–How did your career path begin?
- It started out in a quite uncommon manner for a psychologist. I graduated from the Department of Pedagogy for the Deaf of the Faculty of Defectology. The next stage of my life was working in a large children's clinic as a medical psychologist. A few years later, in my doctoral dissertation, I analyzed how parents react to a child's illness and what can be done to help them cope with this stress. The topic of family psychology has since become the main one for me.
- The discussion of the concepts of "children" and "adults" is very acute nowadays, how would you describe these two terms?
- I think they can be slightly modified and considered in the context of "the external" and "the internal". For example, "external" can be attributed to any items of our everyday life - clothes, furniture, food, and the "internal" is a personality, a person's internal position. A child is the most creative, emotional, free unit within a person. An adult always takes a rational position, but not everyone grows an adult within oneself.
- One of the new projects of the Vygotsky Institute of Psychology is a project on animation. Tell us what it is and why it is one of the most promising areas of modern psychology?
– At the moment the Institute is implementing several projects dedicated to the development of a child from early childhood. The implementation of the animation project is also connected with the work of one of the leading Russian animators, Yuri Norshtein. In the course of the study we found that, in fact, animation industry today lacks certain criteria for evaluating a video sequence. It is this direction that we are planning to develop and introduce in the field of studying child development.
- If you are talking about the criteria for animation, then the natural question of age restrictions should be raised.
– The need is justified by child physiology and psychology. A child is born with an immature brain, but, of course, we all have some inclinations that an adult must see and develop. The child must first be given a model, which can then be expanded and developed. We want to define the criteria for cartoons so that parents understand what is harmful and what is useful for viewing for a preschooler or a younger student.
- Rating cartoons "0+", is rather relative, because children start using gadgets from a very young age. How do we educate the parents so that they do not hand the phone to the child as a solution to all problems?
- Yes, parents allow children to use gadgets at an early age, not for learning, but primarily to get the child to leave them alone. There are requirements of the World Health Organization, which state that no such content should be allowed for children under 2.5 years. However, these are only recommendations, and almost no one follows them. The task of educators and psychologists is to point parents in the right direction.
- In the modern world, many are concerned about the issue of the "child-parent" relationship. When, in your opinion, there comes the moment that the parent should sound the alarm and turn to a child psychologist?
It is especially important to engage a child psychologist when the personality of the child is being shaped at the age of 2.5-3 years, so that an experienced specialist from the outside can see what is happening to him and in where that special emphasis should be placed.
– What awaits the Vygotsky Institute of Psychology in the new year, and what advice would you give to young scholars who are just starting their academic journey?
–I advise young scholars to be active and devote enough time to their academic development. They need to learn the fundamentals and do applied research. However, all this is impossible without love for your future profession, so the main wish is to remain interested in what you are doing and reach for the top!
