“Once upon a time there was an ogress who only ate obedient boys and girls.” […]. Distraught with the idea of losing them, the fathers and mothers of the town agreed to turn their children into a bunch of scoundrels. From now on, prohibition would be prohibited. “The laws, the rules, the punishments would end.”
This is how the story begins The ogress who only ate obedient children (Danielle Chaperon, TakaTuka, 2024), a recently published children’s book that opens a reflection on what it really means to behave well in childhood. Is it meeting the expectations that adults have for boys and girls? Obey the rules imposed on them? Or is it having behaviors that do not bother adults?
The psychologist Fernanda Bocco is clear: “What we culturally understand by behaving well is staying still, not making noise, not getting dirty and not disturbing adults.” Bocco, who in addition to being a psychologist is co-founder of The Violet Seedan educational project based on alternative methodologies, explains that it is an abstract idea, so it is very difficult for boys and girls to understand what we are asking of them: “It is such a generic and non-specific expression that it serves as a catch-all for include everything that the adult on duty considers appropriate or inappropriate,” says the expert.
Going one step further, the psychologist considers that asking them for obedience in general is going against their childlike nature: “This expectation that we have as a society goes totally against what a child really is and what he or she needs, which is to move. a lot, exploring and touching everything, talking, and all of this accompanied by an adult present and available. When we ask a child to ‘behave well’ we are basically telling them to stop being what they are because if not we are not going to accept them,” he explains, adding: “we must review the idea of blind obedience, because we are almost always expecting something. so foreign to what childhood can assume that we end up frustrated and angry all day, making them feel bad for not doing what we expect.”
Elltarys Larrad Ginard, a child occupational therapist, agrees with this criterion, who also points out that “behaving well” is a relative concept: “Screaming and jumping at a birthday party can be accepted behavior, while the same thing in the middle of a class or “A quiet conversation is not the most appropriate,” he begins. For her, the key is to understand the stages of child development: “In recent years it has been discovered that children’s brains take years to develop self-control skills – sometimes we adults have not fully developed them either. How are we going to ask them to control their impulses and abide by social norms, when they are not yet ready?” asks Larrad. And he proposes avoiding generic expressions such as “behave well”, being more explicit: “When we want to educate a child, we have to be very clear in what we expect from him or her. “We have to be explicit and much better: set an example.”
Obedience, rules and limits
For Elltarys Larrad, we must ask ourselves what we are looking for when asking boys and girls for obedience: “Do we want our children to do everything others tell them? That when they grow up they submit to a boss, to a partner, to their friends? If we want them to have judgment and question things, we must educate them from childhood. Making them reflect, asking them, taking into account their opinion and involving them in decision-making whenever possible,” he explains.
The psychologist Fernanda Bocco makes a differentiation at this point between norms and basic limits. “Basic boundaries are about safety: not attacking themselves or others, not breaking or throwing things, not putting themselves in danger. The rules are somewhat more variable and change from house to house, but they must exist so that the entire family feels taken into account. If the rule, or what I am asking, is contrary to the child, hopefully he will disobey it and stay connected to himself – for example, continue playing, laughing, dancing, getting dirty. If we are talking about a limit that is intended to protect the child, then the adult must ensure that it is followed, such as not crossing a street alone or without looking or not letting the seat belt be put on,” he says.
In the story of The ogress who only ate obedient childrenfor a time, adults and children exchange their usual roles: it is the fathers and mothers who encourage boys and girls to transgress the rules so that the ogress does not eat them. This leads to a certain confusion and a deep reflection that overshadows the entire story and remains unanswered: what does it really mean to behave badly or well?
#good #behavior #ideas #limits #rules #obedience #adultcentrism