When the 'no' serves to grow
Almost all the parents of two-year-olds will have felt inadequate towards them, if not even in the grip of guilt for
fear of having made some serious mistakes in their education . Don't panic: your baby is just growing up and
the turbulent period from roughly 18 to 24-30 months is part of this long and complex process. It is around this age, in fact, that
a great need for independence from the figures who up to that moment had cared for him so lovingly and, in the first place, from his mother, who looked after him from his first moment of life.
This search for autonomy arises from the simultaneous strengthening of one's own individuality: with his yelled and repeated 'no's, the little one is simply asking us to help him become a person distinct from his mother , with whom he has long maintained a kind of relationship. more or less symbiotic. As it is easy to imagine, changes of this type cannot take place in a linear and painless way, especially if we consider that a child's brain has not yet reached full maturity.
The logic he uses is self-centered and, in a certain sense, magical. Our little individual, therefore, is often overwhelmed by his own emotions, which he is not yet able to control, and is subject to many frustrations due to the inability to adequately voice his needs.
What to do, therefore, in the face of some of his exaggerated and sometimes embarrassing manifestations? In reality, in most cases, what we dismiss with the simplistic definition of 'whims' are nothing but an attempt by the child to communicate or ask for something.
As difficult as it may seem, the caregiver should let him vent
(in fact we must not forget the liberating power of crying), trying to keep calm. In these cases, physical containment is generally of great help , which perhaps the little one shuns at first, but which he ends up abandoning himself to.
The feeling of protection and security of the parent's embrace will help the child control the anger that literally overwhelmed him. The next step, once the critical moment has been overcome, will be to help him name the emotion he is experiencing, using words that he understands and proposing a few rules, but always clear and well defined . In fact, recognizing the needs of a child does not mean allowing him to do whatever he wishes, perhaps to the detriment of his own needs as an adult with his needs and moments of tiredness.
Even mum's and dad's 'no's have an indispensable educational purpose , as they give the little one the opportunity to learn respect for things and people, as well as to tolerate the first frustrations of which the life of each of us is more or less studded.
