On Inconsistency Or How To Drive Our Children Crazy

Although I try to avoid generalities, I would venture to say that all human beings tend to educate our children in the best possible way. This does not imply that it is the same way. We already know that the terms consciousness and values ​​are two fields that are light years between some people and others and with a forceful load of subjectivity and, unfortunately, of a sometimes temporary or circumstantial nature. I think Groucho Marx was on the right track when he said “These are my principles, if you don’t like them, I have others” …

But I don’t want to beat around the bush, that would be another topic. What I want to focus on is the messages full of kindness, generosity, prudence, perseverance, patience, etc., that we transmit to our children every day. Quite a statement of principles … whose purpose sometimes seems to be aimed at teasing them.

Because, how much coherence is there between what we say and what we do?

We teach children that they must be careful, follow the laws and look both ways when crossing … while when we go with them we accelerate like a soul that leads the devil before a red zebra crossing. We lecture, we continue with the phrase “there is nothing I hate more than lies” , and after a while, when the mother-in-law calls -for our girl, her beloved grandmother- with all the impudence in the world, while we lowered the volume of the TV, we begged him in a low voice “tell him that now I can’t get on, that I’m with dinner.”

We explain to our children that we must help Mom, because we are all the same and the tasks have to be divided while we slam on the brakes and shout through the car window “But you don’t look !!!! There is no woman who knows how to drive well, damn it !!! “

We get mad like monkeys when they tell us about school because our son has gotten into a fight with someone and we exhort him on the value of communication and companionship. Do not alter the fact that, when on Saturday we will see in his weekly football match arenguemos against the referee giving her compliments so splendid that comprise much of his family, loudly if possible, and “not me put cool the father of that package that I want. YES, TO YOU, GLASSES, TO YOU! ”.

We try to instill in them sportsmanship and the power of self-improvement of the human being. And what better way than to get together the whole family to cheer on our clubs in a televised Madrid-Barça and sing in unison popular hymns known to all as “Catalan c …” , “Madrid pimp of the h …” go to the jungle, black , there you do run well ”,“ gypsy, you’re a gypsy ” –the latter accompanied by a comb, lest there be a hint of doubts about the connotation I want to give- and other songs typical of the excursions with the Salesian fathers .

The examples could occupy at least one volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

And then, let the principal call us to complain about the child who, in case of giving the benefit of the doubt (to her, that the long-suffering teachers would have a lot to say about parental myopia), we will look at the sky with outstretched hands and desperate gesture we will ask ” But who has this child come out to !!”.

Nobody said that being a father is easy. And being consistent is hard, hard work. But let us be clear about one axiom: children cannot be educated with the maxims of “do what I say and not what I do” or “that your left hand does not know what the right hand is doing.”

Boys and girls are real sponges. They are arrays of human sensors activated all day (and part of the night). They live a stage that should be (I hope it was for everyone) wonderful. Every day they learn something, discover something, begin to be part of something, reason, connect the dots, propose hypotheses, refute … Neural plasticity (the ability of neurons to regenerate and thus modify and reorganize, adapting to internal changes and external) in these years is at the peak of its development, and will disappear when we are adults. To put it colloquially, nothing falls on deaf ears.

It is necessary to stimulate the child, but stimulate him correctly. They are ferocious in capturing information by whatever means that reaches them, but how are they going to know how to act when the information that reaches them is contradictory?

During this stage of life, parents are highest in the hierarchy of their little big world, both in authority and admiration. Your indications and transmissions will therefore have the same importance. We cannot raise safe children if they must be torn between two opposites they do not understand.

And let’s not even talk about the sometimes cruel acts that occur during separations or divorces, in which the vendetta over your “ex” is undermined more when the only thing that should prevail is the safeguarding of the image of the father and mother by of the opposite spouse. It may be because of that revenge, because of selfishness, because of a tremendous unconsciousness … but if many parents knew the devastating effect that the so-called “parental alienation” produces on children, they would think about it a lot before executing certain behaviors or using certain epithets in front of their children. sons.

To conclude, we insist, being parents is not easy, and we already knew that. But that is a priority responsibility that we cannot avoid, too. Let us therefore try to educate in the values ​​that each one creates, but in word and deed, so that we can leave them at least the legacy of a society with some consistency and logic. I stay with this motto. “That what I do each time be more like what I think.” There is nothing. But why not?

Concha Gallén
Certified Psychologist & Coach