Horror-Uzhasas

Olga Makhovskaya is a psychologist, television consultant, author of the book “What to talk about with a child? Instructions for survival for a modern Russian parent ” - explained how it happened that in the era of zero generation of neurotics grew, and why, as its antimanifest, it chose the series“ School ”.

Illustration: Olga Zaitseva / Salt

- Obviously, in the zero in connection with terrorist attacks, even in adult Russians, the level of anxiety increased. How do children experience such events?
- Indeed, there are many situations that stimulate the development of children's fears. When the children see how they kill someone on the screen or cause pain to someone, they become secondary victims. During the terrible events, a continuous broadcast of the news was underway in Stralan, and people could not tear themselves away from TV screens. But the next day we were faced with the fact that the children were afraid to go to school and kindergartens. For psychologists, this was a new problem: how to convince children that nothing threatens them. Nevertheless, we had to advise parents to leave children for two to three days at home, and even allow them to spend the night in bed with adults, which we usually do not recommend. This is how traumatic the children were. Nobody touched them, which happened far from them, but they survived this misfortune as their own.

- And what were the children afraid before, under “normal conditions”?
- It was classically believed that the child is afraid to be alone, afraid of heights, darkness, sometimes afraid if the door is closed. These, as they are called, are medical fears that pass with age. They are associated with a sense of helplessness of the child. But since we ourselves once experienced this era of fears, we do not take children's experiences and anxiety seriously.

“As a work of art, the series“ School ”suits me. I think that a talented director made him and that this movie is a new generation manifesto. ”

Photo: 1tv.ru

- However, today, along with these “classic” fears, social ones also appeared, right?
- There is such a fear, a background - this is a fear of poverty. Today, the idea of ​​social status, about the status differences in children appears very early. Previously, the differences were not so much in the level of prosperity, but that one baby had a Katya doll, and the other had a Masha doll. And they just wanted to change for a variety. But in the past 20 years, we see that children clearly changed the installation. When the time comes to choose a profession, they no longer want to be cosmonauts, or teachers, or even actors - because this is not guaranteed earnings. And they want to be stable. They choose the professions of a manager, accountant, businessman. About 10 years ago, they even wanted to be bandits and prostitutes. Children are emotionally tuned to others who are nearby, and understand only where it is warm and where it is cold. Children by nature choose those with whom it is good and comfortable. And if it’s good and comfortable with bandits, they will be friends with bandits. This is the law of child psychology.

There is another fear, striking: modern children, unlike us at their age, are afraid to go outside. Previously, the children constantly walked, even unattended, today it is very rare. Because it really became unsafe: children are lost, they are stealing. And since in our families today, mainly in one child, we ourselves begin to tremble above them. In the West, this happened a long time ago. 15 years ago I arrived in France - there are no children on the street, the country is like childless. In fact, it is simply forbidden to leave children on the street there by law. One or two cases of Kidneping were enough to take such measures.

- Is the fear that you are talking about does not depend on the age of the child? Say, teenagers 13-14 years old, on the contrary, behave risky and neglect a sense of self-preservation.
- You are talking about risky behavior: when children try to separate, swear with their parents, fall into the category of hooligans, because they put a cross on parents as reliable characters. They do not want to repeat their fate. But today we see something else today: when the children are fitting tightly to their parents tightly and do not want to separate in any way. If earlier children could not wait for an independent life, today we see that they do not go at 20, nor 25, or at 30 years old. A sort of eternal children.

“I worked on the“ Ranettes ”at the very early stage: I advised the creators of the series in the first episodes. We developed the types of heroes and the situations that they fall into. ”

Photo: ctc-tv.ru

- That is, today the boundaries moved when childhood ends and adult life begins?
-According to the law, a person is still considered an adult since the age of 18. But in reality, everything is different. Today, childhood is so lengthened that we can’t even say about a 50-year-old person whether he is still young or already old. On the one hand, this is due to the fact that life expectancy has increased. People want to stay longer in the ranks, do something, and not sit mushrooms near the house. There is such a theory - "one third." It is necessary to divide all his life into three parts, of which one third will be a time of childhood. When people lived 40 years, adult life began very early. Today we have the opportunity to extend childhood up to 25 years.

On the other hand, our children do not become adults for a long time, because today we need to learn more skills. Previously, having learned at school, you were practically ready for an independent life. Then life was simple, stagnant, clear a couple of steps forward. Now people are studying much longer, the second or third education they are helped by their parents, and this also connects them with each other to some extent. So we do not observe any voluntary, active, protest care of children.

A completely different thing is when the parents themselves go somewhere.

- In the children's consciousness, does this result in fear of loneliness?
- In fear, no one needs it. Fear of loss of some strong affection, which is very important for humans. When people who understand you emotionally support you, a lot of parents are not very appreciated: on occasion, they can be replaced by someone else. Well, if your parents are the only people who have a business?

A person has bodily memory. If only my mother fed you from childhood, only she was interested in how you, only she hugged - in this case, no matter how bad she was, for the child she is supervious. Recently, a plot passed through many channels: the child was taken from a mentally ill mother, and he did not want to leave her, because for him he was the only loving person. Here you have an example.

“We called the series“ Ranetki ”by training among ourselves: first we create a problem, and then we offer a way out of it. We decided that young people need to tell the solutions. ”

Photo: ctc-tv.ru

- What is love in the representation of a child?
-Certainly not some words, music, poems to tears or something else like that. The child feels that they love him when they are stroked, pressed, kissed-that is, some simple bodily expressions of sympathy. And if this is taken away from him, the child is shocked.

- Have you been afraid to be without parents in childhood?
-Like many of my peers, I dreamed that “these adults” dumped somewhere. After all, even when they went to visit, dragged us with them. I well remember: when I managed to convince my dad and my mother that I would not do anything terrible, and they left me alone at home, I first chopped the TV and began to dance. I was looking up. But today I read the fairy tale of Linor Goralik “Agatha Returns home” about a girl who stays at home for several hours, and immediately understand - this is about the other generation of children. When the parents are nearby, Agatha always finds something to do. But if she is left alone, and she no longer knows what to do for her-some kind of lost girl. This is a completely different child, he lives on the batteries of parental sympathy.

From the point of view of a psychologist, this is the behavior of a difficult neurotic living on affection. It comes to the point that parents are forced to drive away adult children from themselves. Even funds are allocated for a separate existence, if only to tear them away from themselves. But neurotic children can be attached to anyone. They grab onto the first oncoming and two days later bring him home: hello, mom-dad, I get married/marry. Of course, I draw a hypertrophied picture, but in general it looks that way. Parents are in shock, they return the child back under their wing - and everything starts in a circle.

“According to the law, a person is still considered an adult since the age of 18. But in reality, everything is different. Today, childhood is so lengthened that we can’t even say about a 50-year-old person whether he is still young or already old. ”

Photo: Olga Makhovskaya

- Is this a feature of the zero generation?
- These children were born in a new country. They were born when all Soviet institutions have already died, the school became different. Clinical psychologists believe that current children are twice more alarming and neurotic than their parents. Let’s say, in Soviet times, we were raised by psychopaths: they brought up on large examples-to become an astronaut, win an Olympic medal, and make some discovery. And we, like idiots, were ready to study without contriving hands in order to fulfill this great dream. On the one hand, we, of course, hardened, but on the other hand, this is a clear overkill.

And it turns out that the psychopaths, which the sea is knee -deep, spread neurotics. Very strong grow very weak and then make them complaints. But we ourselves are actually abandoning them to the mercy of fate: we think, since we survived, then they will be able to. Of course, this leads to a huge inter -focus break. We do not understand our children, and they do not see our salvation in us.

“Due to the monotony of what is happening and hopelessness in each frame, the series“ School ”shows what kind of life today's generation does not want to live. At one time, the film “Little Faith” was the same for our generation.

Photo: 1tv.ru

- Those who do not want to grow up and “break away” from their parents become “scammers”?
- Those who are afraid to “break away” from their parents turn into “Kidalts” and not withstand the race that society offers them. Especially boys. The standards that they are offered are so high that many prefer life without ambitions: simple work and rest in front of the TV. They very much value children's pastime. For them, this is such a compromise: I lay out at work, so let me relax, having been a child for some time. As my son says (who is 23 years old, and he is also a “scam”, although a graduate student, and in general a very smart boy) is their attempt to catch up. Because they did not have a full -fledged childhood.

- And I just wanted to clarify whether these people are so holding on to childhood that it was happy.
- It turns out that no. They do not regard such a pastime as absolute happiness. But they need to draw new forces from somewhere, because the work of the manager, for example, squeezes them very much. This is not a creative work that could recharge a person, this is a diaphoretic work. Very often, these boys-managers work from dawn to dawn, although they did not subscribe to this under the contract. But they really want to earn money, and they are ready for these, in general, small ones, to plow like damned money. But in the end, it turns out that they work from morning to evening to have a bite in fast food, come to a rented apartment and bend down. This is a prison, where there is only another stew and a white shirt.

- It turns out that the children of the zero are not much different from their parents, who were “killed” at work in the same way?
- Yes, but they have arguments in their protection, or rather, the arguments with which they reproach us. Children blame us for throwing them at home alone that forced them to often move, that we loaded them with our problems. By the way, this is characteristic of parents - to use their children instead of a psychotherapist. They complain to the child, cry, confess - which categorically cannot be done. The child already has a guilt complex for the fact that he is a burden, an extra mouth: sits on his parents’s neck and does not help them. And then parents exacerbate the situation. Finally, the patience of the child is coming to an end, and he swears to himself that he will begin to earn as early as possible and will live separately. But the background of poverty sounds - children do not dare to leave and remain to continue to suffer and torment their parents. As a result, we get people who are tightly related to each other. This ball is very difficult to unravel. Wrap them-it turns out that such a “problematic” connection is stronger than the connection-lover. Loving people, in the end, are released, and these hold on to each other as sewn.

“The audience of“ School ”is not children. This series was created in order to upset the audience of Channel One - people aged 40+. ”

Photo: 1tv.ru

- I want to ask you as a television consultant: when the series “School” was released, he was criticized not only by adults, but also by adolescents. In particular, for the fact that the heroes of the series are not at all like real high school students. Schoolchildren were seriously worried that adults had a mistaken idea of ​​them.
- Schoolchildren are right: they are not shown on TV. Because this is not a documentary movie, but a work of art. As a work of art, the series "School" suits me. I think that a talented director made him and that this movie is a new generation manifesto. As, for example, in our time the manifesto was the film “Little Faith”. But there were not us either. I was not like a little faith, the film was made by intelligent people from good families. But it was precisely the “little faith” that we wanted to show what life we ​​do not want to live. This is a suffocating sense of monotony of what is happening and hopeless in every frame! So the series "School", it seems to me, does the same for today's generation of high school students.

“But why then they reject this image?”
- Probably because the audience of this series is not children. "School" released the first channel. Viewers of the first channel are those who are 40+, and mainly women. The series "School" was created in order to make this audience to be upset. It is usually believed that if the screen is young, then the film is certainly for the young. Not at all. This series operates a different mechanism - a return identification. Every 10 years of life, a person brings a line: he mentally returns back where he started to understand whether it was possible to live this time differently. This is called "return identification." So the series "School", it seems to me, is designed for an audience obsessed with nostalgic memories. We are offered to remember ourselves in the school years, because this is the time of all our aspirations and crystallization of desires. We compare and conclude: we were cooler. If you think, then this is a compliment to us.

“I hope that in the near future we, except for the series, will also have romantic comedies about the modern generation of high school students. Good, interesting films with clear morality. "

Photo: ctc-tv.ru

- The senior classes are also a romantic time: love, diary entries, dreams of the future, searching for good and the fight against evil. On these values, they tried to build another series about school life - “Ranetki” (until the good intentions of the authors of the series absorbed “Ranetkomania”).
- I worked on the “Ranettes” at the very early stage: I advised the creators of the series in the first episodes. We developed the types of heroes and the situations in which they fall. [Valeria] Guy Germanika, as far as I know, went from the nature of her actors, demanded that they be in front of the camera. She chose the most desperate, and they gave her everything. This has its own truth. We worked according to a different scheme. From what the girls were in life was impossible to build a series. Therefore, we wrote stories for them, found a separate solution for each conflict in which they fell. We called this series “Training” among ourselves: first we create a problem, and then we offer a way out of it. We decided that the young (and we hoped that the young would watch us - no return identification) We need to tell the solutions. It is necessary to make them understand that there is a way out of each situation, and that they can count on adults with their difficulties. I hope that in the near future we, except for the aforementioned series, will also have romantic comedies about the modern generation of high school students. These will be good, interesting films with clear morality.

- You think films will help children overcome their fears?
- They will show an example of how children and adults learn to understand each other. Because, in my opinion, understanding each other is the only way to survive and move on.