Yesterday we interview the psychologist Teresa García and we talk a lot with her about secure attachment and how the way to promote it is not always what some professionals advise. In this sense we wanted to continue the interview today, analyzing more specific aspects of parenting such as child sleep, taking the baby in arms or the need to set limits.
Is it good or bad to sleep with a baby for psychic or emotional development?
When I hear good or bad, in my workshops or in the consultation, I activate an alert system. We talk like this waiting for someone to reward our way of acting, or for someone to punish him. I usually use the metaphors of place and direction more.
So I say, sleeping with a baby leads to a more balanced emotional and psychic development, because we eliminate in babies the ancestral fear of dying from a predator.
If we don't sleep with him, we are encouraging his stress levels to grow and his brain development level to be lower. Once we know where each road leads, it is our decision which roads we use, and of course the consequences of reaching that place.
And carry it in your arms when you ask us?
More important than carrying it or not carrying it when you ask, is what we feel when you ask. From the point of view of the child, it is a need for contact with the adult or adult reference. The important thing is not to break that contact. There are times when we can take it, and then that is a suitable contact for young and old. But when you can't for various reasons (weight, another baby, etc.) it is important that both the little person and the older person maintain contact. It would be desirable that the person who cannot carry his son or daughter, be calm and absorb the frustration that will fill the little body of his little
Are criminals, psychopaths or criminals, because of the excess of attention and affection of their parents or on the contrary?
The truth is that statistics deny that myth. But this myth continues to be transmitted continuously. When I hear this, I remember how it was denied that the earth was flat, and many people continued to think about it despite the evidence.
This is similar, criminals, in most cases, the vast majority, lacked the slightest care in their childhoods.
But, what some psychologists tell us is the opposite, that the children served become tyrants, how can that be explained?
Well, I would like to be told by those who explain what they are based on. What kind of statistics have they used to have those conclusions. At least the statistics that I handle do not go in that direction. Although they usually talk about "spoiled" children or children who have not been set limits. And in a way it's true, and that's why it creeps so much.
In other words, the child needs to grow up certain clear and safe limits.
Now, imposing a limit is different from showing a limit. Imposing it implies power, showing it indicates protection, it is different. For example in our streets, children learn the limits to cross the street, but we do not impose them, we explain them for their safety. While eating a certain meal, by imposition, although the food is very healthy, it generates a power relationship, with everything that entails in terms of conflicts.
Really “if you are very good with the child, if you do not punish him, he will become a tyrant. Will it even hit you?
When someone says that, my recommendation is to ask, what are they based on to say that. What statistics they have handled, how many cases they know, etc.
But here you find something very interesting, your beliefs make up your experience. That means that if they convince you that being good makes your son a tyrant, that is what you will perceive, even if the reality is different.
I will tell you an example, I know the case of a mother who left her children alone every day, to go to work. The children arrived from school, prepared the snack and ordered something at home, did their homework. At night the mother arrived and rode in anger for what remained to be done, without observing what was done. When some son dared to tell what was done, the mother said in an ironic tone: “And what do you want, what do you thank? Oh, Santito, where do I put you? It was no use for the child to cry bitterly. Today these children are adults, and the mother says that she has been too good with the children, and that is why they do not know how to appreciate life. The belief that he was being a good mother has the ability in his eyes to "dye" reality. And where the children lived a deep oppression, she lived that she was being too good.
Under the fear of being too good, many behaviors are covered that would be described as ill-treatment if they took place with an adult, but which are qualified as education when a child is the recipient of such behavior.
We thank the psychologist Teresa García this interview she has given to Babies and more; We hope it has been as clear and revealing as it is to us.
