Often we cannot say “no” to our children for fear of injuring them, of appearing little available or because we are afraid of the conflict. Yet the “no” are indispensable for the growth of the child
One afternoon I was walking in a park and went close to some children who were training rugby playing together with an instructor. A child, about 8 years old, refuses to try to pull the oval ball, then suddenly bursts into tears, leaves the group and reaches the mother on the sidelines. “Matteo! But why don’t you try to pull?”. “I’m not capable of it! They are all better than me …!”. “But what do you say? They are learning too, it’s the first lesson, you wanted to come. Why do you always do this, every time?”. Screams, despair. Then Matteo between tears exclaims: “… but mom, please, I don’t play but I would like a rugby ball so much … do you buy it?”. I listened to that mom, between the incredulous and the innervo, trying to oppose the request of the son by trying to argue a refusal in the most disparate ways, and the thing that struck me is that she was unable to pronounce a clear: “No. I don’t buy the ball”.
I have reflected a lot on the difficulty we have in general, but above all as parents, to say no to our children and I believe that the reasons are many, certainly of a personal nature, even if some transformations of historical, sociological and cultural nature have influenced what we are still living.
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From authoritarian education to son’s supremacy
First we find ourselves dealing with the idea that the family context must be that of emotional harmony, well -being, happiness, that parents and children must be perfect. This is a relatively recent idea, developed in the twentieth century, which was born after centuries of family relationships characterized by a more contractual perspective: the children were born to ensure descendant or guarantee economic sustenance. The relationships were basically regulated by a paternal approach of the authoritarian mold: the father commanded, punished, indisputably established the yes and no. This does not mean that there was a particular educational attention: the children more than anything else grew harassing and forced into no stages that generated guilt or fear.
Once the authoritarian era is over, the perspective has instead become the most maternal one: concentrated on the care, the care, the son placed in the center. The attention to safeguard all aspects of growth becomes predominant to the point that a sort of supremacy of the child on the parent is realized, which abdicates their educational role for fear of hurting, procure some damage to development, but also above all for fear of the conflict.
The difficulty of saying “no”
Moms and dad often fear that the no compromises the relationship with the children. But in reality that anxiety and guilt that we feel at the fear of compromising such a fundamental bond through a no, derive from one infantile matrix which influences and often tyrannize our conflictual competence. The mother who is unable to send her 6 -year -old daughter to school because she says that she is sick and that her companions or teacher would tell her terrible things, the father who cannot stop the 12 -year -old son who continues to use her smartphone even at the table, appeal to a personal difficulty in holding their position of adults who direct, reassure, regulate, influence, attributing to these actions an effect on their son. These childish matrices prevent parents from taking care of their children and force them to continue to deal with themselves, their childhood experiences in an attempt to redeem them and reclaim them.
We are often afraid of conflicting with our children. We certainly struggle to face the complaints, the exhausting requests, the whims, the tensions, the screams, but, beyond this, what adults seem to be struggling to manage more than everything today is the loneliness which derives from saying no. Conflicting relationships imply an element of separation, otherness and distance, an inevitable consequence of the end of the illusion that it is possible to achieve a non -conflicting fusional unit. On the one hand to say no, he brings us out of a sort of alienating dynamic with which we tend to close ourselves to the deep needs of our children, not to listen to them and preserve the balance of the relationship without however putting us involved. Saying no means then getting in touch, recognizing that in addition to us there is also the other. But the no is also conflicting: it supports the relationship and accepts its complications, not renouncing you even in the event of contrast.
These are the no that are needed: of mothers and fathers who keep the relationship with children open without suffering it. This is not the arbitrary, impromptu, reactive: they are born from a clear educational project, and shared as much as possible among the parents, and have the aim of pursuing it. These are the no that allow us to give our son, our daughter, a precise information: “No, it is not the time …”, “No, this cannot do it …”, but at the same time to maintain the relationship, to remain in a perspective of opening and listening. The no has a regulatory and address function that integrates well with the emotional and bonding component with the children. Conflict, quarrels, allow us to notice that the game is working and that we parents are in the right place.
The “no” in the different phases of life
The no that serve the growth of our children often do not coincide with the no we like as parents. They are different depending on the age of development and respond to precise growth and identification needs.
- In early childhood the no is that of prohibition. The boy or girl begins to explore the world and meets dangers or activates behaviors that must be educated, such as the famous “bitters” of nursery schools that unfortunately wise the cheeks of others with their sharp teeth. These do not, called clearly, immediate and reassuringly, help children build a basic signs in their movement in space. They are simple, without complications, and do not require numerous as unnecessary explanations mostly incomprehensible to children.
- Between the first and second childhood the no are those of limit. It is an age in which the centering on the child’s self evolves in the relationship between the relationships between the peers and the relationship with reality even school. In this phase the no argin and give measure to the energies and the feeling of omnipotence on the world. They are not that they produce frustration, but in this sense fundamental to help children grasp the limits of their possibilities and activate new resources and skills. Learning to manage the frustration that arises from the encounter with the other is a fundamental and protective ability for the future.
- In the second childhood and pre -adolescence the no is that of rule: allows you to deliver the compass to the boys to orient themselves in the world. It is a more complex no than others, which focuses towards autonomy. Some erroneously still think that the rules are limits to personal freedom, and instead every time we give a rule we create a separation space and define areas of possible exercise of freedom, allowing the development of autonomy.
- In adolescence, on the other hand, the no is that of resistence. It is a no that you need children to help them discover and carry on their life project. It is a matter of putting filters, constraints, on the one hand because the push towards autonomy does not turn on to escape from yourself, on the other to help them notice what is really doing. It is a difficult no because it often manifests itself through conflict and requires courage and ability to question and question themselves to really listen to our children. There may no longer be “no” imposed or dropped from above but a negotiation is needed and the ability to let go.
Each is linked to its own mechanisms, especially if complex and harmful: it draws the fictitious advantages of which it often does not even notice and of which it struggles to free itself. How many times do we have the certainty that we are wrong and yet we can’t do differently? There is a time when the advantages end up being such and become obstacles to relationships with our children.
If every time then that we say no, that we use a conflictual no, we allow children and young people to seek, to discover, to use their resources, the same happens for us: to use a difficult no allows them as to us to activate firsthand, to put our own, to unhinge mechanisms and dynamics not very functional to their education and our evolution.
The fears of the parents
- We can be afraid of suffer Our children, confusing suffering and frustration, perhaps forgetting that more than our refusal in the face of a continuous or impossible request, what can really hurt them is the feeling and the disorientation of realizing that everything they want or ask is on the same level, indifferent: “Okay, I buy you that dress, even if perhaps it is not suitable for your age …”. As a parent I do not listen to my deep needs if I tend to indifferently satisfy all those you say they have. Or risk, with my attitude of condescension, to feed illusions of omnipotence that in development can become really problematic: “You want to go on vacation in Greece because your friend of the heart goes there and otherwise you don’t have fun? Come on, let’s organize ourselves … we thought about something closer but …”.
- Sometimes you say no because you don’t want to appear not very available. “I am a good father, even if I come back late, tired dead, I always tell the same fairy tale to my son until the infinite until he falls asleep …”. I wonder: is it necessary to grow well? Or maybe it would be more necessary to learn to fall asleep alone? Unfortunately, this behavior is often born from the false idea that with children you must always be available: we tend to convince ourselves that children need all our time, while a measure for availability, which changes with the different stages of life and that allows children to do their part.
- Then there is the fear of giving an experience of separation: “Yes, that’s okay, if you feel more quiet so we do as you say …”. Especially when the bond is strongly maternal (let’s not forget that at the origin the mother-child relationship is necessarily symbiotic) it may happen that it is difficult to separate, even symbolically with a no, which however involves a change of position, a detachment. The no determines a space between us and our children that we cannot control and know. A separation that is synonymous with autonomy. Without separation, without the distance that derives from an educational decision, our children cannot grow up and become great. The no is a good contribution to this project!
