In our everyday life, we do not even imagine how often we face the problem of trust. Meanwhile, it is constantly present in life — when we communicate with other people, when we read or watch TV, when we listen to the radio or turn to the Internet for information, when we raise our children or are at work.
How trust is born
Trust, despite such "absolute clarity" for everyone, is a much more complex phenomenon than it may seem at first glance. How is trust born, how is it formed, what influences this process?
The famous psychologist Eric Erickson believed that a sense of trust is formed in a child on the experience of the first year of life. Gradually, it turns into an attitude that determines not only the child's attitude to himself, but also to the world. How developed this feeling will be in the baby depends on the degree of care of the mother, on how the internal connection between them is carried out. Erickson believed that "a mother should treat a child in the unmistakable language of internal communication, then he will be able to trust her, the world and himself...". And again: "Mothers form a sense of trust in their children thanks to such treatment, which consists of sensitive care for the individual needs of the child and a distinct feeling that she herself is the person who can be trusted."
Otherwise, a basic distrust of the world is formed, which can subsequently be accompanied by total anger, fantasies of destruction and vandalism. Lack of trust in early childhood for an adult can turn into a sharp alienation, "withdrawal into himself" when he does not get along with himself or with other people. Thus, a sense of trust in oneself, in others, in the world is the basis of a healthy personality.
Close and safe
It is not surprising that children brought up in orphanages, growing up in the absence of a loved one, experience a great lack of trust. They do not know how to properly build trusting relationships with other people, to be selective and isolated in their feelings. However, the need for trust in such children is very great and remains unsatisfied.
The researchers note that the main conditions for the emergence of trust are the importance and security in relationships with those people with whom a person lives. If at least one of these characteristics is not preserved, then trusting relationships are violated, and this, in turn, greatly deforms the identity of the trustee. Since the children of orphanages find themselves in specific life circumstances, the conditions for the emergence of trust are most often violated, therefore, the attitude of trust in the world is not formed.
Trust in the world: why is it necessary and how to educate? From an infant to a teenager
Who to trust and what to trust
The following qualities, which are also formed at the early stages of a child's development, are selectivity and selectivity of trust. Simply put, understanding who to trust and what to trust.
In the process of upbringing, the child begins to understand that full trust in all the people around him is not safe. This gradually leads to the formation of selectivity and selectivity in relationships. It is clear that in children experiencing a deficit in care, attention, and love — in this case, in the children of the orphanage — the characteristics of trust are either deformed or undeveloped at all.
If we talk about children living in families, then the feeling of distrust can worsen if parents adhere to opposite methods of education or feel insecure in their role. This contributes to the creation of an atmosphere of uncertainty, ambiguity of what is happening, as a result of which there is a feeling of uncertainty, which gradually only increases.
From childhood and for life
So, initially, trust arises in early childhood with the need for security and security. Its appearance is based on the emotional relationship of the child with the mother. In the process of development, the baby learns to trust first close people — family, and growing up — peers, friends. The child has a certain experience of interacting with others. Trusting relationships with the world begin to be reflected in the qualities of a person and influence the general behavior of a person.
In adolescence, an interested and sincere attitude towards a teenager on the part of parents and other close adults is of great importance. As a result, the student has faith in himself as a relatively stable personality quality and the ability to treat people differentially from the point of view of trust.
Of course, as a result of each life situation, a person gets a new experience that can influence the change of his past attitudes for the "better" or "worse" side. However, the value of the basic trust or distrust acquired in childhood remains the leading one.
"As world experience shows, no civilized society can function without a high level of trust," writes Russian researcher T.P. Skripkina. "But trust cannot be invested from anywhere, it cannot be taught, it cannot be ideologically planted, it can only be "grown" in the soul of each individual person."
