The road to the underworld, how to get off it?

One day, a woman approached me. The reason for the consultation was the behavior of her 12 year old son. He should have been removed from the family. The basis was parental incompetence and the threat to the boy’s life. She came all in tears, and through her tears she began her confused story.

Christina (name changed) complained about her unhappy life. And the boy, Ilya (name changed), is an unfortunate victim of this very life. After all, she did everything for him. Nikita’s father, in her words, is a notorious scoundrel. He cheated on her left and right, didn’t work, drank! I had to divorce him. Her mother, from childhood, did not love her, humiliated her in everything, and constantly called her names. She never saw her father, but they say he was there too, what a piece of fruit! Now Christina does not work, she lives in the same 3-room apartment with her mother and two sisters. Both are divorced. One of them has a small 4-year-old child. He is constantly sick with something, screams, she has to watch him because his sister works.

Her son, Ilya, began skipping school. I got involved with a bad crowd, older guys, started smoking and stealing. He ignores his mother and is rude to her. Recently, he was caught by store security where he stole goods and sent to the juvenile department.

The story is sad, and unfortunately, very popular for our time. Although there are worse ones. There are a lot of such children’s stories now. And what unites them is that once upon a time, immature parents had children. Not mature, not in a passport context, but in a psychological one. Some had a good education and quite a good property base. There was every chance for a happy family life and a decent career. But it all collapsed. Immediately or gradually. And their children became a kind of indicator of this trouble. Their learned helplessness.

This is the name of the syndrome that was described by the American psychologist Martin Seligman in the middle of the last century. I will not describe the experiment that he conducted on dogs; there is so much information on this topic on the Internet. But learned helplessness is about people. And about social programs. After all, the illusion of a “free Soviet childhood” has formed several generations of people who are constantly waiting for free help. Free medicine, housing, psychologist and fitness trainer services.

A person who has leafed through an Economics textbook even a little understands that nothing is free in this world, and never has been. Of course, except for illusions. Everything has its own price and deferred payments.

- How long have you not worked? — I asked Christina

- Half year already. So there is unemployment in the country! I was registered with the Employment Service, but they didn’t offer anything good there.

- Did you try to arrange your personal life after you broke up with Ilya’s father?

- Yes.. But there are even worse examples, all as if chosen — drunks, quitters and cheaters.

We have compiled a genogram and an ecomap. They conducted several tests, and I showed Christina that the whole situation is woven from patterns, predispositions, roles and destructive scenarios.

“What should I do?” Christina asked sincerely. How can I help my boy? After all, his deviant and delinquent behavior could lead him to prison,” Christina said through tears.

I was a little surprised that she pronounced these professional terms easily and without hesitation. It turned out that Christina, herself a teacher, had not worked in her specialty for a long time.

- While your son is in a social center, you need to change something in your life.

We have drawn up a rehabilitation plan.

Briefly, it can be formulated as follows:

“Instead of learned helplessness, master and implement a Well-Being Plan for your family, and first of all, for yourself. This is a huge job. And children are a worthy motivation for carrying it out.

Six months later, Christina came to pick up Ilya at the social support center. The boy was there the whole time. He studied at school, studied with psychologists, and attended various sections. I’m not ready to say that he has completely reformed. After all, in the social support center there were children from even more disadvantaged families. And communication and an informal value system mean much more to a teenager than music classes or a drawing club. For a final correction, he at least needs to change his environment.

But Christina has changed. She got a job and rented a room.

This was one of the points of the plan that we discussed with her. Her appearance also changed. She seemed to be 10 years younger. She had fans. But she is in no hurry to make a choice.