THEN A world like today, where the fear of the future is generalized and transversal, difficult to think that only our children are anxious, and that they are because of the very bad cell phones and social networks. The question is much more complex and concerns all of us. Stefano Rossi, psycho -pedagogist, in his latest book parents in anxiety (Feltrinelli) invites parents to look inside and ask themselves about their fragility. And it suggests educational exercises to feel better with themselves, alone and in pairs, and help children grow up, accompanying them along the way to autonomy.
The title of his book, Parents anxiousrefers to that of Jonathan Haidt, The anxious generation (Rizzoli). But in that case they were children. At this point should we think that the whole family is anxious?
The reference wanted, and my thesis is this: however the cell phone has a negative impact on the brain of children and part of teenagers, it is too simplistic to blame the anxiety to social media, we cannot take refuge in our Occam’s razor. In reality we are many to believe that the data reported by HAIDT are correlative and non -cause. I believe that today we live in the society of anxiety, because the future has become unpredictable, untranslatable. We are on an airplane that dart towards the future but the piloting cabin is empty. The consequence is that parents enter anxious, but also the boys and children who observe us begin to become hyperactive, insecure, anxious … The real theme is the crisis of the future.
Stefano Rossi: “My 16 educational maneuvers to forge the wings of the boys”
Does this crisis act on all generations?
Exact. We are in the society of anxiety, or rather of anguish, because in anxiety you have something specific that scares you, while today we suffer the unpredictability; For war, the climate, the economy. Impatta on our heart and boys.
Stefano Rossi, psycho -pedagogist. His latest book is parents in anxiety (Feltrinelli). @Latitude41photo
How can parents do to transform their fears into wings to make their children fly?
First of all, we have to see our fears; Only by seeing them can we transform them. In the book I try to indicate 16 educational maneuvers to forge the wings of the boys. An example: rethink the theme of pain. Today many parents confuse pain with trauma. I am convinced that each small fall send the child to pieces. Then I use Kintsugi’s metaphor to explain how, in front of a wound, we have the task not to hide the shards but to glue them, creating a new beauty. Our society has removed the pain, has entrusted it only to medicine, which however deals with the care of the organ. We must deal with the care of the psyche. We have to sit next to the boys and see their wounds as an opportunity to learn to fly.
She dedicates two different chapters to parents. Let’s start with the fathers. How do you see them?
They are often called disoriented, fragile. I believe that the crisis of the Father depending on the symbolic death of the great father. As Nietche has prophesied, the end of God is not the end of religion but of the principle of authority. The private fathers of the Authority oscillate between the popes who fills you with gifts like an ATM but actually keeps you away, and the mamm who always says yes. I think the fathers today must find the balance between affectivity and authority. Children and teenagers without rules become emperors who cannot hold the weight of the throne. Their destructiveness is a cry of help. They are telling us: give us borders. Without borders their mind goes into anguish. But be careful: it is not enough to educate only with the rules, only with the limits. Let us remember Ettore, in the Iliad, who takes away the helmet to embrace his son with great tenderness before the clash with Achilles. The father can be both authoritative and courageous, and sensitive and sweet as Ettore.
The cover of the latest book by Stefano Rossi, parents in anxiety (Feltrinelli).
Parents must remain a couple
The role of mothers?
The mothers are born before the fathers, with their children. They are the custodians of the proximity. While the mothers understand the children by hearing them, the fathers understand their children especially thinking them. However, this exposes the mother to the risk of hypervicinance. While the risk of the father is like Ahab the escape to the sea, the distance, the suggestion for mothers is to let the children sail. The metaphor is that of the end of Eden: our task is to let the children out of Eden, do not trap them in a fusional relationship. A difficult task for both but above all for mothers, who for the second time have to cut the umbilical cord.
If instead we think of the parents together, as a couple: what can they do for themselves?
Sed a chapter to the couple relationship within the parental relationship. It amazes me to see how parents are missing as a couple in parenting books. If the couple is poisoned, or by the hot war, or by the Cold War, the children are affected. I propose some small precautions: a couple who want to make love last must take care of two polarities, namely being a home for the other and being sea for the other. They are the two poles: the couples unbalanced in being a house deal with each other but they end up being brothers, the relationship is imprisoned. On the other hand, the couples too sea are very centered on the ego, they do not form a real us. The two poles must be balanced, that there is the dimension of stability and security but also that of novelty and the game.