The function that we fulfil as parents, especially when the children are still small, is to protect them, guide them and help them as much as possible. However, this parental function has only one real long-term goal: to create free, capable and autonomous adults.
As in music, silences are as important to the final composition as notes can be. Extrapolated to the upbringing, the space that is given to them is as vital as the attention. Both are the factors that will converge in learning. This balance will change according to the stage in which they are.
No one was born knowing how to be a father or mother. It is something that is learned through practice and involves equally intense and complex learning, both for parents and children, is a joint and bidirectional process. A father or a mother develops at the same time as a son or a daughter. We can not forget that, although they have come through us, they are not ours.
When we think we know what is best for them or we avoid mistakes, what we are doing is delaying their learning, extending an error in time, expecting them to commit it when it may cost them more to redeem them, as adults. By doing so, we deprive them of the experience of allowing the evolution of consciousness, which is achieved thanks to living adverse experiences and making mistakes. When we talk about allowing mistakes to happen we do not mean to tolerate playing with sharp objects or touch sockets, it goes further, the idea is that they can repeat the course, suffer disappointments, live interpersonal conflicts with their friends or know the frustration or disappointment , without all this supposing a drama, on the contrary,are your opportunities to grow, we do not have the right to take them away.
The poet Lucian Blaga said that ?? childhood is the heart of all ages? Normally, parents who sin to overprotect their children have something in common; they usually come from family environments where they did not feel safe or protected.
For this reason, they project their helplessness in their children and, sometimes, they often commit the same excess that they lived but in opposite polarity. Overprotecting a child generates the same insecurities as when it lacked protection. They never think that they protect them enough because, deep down, it is in themselves that they feel the helplessness.
Pablo Fernández-Berrocal, Professor of Psychology at the University of Malaga, says in his article that many of the neuroscience research of the last 20 years corroborate that to educate reason it is necessary to educate emotions, we must teach them at the same time, as two complements inseparable. This will turn out to be decisive to face professional and personal life. There are data that indicate that emotional intelligence facilitates school performance, decreases anxiety and improves clarity and understanding of the child.
In the thread of all this, we can ask ourselves things like: what is the use of having a high salary, an expensive car, a mansion, ?? If I do not feel full of everything I have and I do not enjoy anything? Why do I have many things that I have if I am not able to be at peace or with myself? Why have so much if then I am depressed, or have anxiety, or envy other people with whom I constantly compare?
We know that the countries with the most suicides in the world are, not by chance, in many cases also the most “rich” (Denmark, USA?), We should ask ourselves, do I know the path a human being must follow to be happy?? Have I achieved it with myself? That my son follows a different path if he wishes, is it necessarily worse?
The education of emotions is not a luxury; it is a need to face from the beginning stages of the educational system, with a firm purpose: to learn to live and be happy.
The emotional intelligence for the personal balance must be present at the beginning already in the families themselves. We can not delegate this responsibility to schools or institutes, we must take responsibility and put the first stone in our homes, starting with each one of us; so that the children have clear examples where to reflect themselves.
We think that the best inheritance we can leave them is excellent self-love together with respect for themselves and others. The key to happiness lies in allowing yourself to experience the great successes but also knowing how to manage the failures that, sooner or later, you will end up suffering in that dance of opposites that we call life.
The confidence in themselves and the love they have will be the attributes that, someday, will make our children people who will be able to deal with adversities. Doing it in a balanced way will be your best asset before life; and then, whatever they want to be.
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