The children do not find out; children adapt to everything; or a kiss in time doesn’t hurt, they make up a list of erroneous beliefs inherited from the past, quite widespread and without any scientific evidence that can mark, in a bad way, the relationship between parents and children.
Illustration by Beatriz Cazurro for her book The children we were, the parents we are
For the psychologist and therapist Beatriz Cazurro it is “urgent” to discard these erroneous beliefs and give space to new ones to strengthen the relationship between parents and children.
In an interview with EFEsalut and on the occasion of the publication of her new book “The children we were, the parents we are” (Editorial Planeta), Beatriz Cazurro uncovers and deepens some of these erroneous beliefs about the relationship between parents and children :
Children adapt to everything
For the psychologist, recognizing children’s ability to adapt would be wonderful if it were simply a recognition of their resilience, their plasticity… but the reality is that most of the time the phrase reflects an excuse “to not put the focus on the ‘environment” to which they are adapting and to modify it if it is unfavorable”.
Children have no problems
According to Beatriz Cazurro, the fact that part of children’s language is play “doesn’t mean that their life is simple”.
He maintains that we need to understand as adults “that dealing with life, for a child, requires more skills than he has, and this is highly stressful” and therefore he will need to have the security he has with his parents.
These are children’s things
For the therapist, the fact that certain behaviors are normal in childhood does not relieve parents of their responsibility to take care of what is necessary, either by monitoring, by means of or by setting limits to the conflict.
A cheek in time doesn’t hurt
This erroneous belief does not warn that, after all, cachete “is a form of violence that does not only cause physical harm”.
The cachete, explains the author of the book, “activates our nervous system so that from this punishment it will be pending, continuously, to protect us from another possible harm”.
The child’s mind may draw the conclusion that if they hit me once, they can hit me more, which leads to a harmful effect.
In his new work he addresses and analyzes our childhood experiences, and how they influence the type of parents we become and how we educate our children.
And above all explore the “damage” that some myths or erroneous beliefs do, some of which we have already mentioned, but many others can be added such as: children have no problemsbecause the author refers to “we tend to idealize his life”.
O don’t hold it in your arms, it’s a bad habitand what it causes is that “it does not bring anything positive to the link with them”.
Parents and children, a mutual impact
According to the psychologist, neuroscience has shown “the immense impact that adults have on children, but few adults are aware of the impact that our adults had on our childhood”.
For this reason, he invites parents to travel back to their childhood to free themselves from false guilt and limiting beliefs that hinder their work as parents and more if you consider that “the adults are mirrors for children”.
So, guilt, self-esteem, violence, blackmail and overprotection are some of the topics covered in this work where he gives us some ideas to reflect on:
- “Perfect parents don’t exist.”
- “Getting closer to our childhood does not mean betraying our parents.”
- “We can be grateful for what we had and, at the same time, recognize what our parents could not or did not know how to give us.”
- “The relationship with our reference figures will determine, in the first years of our lives, the confidence we have in ourselves and in others.”
- “Children are people, they feel, they desire, they suffer… We need to give them the importance they have and listen to them with empathy”.
- “Don’t cry, don’t be angry, nothing’s wrong… these are phrases that don’t help with emotional education.”
- “We live in a patriarchal society where the roles of men and women are different (…) the stereotype of a good mother is a form of oppression from which we must be freed”.