When a child is born, many parents feel they recommend not to keep him too much in his arms, do not sleep close to him, do not run to the minimum signal of call. But are we sure that listening to the needs of children means to spoil them?
Here it is, he was born! You imagined it for months and now you hold it in your arms. The days and nights are no longer the same, everything changes and doubts come soon. In a short time The neogenrators are catapulted into a world made of joys, but also of unsolicited advice and prejudices related to the care of the care of children. For example, in our culture we tend to think that children “good and independent” are those who detach themselves as soon as possible from the breasts and arms of their mother, and that already a few months of life learn to fall asleep alone to sleep all night spinned. In reality, if we go to consult the existing studies on the physiology of the first months of life we can easily notice how the indispensable needs of children are linked to the search for physical contact with those who take care of them, night and day. These are the “proximal” care, that is, those that provide for proximity, that is, the proximity between adults and children.
Biological and cultural norm
In our country, cultural and biological norms do not always coincide and there are many prejudices related to the care of infants. When a child is born, many parents feel they recommend not to spoil him and the most common behaviors to which he refers are for example: keeping him too much in his arms, sleeping close to him, running to the minimum sign of the child’s call, bringing him to the band as well as in the stroller, breastfeeding him on request, breastfeeding over the first months or even years (think of the term “weaning” that literally means removing the habit, that is, the vice). There are also those who suggest to make him cry a little like that will take out his resources, or to use methods to make him sleep alone as an adult. These methods are devoid of scientific and potentially dangerous foundation.
Therefore, where is the real risk of such behaviors? The army of councilors who inevitably materializes around the neogens, provides these indications in the name of good education, the alleged conquest of the child’s autonomy through the frustration and the right to freedom of adults, otherwise commonly considered as slaves of a small tyrant that disturbs and will make bad figures. The fact is that these advice are affected by cultural prejudices that find no feedback in the physiology of the human being.
Cultural universals lead to contact
There is only one mother, yes, but you can also reformulate this statement: so many mothers feel “sun” because that deep relationship that begins with pregnancy, which culminates in childbirth, and which then continues after the birth of her creature, must deal with the cultural norms to which they belong. Mothers who prefer to go against the current often feel “wrong”judged from the outside for their choices. In fact, in western culture the early detachment between young and old considering those who “give up” to the physical contact protracted beyond the first months is enhanced. It escapes that there are “normal” children, in the sense of biological norm, that is, the normality of all the children in the world, regardless of the color of their skin, their nationality or the culture of the country where they were born. The cultural universals, in fact, are those human behaviors present in every culture of the world and the need for contact of children is among them.
Respect the needs of children
When our children feel in danger and prevails in them the biological alert system, or the need for security, contact and protection, have urgent needs that someone restores the normality taking care of them. Also on the crying of children there is to be reflected since for them this is always one last choice and, therefore, to be taken into appropriate consideration every time it presents itself. Furthermore, their sleep is not the same as that of adults and awakenings are physiological at least up to three years of life. The needs of the children, therefore, are always the same, everywhere: need for physical contact, of being cared for, of being fed also emotionally, to trust their sensations and the ability to communicate them by receiving adequate response.
In our culture, the possibility that the child is competent so much in feeling that in communicating his needs is underestimated. It seems that children are “tabule rase” on which parents must write rules and educational principles from outside.
It is not correct to say that the children raised by respecting their need for contact have no rules or that they are therefore spoiled and rude. To grow, rules and limits are as important as the hugs. Giving value to contact and emotional education means giving a name to the feelings and all the emotions of big and small with equal dignity and respect, even if, of course, with different roles.
Ideologies, adhesion to “care packages” or emotional turning point?
Many parents find themselves in difficulty in deciding what to do with their own little ones, because they receive discordant advice and indications. In fact, even health professionals do not always agree on the methods of care to be advised to parents and this plurality of suggestions causes the frequent search for information on the Internet. And we know well how everything can be found on the net and how this is potentially misleading and riskless.
Many parents adhere to care models considering them a sort of “care package” to be adopted with the expectation of obtaining results according to a relationship of cause and effect. For example: if I breastfeed my son, I will sleep close to him and take him to the band, I will certainly get a safe child. I believe that it is necessary to clarify with force that as well as there are no valid methods for everyone on detachment, contact based on contact as a model in its own right cannot be considered: there is no manual of instruction for our men’s puppies and I think it is good, because The solution can only be found in the relationship that we establish with them, without making ourselves conditioned by cultural prejudices; A family equal to another cannot exist, and preserve the uniqueness of relationships and individuals leads to multiple and different choices; It is therefore not a question of adhering to ideologies thinking that they are the best, but of dealing with their experiences of parents and with our being children, with their expectations and resources at an individual level, of couple and the community to which we belong.
Look to the past with today’s knowledge
Until a few decades ago affective education was considered as something superfluous, but today fortunately we witness a revolution of affections that takes into account the physiology and biological rule of human beings. Many mothers, for example, are worried that breeding children in close contact means finding themselves in difficulty when returning to work. In reality, the children are also competent in recognizing the diversity of people and situations in which they will find themselves during the absence of the parents, and in most cases they will adapt to the news, claiming the mother upon her return as it is normal for it to be. It is not even necessary to deny the past times in which our parents did what they believed was better for us, even if in fact the suggestions were many different from those that are given today. The meeting between different generations, or between grandparents, parents and grandchildren, often leads to intense conflicts that put a strain on relationships with the families of origin. In fact, many grandparents think that today’s parents are too much in contact with their children; Perhaps it may be useful to remember that for them too it could have been difficult to follow the advice of the moment and that it is now almost impossible to accept a different example, because it would mean questioning past choices. With patience and self -confidence, putting clear boundaries and perhaps asking for confirmations from the pediatrician by bringing behind the grandparents, parents will be able to try to build mutual freedom that will do good to children and families.
Independence arises from contact
It is also necessary to deal with the fact that in those years the advertising and the economic boom questioned the emotional values that underlie a care based on contact. Today’s grandparents are affected by a historical period in which no more than three months was breastfeed because it was thought that the milk became water and can therefore struggle to believe that science made great strides as it actually happened. For this reason I think it is necessary to reassure grandparents, dads and mothers who could feel alone and wrong only because they do not adhere to cultural norms. The detachment and independence arise from the contact, from the security of being welcomed and listened to in the moment of need, and by the trust in those who take care of us, not the other way around. As long as mothers are judged for their choices only for ideological reasons and not because they enhance affectivity, in our society we will not take the great opportunity that every child born brings with them: that of giving value to an education of the affections that accepts contact as the right and biological normality of the human being.
