Free Game

When parents want to replace their children

To thrive, a child needs to face personally and try to solve problems and difficulties in everyday life

Observing the interactions between children who play freely with each other is always very interesting and can offer the starting point for reflections that go beyond the concrete situation we are witnessing.

A few days ago, for example, I happened to see a group of four 6-7 year olds engaged in a simple soccer match, or rather in chasing a ball which, in their intentions, was to be thrown into the space between the trunks of two trees to define who had scored "goal". Naturally the runs were unbridled and the attempts to conquer the ball decidedly aggressive, with lots of pushes, trips and elbows. Even the reactions of the children in the face of the success of the action or the disappointment of the defeat were characterized by strong emotionality, screams of jubilation or anger and outline of very colorful and heavy expressions! All surrounded by the participation of clearly involved parents, divided between some apprehensive and frightened by the heat, the dust raised, the slips and the inevitable falls, the dripping sweat and congestion on the faces of their little ones and others concentrated only on "cheering" for their children, encouraging them in an insistent and often disorderly way.

One dad, in particular, seemed unable to accept that his son could lose the ball and kept yelling at him to "move", run faster, be more "mean" towards his playmates, while the boy in question was undoubtedly a bit slow and awkward and above all he didn't seem to enjoy himself at all.

Going further, I found myself thinking that those parents shared the desire to somehow replace their children, albeit in different or even opposite ways. There were those who felt the urgency to defend and protect their (fragile) child at all costs, considering him exposed to serious risks and dangers even in the midst of a trivial game, and those who instead had only the urgency of achieving a positive result through a (however impossible) brilliant performance in a trivial game. In any case, no one seemed able to allow children to face the game itself and the competition in a free and spontaneous way, experiencing it simply as an opportunity to meet and have fun. To thrive, a child needs to face personally and try to solve problems and difficulties in everyday life. It is true that problems are by their very nature a source of worry and stress, because they require adequate adaptation responses to the various conditions that gradually arise, but it is equally true that without stress and effort no one can develop their own abilities, learn from concrete experience and evolve.

Children also need to receive an education in anxiety and in the management of effort, discomfort and malaise. It is necessary that they confront themselves as much as possible with the daily provocations and the continuous confrontation/clash with others. It is essential that they are helped to deal with what is not right in life. Otherwise they will grow up with some disarming frailties, feeling unfit and unable to live in the world. It is no coincidence that for a considerable number of adolescents and young people today, facing reality and the possibility of failure and frustration sometimes appears intolerable, to the point of generating disproportionate and paroxysmal reactions.

This often leaves us adults disoriented and incredulous. Therefore we should commit ourselves more to planting in our children, from an early age, the seed of confidence in their own resources and abilities. A deep root that will act as a springboard to face changes and difficulties and to build meanings on the experiences that are lived.

Gabriella Del Pero

NP Agosto-Settembre 2022