When your 6-year-old son asks you to help him improve the world

If you are a father or a mother and you think that to be a father or a mother you do not have to train, if you think that what you do is already good and that you need to learn little or nothing to better educate and accompany your children, I ask you, please , on behalf of my 6-year-old son Arnau, that you read this article. 

A few weeks ago I was doing a job with the “canva” program. A program for designing presentations, publications on social networks, etc. that if you do not know I recommend you for being very easy, creative and intuitive. In this program, every time you download your work, an inspiring phrase appears that I usually read carefully.

I had my 6-year-old son Arnau on top of me, he usually likes to help me with my creative work. This time, making him a part of my work process, I read the inspiring phrase out loud: "Only the crazy ones who believe they can change the world are the ones who succeed." Steve Jobs.

I remained thoughtful, there was silence for a moment, I looked at Arnau who was in my arms, I looked at his face, he was looking at me without saying anything, he was just like me, observing in the silence. When I finally told her: "Well, honey, I must be crazy, because I want to change the world for the better." And I asked him: “Would you like to change the world for the better? He replied: "I do want to change the world for the better" and following the conversation I asked him: what do you think it takes to make a better world?

That moment became magical, it became one of those moments engraved in the heart, of those that you know that the day you disappear from this world will be part of your thoughts, and of those that make you fight for what you fight for every day.

Arnau, my recently turned 6-year-old son, answered: "Teach parents as they should teach their children." I have not changed a single word of what he said, as was his answer: "teach parents as they should teach their children." Arnau sensed that I wanted to know more, and immediately afterwards he told me: "Mommy, when I do something wrong, you teach me but you don't make me feel bad, and I learn and I don't feel bad, I feel good."

I don't know how to express what I felt, it was a mix between hope and pain. Hope because you know that part of what your life mission is makes sense, learning to educate and accompany my children, and pass on what you have learned in case it can be of use to other people. And pain to hear how a 6-year-old child, far from what we can think, values the importance of how parents teach (in their vocabulary), educate and accompany (in mine 😊) their children.

I want to be the voice of my son, I want to raise my voice loudly on his behalf, and that is why I have decided to write this article.

Father or mother who think that to educate and accompany your children you do not have to train, I hope you have come this far and you want to continue reading, I hope pYou can sow a seed in yourself, a seed that one day you will make bloom for yourself, for the good of your children, for a better world.. Making that seed flourish will not be an easy road, You'll have to get out of your comfort zone you will discover things about yourself that will hurt you, but that courage will be your power, a power that will allow you to accompany your children so that they are the best version of themselves, just like that, the best version of themselves.

There are already numerous scientific studies that allow us to understand the behavior of our children according to their different ages. Take advantage of this information, it's science, it's knowledge, take advantage of it to have tools to help your children to be the best version of themselves.

let's start with what is educate?. Educar, from the Latin "educare", comes from "educere", which is divided into: "ex" (outside) and "ducere" (guide, drive). Educating would therefore be guide the person to bring out the best of himself, to develop his full potential. That should be the goal of educating, making the person develop their potential to be the best version of themselves how to be unique and independent.

think for a moment what is education for you? What would be the goal for you to educate your hij@s?

I once heard a metaphor for our way of educating. It goes like this: if our children were clay figures, we would say that we spent years and years shaping the clay figure according to how we want it to be. And when the clay figure, our son or daughter, reaches adolescence, suddenly a new shape begins to emerge from the inside out, that clay figure comes to life and begins to "deform" from the shape we wanted it to be. give, beginning to define for himself/herself his/her own form. And that in many cases is not easy to accept, but it is and must be so if we want our children to have self-esteem, know what they want and enjoy a full and satisfying life.

We should not pretend that our children are who we want them to be and even who we would have liked to be. Our children must be themselves, and we must be there to help them, to guide them, to be their best version. There is a saying of Plutarch that says: "Children are not glasses to be filled, they are lamps to be lit"As parents, let's make these lamps shine by themselves.

And how is it done, how do I accompany my child in their process to be the best version of themselves?

To begin with, it can be a great tool to understand the different evolutionary stages of our children to focus on their accompaniment.

For example: from 0 to 2 years our children are in a stage of dependency to meet their needs physical and emotional. from 2 years they begin their stage of the search for independence (similar to adolescence) to develop their own ideas and opinions.

From 3 to 5 years are in a stage of sociability full of curiosity and fantasy. From 6 to 9 years old is the exit to the outside world, the boy or girl becomes an explorer, looks for the answers by himself/herself and begins to build his/her self-esteem.

at puberty (normally between the ages of 10 and 12, although it can be brought forward in girls, possibly between 8 and 9 years old, or prolonged in boys, it may be at 14 years old) important physical and psychological changes occur. Puberty is the transition between childhood and adolescence. In this stage We must accompany our son or daughter so that they become a more autonomous person and help them normalize and accept their changes in the body, as well as understand and accept their psychological changes.

in adolescence (between the ages of 10 and 19, depending on the case) the borders of the family are opened and external relationships become more relevant for our son/daughter. In this stage we must accompany our son/daughter in order to achieve greater autonomy, achieving greater independence from the family without breaking affective or communicative ties, thus preparing them for adult life.

It is especially in adolescence that our mud metaphor becomes important. And it is at this stage where conflicts with fathers and mothers appear for normally having opposing interests with their children. The father or mother wants to continue creating their clay figure and the adolescent wants to have their own shape and begin to walk on their own.

Adolescents begin to de-idealize the father and/or mother figure and seek independence more actively. Parents, on the other hand, begin to feel that they are losing the boy or girl they had, their clay figure is breaking and taking another form that they had not given, which generates anxiety and the desire to control their child. or daughter

We must bear in mind that educating through control and obedience we leave aside their optimal emotional development. What we do is put stones in the path of our children to define their own personality. In this way we achieve: (i) either they hide their own personality in order to please us and do things as we ask, (ii) or they hide their own personality from us, doing what they want to do , but lying to us or not opening up to us to explain their experiences, losing all their trust in us.

Educating from control, punishment and obedience, our children learn from fear, keeping their own needs, their own personality, in a drawer, feeling loved only if they do what their parents want, causing them to lack self-esteem and dissatisfaction.

With this way of educating ourselves, we develop without knowing who we are or what we want for our lives, we anchor ourselves to what others think of us, without opening our hearts to be who we really want to be.

This is the way in which fathers and mothers develop our ego with the education of previous generations, and if we do not change our way of educating, we will do the same with our children.

Our goal should not be that they do what we want, but what they can, that is their right, to know themselves. We must encourage them to make their own decisions, having us as guides to give them the information they need to know, with empathy and connection; thus filling them with self-esteem, confidence, security, kindness and respect, among others.

Putting ourselves in our children's shoes will help us see things differently and connect better with them, too. It will help us contain ourselves emotionally.. If we want our children to learn to manage their emotions, we must start by being an example for them, so we must learn to manage our emotions ourselves.

Educating your children with control will generate stress and will not bring you closer to a full and satisfying life. Educating without controlling your son or daughter is not achieved overnight, it requires intense and daily work with the purpose of guiding your children to be themselves knowing who they are and what they want. in life, learning to make their own decisions, with our support, affection and understanding, for a full and satisfying life.