Actual problems and tasks of family education of preschool children in the conditions of modern society: basic principles, features and main tasks of the family

The problems and tasks of modern education are fundamentally different from those that faced every family 20 years ago. Realities change, and with them the style of interaction with the child changes. But this does not mean that all moral values ​​should be trampled on, and the foundations of the educational process should be based on completely different principles. But it is simply necessary to make some adjustments in accordance with the new demands of society.

Most parents would agree that the challenges of family parenting are currently changing. But why did the old educational systems become useless? What are the problems of raising children of preschool age that adults face in modern society? How should children be raised today?

Problems of education: modern realities

It is an undeniable fact that humanity is living in an era of change, and some would say that these are more important changes than all known before.

As Alvin Toffler argues, we may be witnessing the "birth of a new civilization." But if we study the consequences of this birth, the feelings of many parents can be summed up in only one word – this is confusion.

The speed of change in all spheres of life over the past decades has broken all records. These are modern realities, and the tasks of raising children in the family change in accordance with this reality.

What was new yesterday is considered obsolete today. Scientific discoveries and achievements in biology, genetics, digital technologies or robotics exceed all possible expectations.

The system of coordinates has changed, and with it the problems and tasks of upbringing have changed: the family, the school and the surrounding world have undergone a process of evolution. Parents, who are often forced to work away from home, send their children to kindergartens, considering this step as a lesser evil. The house remains empty, and the external environment breaks into the intimate sphere of the family so much that it replaces it.

One of the problems of family education is that many children spend more time in front of the TV than with their parents. Schools, instead of providing services to the family, impose their own curriculum, which is not always consistent with the beliefs and wishes of parents and often contradicts their values.

This happens not only because external circumstances have changed. Educational disciplines, having entered into a dizzying race, have entered a new phase, making great strides forward towards new discoveries. This is natural: as soon as a new disease is discovered, it spreads and an action/reaction mechanism is set in motion with antidotes designed to fight it.

To develop new tasks for family education, centers for the study of modern methodologies were established: eight at the faculties of US universities, two in Japan, and one each in Sweden, Belgium, France, and Bulgaria.

The ideas of the educational systems of Ancient Greece and the Ancient East, which have been used for thousands of years, are being rediscovered, revised in a different light, studied and further developed. Today, the oldest and most modern sciences have come together to improve the world that surrounds us. Based on the teachings on basic instincts and sensitive periods of human life, advanced tools and innovative methodologies have been developed.

They provide new resources, new perspectives, and hope for parents who are unable to devote too much time to parenting.

In addition to this, the implementation of the main tasks of modern education, solving the problems of interpersonal relations and communications, approaches to teamwork, the formation of responsibility, the use of time, quality control, professional ethics, the establishment of friendships, the motivation system, etc. contributed to the increase in productivity and improvement labor activity. Most of the principles underlying these methods can be applied to the upbringing of children in the family.

Realizing tasks and solving problems, do not forget that family education is a science and an art. Art, because there are no hard and fast rules, each case is different and the circumstances of each person's life are unique. And at the same time, it is a science that involves techniques, procedures and skills that need to be learned and require time. Ego knowledge is not innate, and what we learned from our parents in terms of education is not enough today, and sometimes it can be counterproductive.

Our parents were brought up intuitively, guided by basic instincts. And this formula was appropriate for that moment, although now we could evaluate it as dangerous.

We cannot accept the fact that one in four children does not fit the pattern of a free and responsible person. It is logical to assume that out of four children, all four grow up prosperous, and the opposite can only be an exception that confirms the rule that we should be independent.

If in order to be a good businessman, you need to have a "businessman's mentality", then to educate a person, you need to have a "teacher's mind". Modern society often neglects the education of the will (including instilling in children the skills of ethical and moral behavior, understanding what it means to be free and responsible). And yet, as parents, we are responsible for passing on values ​​from generation to generation in their true meaning and true dimension.

Parenting in an Age of Crisis of Values

We are experiencing a crisis of values, which entails the rejection of the laws of nature, which as a result leads us to self-destruction. Actions that are not inherently beneficial are now regarded as “permissible", so we must return to understanding the importance of upbringing and education in the truest sense of the word.

We must be able to guide society on the right path. It is necessary to take all measures that implement the main tasks of family education, since it is the family that is the natural institution of society. The family, the school and the world around us are evolving, but there are intangible values ​​that must be preserved if we are talking about a real and full-fledged upbringing.

The existential vacuum (lack of values) that is so common among young people needs to be filled, and this can be done by giving people a decent foundation for their existence. As parents, we have a critical role to play in this.

Despite all the problems that can be encountered in raising children in a family, it is necessary to be optimistic. The educational process today is different, and the modern environment often does not contribute to the solution of educational problems. But it is also true that the new knowledge and information available to us can transform the difficult into the possible, and the desirable into the achievable. It's a matter of realizing that we need to take the challenges of modern parenting seriously while remaining full of hope. We have enough external tools in our hands to confirm that we are able to achieve success.

The tasks of personality education

The concept of "problems and tasks of education" can have different meanings depending on the context. But in any case, we are talking about the formation of personality.

Regarding the development of the individual, three levels are distinguished: body (matter), intellect and will (soul). Each of them develops through different, albeit related, processes to form a single whole – a person.

When implementing the main tasks of family education, keep in mind that both heredity and the environment are involved in the development of the individual; the latter through physical development and training, which correspond to the three levels mentioned above: body, intellect and will.

It is possible to be a capable student, but at the same time a poorly educated or ill-mannered person. Likewise, we may meet people who are not very intelligent, but nevertheless have received an excellent education or upbringing. To educate a person means to teach him to fully use his freedom and take responsibility for his own behavior.

• The natural desire of the material part of man – the body – is reduced to the satisfaction of needs.
• The natural aspiration of the intellect is to seek truth.
• The natural tendency of the will is to do well.

Solving the actual problems of raising children in the family, you want them to grow up honest and accurate, to be diligent students and at the same time know how to play; in other words, we want them to grow up to be responsible and free adults. All these actions are directly related to the personality and are dictated by a certain desired goal or follow a natural desire.

The personality (or individual) is considered by philosophers as the most perfect phenomenon in nature, not only because all representatives of the human race have common features, but also because each person is unique and has some properties that are characteristic only for him. The classical idea of ​​man is “an individualized substance of rational nature” (Boethius, VI century), in which there is freedom and control of the soul over matter. In other words, man differs from animals in that he is able to resist instinctive urges, while animals follow them and are therefore not free.

Consequently, the role of parents, realizing the tasks of family education of preschoolers, is of the greatest importance at the third level. It's about helping children develop their will, educate them, teach them how to recognize the good in what they want to do.

Today it is relatively easy to find a good judo or tennis coach, a math or language teacher, but it is not so easy to find a good teacher of responsiveness, responsibility, honesty and many other values.

Instilling values ​​is basically the responsibility of parents, one of the tasks of parenting in today's environment, but you must keep in mind that years of study are required not only to become a teacher of physics or programming, raising children also requires some preparation.

The problems of family education of children require the most careful study. It is true that, like art, education is within us and will manifest itself when the need arises. But this is not enough. Doing something without having sufficient knowledge, we act clumsily, and our children deserve something better. We must remember that our parents intuitively raised us well, but raising a child today is different, and trying to do it without the necessary preparation looks stupid and can have the most unfortunate consequences.

Factors of personal education

Realizing the personal tasks of raising children in the family, two main factors can be distinguished:

• heredity: genetic structure;
• learning through the influence of the external environment.

Establishing the relationship between these factors is not an easy task. Until relatively recently, it was customary to attach more importance to genetic heredity than to other factors, but data from recent studies conducted in specialized centers in the United States, Japan and Europe clearly demonstrate the enormous impact of learning on the development process.

On the one hand, the child knows what he has to do to learn a language, and even two or three at the same time, because basic instincts make learning languages ​​easier in the most amazing way.

On the other hand, by entering into the computer all the information that a person needs in order for him to be able to speak, from the structure of the ear and hearing characteristics to determining the vibrations of the vocal cords, tongue movements, etc., and establishing the necessary connections with the brain, which are mandatory for holistic development of speech, we would understand that one computer is not enough to develop this complex program. We would be faced with the most difficult problem of acoustic engineering without even taking into account the necessary connections to the brain.

And yet children solve these problems without help or prior explanation of how to do it. They know perfectly well what they have to do and do not need any formal instruction. They just need to live with someone who knows the language.

The innovative principles and objectives of family education confirm the findings and open up entirely new inspiring perspectives for parents determined to give their children the best education possible.

The relationship between environment, learning and human development has been studied for thousands of years. On the one hand, many centuries ago Aristotle himself raised interesting questions about this problem in his writings. On the other hand, a relatively young science of genetics has appeared, interpreting the actual problems of family education in its own way. We are talking about the studies of the Augustinian monk G. Mendel (in 1856-1865), to whom we owe the birth of this science, although his hypotheses remained unnoticed until 1900, until they were confirmed by de Vries, Correns, Cermak independently of each other.

Subsequently, research carried out thanks to the discovery of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) by Dr. Avery in 1945, which provides storage of hereditary material, and later, in 1953, the discovery of the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick, led to a new turn in the development of genetics.

Teachings about the role of the so-called "sensitive periods" and "basic instincts" that help in the implementation of the tasks of education in modern society predetermine significant progress in the future. They help to distribute the influence of parents and educators to their rightful places, in contrast to the theories of Rousseau and John Dewey, which assert that in human development "everything comes from within, that is, from feelings and instincts, and nothing from without" (Rousseau), and that education is “a constant reconstruction of experience through which children solve their problems. For the most part, they are projects that children are constantly starting on their own “(Dewey). Both theories have now gone down in history and are no longer considered valid. Now other problems of family education of children of preschool age are relevant.

It is impossible to assess in absolute terms the relative superiority of genetics over training in personal development, because much depends on attitudes and environmental influences. For example, in the case of twins who share the same set of genes, the impact of two radically different environmental conditions can be critical to learning.

Genetic inheritance is predetermined by conception. So far, parents have little, or rather, nothing they can do to improve or change something. Their role is the implementation of the tasks of family education, based on the features of modern realities.

It is important to note the variability of the influence of genes at different levels of physical development, training and education. Whether a child was born physically strong or weak, tall or short – all these characteristics will be directly related to any of his sports or physical activity. In the sphere of solving modern problems of education, that is, external influence, first of all, parents and the family can play a decisive role. But they must know how to provide assistance at the right time in the right way.