To introduce you to the theme of the post I will explain a story that could have been explained this Christmas:
- Ivette is 6 years old, a week ago she arrived at her new school and has been told that she will perform in the play of the Christmas party playing Maria. She is very happy but at the same time she feels nervous because she knows that her parents and her new classmates will be watching her. As he does not want to disappoint them, he has asked the teacher to help him do very well as a pastor. Marcos is 6 years old and goes to the same class as Ivette. He will also act in the role of José and has also asked the teacher to help him. The teacher has decided that it will help Marcos but not Ivette. In the week he has been working with her he has realized that he is very dependent. Ask for help and advice for everything and the teacher has thought that in this way she will find the best way to make Mary and thus be more able to make decisions for herself. In successive days the teacher helps Marcos with the disguise, the phrases he must say and rehearse the work together. Sometimes the same teacher plays José so Marcos can see how he can act to make it seem more real. Marcos consults the doubts he has and as the days go by and he internalizes everything he has learned, he requests less and less support from the teacher. Ivette instead has to rehearse the work alone, the teacher has told him to try hard, to do it as he considers best and that he will surely do it very well. He knows the phrases but does not know very well how to say them or when. She is very nervous because she rehearses a lot, but she has doubts about whether she will be doing well. Every day he tries to convince the teacher to help him, but it continues with the strategy of doing that she solves doubts by herself to help her be more autonomous. The day of the play arrives and Marcos is nervous but feels safe while Ivette is very nervous and insecure and desperately tries to help the teacher a little because she doesn't want to look bad with her classmates or her parents in her first week. The teacher explains some guidelines, but without wanting to interfere with the role she has created, trusting that she will have worked hard and will play a good role. At the time of representing the work Marcos acts safely while Ivette wrong, goes to time and often looks at the teacher to help and guide him from the side. The teacher helps you to save the function. At the end of the play Marcos happily hugs his proud parents while Ivette cries inconsolably because she feels that the work has been a failure because of her and that she has not been able to play a worthy role.
This story is nothing more than a metaphor for the life of any child from the moment he is born. Like Ivette, they reach the world without knowing anyone and quickly look for a person to serve as a reference, for help and support, usually the mother (in the case of Ivette, her teacher).
They want to learn to live, they want to learn every day and they want to learn to be, because in fact they don't even know that they exist as being until eight or ten months, at which time they complain if they are separated from their primary attachment figure (like I say, it is usually the mother) in what we all know as "separation anguish."
To learn all this they need to live as close as possible to someone who can teach them, being as dependent as possible since, the more dependent they are as children, the more independent they will be later. The more they learn in the first years, the more self-sufficient they will be later.
The theories that speak of letting them cry alone to learn, to delay the demands a little ("let him cry a little more and more, because if you go right away he will call you more often"), do not carry them in his arms so he does not accustom or separate the child so that he is not in love they have been exemplified in the technique carried out by the teacher with Ivette. In an attempt to make her more independent, to become lonely, she only makes her feel more insecure and in need of support.
Children who are previously separated from their mother and who are tried to teach to be independent are those who are dependent for a longer time, lose the example of their referent, will doubt themselves and need someone to make decisions for them by not Having been able to learn with someone who does know how to take them.
To be independent, you must first be dependent:
- First they do it to me (or they explain to us how it is done).
- Then I do it with help and supervision (you ask someone who knows more than you who are by your side while you do it. The children call their mother or father).
- Finally I am able to do it alone (when I have already learned I am able to do it alone without the need of someone to supervise me. In case of doubt or error I will call my tutor again. The children will again call their mother in case of they look in danger, insecure or think they are doing it wrong).
Have we not all studied to work? Have we not done some tutoring practices in which we did things with a teacher who then let us try it alone?
If you want your child to be independent, autonomous and capable of making decisions, be his example, always stay by his side when he needs you and Always go to your calls. Little by little, when he learns to do the things for which he now asks for your help, he will stop calling you because he will feel safe and confident enough to carry them out.
