Alejandro Schujman, psychologist: "Parents have become the equals of their children, and that is a big problem"

Parents are always there for their children.

However, times are as they are and nothing remains, and the boys

need to fly

This is the main idea conveyed by the family specialist psychologist Alejandro Schujman (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 58 years old) in his book

(Hojas del Sur, 2020).

The writer defines this

as a process that spans from birth until the children go through life on their own.

For the author, his story is an axiom in which parents have to be close to care and far away so as not to suffocate.

“I explain three basic tools that parents must provide and teach their children from the moment they are born and must do so progressively: sense of responsibility, tolerance to frustration and decision-making capacity adapted to their stage of life and development. ”, says the also director of the so-called Psychology Assistance Network.

The speaker understands that the feeling that systematically goes through the upbringing of children, at all stages of their development, is the parents' fear that they will have a bad time: "That they do not know how to face certain events alone or that something negative befalls them."

In the same way, Schujman recommends that families manage fears to avoid transmitting their own frustrations to them.

More information

From 'helicopter fathers' to 'sandwich mothers': how hypervigilance creates fearful children without autonomy

Limits from love and that are sustained

The expert in adolescence maintains that parents go to the other extreme because they do not want their children to suffer: "We parents have dropped the letter D, we have become equals [equals with children], and that is a great issue.

Minors need fathers and mothers to support them and our task is to give them the tools to enter the adult world in the best possible way”.

"If we don't infect them with passion and tell them that growing up and that adulthood is a good place to stay, they entrench themselves in adolescence, and that's where the problem of the nini generation comes in.

young people who

They neither study nor work”, says Schujman.

The psychologist assures that there is great difficulty among parents in setting limits for their children and stresses that it is a mistake to conceive of limits as penance or punishment: “It is more a consequence of an unhealthy action.

The limit is love and care”.

For Schujman, the current generation of parents, in their attempt to make their children happy, does not teach youngsters to resign, to be frustrated, which is why, in his opinion, they do not learn to grow: "For example, if your adolescent is distracted by the mobile phone and does not study, it will be necessary to take it off or reduce its use so that he can concentrate.

This limit is part of love (not the scream or the blow) and you have to hold it even if it costs, and reach an agreement between the parents.

For the professional,

The writer also maintains that adolescents can hide behind the consumption of alcohol or other substances, in a very early sexuality and in the excessive use of screens, understanding that maturing will be a complex process that they cannot face and for which they do not feel prepared. .

On the other hand, he affirms that minors are not capable of making decisions and, currently, adults can go too far in allowing their participation in matters that do not concern them due to their age: “Many years ago, children had no voice or vote in considered adult topics.

In reality, the opportune point is that they do not have excessive power to express an opinion or decide, nor that they are silenced”.

For the psychologist, and as he says in the introduction to the book itself, the best recommendation for a child and for oneself in this new year is: “Be happy, or at least try.

That you fall madly in love, that you take care of who loves you, that you love who from the soul takes care of you.

That in this world of bustle, bullfights and ups and downs, leave the rush aside, because watches are not a good company to live.

That you are good people, that they don't use you, that you don't suffer in silence, it's a sad way to suffer... That you go after dreams, slowly, but don't stop going.

May you take healthy risks, it's now, it's now.

Travel if you can, it opens your head, the world is infinite, and the soul grows bigger if you walk it here and there.

That you love life, the land, the sea.

That you love... And that you fly, and that I can see you fly, that's why we're here.

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