We start the year 2021, leaving behind a year that has made us face situations as parents never experienced before. They have been times of stress, where our fears, our uncertainties have surfaced, where the control we had in our day to day evaporated at times. We have had to adapt to the circumstances with insecurity and fear that our little ones could do it, and without a doubt, they have been the ones who have been taught how to achieve it, with their spontaneity and naturalness, making us value what is really important, here and the now. They have been months of many mixed emotions and where we have had to manage them in the best possible way.
Now, let’s stop for a moment, we are going to become a 7-year-old boy or girl, overnight everything has changed for him, I no longer go to school, I cannot share my favorite games with my classmates, or have a snack at the park like every afternoon. I see my parents worried, and I have stopped spending late with grandparents. Suddenly people important to me disappear from my day to day, and I see them through video calls. My world has changed. After a few months everything returns to normal, well as the older ones say the new normal, I go back to school, but I cannot move from my table, I have to wear a mask and I cannot share moments with other children who are not from my group bubble, hugs and kisses have disappeared, and we begin to look at the eyes to perceive the emotion of others.
We adults wonder how they can adapt to such a complicated situation, and the answer is that they face this situation with their fear, with their frustration, with their insecurity, but above all looking for happiness in those little things, in those moments.
If we parents were given the opportunity to make a wish for the present and future of our children, without a doubt we would ask them to be happy. An education focused on emotions helps to savor those little things that provoke us positive emotions, or to be able to share with others those emotions that we find unpleasant and that sometimes seem so great that I do not feel able to overcome. After 14 years being a child psychologist , every time I work with a child the emotion of anger, they always tell me that getting angry is bad, when I ask them if they know someone who never gets angry, they are surprised when after a few minutes they never find anyone who have such ability.