Chapter 18. FAMILY EDUCATION IN RUSSIA

In a situation of crisis, the institution of the family, a sharp decline in the birth rate, and the aging of the Russian population, the relevance of family education increases. The acquisition of knowledge and skills that contribute to overcoming problem (crisis) moments plays a huge role in the functioning of the family. The source of their receipt are various forms of adult family education. In the past, widespread “parental education”, which is a training system organized by educational institutions in conjunction with parent committees. Modern families usually receive educational information in schools (kindergartens) where children study; medical institutions (consultations for pregnant women, recommendations of a pediatrician, neuropathologist, narcologist, sexologist); special family support services; club associations for interests; informal communication with people who have traversed similar situations or are in a similar marital status; mass media and special editions, independently extracting the necessary information from the stream of heterogeneous information.

Studies show that common to all families are the problems of a healthy lifestyle, the implementation of sex-role functions; legal literacy (the idea of ​​their rights as a family member, the forms of social protection, protection of dignity, the exercise of their rights to raise a child, inherit property, living space, etc.); psychological culture (communication, behavior in conflict situations, maintaining a favorable atmosphere in the house); family economics (farm management); children's education.

Typical crisis or stressful situations that require support from outside during the restructuring of behavior patterns and the development of additional functions by all relatives can be considered marriage (divorce), childbirth, his enrollment in kindergarten, school, college, military service, marriage (marriage) , any form of leaving the house; go to

New job or loss of employment obtaining a new apartment or moving to a place of residence in another region; serious quarrel, betrayal, death of a spouse.

In the last decade in our country there has been an intensive development of the system of family education and awareness. Family assistance is provided by a wide range of institutions and organizations of different profiles: family counseling, dating services, various forms of family education (family universities, faculties, lectures), sexology, pediatric, and pedagogical classrooms. The directions of their activities are diverse: assistance in creating a family (dating service) and its strengthening (consultations for conflicting and divorcing spouses); assistance in raising children (counseling and centers for parents); prevention of family conflicts (counseling and education of newlyweds, problem families); family psychological assistance to dysfunctional families, etc. Specialists of different profiles work with families: teachers, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, lawyers, sexologists.

Any service focused on family assistance is designed to perform an andragogical function, its activity is always associated with the formation of specific skills and experience of getting out of a crisis situation, obtaining additional information about yourself, acquiring psychological protection, changing the communicative model. In this regard, one of the most important andragogical tasks is the development of typical educational modules accompanying the formation of a family.

In accordance with the orientation and nature of the necessary training, there are several models of educational assistance to the family that exist in Russian practice.

The pedagogical model is aimed at helping the family in raising children. Analyzing together with parents (sometimes in the presence of a child) the current problem situation, the consultant proposes a constructive program of measures for getting out of it, focusing on the individual characteristics of the child and parents. Specialists working in this model are teachers, psychologists and social workers.

The diagnostic model compensates for the lack of specific diagnostic information, which allows you to more accurately navigate in a family situation, to understand the cause of the problem. Assistance to spouses and parents is carried out in the form of recommendations for making certain decisions: pedagogical, psychological or organizational (for example, visiting specialists of other profiles).

The psychological model of help is productive when the reasons for the problems in the family lie in interfamily communication or due to the personal characteristics of family members. Psychological model helps to detect and eliminate interpersonal disharmony, change the system of emotional relationships, relationships that are realized in communication, ways of inadequate response in situations affecting the main points of family life.

The consultant’s help is to break the vicious circle in which conflicts generate maladaptive traits of family members, which in turn leads to conflicting communication. In the psychological model, the patterns of human intercourse are used as the main tool, both in the family and between the consultant and the client. Based on these patterns, the specialist seeks to strengthen the internal resources of the family as a whole and its members, which they need in order to cope with the difficulties themselves. Such a model, used primarily in the work of psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, involves the development of a psychological and communicative culture, that is, it is directly connected with the solution of andragogical tasks.

The social model of assistance, in addition to analyzing the life situation and making recommendations, involves direct intervention in the circumstances of clients' lives. This kind of help is provided, for example, by a dating service, which provides a real opportunity for clients to start a family.

The medical model of care suggests that family difficulties are based on illness or the painful personality development of one or both spouses and children. Accordingly, the efforts of specialists are aimed at curing, rehabilitating patients, adapting healthy family members to a specific situation.

The legal model compensates for the lack of legal competence in solving family problems and conflicts. The consultant analyzes the current situation and proposes legally correct ways to get out of it.

The educational component must accompany all types of assistance and, in a certain sense, precede them. Thus, an increase in pedagogical, psychological, and legal competence forms the basis of the pedagogical, psychological, and legal models. Before making a diagnostic conclusion, it is necessary to work together on an in-depth analysis of the reasons, reasons for attending a consultation, a reflection of the circumstances of family life and relationships. Before offering social assistance, it is important to understand whether all the clients used their own resources, and if not, why, which implies the development of self-reflection skills.

Often, employees who provide assistance to the family within a particular model do not have special andragogical training. One of the serious shortcomings in their work is the formal transfer of the usual didactic position and principles of interaction to the adult education system, without regard to their age and social status. The ill-conceived approach does not allow to achieve the goal in full.

By what principles should the content of family education be formed and transmitted? First of all, it differs by targeting, i.e. appeal to a specific family category. Depending on the origins of the problem, the andragogue must establish with whom it is expedient to conduct the work. This may be an individual consultation, the content of which is differentiated according to gender roles or family functions (father, grandfather, grandmother, etc.), “training for the whole family”, etc. The process of education of the modern family should be based on introducing advanced knowledge into the life of its adult members. There are typical, the same for all families problems associated with certain stages in the organization of living together, crisis periods in the life of spouses or in raising a child. The lack of special knowledge that helps family members to competently overcome problems of this kind actually predicts a build-up of conflicts in problem situations. It must be admitted that in modern practice of working with families, training is more likely to be compensating and corrective. Family members receive the necessary knowledge after the problem has arisen.

For the andragogue who works with his family, such a principle as success in solving similar life problems is also important. Having relevant experience, preferably positive, coupled with awareness and a significant amount of life experiences, knowledge of actions in similar situations, makes the andragogue a reference (significant) person for his visitors. However, one should avoid absolutization and direct transfer of one's own experience into the lives of people who have asked for help. He can be a stimulating example, but not a reference model, for "every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Rather, it is about the depth of empathy and the ability to capture the essence of the problem.

Another principle that the family andragogue must follow is respect for the client’s issues. Regardless of the internal attitude of the andragogue to the situation, an adult is worthy of respect and attention only because he has the courage to ask for help. No less significant is the principle of the necessary and sufficient depth of study of family problems. In many respects, it is caused by the client’s psychological readiness to perceive the information offered to him and to work seriously with her (self-study, self-control, self-assessment, self-correction). When working with family members, it is necessary to adhere to the culture of the proposed behavior patterns. This means the orientation of the proposed recommendations to the norms adopted in a particular ethnic (cultural) environment, assistance in adapting to them (the situation of inter-ethnic, international, "unequal" marriages).

Practice-oriented family training allows you to ensure its effectiveness when the result is the specific actions of family members aimed at solving their own problems. Therefore, the education system of any family group (category) must necessarily include diagnostic forms that help make their problems obvious to the participants of the situation. It is also necessary to discover the origins of the problematic (physiological, psychological, economic, socio-pedagogical, etc.). Only in this case it is possible to develop effective recommendations and to determine the circle of specialists who can provide real assistance.

Work with the family should be kept confidential. Therefore, it is very important to choose the source and form of transmission of educational information. Sometimes it can only be offered in private. A person must be sure of the anonymity of his visit, which will serve for the andragog as a guarantee of openness and the ability to establish the true causes of the problem. In other cases it is more expedient to use the help of books, manuals, test materials with a key for interpretation.

In the current situation, children become a specific source of education for adults in the family. The child as an andragogue is a very interesting phenomenon. It is from the children or grandchildren that the elders will learn about new facts, events, receive reliable information about the youth subculture, the ongoing social processes. If a family has established a trusting relationship between generations, the child (teenager, high school student) can frankly tell about himself, about the school and the teachers.

Traditionally, information on how to solve family problems adults receive in the process of communicating with those who have experienced similar problems and has personal experience in solving them. However, in recent years, interpersonal communication has decreased markedly. People are looking for different ways of earning extra money to replenish their budget, so less free time is available for communicating with friends and family, previously, in many respects performing psychotherapeutic functions. The importance of family service, which is able to provide the necessary advice, is naturally increasing. Family counseling has recently become quite popular. Created numerous schools, centers of relevant profiles. The possibilities of self-education in the family sphere have increased. The production of domestic and foreign psychological and pedagogical literature has increased, and television programs have appeared on family life and the upbringing of children. A huge amount of popular literature is published - various kinds of “manuals” for parents, spouses, encyclopedias for children of different ages.

The most significant changes in the organization of the educational process are associated with the creation of a service for social and psychological assistance (CSPP). At the initial stage of this service, it is important to help parents, educators, and leaders to realize that they have the opportunity to receive and provide expert assistance in solving problems that are significant to them. According to the estimates of the MTPP, most centers today serve a smaller number of clients than the potential capabilities of these institutions allow. The requirements for legal services are worst met. Psychological assistance is most in demand.

One of the new directions in family education in recent years has been valeological education of adults, which is aimed at solving two main tasks: 1) mastering the complex of knowledge about managing one’s own health in everyday life; 2) mastering the special valeological knowledge in relation to the peculiarities of their professional activities.

In order for an adult to begin to actively engage in his health, appropriate changes must occur in his motivational, value and existential attitudes. Methods of valeological diagnostics allow a person to identify trends in their health and their causes associated with the specifics of lifestyle. On the basis of valeological self-analysis, an understanding of the causes of negative tendencies in health is formed, a desire to optimize one’s own way of life (to make the necessary corrections) taking into account individual psychological characteristics arises. In the course of mastering valeological knowledge in adults, there arises and strengthens the desire to learn how to educate their children properly, create conditions for their development, help them realize their own uniqueness, choose their future profession, form a responsible attitude towards life in all its manifestations. The desire to optimize the lifestyle inevitably leads adults to understand the importance of developing the ability to love, the ability to regulate their marital relations, complement each other and enrich each other (“share” their unique features), the ability to see the attractive qualities inherent only to him and to promote them full expression. It is important for them to gain knowledge about psychological and sexual characteristics typical for modern men and women, which manifest themselves in the process of married life (rules for preventing family quarrels and getting out of them painlessly; features of female and male jealousy; typical cases of family destruction in the first year, after 5- 7, 15 years or more of marriage, difficulties in creating a new family in the event of a divorce).

The organization and coordination of family service institutions is complicated by the fact that they belong to different departments. Currently, family counseling is carried out mainly in crisis and psychotherapeutic centers subordinated to the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation (St. Petersburg, Tyumen, Cheboksary, Vologda, etc.) and in the social and psychological centers of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation (St. Petersburg, Moscow, Vladivostok, Tyumen, Vologda, etc.). Family service agencies may belong to the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation (dating clubs), family and marriage departments, and city territorial departments. The founders can be public organizations, individuals, etc. In this regard, one of the most pressing problems of the further development of the family service is the development of a unified system that ensures the correct distribution of functions and the interaction between its constituent parts.In addition, it remains important to overcome the insufficient psychological culture of the population, manifested in the inability to formulate family problems, the lack of traditions in addressing family problems to turn to specialists; lack of awareness about the activities of the family service, the availability of various specialists in it and their ability to provide the necessary assistance.

Tasks and questions for self-control

1. On the basis of reflection, identify the main problems and contradictions that confront you as a family member. Which ones can be solved through education? What knowledge, skills and abilities do you lack to become a model family man? (You can consult with relatives and friends.) From what sources and

in what forms can you get the missing information?

2. Develop recommendations for the education of your family members.

Recommended literature

Gurko, TA, Parenthood in Changing Socio-Cultural Conditions, Sociological Studies. - 1997. - Љ 1.

Zaitsev A. G., Zaitsev G. K. Valueology of the family. - SPb., 2000.

Parent Education and School: Textbook.-method, manual / Ed. L. G. Petryaevskaya. - M., 1999.

Onushkin VG Folk universities: Pedagogical training of parents // Perspectives (UNESCO). - 1991. - Љ 2.

Help parents in raising children: Trans. from English / Tot. ed.and pre-dis. V.Ya. Pilipovsky. - M., 1992.

Satyr V. How to build yourself and your family: Trans. from English - M., 1992.

Serz U., Serz M. Encyclopedia for Parents: Trans. from English - M., 1997.

Stepanov SS. Psychological dictionary for parents. - M., 1996.

Hämäläinen Y. Parenting Education: Concepts, Directions and Perspectives. - M., 1993.

Schneider L. B. The Psychology of Family Relations: A Course of Lectures. - M., 2000.