Parents are responsible for extreme situations involving their child.

Backstory of the webinar topic

A question appeared in the Women’s Program reports:

“I was tested on judging other people. A situation arose where I’m not just participating in judging others, but I’m actually initiating it myself. I remember what Sveta taught us, but I can’t do anything about it.

The situation is this – my son went on a bus trip with his class, teacher, and several parents to Kazan (that’s 350km from our city). On the way there, a classmate poured boiling water on him from a thermos. The burn is severe, not just redness and blisters, but the skin peeled off, down to the flesh. The wounds are open and oozing.

The children (my son and his classmate) didn’t immediately tell the adults what happened. My son stayed silent and endured it, his classmate also stayed silent. As a result, my son sat for a long time in clothes that should have been immediately removed from the burned area. Later, when he did take off the clothes, he pressed these open wounds against the bus window to cool them down a bit. He could easily have gotten an infection.

The first person to see everything was the father of one of the girls, sitting across from him. He gave my child a painkiller and informed the teacher. The teacher didn’t tell me anything. Not at the moment she found out about the incident, not later upon arrival. And she didn’t even call afterward to ask how the child was doing.

They didn’t help the child right away because ‘they didn’t have anything for burns with them.’ First they drove to Kazan, then went on one excursion, only then did they go to a pharmacy, buy burn cream, apply it to the child’s arm, and bandage it. And before that, he was pulling a wet hoodie back over this open wound, then taking it off again. In short, it was awful. Only an hour and a half after they found out what happened did the child receive first aid.

The mother of the boy who accidentally poured water on my son was on the same bus. That evening, after the trip, when I was meeting my son at the bus, we walked home together. She didn’t say a single word to me either. What’s more, she never once approached my child during the trip, didn’t ask how bad the burn was, didn’t look at it, and didn’t ask how he was feeling.

My child is alive, that’s the main thing.
But I can’t stop myself – I’m judging the teacher, the parents…

I don’t understand how it happened that my child, who was surrounded by people I know well (I had a good relationship with the teacher, and with many of the parents, including this mother), suddenly became helpless?!!!

How can I not judge them now? If I just silently swallow this situation, it means people can do whatever they want to me and my child, and we’ll just endure it and stay quiet.

Thanks to the course, I stopped feeling my own helplessness and worthlessness. I know I can handle anything, that if I need it, the World will support me.

But right now, I’m experiencing that same sharp feeling of helplessness regarding my child. It turns out that when I’m not around, he is completely defenseless. Even when there are many people nearby, including adults, including adults I know well and he knows well. How did this happen???
What is this situation for me??!

And how do I digest it? How do I continue interacting with these people? How do I trust people again? How do I rely on them? How do I not feel fear for my child when he’s not with me? All these feelings have flared up again.”

Girls, Sveta, Alyona, I would be very grateful if you could share your opinion on this matter.»

I asked Svetlana Dobrovolskaya to hold an additional webinar about parental responsibility for situations that arise in the lives of minor children.

Listen to the webinar recording:

See also Why it is important to build trusting relationships with a teenage child

Share in the comments what useful things you heard for yourself!
Based on the original Russian article from Keys of Mastery (kluchimasterstva.ru), published since 2010.