How do you behave when the child disputes the protection measures, does not respect the rules and rebel?
It often happens that the protection measures, adopted by the parents to prevent possible accidents of the child, are poorly endured by our children, who react negatively by opposing their use.
The child rebels
A very common case is that of the seat and the safety belt by car. In the face of those few little angels who make hours of sleep rhymes in the car, many other children do not like the car and, above all, do not like to be tied to the seat. Screams that reach unthinkable decibels, kicks, desperate tears, attempts to melt, and the journey in the car becomes an distressing experience for the whole family.
Let’s make another example. In the kitchen there are many dangerous tools for the safety of the child And that’s why the closing systems of doors and drawers are carefully prepared so that they are outside its reach. The baby, however, would like to touch and take everything, and not to be able to achieve his objects of desire innervates him to the point of unleashing crisis of anger and aggression, perhaps kicking the drawer, the dad, and trimming a bite of the ignored little brother who passes by there by chance
What do these episodes teach us?
The first important thing that each parent should remember is that Never, for no reason, it is legitimate to endanger the child by violating the safety rules. This is even when our child’s oppositional reaction is strong, even when the crying may seem unusable. Each child has the right to be protected, and it is the responsibility of the parent to do it even when it is difficult and tiring, they did not escape us.
Having said that, it would be interesting to ask: “Why does the child rebel?”. In the situations that we have probably told, he will have had his good reasons to do it. In the case of the car, especially if we are talking about a small or newborn child, feeling tied up, forced into a seat, suffering the car sickness and wanting the arms of mom and dad, could all be motivations behind the expressed discomfort. The parent will then have to try to respond to the legitimate needs of his child, without however putting him at risk even for a moment. In practice this translates into stopping the car when you are in difficulty (at the cost of lengthening travel times), and that point take it in the arms, breastfeed, console it. If you are two, a passenger can sit behind, next to the child, to try to calm him down and/or entertain him. A thousand different strategies such as music, books, games (avoiding the use of digital devices) can be useful for a peaceful journeytaking into account that the response varies from child to child and that we do not have a univocal solution if not that, good for the health of young and old, of having a lot of patience, reduce as much as possible to move in the car and take long walks.
In the second example, in the kitchen, the exploratory instinct of the child, the curiosity and the desire to imitate what the great do using the “their tools”, clashes with the need for security. The temptation to give in to the request to make the child happy and thus appeal to his anger. This, however, in addition to putting the child at risk, would also mean communicating that that behavior, which we have forbidden, is not really dangerous: “That object can now be touched, the” no “that we told you was not a real” no “”. In short, what a confusion!
Satisfy curiosity and lower frustration
Let’s clarify: the protection measures cannot be questioned, the rules must be clear and carried out with educational firmness and consistent behaviors. However, we can organize our home and family activities so that obligations and prohibitions, for a child, are not excessive and do not hinder its path of growth and autonomy. In our case, preparing real but non -dangerous but not hazardous cooking objects, that is, adequate to age, interest and ability to use the child and with which the child can play freely, he would have satisfied his natural curiosity and lowered his frustration, allowing him to accept more serenely the existence of other things prohibited to him (see the box).
Giving children the right spaces and times to do all those healthy and fundamental things for growth, such as running, climbing, experimenting with different materials and much more, it will help us make the protection measures respect more serenity. In a joke we could say that a child who has never been able to climb a tree sooner or later will try the climb of the home library, with all the consequences of the case.
So, rather than saying: “Don’t run!”, Let’s say to our child: “As soon as we get to the park you can run strong and free without stopping, until you are breathless, but while we cross the road we walk slowly and give me a hand”.
From passive to active protection
As our child grows, we can help him understand the reason for certain security measures making him the protagonist and responsible for his own activities:
- From the first years of life, make him “do it alone” as much as possiblein all daily activities: experimenting to dress, washing, eating and walking independently, albeit following the parental indications, will help him become aware of himself and his body, the things of the world, space, and therefore also of danger.
- Entrust him (gradually) of Small assignments As a “custodian” of security, both at home and at school.
- Let us remember that a correct safety rule should never be negotiated With the child, and the game must be stopped without too many discussions if it does not take place correctly, bringing the child back to the consequences of his actions (if you don’t put the helmet you cannot use the bike because you risk getting hurt).
- Let us remember that The most powerful protection measure we can use is the example. The child will get more and more attention to what we do rather than what we say. We first observe the safety rules, even when we are annoying, and we show our children “how to do it”.
