A significant role in the correction of behavioral disorders is assigned to psychotherapeutic, neuropsychological and corrective methods. Symptoms of the disease - emotional disorders in a child External manifestations of disorders of the emotional-volitional sphere in childhood

Emotional disorders

Emotions play an important role in a child's life: they help him perceive reality and respond to it. Emotions are manifested in the behavior of an infant from the very first hours of his life, conveying to an adult information that the child likes, angers or upsets him. Gradually, the child moves from primitive emotions (fear, pleasure, joy) to more complex feelings: joy and delight, surprise, anger, sadness. At preschool age, a child can already convey more subtle shades of experiences with the help of a smile, posture, gesture, intonation of voice.

On the other hand, a five-year-old child differs from a two-year-old in the ability to hide and restrain his feelings, to control them. Learning to control emotions occurs gradually with the development of the child's personality, and normally by school age a small person should already be able to subordinate his primitive emotions (anger, fear, displeasure) to reason. However, the number of children and adolescents with disorders in the emotional sphere has been steadily increasing in recent years. According to A. I. Zakharov, by the end of elementary school, more than 50% of children are diagnosed with certain nervous diseases that are the result of emotional disorders.

The causes of emotional disorders in children and adolescents can be:

1. Features of the physical development of the child, diseases suffered in infancy

2. Delays in mental development, lagging behind the age norms of intellectual development

3. Features of family education

4. Features of nutrition, economic situation of the family raising a child

5. Social environment, especially in the children's team

6. The nature of the predominant activity of the child

Most clearly emotional deviations are manifested in crisis periods of development. At the same time, negative qualities are, as a rule, only an extreme degree of manifestation of the positive qualities necessary for survival in society.

The main disorders of emotional development include:

Anxiety, timidity, fears

Aggression

Increased emotional exhaustion

Problems in the field of communication

depression and distress

As early as 1-2 years of age, children may show a tendency to anxiety. In my practice, I have met children with a tendency to frequent mood swings, tearfulness, decreased appetite, thumb sucking, touchiness and sensitivity. All this was an expression of internal emotional tension, anxiety.

Anxiety often turns into fears (phobias). In young children, this is a fear of strangers, animals, loud sounds, in adolescents, more general fears (fear of losing their loved ones, fear of the “end of the world” or death). The reason for the emergence of fears can be both the characteristics of the child's personality (the formation of anxious and suspicious character traits), and some single or recurring psychotraumatic situation (dog attack, death of a loved one, etc.). It should be borne in mind that children's fears are not unambiguously dangerous or "harmful" for the child - a child who is not afraid of anything is defenseless in the face of life situations. The teacher should pay special attention to the child's passive experience of fear, which leads to depression and depression.

Aggressiveness as a manifestation of high anxiety, it can act as a formed character trait or as a reaction to environmental influences. In any case, the origins of child and adolescent aggressiveness are in their environment, in the style of parental behavior and upbringing. A small child is not able to "respond" to his offender - an adult, he gradually accumulates negative emotions, irritation, protest against the "harassment" of adults, and in adolescence this can result in one of the forms of aggression (according to A. Bass and A. Darki) :

Physical

Verbal (rudeness, foul language)

Indirect (shift of an aggressive reaction to an outside person or object)

Suspicion

Negativism

Guilt

Based on practical experience, I can say that aggressive behavior is often provocative. Kirill S. from the younger detachment seemed to be deliberately trying to anger the counselors: he dresses more slowly than others, refuses to wash his hands, does not make the bed on time, and so on until he pisses off the adults, hears a scream, rude treatment. After that, he could cry, and the counselors began to console him, affectionately persuade him. Thus, Cyril's main goal has always been to attract the attention of adults.

Increased emotional exhaustion and depression lead to a decrease in appetite, high fatigue, a decrease in vital activity, productivity of thinking, a decrease in the ability to concentrate. Often these phenomena have catastrophic consequences for the life of the organism.

Teenagers who are in a depressed state often hide their real emotions behind ostentatious boredom, aggressiveness, whims, and deviant behavior. Suicidal behavior can be a consequence of depression.

Difficulties in communication as one of the types of emotional disorders in children are represented by autistic and affective behavior.

Affective behavior is manifested in increased resentment, stubbornness, isolation, emotional instability. Such behavior is a sign of a child's poor adaptation to the world around him, the cause of serious emotional and personal problems in the future.

Often the roots of emotional disorders and psychoneuroses must be sought in the family environment - a callous, or too "kind", anxious mother, the so-called "pendulum" education, the transfer of their childhood fears by parents to their own children - reliably ensure the formation of anxiety, the development of phobias or aggression from the side child.

One of my classmates during the summer practice in the camp had difficulties in communicating with the child. Alexei initially behaved introvertedly, shunned other children, and was often depressed. After some time, the counselors still managed to establish contact with the boy, he became more open and sociable. The child's bad mood was explained by the difficulties of adapting to the camp. However, a pattern later became clear: every time after the arrival of his parents, Alyosha again became gloomy, anxious, and moved away from the detachment.

There are also many examples from history when family upbringing, the social environment closest to the child, formed a number of emotional and neurotic disorders of their personality:

Peter the Great:

First impressions, childhood impressions, are the strongest; they educate, build a person. They will point out to us a child endowed with extraordinary nature, fiery passion, and they will say that this child, as soon as he began to understand, was in the midst of painful, irritating impressions; ... the closest beings, starting with the mother, feed him with complaints of persecution, of untruth ..., keep it tender blossoming plant under the scorching, withering wind of enmity, hatred. We will be told that this child has finally been cleared up in his soul...they announced that the persecution is over, he is declared king...and suddenly, after this, terrible bloody scenes of rebellion...again persecution, again incessant complaints. What a destructive poison he took and in what quantity! It is said that ten-year-old Peter maintained amazing calmness and firmness during the Streltsy rebellion: so much the worse - it would be better if he screamed, cried, threw himself in despair, broke his arms! He was firm and calm; and where does this shaking of the head come from; why these convulsions in the face, these grimaces ... from which it was not in his power to resist?

Tsar Ivan the Terrible

Tsar Ivan ... by nature ... received a lively and flexible mind, thoughtful and a little mocking .... But the circumstances amidst which Ivan's childhood passed, early spoiled this mind, gave it an unnatural, painful development. Ivan was orphaned early..., from childhood he saw himself among strangers. A feeling of orphanhood, abandonment, loneliness was cut into his soul early and deeply .... Hence his timidity…. Like all people who grew up among strangers, Ivan early acquired the habit of walking around, looking around and listening. This developed in him suspicion, which over the years turned into a deep distrust of people.

... He was caressed like a sovereign and insulted like a child. But in the environment in which his childhood went, he could not always immediately and directly reveal a feeling of annoyance or anger, break his heart. This need to restrain himself ... fed in him irritability and hidden, silent anger against people ...

The ugly scenes of boyar violence ... turned his timidity into nervous fearfulness, from which developed a tendency to exaggerate the danger .... The instinct of self-preservation was working stronger and stronger in him. All the efforts of his lively mind were turned to the development of this coarse feeling.

A teacher working with children who have difficulties in the development of the emotional sphere, at the diagnostic stage, it is necessary to determine the features of family education, the attitude of others towards the child, his level of self-esteem, the psychological climate in the peer group. At this stage, methods such as observation, conversation with parents and students are used.

Such children require friendly and understanding communication, games, drawing, outdoor exercises, music, and most importantly, attention to the child. Parents of such children should be advised to follow the daily routine.

When dealing with children who are experiencing emotional difficulties, parents and educators can offer the following recommendations:

build work individually, with special attention to the proper organization of activities;

if possible, ignore the defiant behavior of a child with attention deficit disorder and encourage his good behavior;

provide the child with the opportunity to quickly seek help from a teacher in cases of difficulty;

provide an opportunity for motor "relaxation": physical labor, sports exercises;

strive to teach the child not to suppress his emotions, but to correctly direct, show his feelings;

show the child adequate forms of response to certain situations or phenomena of the external environment;

create a positive mood background, a healthy psychological climate;

try to simulate a situation of success for the child, encourage a variety of interests;

develop high self-esteem, develop self-confidence.

Remember: the child's feelings cannot be judged, it is impossible to demand that he not experience what he is experiencing. As a rule, violent affective reactions are the result of prolonged restraint of emotions. Here it is necessary to take into account not just the modality of emotions (negative or positive), but, above all, their intensity.

Violations and their causes in alphabetical order:

emotional disturbance in children

Spectrum of emotional disorders in childhood and adolescence extremely large. These can be severe neurotic conflicts, neurosis-like states in a child due to an organic lesion of the central nervous system, preneurotic states, etc.

In the psychological literature, emotional distress in children is viewed as a negative state that occurs against the backdrop of difficult-to-resolve personal conflicts.

Symptoms of emotional disturbances in children of senior preschool age.

1. Difficulties in communicating with peers and adults:
- imbalance;
- excitability;
- violent affective reactions (anger, hysterical crying, demonstration of resentment), which are accompanied by somatic changes (redness, increased sweating, etc.);
- negativism;
- stubbornness;
- intransigence;
- conflict;
- cruelty;
- persistent negative attitude to communication;
- stuck on negative emotions;
- emotional coldness;
- Alienation, hiding self-doubt.

2. Features of the inner world:
- acute susceptibility;
- impressionability;
- painful sensitivity;
- the presence of fears: not age-related, interfering with the normal life of children;
- anxiety;
- suspiciousness.

This classification is very conditional, since the child's internal troubles directly affect his behavior and communication with others.
The need to more clearly identify children with different levels of socio-emotional development contributes to the creation of the classification presented below.

Levels of social - emotional development of children of senior preschool age.
Low (unwell):
- unwillingness and inability to act together with adults and peers;
- lack of initiative in communication;
- avoidance of interaction;
- lack of self-control in actions, behavior and emotions;
- exclusive orientation to own actions;
- non-recognition of the rules and norms of communication and activity;
- lack of concepts of "good-bad" or unwillingness to follow them when formed;
- conflict, aggressiveness.

Average:
- lack of initiative in communication;
- preference for exclusively passive roles;
- situational regulation of affective manifestations;
- inability to resolve conflicts;
- acceptance of assistance and the possibility of its provision.

High:
- the desire to enter into communication, interact for a long time;
- successful participation in collective affairs;
- successful performance of both leadership and passive roles;
- the ability to resolve the conflict, give in or insist on one's own;
- recognition and adequate implementation of the rules proposed by adults;
- caring attitude to the world of feelings of people and the objective world;
- the ability to occupy oneself;
- Possession of adequate ways of expressing one's inner state.

The formation of the ability to overcome their troubles in children of older preschool age occurs in activities, in direct communication with adults and peers.

What diseases cause emotional disturbance in children:

Traditionally, there are three groups of factors leading to the emergence of emotional disorders in children and adolescents: biological, psychological and socio-psychological.

The biological prerequisites for emotional disturbances include genetic factors. Thus, in the studies of foreign authors, a clear relationship was found between depressive states in children and similar states in their parents. Undoubtedly, hereditary factors play an important role in the formation of individual typological characteristics of a child's personality, but they are far from being sufficient for the occurrence of certain emotional disorders.

Biological factors predisposing to the occurrence of emotional distress in a child include somatic weakness due to frequent illnesses. It contributes to the emergence of various reactive states and neurotic reactions, mainly with an asthenic component. A number of authors point to an increased frequency of emotional disorders in children with chronic somatic diseases, noting that these disorders are not a direct result of the disease, but are associated with difficulties in the social adaptation of a sick child and with the peculiarities of his self-esteem. Emotional disorders are much more common in children with a history of aggravating biological factors in the peri- and postnatal periods, but they are also not decisive in the occurrence of emotional disorders in a child. V. V. Kovalev noted that neurotic reactions in children may be due to improper upbringing against the background of cerebro-organic insufficiency. Residual-organic deficiency, according to the author, contributes to the formation of mental inertia, getting stuck on negative affective experiences, increased excitability, affect lability. This facilitates the appearance of painful reactions to psychological influences and contributes to their fixation.

To the actual psychological reasons for the emergence of emotional distress in children, the authors include the features of the emotional-volitional sphere of the child, in particular, the violation of the adequacy of his response to external influences, the lack of development of skills for self-control of behavior, etc.

Conditionally emotional disorders can be divided into two subgroups. This division is based on those areas in which social and emotional distress is manifested: on the one hand, in relationships with other people, on the other, in the characteristics of the child's inner world.

Which doctors to contact if there is an emotional disorder in children:

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The range of emotional disorders in childhood is extremely large. These can be severe neurotic conflicts, neurosis-like and pre-neurotic states, etc.

In the psychological literature, emotional distress in children is viewed as a negative state that occurs against the backdrop of intractable personal conflicts.

Traditionally, there are three groups of factors that lead to the emergence of emotional disorders in children: biological, psychological, and socio-psychological.

Biological factors predisposing to the emergence of emotional distress in a child include somatic weakness due to private diseases. It contributes to the emergence of various reactive states and neurotic reactions, mainly with an asthenic component. A number of authors point to an increased frequency of emotional disorders in children with chronic somatic diseases, noting that these disorders are not a direct result of the disease, but are associated with difficulties in the social adaptation of a sick child and with the peculiarities of his self-esteem. Emotional disorders are much more common in children with a history of aggravating biological factors in the peri- and postnatal periods, but they are not decisive in the occurrence of emotional disorders. V.V. Kovalev noted that neurotic reactions in children may be due to improper upbringing against the background of cerebro-organic insufficiency. Residual-organic deficiency, according to the author, contributes to the formation of mental inertia, getting stuck on negative affective experiences, increased excitability, affect lability. This facilitates the appearance of painful reactions to mental influences and contributes to their fixation.

The actual mental causes of emotional distress include a violation of the adequacy of his response to external influences, a lack of development of self-control skills, behavior, etc.

In the studies of domestic authors, preneurotic pathocharacterological features that form in childhood have been studied in sufficient detail. V.N. Myasishchev refers to them as impulsiveness, egocentrism, stubbornness, sensitivity. Myasishchev's students V.N. Garbuzov and co-authors identify 9 types of emotional disorders: aggressiveness, ambition, pedantry, prudence, anxious syntonicity, infantilism and psychomotor instability, conformity and dependence, anxious suspiciousness and isolation, contrast. At the same time, the authors emphasize that the most characteristic type is contrast, i.e. inconsistency of all personal characteristics. A.I. Zakharov describes seven types of premorbid personality traits that predispose a child to neurosis:

sensitivity (emotional sensitivity and vulnerability);

immediacy (naivety);

expressiveness of the feeling "I";

impressiveness (internal type of processing of emotions);

latency (potentiality - a relatively more gradual disclosure of the capabilities of the individual);

uneven mental development.

A. Freud identified the following factors that predispose a child to the onset of neurosis:

The system of unconscious fantasies in parents, attributing a certain role to the child;

Neglecting the needs of the child and “pulling” him into his pathological system:

In the presence of a neurosis in a child, parents share with the child his symptom or deny it, resorting to non-constructive methods of psychological defense.

Carl Gustav Jung considered the sources of "nervous disorders" in children and adolescents in a family situation. The author uses the concept of primitive unconscious identity, considering it as a merging of a child with parents, as a result of which the child feels conflicts in the family and suffers from them, as if they were his own.

Representatives of humanistic psychology consider emotional disorders within the framework of deviations in personality development that occur when a child loses agreement with his feelings and the inability to fulfill himself.

From the point of view of a representative of the behavioral direction, emotional disturbances in children may be due to inadequate punishments and rewards.

V.V. Tkacheva identified 8 types of personal attitudes of parents who have children with developmental problems, which, in a traumatic situation, prevent the establishment of harmonious contact with the child and with the outside world. It:

rejection of the personality of a sick child;

non-constructed forms of relationship with him;

fear of responsibility;

refusal to understand the existence of problems in the development of the child, their partial or complete denial;

exaggeration of the child's problems;

expectation of a magician who will heal a child in an instant, faith in a miracle;

considering the birth of a sick child as a punishment for something;

violation of relationships in the family after the birth of a child with developmental problems.

Violation of contacts between spouses contributes to the development of feelings of instability, increased anxiety or physical discomfort. There may be a sense of danger, apathy, depression, weak search activity.

Thus, emotional disorders in childhood can be determined by a number of causes, factors, conditions. Their combinations form a complex system, which largely determines the difficulties of a differentiated approach in psychological correction.

Consider anxiety as a feature of the emotional sphere of a preschooler

Practicing psychologists in everyday professional communication use the words "anxiety" and "anxiety" as synonyms, however, for psychological science, these concepts are not equivalent. In modern psychology, it is customary to distinguish between "anxiety" and "anxiety", although half a century ago this distinction was not obvious. Now such terminological differentiation is characteristic of both domestic and foreign psychology, and allows us to analyze this phenomenon through the categories of mental state and mental property.

Based on general theoretical ideas about the essence of anxiety as a mental state and anxiety as a mental property, then we will consider in detail the specifics of anxiety in childhood.

Anxiety as a mental property has a pronounced age specificity, which is found in its content, sources, forms of manifestation and compensation. For each age, there are certain areas of reality that cause increased anxiety in most children, regardless of the real threat or anxiety as a stable education. These "age peaks of anxiety" are determined by age-related developmental tasks.

Among the most common causes of anxiety in children of preschool and school age can be listed:

· intrapersonal conflicts, primarily related to the assessment of one's own success in various fields of activity;

Violations of intra-family and / or intra-school interaction, as well as interaction with peers;

somatic disorders.

Most often, anxiety develops when the child is in a state (situation) of conflict caused by:

Negative demands that can put him in a humiliated or dependent position;

Inadequate, most often excessive requirements;

Contradictory requirements that are imposed on the child by parents and (or) a children's institution, peers.

In accordance with the ontogenetic laws of mental development, it is possible to describe the specific causes of anxiety at each stage of preschool and school childhood.

In preschoolers and younger schoolchildren, anxiety is the result of the frustration of the need for reliability, protection from the immediate environment (the leading need of this age). Thus, anxiety in this age group is a function of disturbed relationships with close adults. Unlike preschoolers, younger schoolchildren may have a teacher in addition to their parents as such close adults.

Anxiety becomes a stable personality formation by adolescence. Up to this point, it is a derivative of a wide range of socio-psychological disorders, representing more or less generalized and typified situational reactions. In adolescence, anxiety begins to be mediated by the self-concept of the child, thereby becoming a proper personal property. The self-concept of a teenager is often contradictory, which causes difficulties in perceiving and adequately assessing one's own successes and failures, thereby reinforcing negative emotional experience and anxiety as a personal property. At this age, anxiety arises as a result of the frustration of the need for a stable, satisfactory attitude towards oneself, most often associated with violations of relationships with significant others.

It should also be noted that both boys and girls are susceptible to anxiety, but experts believe that boys are more anxious at preschool age, by 9–11 years the ratio becomes even, and after 12 years there is a sharp increase in anxiety in girls. At the same time, the anxiety of girls in its content differs from the anxiety of boys: girls are more concerned about relationships with other people, boys are more concerned about violence in all its aspects.

Among the reasons causing anxiety in preschoolers, in the first place, according to E. Savina, is the wrong upbringing and unfavorable relations of the child with parents, especially with the mother. So rejection, rejection by the mother of the child causes him anxiety because of the impossibility of satisfying the need for love, affection and protection. In this case, fear arises: the child feels the conditionality of material love (“If I do badly, they will not love me”). Dissatisfaction with the child's need for love will encourage him to seek its satisfaction by any means.

As A.L. Wenger, children's anxiety can also be a consequence of the symbiotic relationship between the child and the mother, when the mother feels herself one with the child, trying to protect him from the difficulties and troubles of life. It "binds" to itself, protecting from imaginary, non-existent dangers. As a result, the child experiences anxiety when left without a mother, is easily lost, worried and afraid. Instead of activity and independence, passivity and dependence develop.

In cases where education is based on excessive demands that the child is unable to cope with or copes with

work, anxiety can be caused by the fear of not coping, doing the wrong thing, often parents cultivate the “correctness” of behavior: the attitude towards the child may include strict control, a strict system of norms and rules, deviation from which entails censure and punishment. In these cases, the child's anxiety may be generated by the fear of deviating from the norms and rules established by adults.

The anxiety of the child can also be caused by the peculiarities of the interaction of the educator with the child, the prevalence of the authoritarian style of communication or the inconsistency of requirements and assessments. Both in the first and in the second cases, the child is in constant tension because of the fear of not fulfilling the demands of adults, of not “pleasing” them, of starting a strict framework.

Speaking of rigid limits, we mean the limits set by the teacher. These include restrictions on spontaneous activity in games (in particular, in mobile games) in activities, on walks, etc.; limiting children's spontaneity in the classroom, for example, tearing children away ("Nina Petrovna, but I have ... Quiet! I see everything! I'll go to everyone myself!"); suppression of children's initiative (“put it down right now, I didn’t say to take the papers in your hands!”, “Shut up immediately, I say!”). Interruption of emotional manifestations of children can also be attributed to limitations. So, if in the process of activity a child has emotions, they need to be thrown out, which can be prevented by an authoritarian teacher (“Who is it funny there, Petrov?! It’s me who will laugh when I look at your drawings”, “Why are you crying? Tortured everyone with my tears!").

The disciplinary measures applied by such a teacher most often come down to censure, shouting, negative assessments, punishments.

An inconsistent teacher causes anxiety in the child by not giving him the opportunity to predict his own behavior. The constant variability of the requirements of the educator, the dependence of his behavior on mood, emotional lability entail confusion in the child, the inability to decide what he should do in this or that case.

The educator also needs to know the situations that can cause children's anxiety, especially the situation of rejection by peers; the child believes that the fact that they do not love him is his fault, he is bad (“they love good ones”) to deserve love, the child will strive with the help of positive results, success in activities. If this desire is not justified, then the anxiety of the child increases.

The next situation is the situation of rivalry, competition, it will cause especially strong anxiety in children whose upbringing takes place in conditions of hypersocialization. In this case, children, getting into a situation of rivalry, will strive to be the first, to achieve the highest results at any cost.

Another situation is the situation of heightened responsibility. When an anxious child gets into it, his anxiety is due to the fear of not meeting the hope, expectations of an adult and being rejected by him.

In such situations, anxious children differ, as a rule, in an inadequate reaction. In the case of their foresight, expectation or frequent repetitions of the same situation that cause anxiety, the child develops a stereotype of behavior, a certain pattern that allows avoiding anxiety or reducing it as much as possible. These patterns include a systematic fear of engaging in activities that cause anxiety, as well as the silence of the child instead of answering questions from unfamiliar adults or those to whom the child has a negative attitude.

In general, anxiety is a manifestation of the dysfunction of the individual. In a number of cases, it is literally nurtured in the anxious and suspicious psychological atmosphere of the family, in which the parents themselves are prone to constant fears and anxiety. The child is infected by their moods and adopts an unhealthy form of reaction to the outside world.

However, such an unpleasant individual feature sometimes manifests itself in children whose parents are not subject to suspiciousness and are generally optimistic. Such parents, as a rule, know well what they want to achieve from their children. They pay special attention to the discipline and cognitive achievements of the child. Therefore, he is constantly faced with a variety of tasks that they must solve in order to justify the high expectations of their parents. It is not always possible for a child to cope with all the tasks, and this causes dissatisfaction with the elders. As a result, the child finds himself in a situation of constant intense expectation: whether he managed to please his parents or made some kind of omission, which will be followed by disapproval and censure. The situation can be exacerbated by inconsistent parental requirements. If a child does not know for sure how one or another of his steps will be evaluated, but in principle foresees possible discontent, then his whole existence is colored with intense alertness and anxiety.

Also capable of generating and developing anxiety and fear

intensively influence the developing imagination of children of a fairy-tale type. At 2 years old, this is a Wolf - a click with teeth that can hurt, bite, eat like a little red riding hood. At the turn of 2-3 years, children are afraid of Barmaley. At 3 years old for boys and at 4 years old for girls, the “monopoly on fear” belongs to the images of Baba Yaga and Kashchei the Immortal. All these characters can just acquaint children with the negative, negative sides of human relationships, with cruelty and deceit, callousness and greed, as well as danger in general. At the same time, the life-affirming mood of fairy tales, in which good triumphs over evil, life over death, makes it possible to show the child how to overcome the difficulties and dangers that arise.

Anxious children are characterized by frequent manifestations of anxiety and anxiety, as well as a large number of fears, and fears and anxiety arise in those situations in which the child, it would seem, is not in danger. Anxious children are especially sensitive. So, the child may be worried: while he is in the garden, suddenly something will happen to his mother.

Anxious children are often characterized by low self-esteem, in connection with which they have an expectation of trouble from others. This is typical for those children whose parents set unbearable tasks for them, demanding this, which the children are not able to fulfill, and in case of failure, they are usually punished, humiliated (“You don’t know how to do anything! You can’t do anything! "").

Anxious children are very sensitive to their failures, react sharply to them, tend to refuse those activities, such as drawing, in which they experience difficulties.

In these children, you can notice a noticeable difference in behavior in and out of class. Outside of classes, these are lively, sociable and direct children, in the classroom they are clamped and tense. They answer the questions of the teacher in a quiet and deaf voice, they may even begin to stutter. Their speech can be either very fast, hasty, or slow, difficult. As a rule, prolonged excitement occurs: the child pulls clothes with his hands, manipulates something.

Anxious children are prone to bad habits of a neurotic nature (they bite their nails, suck their fingers, pull out their hair, masturbate). Manipulation with their own body reduces their emotional stress, calm them down.

Drawing helps to recognize anxious children. Their drawings are distinguished by an abundance of shading, strong pressure, as well as small image sizes. Often such children get stuck on details, especially small ones.

Thus, the behavior of anxious children is characterized by frequent manifestations of restlessness and anxiety, such children live in constant tension, all the time, feeling threatened, feeling that at any moment they can face failures.

Conclusions to chapter 1

After conducting a theoretical study, he can conclude that the emotional sphere of preschoolers is characterized by the following:

1) easy responsiveness to ongoing events and coloring of perception, imagination, mental and physical activity with emotions;

2) the immediacy and frankness of expressing one's experiences - joy, sadness, fear, pleasure or displeasure;

3) readiness for the affect of fear; in the process of cognitive activity, the child experiences fear as a premonition of troubles, failures, lack of confidence in his abilities, the inability to cope with the task; the preschooler feels a threat to his status in the group, family;

4) great emotional instability, frequent mood swings (against the general background of cheerfulness, cheerfulness, cheerfulness, carelessness), a tendency to short-term and violent affects;

5) emotional factors for preschoolers are not only games and communication with peers, but the assessment of their success by parents and educators;

6) their own and other people's emotions and feelings in preschool children are poorly recognized and understood; the facial expressions of others are often perceived incorrectly, as well as the interpretation of the expression of feelings by others, which leads to inadequate responses of preschoolers; the exception is the basic emotions of fear and joy, for which children of this age already have clear ideas that they can express verbally, naming five synonymous words for these emotions.

Increased attention to the emotional development of a preschooler is due to the formation of the main psychological neoplasm at this age - the beginning of the arbitrariness of mental processes and psychological readiness for school.

The fact is that the complex of school loads is a kind of “push” to the manifestation of deviations hidden in the preschool period in the psycho-emotional sphere. Most often, these deviations are not noticed by either parents or doctors due to their insignificance. However, the latent (latent) form of the development of emotional disorders in the preschool period acquires an open form when the child enters school. That is why it is necessary to consider those features of the emotional sphere of a preschooler that can cause violations of behavior and learning in elementary school. In addition, one must keep in mind the development of the child's emotional sphere itself, the identification of new forms of emotions and feelings.

Emotional distress is caused by many reasons. The main thing is the dissatisfaction of the child with communication with adults, especially with parents and peers. Lack of warmth, affection, discord between family members, lack of close emotional contacts with parents leads to the formation of anxious and pessimistic personal expectations in the child. They are characterized by the baby's insecurity, a sense of insecurity, and sometimes fear due to the predicted negative attitude of an adult.

Such an attitude of an adult provokes stubbornness in a child, unwillingness to obey the requirements of parents, that is, it is a serious “psychological” barrier between adults and children. Whereas close, rich emotional contacts, in which the child is the object of a benevolent, but demanding evaluative attitude as a person, forms confidently optimistic personal expectations in him. They are characterized by the experience of possible success, praise, approval from close adults.

Emotional distress associated with difficulties in communicating with other children can lead to two types of behavior. The first group includes unbalanced children, easily excitable. Their unrestrained emotions often become the reason for the disorganization of their activities. When conflicts with peers arise, children's emotions often manifest themselves in affects: outbursts of anger, resentment, often accompanied by tears, rudeness, and fights. Concomitant vegetative changes are observed: reddening of the skin, increased sweating, etc. Negative emotional reactions can be caused by serious or minor reasons. However, quickly flashing, they quickly fade away.

The second group consists of children with a stable negative attitude towards communication. As a rule, resentment, discontent, hostility, etc., remain in their memory for a long time, but when they are manifested, children are more restrained. Such children are characterized by isolation, avoid communication. Emotional distress is often associated with a reluctance to attend kindergarten, with dissatisfaction with relationships with a teacher or peers. The acute susceptibility of the child, his excessive impressionability can lead to a viutripersonal conflict.

Another significant reason that causes emotional distress is the individual characteristics of the child, the specifics of his inner world (sensibility, susceptibility, leading to the emergence of fears).

On the one hand, a rich emotional palette (provides a more adequate emotional behavior of the child. But on the other hand, it can also cause deformation of the child’s emotional sphere. In order to identify its most vulnerable points, one should turn to the experience of primary school teachers. What worries them most about emotional behavior of the child and presents the greatest difficulty?

First, these are children with excessive motor disinhibition. They are the most worrying for both teachers and parents. Secondly, it is the anxiety of children and children's fears. Finally, thirdly, the so-called bad habits: thumb sucking, and sometimes blankets, nail biting, etc.

1. Bad habits. Of all the bad habits, thumb sucking and nail biting are perhaps the most common.

With age, there is a sharp decrease in children with these bad habits, especially among family children. Therefore, a teacher who has noticed a persistent manifestation of these habits in one of his pupils should contact a school psychologist. At the same time, such habits are not uncommon in children from an orphanage, which may also be due to deprivation of maternal care, improper or untenable organization of the child’s communication with adults, the poverty of the concrete sensory experience of children, and pre- and perinatal developmental factors.

2. Hyperactivity and inattention. According to the researchers, this syndrome not only worsens the social status of children, but also creates the possibility of a high risk for the development of antisocial behavior in adolescence. During the neuropsychological examination, hyperactivity and motor disinhibition was detected in 6% of kindergarten children and 10.8% of orphanage children. The opposite of hyperactivity, lethargy and apathy, were found in 3.7% and 4.8% of children, respectively. According to V.A. Averin, the basis of hyperactivity and attention deficit in childhood is a heterogeneous syndrome. On the one hand, these are perinatal and social factors - the complicated course of childbirth, the low social level of the family, single-parent families, and with age the effect of the social factor increases, and on the other hand, the genetic, hereditary factor. For example, Gutman and Stevenson, examining twins with hyperactivity, showed that in about half of the cases it has a genetic nature.

3. Anxiety and fears of preschool children. The high prevalence of anxiety at this age is striking, and among family children. According to T.N. Osipenko, a high level of anxiety is detected in 33% of children aged 5-6 years, an average level in 50% and a low (or absence) in 25% of children (by the way, in children with cerebral palsy [infantile cerebral palsy] an anxious personality type occurs only in 10.6% of cases, and practically does not occur in children from orphanages - 1% -3%). Qualitative analysis showed that anxiety is more often manifested in situations where the child interacts with other children and to a lesser extent when communicating with the mother. All this is a fairly confident indication of the social nature of anxiety at this age.

Starting from the age of 4, there is an increase in the number of fears until the beginning of schooling. This can be explained by the dominance of instinctive fears over social fears, which is still continuing at this age. Instinctive fears are predominantly emotional fears, when fear acts as an emotionally perceived threat to life. At the same time, the main source of fears, apparently, lies in the sphere of the relationship between parents and the child. Evidence of this is a significant drop in the number of fears among 7-year-old children who entered school in comparison with their peers - preschoolers. It is obvious that the experience of social communication in such children is clearly greater, which contributes to the manifestation of the entire palette of emotions, an adequate perception of successes and failures, and more flexible behavior of the child. Thus, according to the witty remark of A.I. Zakharov, the role of an activator for reducing fears is performed not by tranquilizers, but by communication with peers and the parents’ own activity, supporting and developing the initiative of children.

The significant role of parents as a possible source of increased fears in the early preschool years (3-5 years) is emphasized by the following circumstances.

Firstly, it is at this age that the so-called “phallic stage” falls in the psychosexual theory of the development of children by Z. Freud. One of the results of a child's development at this stage is an unconscious emotional preference for parents of the opposite sex. The normal course of this stage of development contributes to the formation of gender-role behavior in children. If children at this age have conflicting relationships with parents of the opposite sex, if the parents are not emotionally responsive enough, then this leads to anxiety, anxiety and fears in children. Frequent mood swings and children's whims often act as a means of attracting the attention of parents of the opposite sex.

Fixation (stuck) of children at this stage can cause many problems in adulthood: for example, in marriage, in relationships with the other sex.

Another reason explaining the increasing role of parents in the emotional development of a child is that at the age of 3-5 years, such feelings as love, compassion and sympathy for both parents intensively develop in him. At the same time, the love of children for parents at this age is unconditional and therefore, writes A.I. Zakharov, “parents should think carefully before using such phrases as: “I don’t love you”, “I won’t be friends with you”, because they are extremely painfully perceived by children of 3-5 years old and lead to anxiety.

The most common fears of preschool children are the so-called triad of fears: fears of loneliness, darkness and closed space. The child is afraid to sleep alone in the room, he demands someone's presence so that the light is on in the room and the door is ajar. Otherwise, the child is restless and cannot fall asleep for a long time. Sometimes he is afraid to fall asleep in anticipation of the appearance of terrible dreams. The main characters of nightmarish dreams of children in early childhood known to us - the wolf and Baba Yaga are joined by no less famous - Koschey, Barmaley, Karabas-Barabas. It is interesting that most often the fears of these "heroes" are noted in boys at the age of 3 years, and in girls at 4 years. A.I. Zakharov writes about this that “the listed fairy-tale monsters to a certain extent reflect the fear of punishment or alienation of parents from children with a lack of feelings of love, pity and sympathy that are so essential at this age.”

In the course of studying the structure of children's fears, it was found that the closest links exist between fears of loneliness, attacks and fairy-tale characters. Explaining the nature of this unity, A.I. Zakharov believes that the fear of loneliness stimulates in the child "a sense of danger and an instinctive fear of fairy-tale characters threatening his life." This again emphasizes the role of parents in maintaining the emotional well-being of the child. Quite often, anxious and suspicious character traits of adolescents in the form of uncertainty and fear when answering at school, inability to stand up for themselves, lack of initiative and constraint in communicating with peers are a consequence of the lack of emotional contact of a 3-5-year-old child with parents, the detachment of parents in raising children.

The leading fear of senior preschool age (5-7 years) is the fear of death. Children, as a rule, cope with such experiences themselves, but on the condition of normal, friendly, emotionally warm relations, both between the parents themselves and between parents and children. Fear of death is characteristic of emotionally sensitive and impressionable children (more often in girls). [Averin V.A., pp. 206-213].

Thus, at preschool age, instinctive fears associated with the instinct of self-preservation predominate. Primary school age is characterized not only by the predominance of instinctive fears, but also by the presence of social fears in children.

“Fear and apprehension are predominantly for preschoolers, while anxiety and apprehensions are for adolescence. At primary school age, fear and fear, anxiety and apprehension can be represented to the same extent ”(A.I. Zakharov).

The leading fear of this age is the fear of “not being the same”, the fear of not meeting the generally accepted norms of behavior, the requirements of the immediate environment, be it school, peers or family. Specific forms of this fear are fears of doing something wrong, wrong, not as it should be. The fear of inconsistency grows out of the child's unformed ability to evaluate his actions from the point of view of moral precepts, which underlies the emerging sense of responsibility. Primary school age is the most favorable (sensitive) period for its formation. Therefore, if it is actively formed, then the likelihood of fear of inconsistency at this age is reduced. However, it should be borne in mind that an exaggerated sense of responsibility, when the child's behavior is bound by countless rules, prohibitions, threats and conventions, deprives the child of the opportunity to act independently, proactively and decisively. Similar forms of behavior are also characteristic of children in whom a sense of responsibility is not sufficiently formed, and even more so if it is completely absent.

The most common type of fear of inadequacy at this age is the fear of being late for school. It is more pronounced in girls, since they have an earlier and more pronounced feeling of guilt than boys. The fear of being late for school is one of the symptoms of the “school phobia” syndrome, i.e. fear of going to school. Often, as A.I. Zakharov notes, this is not so much the fear of the school itself, but the fear of parting with parents, to whom an anxious, often ill and therefore overprotected child is attached.

Another reason for the child's "school fears" may be his conflict relations with teachers, as well as with peers, the fear of their aggressive behavior. Often, parents themselves provoke the emergence of this fear when, in their desire to have an excellent student, they constantly “put pressure on his psyche” while preparing lessons for him, or giving instructions on the correct answers in class, etc.

The results of "schoolophobia" are very diverse: from psychosomatic symptoms in the form of headaches, stomach cramps, dizziness and vomiting to negative psychological ones - the appearance of a feeling of insecurity in one's abilities, doubts in one's knowledge, the habit of relying on outside help at the slightest difficulty.

Along with “school fears”, fear of the elements is typical for this age: storms, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes. All these fears, according to A.I. Zakharov, are products of the so-called “magical thinking” of a schoolboy, his inclination to believe in various kinds of predictions, superstitions, and a “fatal” coincidence of circumstances. On the one hand, this is a manifestation of suggestibility, on the other hand, fears of darkness, loneliness and confined space coming from early childhood, and on the third hand, egocentric thinking that blocks expanded logical forms of thinking. We already know that the egocentrism of thinking is manifested in its transductivity, i.e. the inability of a junior schoolchild to connect two random and simultaneous events by cause-and-effect relationships.

Summarizing the insurance symptoms of children at this age, it should be emphasized that it is the result of a combination of social and instinctive fears and, above all, fears of inconsistency with generally accepted norms against the background of an emerging sense of responsibility, "magical thinking" and suggestibility expressed at this age. [Averin V.A., pp. 282-284].

The development of negative emotions is also largely due to the instability of the emotional sphere of children and is closely related to frustration. Frustration is an emotional reaction to a hindrance in achieving a conscious goal. Frustration can be resolved in different ways, depending on whether the obstacle is overcome, whether it is bypassed, or a replacement target is found. Habitual ways of resolving a frustrating situation determine the emotions that arise in this case. Often recurring in early childhood states of frustration and stereotypical forms of overcoming it in some reinforce lethargy, indifference, lack of initiative, in others - aggressiveness, envy and anger. Therefore, in order to avoid such effects, it is undesirable when raising a child to too often achieve his requirements by direct pressure. Insisting on the immediate fulfillment of the requirements, adults do not provide the child with the opportunity to achieve the goal set for him and create frustrating conditions that contribute to the consolidation of stubbornness and aggressiveness in some and lack of initiative in others. More appropriate in this case is to use the age characteristics of children, which is the instability of attention. It is enough to distract the child from the problem situation that has arisen, and he himself will be able to complete the tasks assigned to him. [A.G. Maklakov, p.409].

The study of the problem of the emergence of negative emotions in children has shown that the punishment of the child, especially the measure of punishment, is of great importance in the formation of such an emotional state as aggressiveness. It turned out that children who were severely punished at home showed more aggressiveness while playing with dolls than children who were not punished too severely. At the same time, the complete absence of punishment adversely affects the development of children's character. Children who were punished for being aggressive towards dolls were less aggressive and out of play than those who were not punished at all. [A.G. Maklakov, p.410].

A.I. Zakharov’s research shows that already at the age of five, 37% of boys and 29% of girls have deviations in behavior. Boys are somewhat more likely than girls to have increased excitability, uncontrollability, disinhibition combined with aggressiveness (pugnacity), conflict and quarrelsomeness. In girls, fearfulness, timidity, increased emotional response, a tendency to be offended, cry and get upset more often prevail.

When a child enters school, new requirements are imposed on him, which often becomes an additional factor in the occurrence of deviations in personal development. Pedagogically illiterate educational influences of the teacher can cause such features of the student's intellectual activity, which are often perceived as mental retardation. It happens that children who do not immediately and unquestioningly fulfill the requirements of the teacher cause him impatience, irritation, hostility. Shouts, threats, and sometimes insults cause a state of lethargy in a child, i.e. involuntarily turned on protective inhibition, necessary in order to prevent the continuation of the impact, destructive to the psyche. The repetition of such stressful situations for the child reinforces the "brake reaction" for the teacher's remarks and sharp appeal, it becomes a habit. Then this method of response extends to other situations of difficulty in the implementation of intellectual activity. In parallel with the "inhibitory reaction" to the harsh tone of the teacher, the student becomes accustomed to the rejection of mental effort. This creates the impression that the child is mentally retarded, since he almost does not acquire knowledge.

With a high level of intelligence, despite these negative factors, the child often still copes with the curriculum, but he may experience deviations in the development of the personality according to the neurotic type. It is no coincidence that among younger schoolchildren the percentage of children with neurotic deviations is greater than among preschool children, and by the age of 10 the number of nervous children reaches 56% (among boys).

Thus, specific deviations in the personal development of children of primary school age are various kinds of psychogeny: school anxiety, psychogenic school maladjustment, etc. [EL Milyutina, N. Yu. Maksimova, pp. 104-105].

All of these deviations in the emotional sphere of children create fertile ground for more severe disorders in personal development, such as character accentuations, neuroses and psychopathy.

Accentuation of character is an exaggerated development of individual character traits to the detriment of others, as a result of which interaction with other people worsens. K.Leonhard distinguishes the following types:

Pedantic schoolchildren

Demonstrative personalities

Stuck personalities

Excitable Personalities

Anxious children

Hyperthemic personalities

dysthymic personalities

Affectively labile personalities

Affectively Exalted Personalities

Emotive personalities

Extroverted Personalities

Interverted personalities [S.Yu. Borodulina, pp. 291-295].

The severity of accentuation can be different - from easy, noticeable only to the immediate environment, to extreme options, when you have to wonder if there is a disease - psychopathy. Psychopathy is a painful deformity of character (while maintaining the intellect of a person), as a result of which relationships with surrounding people are sharply violated; psychopaths can even be socially dangerous to others. There are such types of psychopathy:

1) Schizoid psychopathy.

It manifests itself in a combination of increased sensitivity and vulnerability in relation to one's own experiences with a paradoxical for childhood lack of spontaneity, cheerfulness, external dryness in relation to relatives and friends. Communication with children is limited, children are poorly oriented in the emotional state of others, incapable of directly expressing their emotions. In contacts with others, tension and satiety quickly increase. Poor orientation often leads to ridicule from peers. Therefore, schizoid boys often prefer the company of girls. These children prefer loneliness and the world of fantasies to the society of their peers.

2) Epileptoid psychopathy.

Already at the age of 2-3 years, these children are characterized by violent and prolonged affective reactions, especially those associated with physical discomfort. At an older age, aggressiveness comes to the fore, often with sadistic inclinations, a long-term state of anger when requirements are not met, stubbornness, and sometimes vindictiveness. These children are characterized by an increased accuracy to the point of pedantry, a hypertrophied desire for the established order. In a children's team, they are difficult not only because of the strength and duration of their affective outbursts, emotional viscosity, but also because of the conflict associated with the constant desire for self-affirmation, dominance, and cruelty.

3) Psychasthenic personalities.

Differs in low activity, weakness of mental tone, inability to long-term stress. In childhood, individual psychasthenic features are noted: a tendency to anxiety, suspiciousness. Already at the age of 3-4, these children have fears for the life and health of their own and loved ones, anxious fears that easily arise for any reason, fear of the new, the unfamiliar, a tendency to obsessive thoughts and actions. At school age, obsessive doubts and fears, pathological indecision appear.

4) Hysterical psychopathy.

Often seen in girls. Characterized by high excitability, violent affective reactions, irritability, inability to delay desires, the need for a constant change of impressions. All this points to the immature infantile nature of the affective response. Increased excitability affects the behavior of such children, they quickly and easily become infected with any bright event and also quickly get fed up. Under the influence of an affective assessment of the situation, there is a distortion and rejection of everything that contradicts one's own desires. There is a lack of persistent interests, such children are quickly fed up with any activity that directly follows from affective-significant goals.

5) Psychopathies of the unstable type

They are a variant of disharmonic infantilism. Such children are distinguished by immaturity of interests, superficiality, instability of attachments, impulsive actions, and actions on the first impulse. The habit of running away from difficulties, combined with sensory craving, is a common cause of running away from home, school, and the desire to wander. Irresponsibility, unformed moral prohibitions cause a way out of difficult situations through deceptions, fictions. Being highly suggestible, these children easily learn socially negative forms of behavior.

6) Organic psychopathy.

Associated with early damage to the nervous system in the prenatal period, during childbirth, in the first years of life. The excitable type is the most common. It is more often observed in boys and manifests itself in affective and motor excitability. Already at the age of 2-3 years, these children draw attention to themselves by the ease of occurrence of affective outbursts with malice, aggression, stubbornness, negativism. Severe affective discharges often have an asthenic outcome with relaxation, lethargy, and tears. These children represent significant difficulties in the team: they beat their peers and younger ones, they are insolent to adults. With organic psychopathy of the excitable type, unmotivated mood swings in the form of dysphoria are also observed. In response to the slightest remark, these children have violent reactions of protest, leaving home and school.

Another group of organic psychopathy (Sukhareva G.E., 1959) is characterized by an increased euphoric background of mood with a rough response to all external stimuli, uncriticality with a fairly intact intellect. Any external impression easily evokes an affective reaction, but a very short one. At school age, lack of inhibition often contributes to the formation of drive pathology, impulsive sexual excesses, a tendency to vagrancy, and so on. M.S. Pevzner (1962) described this type of psychopathy after epidemic encephalitis suffered at an early age.

G.E. Sukhareva (1959) specifically distinguishes “pathological development of the personality” as a separate form of developmental pathology due to unfavorable conditions of education, distinguishing it from psychopathy not only by etiology, a number of clinical features, but also by the fundamental possibility of reversibility. The same point of view is shared by K.S. Lebedinskaya and others.

As you know, in shaping the personality of a healthy child, his upbringing plays a leading role. Biological prerequisites in the form of temperament, which determine the strength, balance, mobility of mental processes, the tendency to the predominance of one or another type of elementary emotions, constitute the genetic basis of higher nervous activity, on the basis of which the personality is formed precisely under the influence of social conditions. Due to the immaturity of the emotional sphere and personality of the child as a whole, his increased suggestibility, adverse environmental conditions, acting for a long time and quite massively expressed, can lead to a distortion in the development of not only his interests, orientation, but also through the impact on the autonomic nervous system - and to persistent change in the properties of his temperament (Simson T.P., 1935; Sukhareva G.E., 1935; Misho L., 1950; Skanavi E.E., 1962; Felinskaya N.I., 1965; Guryeva V.A., 1971; Gindikin V.Ya., 1971; Kovalev V.V., 1979).

Thus, in the pathogenesis of pathological personality formations, the main role belongs to two factors:

1) consolidation of pathological reactions (imitation, protest, passive and active refusal, etc.), which are a form of response to a traumatic situation; fixing, they become stable personality traits (Misho L., 1950, 1964; Levitov N.D., 1955), especially in childhood;

2) the direct "education" of such pathological character traits as excitability, instability, hysteria is facilitated by direct stimulation by a negative example.

A special type of anomaly in the emotional-volitional sphere, due to the instability of the regulation of autonomic functions, is neuropathy. This anomaly can be both constitutional in nature - "constitutional childhood nervousness" associated with a genetic factor, or it can be caused by early exogenous hazards. The primary defectiveness of the vegetative system causes a tendency to sleep disorders, appetite, instability of temperature regulation, sensitivity to methodological fluctuations, etc. Deviations in the neuropsychological sphere, mainly in the emotional one, occur secondarily. The instability of the autonomic system and the feeling of constant somato-psychic discomfort associated with it in some cases contributes to the formation of a personality that is inhibited, inactive, hypersensitive and easily exhausted; in others - excitable, irritable, motor disinhibited. Sukhareva G.E. (1959) identifies 2 variants of neuropathy - asthenic and excitable.

Children suffering from neuropathy, as a rule, are highly impressionable and vulnerable, and therefore they easily develop anxiety neuroses, stuttering, tics, enuresis, etc.

Neuropathy is the most typical anomaly for childhood. As the autonomic nervous system matures at school age, it often smooths out, but sometimes, under adverse conditions of upbringing, it serves as the basis for the formation of psychopathy or the pathological development of an inhibitory type of personality. [Lebedinsky, pp. 123-129].

Neuropathy is also a common cause of childhood neuroses.

Neurosis is an acquired functional disorder of the nervous system, in which there is a "breakdown" of its activity without any signs of anatomical damage. Neurosis is a consequence of failures, frustrations and interpersonal clashes and at the same time often causes them. This is the most common type of psychogenic.

According to A.I. Zakharov, there are several types of neuroses. In his book "Neuroses in Children" he lists them in the following order:

1. Neurosis of fear. An example of a 6-year-old girl describes this type of neurosis. “We know that when such conditions arise, most often it is a fear of death. It manifests itself to one degree or another in all children aged 5-6 years. ... As a rule, children cope with such experiences themselves; but only if there is a cheerful emotional atmosphere in the family ... And if the child was restless before, then such anxiety sharply increases the age-related fear of death, here is a set of neurotic fears, like this girl has (fear of an elevator, fire, fire, illness, cars, etc.) All these fears are motivated essentially by one thing: the fear that something might happen. In its maximum expression, this "something" means death: from fire, disease, etc. . .. The source of such fears was the mother, anxious by nature, and who was afraid of all this in childhood.

A.I. Zakharov sees the reason for the transfer of maternal fears to the daughter in such a feature of the child’s psychological development as the “phenomenon of role identification” - at the age of 4-5 years, girls want to portray themselves as a mother in games, boys of 5-8 years old - their father.

So in this case, the girl subconsciously, imperceptibly learned the maternal way of behavior.

2. Neurasthenia.

"A painful overstrain of the child's psychophysiological capabilities. He is unable to meet the excessive demands of others and considers himself in advance unable to cope with any upcoming difficulties."

Most often this comes from the inability of parents to accept the child as he really is. The child, in turn, cannot understand why the parents are so strict with him, because he tries so hard to do what they demand. The contradictions of the parents themselves lead the child to nervous strain, neurasthenia. There is no need to talk about the healthy psyche of the child - the conflict of parents with the child is perceived by the latter as his own inferiority. In fact, one has to wonder at the patience of children in such situations. According to Zakharov, at his request, parents counted how many remarks they made to their child per day: about 300 conflicting demands (not requests, appeals, but demands and orders).

Another reason for such a neurosis may be the switching of attention of parents to another child who has appeared in the family, the inability of the parents themselves to evenly distribute attention between all the children in the family. Often, reproaches against the older (in - such a situation rarely happens the other way around) child are unfair and motivated by the fact that "he is the eldest, he has more responsibility, he himself must understand." As a rule, such a situation turns into nervous breakdowns, tics, and in the worst cases, undisguised aggression towards a younger brother or sister. This is how a suffering child understands the reason for the lowering of his rating with his parents.

3. Hysterical neurosis.

"Its external manifestations are apparently familiar to everyone: the child is excessively capricious, now and then throws tantrums, falls to the floor, beats. But such a neurosis must be distinguished from character pathology, which occurs at an older age." You can add: it must be distinguished from pedagogical neglect, but the reason is the same. Up to a certain point, the parents indulged the growing demands of the child, but then they introduced restrictions, acting inconsistently - after all, the child does not understand the change in the logic of the parents. "The main difference is that the child does not want to be like that; he arranges scenes, although he suffers from this. But he cannot do anything with himself, this happens against his will."

Zakharov sees the reasons for the emergence of such behavior in the above reason: inconsistency in the upbringing of parents and the immediate environment.

Zakharov calls another reason for hysterical neurosis the reverse side of this situation: not increased attention to the child, but, on the contrary, the complete absence of it. Children deprived of emotional attention stage demonstrations as the attention deficit accumulates. But, as a rule, he stumbles upon a wall of misunderstanding - the always quiet and inconspicuous child turns into an uncontrollable brawler. “We don’t like you like that,” as parents would say. Such children are called "unclaimed".

4. Obsessional neurosis.

The last neurosis described by Zakharov. "...Usually manifests itself in older school age." Conditions in which the child feels the need to perform any action, since, in his opinion, this carries protective elements. In fact, these are defense mechanisms, like tics, monotonous movements, or respiratory phenomena (according to V.I. Garbuzov).

The roots of this neurosis are the same, family relationships, or rather their violations. Increased exactingness of parents, exactingness - for the sake of requirements, adherence to principles - contrary to common sense. Parents demand unquestioning obedience from the child, education is reminiscent of drill. Children in such families have suspiciousness, fear of violating the requirements of their parents.

Thus, A.I. Zakharov sees the causes of childhood neuroses in the imperfection of family relations. But therefore, the problem becomes like a vicious circle: parents carry their fears and problems from their childhood, shifting them onto the shoulders of growing children, who, in turn, onto the shoulders of their children. And so you can continue for a long time, until someone from this chain stops and thinks about how to fix this situation. Children, feeling first of all love in their parents, find support and understanding more painlessly go through the crisis moments of their lives. [A.I. Zakharov, pp. 55-73].

Apresyan Elena
Consultation "Emotional disorders in preschoolers"

Emotionally disturbed-volitional sphere of the child

Often, parents' concern is mainly concentrated in the field of children's physical health, when sufficient attention emotional the condition of the child is not given, and some early warning symptoms disorders in emotional in the volitional sphere are perceived as temporary, characteristic of age, and therefore, not dangerous for the life of the baby, and serve as an indicator of his attitude to his parents and to what surrounds him. Currently, along with general health problems in children, experts note with concern the growth emotional-volitional disorders which result in more serious problems in the form of low social adaptation, a tendency to antisocial behavior, learning difficulties.

External manifestations emotional disturbances-volitional sphere in childhood

Despite the fact that you should not independently make not only medical diagnoses, but also diagnoses in the field of psychological health, but it is better to entrust this to professionals, there are a number of signs violations of the emotional-volitional sphere, the presence of which should be the reason for contacting specialists.

Disturbances in emotional- the volitional sphere of the child's personality have characteristic features of age-related manifestations. So, for example, if adults systematically note in their baby at an early age such behavioral characteristics as excessive aggressiveness or passivity, tearfulness, "stuck" on a certain emotions, it is possible that this is an early manifestation emotional disorders.

AT preschool age to the above symptoms, may be added inability to follow the norms and rules of behavior, insufficient development of independence. At school age, these deviations, along with those listed, can be combined with self-doubt, violation social interaction, a decrease in purposefulness, inadequacy of self-esteem.

It is important to understand that the existence violations should be judged not by the presence of a single sign, which may be the child's reaction to a specific situation, but by the combination of several characteristic symptoms.

The main external manifestations are as follows way:

Emotional tension. With increased emotional tension, in addition to well-known manifestations, difficulties in the organization of mental activity, a decrease in play activity characteristic of a particular age, can also be clearly expressed.

The rapid mental fatigue of the child in comparison with peers or with earlier behavior is expressed in the fact that it is difficult for the child to concentrate, he can demonstrate a clear negative attitude to situations where the manifestation of mental, intellectual qualities is necessary.

Increased anxiety. Increased anxiety, in addition to known signs, can be expressed in the avoidance of social contacts, a decrease in the desire to communicate.

Aggressiveness. Manifestations can be in the form of demonstrative disobedience to adults, physical aggression and verbal aggression. Also, his aggression can be directed at himself, he can hurt himself. The child becomes naughty and with great difficulty gives in to the educational influences of adults.

Lack of empathy. Empathy - the ability to feel and understand other person's emotions, empathize. At emotional disorders in the volitional sphere, this sign is usually accompanied by increased anxiety. An inability to empathize can also be a warning sign of a mental disorder or intellectual retardation.

Unwillingness and unwillingness to overcome difficulties. The child is lethargic, contacts with adults with displeasure. Extreme manifestations in behavior may look like a complete disregard for parents or other adults - in certain situations, the child may pretend not to hear the adult.

Low motivation to succeed. A characteristic sign of low motivation for success is the desire to avoid hypothetical failures, so the child takes on new tasks with displeasure, tries to avoid situations where there is even the slightest doubt about the result. It is very difficult to persuade him to try to do something. A common answer in this situation is: "will not work", "I do not know how". Parents may erroneously interpret this as a manifestation of laziness.

Expressed distrust of others. It can manifest itself as hostility, often accompanied by tearfulness; school-age children can manifest this as excessive criticism of the statements and actions of both peers and surrounding adults.

Excessive impulsiveness of the child, as a rule, is expressed in weak self-control and insufficient awareness of their actions.

Avoid close contact with other people. The child may repel others with remarks expressing contempt or impatience, insolence, etc.

Formation emotionally-volitional sphere of the child

Manifestation emotions parents observe from the very beginning of the child's life, with their help, communication with parents takes place, so the baby shows that he is well, or he experiences discomfort.

In the future, in the process of growing up, the child faces problems that he has to solve with varying degrees of independence. Attitude towards a problem or situation causes a certain emotional response, and attempts to influence the problem are additional emotions. In other words, if the child has to show arbitrariness in the implementation of any actions, where the fundamental motive is not "want", a "necessary", that is, to resolve the problem, an effort of will is required, in fact, this will mean the implementation of an act of will.

As you grow older emotions also undergo certain changes and develop. Children at this age learn to feel and are able to demonstrate more complex manifestations. emotions. The main feature of the correct emotionally-volitional development of the child is an increasing ability to control the manifestation emotions.

Main reasons emotional disturbances-volitional sphere of the child

Child psychologists place particular emphasis on the assertion that the development of a child's personality can occur harmoniously only with sufficient confidential communication with close adults.

Main reasons violations are:

1. transferred stresses;

2. lag in intellectual development;

3. insufficiency emotional contacts with close adults;

4. social causes;

5. films and computer games not intended for his age;

6. a number of other reasons that cause internal discomfort and a feeling of inferiority in a child.

Children's emotional disorders spheres appear much more often and brighter during periods of so-called age-related crises. Vivid examples of such points of maturation can be crises "I myself" at the age of three and "Crisis of adolescence" in adolescence.

What to do if the behavior of the baby suggests the presence of such a disorder? First of all, it is important to understand that these violations can and should be corrected. You should not rely only on specialists, the role of parents in correcting the behavioral characteristics of the child's character is very important.

An important point that allows laying the foundation for the successful resolution of this problem is the establishment of contact and trusting relationships between parents and the child. In communication, one should avoid critical assessments, show a benevolent attitude, remain calm, praise adequate manifestations of feelings more, one should be sincerely interested in his feelings and empathize.