parents | MY SPECIAL DOCTOR

A friend more than a parent

We are increasingly faced with parents who have as their goal, or as their worry when they fail to do so, to please their children. Where “making happy,” which is, moreover, legitimate and desirable in many situations, and which is limited to the “here and now,” seems to become the only element of guidance and discrimination for an increasingly evanescent parental function. All in a general climate that fuels the illusion of the possibility of blurring if not nullifying role and age differences.
An amicable relationship is basically characterized by an equal status: one is on the same plane and at the same level. Hypothetically, there are no differences, and this (again hypothetically) could ensure that there are no conflicts.

The parent-child relationship, on the other hand, is based from its origin on the difference: between a “big one” and a “small one,” between those who have knowledge and skills, take responsibility, and act on their examination of present and future reality, and those who need to be helped to orient themselves, to learn, to acquire the tools, to be contained and accompanied to contact a sometimes difficult reality.

Behind the desire and sometimes the proud claim of “be like two friends” hide many elements: the fear of assuming a normative function, the insecurity of one’s adult role, the desire to erase all conflict and the inability to govern it, but also the “emptiness” of all those parental functions a child needs and is somehow deprived of.
“Being like two friends” therefore is not one more opportunity but one less, it robs the “little one” of the opportunity to form, to clash and to look for his own friends!

Of course it is a new experience … never happened before … exceptional … unexpected but …

On closer inspection it is all these things (new, outstanding, unexpected, etc.) only for us men and women who, thanks to a set of unhoped-for and undeserved fortunes, we have lived in this part of the world 75 years of living away from wars, famines, epidemics, etc., from all those events that is, which have always punctuated human history.

There is a lot of talk about the opportunities that are hidden behind the drastic and sometimes traumatic reorganization of our lifestyle that the moment demands: silence, calm, being with family, time–all newfound riches.

It also makes me think about which track this period. will leave in the memory of our children and how it can contribute to making us of better educators and of them stronger adults.

The virus is teaching us what the fables and myths have always known, that the world is full of pitfalls and dangers and that it is not possible to think of it without these “shadow” aspects. It is in this world made up of chiaroscuro that our little ones must learn to enter carefully and with confidence, with caution but also with the enthusiasm of discovery and news. And it is our job to equip them, not to pave the way for them but to give them the boots, the spikes, the muscle training to cope (which means etymologically to cope, not necessarily to overcome or delete) the roughness.

Children therefore do not must be kept in the dark, they must participate in the climate of attention Collective. This means making explicit and sayable what circulates in the air, what they pick up not only from the increasingly shouted television news and new rules of living, but also by our states of mind. Ultimately analysis we must always remember that we adults represent points for them exclusive reference points and that their way of orienting themselves in the world, of classify as positive or negative an experience goes through us and our way, even unconsciously, of reacting. A child may come into contact with a variety of difficulties (illness, death, fear) to the extent of to which the accompanying adult hand is firm and consistent, capable of contacting reality and to cope with it (even declaring one’s ignorance, helplessness, concern and enacting adaptive or escape behaviors). Then attention to children means attention also and primarily to us and to our unconscious reactions.

This is therefore an invitation to get in touch with us ourselves, with our anxieties and fears, and also to learn to accept them and to contain them not only by fantasizing a total solution of the problem, an erasure of it as by a miracle, but tolerating vagueness, lack of control, state of uncertainty….

If we ourselves are able to go through everything this, bathing ourselves in the flow of fear without being overwhelmed by it, we will allow our children to learn one very important thing: that it is possible to go through even harsh experiences as if it were a great and exciting adventure.

Who knows how many of today’s children struggling with the limits dictated by the corona virus will remember as adults these days as a great epic moment when, protected by the presence of mom and dad, they experienced special and unforgettable experiences.