Theorists have always studied the complex theme of the parenting. Donald Winnicott in the 1960s claimed that when partners decide to become parents they do it almost “for fun” and only later do they realize how much being parents is a much more difficult job.
The same author argued that to promote a safe attachmentthat is, that space in which the child feels protected but also free to explore the environment and to grow, the mother had to be “good”.
Although almost 60 years have passed, this concept is an evergreen: more and more in our era we would need to remind us that To be good parents we must not be “perfect” but only “good enough” sufficiently.
The anxiety of being inadequate and the fear of not having the right tools to grow our children are typical phenomena among parents, who more and more try to adapt to very high standards of parental perfection.
Perfect and not perfect parents
If as Winnicott said (and others after him) to promote the development of the child it is necessary to be only “sufficiently” adequate, it goes without saying that chasing the perfect parent model is also potentially harmful. It prevents the child from seeing that we adults are sometimes unable, we have limits and imperfections and that this makes us human.
The alternative is to continue to promote an idea of human being without defects and to maintain intolerance and impatience to errors.
But how do I understand if what I’m doing is right? How do I understand if I’m exaggerating or if I am underestimating a problem?
These and other questions are born spontaneously in the head of every parent, even several times a day and this is completely normal.
“I will be your shield” vs “I’ll be by your side”
We have become increasingly intolerant to the emotions we feel and manage to manage them with great difficulty. So what can happen when our child suffers?
We try in every way to prevent this from happening and when we do not succeed we try to do everything because it stops suffering.
“I don’t want you to suffer”; “I will do everything for you”; “I will shield you”; “I will protect you from your fears.” This is often an internal dialogue present in the mind of the parents who automatically try to “avoid” that their child suffers.
Literature teaches us that protecting a child from situations, acting as a shield, acting in its place, does nothing but promote the emotional and cognitive avoidance of the situations that put the son in difficulty.
Stay next to the baby
To help someone so you don’t have to be in front of him but be by his side And this is the difference between overprotection And support.
Prevent children from exposing themselves to difficult situations only promote what is called “adaptation to the disease”: the family system is imposed on the basis of the difficulty/illness of the child, stiffening dynamics that will not improve symptoms.
To manage these or other parenting aspects it is possible that sometimes we need help, especially if we see our children suffer or if their behaviors are incomprehensible for us.
The “Parent training“It was born as a psychotherapeutic intervention to help and support the complex world of parenting.
Parent Training: from training to involvement in therapeutic work
Parent training is a psychological intervention aimed at parents in difficulty and has been widespread for over 50 years.
In 1989, a “Handobook of Parent Training” was published in which the reviews of the most popular and studied clinical support for parenting support interventions are contained.
The programs of “parental training“(So we could translate the name of this tool to the letter) They were conceived with the idea of teaching parents how to behave in situations of child’s difficulty.
More recently, the idea of using parents as active agents of the therapeutic path of their children has opened. In fact, it was widely documented that when a child or a teenager develops a problem that lasts over time and that compromises his daily well -being, if the parents are helped to understand some aspects and, as we said before, to stay by their side, the problematic behaviors have a much faster and lasting resolution.
Compared to the first training models, parents are increasingly considered therefore, have become co-therapist of the problems of their children over the years.
Classic parent training structure
There are many parent training approaches, perhaps the best known are behavioral or cognitive-behavioral. Each program develops with respect to the peculiar and symptomatological aspects of the clinical paintings of the evolutionary age.
In cognitive-behavioral perspective, the most current parent training models therefore involve the parent actively in the therapeutic process.
We can identify some cardinal aspects, present in all or almost all protocols, which constitute the nucleus of each intervention.
The fundamental steps
First of all the “problem behaviors“That is, those aspects of the child/boy who are difficult to manage family management or who are dysfunctional for his well -being.
Each clinical picture has behaviors that could become the target of the intervention but one must never underestimate the individuality aspect of the individual situation.
If my son is distracted and does not always do his homework but I don’t care to me and the school closes an eye because “it is equipped and learned so much”, the problem does not exist (at least until the system remains unchanged).
Subsequently the work focuses mainly on the understanding of these 3 aspects:
- What is the function who has that behavior for that child
- What Do not In order not to worsen things
- What to do to help him
New Parent Training developments: mentalization, mindfulness and acceptance
Psychotherapeutic treatments are in constant evolution. The analysis of the experience of parent training in standard cognitive-behavioral therapy emerged that the emotional state and attitude of the parent forward to the behavior of the children also depended on the mental state of the parent himself and, not least, on the marital relationship (understood as a factor in support of family well-being).
In parent training, the need to work on the ability of “mentalization“Of the parents.
We could simplify the definition of “mentalization” with a view to parent training saying that a parent is able to “mentalize” if he has the opportunity to understand the mind of his son and to get ideas about his internal states (what do you think? What do you think? What does he feel? What does he feel? How is it for him when I do/I say so?).
The “Parent Parent” was therefore integrated into the interventions that it is therefore possible to help the child but also to contextualize the parent’s response on the basis of how he works himself and how it works in the parental couple.
Mindfulness and awareness
Already 20 years ago John Kabat-Zinn, father of Mindfulness, told us the importance for the parent of being a “conscious parent“That is, to be able to pay non -judgmental attention and not reactive to the behavior of the child in order to tune in to his needs.
On the basis of this and other assumptions, parent training interventions have been structured Mindfulness or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (Act) which therefore include the “Pattern Parent“And try to promote the attention of the parent also on their automatic pilots and on their own emotional self -regulation.
Bibliography
- Bögels S., Lehtonen A., Restifo K. (2010). Mindful Parenting in Mental Health Care. Mindfulness, 1 (2): 107-120.
- Buonanno P. and Muratori P. (2022). Parent training models.
- Pezzica S. and Bigozzi l: (2015). A Cognitive and Metallizing Cognitive Parent Training for children with ADHD. Clinical development psychology, August, 19, 271-296.
- JM Briesmeister (2007). Handbook of Parent Training – Helping Parents Prevent and Solve Problem Behavors. John Wiley & Sons Inc.
- Kabat-Zinn M., Kabat-Zinn J. (1997). Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting. New York: Hyperion.
- Lombardi L., Grossi G., Isola L., Iuliano E., Mercuriu M., Patrizi C., Romano G. Semerarro V. and Buonanno C. (2020). Predictive Drop-out factors: acceptability and commitment in parent training. Cognitive psychotherapy notebooks, 46, 87 – 109.
