Joy is joy. And pain makes us human. Therefore, closing yourself off from pain is wrong. Trauma is only bad when it is repressed and not lived through.

  I can tell from own experience. A man of incredible delicacy, tact, depth, inner beauty comes, and I can be sure that he has a lot of injuries. He is like this because he has been through a lot. I survived and came out of it. When a person has the experience of suffering and overcoming it, he becomes wiser, kinder, more compassionate, deeper. Pain teaches us to live! The main thing is not to get stuck in it. There is no need to waste energy trying to protect yourself or your child from pain, but you need to be with him, because he alone cannot do it. You need to go through this pain, not tangentially, and come out to the light, to gratitude, to God.

  Interviewed by Valeria Mikhailova

  Reference:

  Natalia VladimirovnaInina– practicing psychologist, head of the Center practical psychology and counseling at the Russian Orthodox University; employee of the Faculty of Psychology of Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov, teacher of the Russian Orthodox University of St. John the Theologian.
  

  Born in Moscow. In 1994 she graduated from the All-Union state institute cinematography, in 2005 she graduated with honors from the Faculty of Psychology of Moscow State University. M. V. Lomonosov at the Department of Personality Psychology. Author of the courses “Psychology of Personality”, “Psychology of Religion”, “Psychology of Faith”, “Psychological Counseling”, etc. He gives a course of lectures on practical psychology at advanced training courses for clergy in Moscow at the Moscow Orthodox Theological Academy (MDA).

  She developed and hosted her own program “Fulcrum Point” on the Spas TV channel (2007–2009). Author and co-author of the books “Childhood Test. On the way to yourself,” “The Robe of the Soul: About Divine and Human Beauty.”