Child and parent relationship

The child is small, the parent is big. For a child, parents are the whole world, the most powerful beings on earth and always ready. A lot of time passes, from birth to 13 years and often more, when the child begins to evaluate their parents, asking questions, listening to advice, arguing, and realizing that, after all, parents are neither gods nor immortals. They are just ordinary people with their strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes unreliable. Growing up, the child starts to question, whether consciously or not.

The child grows up. Along with the child, the parent also grows, who learns to respect the child's individuality, desires, interests, opinions, and praises. It is necessary for their identities not to merge completely but sometimes, and sometimes necessary, to differ.

The relationship between parent and child is a constant and changing process of joy, tenderness, struggle, rebellion, conflicts, compromises, playing together, disagreements, and fears... Constant and changing.

Where children are treated as they are, they are loved unconditionally and given space for thought, aspirations, adventures, and fears; they are entrusted with the responsibility of decision-making and punishment will not be a solution, but conversation, such a child grows up healthy. Physically and mentally. The child becomes great, liberated from the expectations of infantile society, where adulthood is not discussed until the age of 40 and maturity is denied.

The relationship between parents and children will continue with gratitude and respect if it is healthy.

The diagnosis of a child psychiatrist is not the main thing. Neither severe nor minor. The main thing is the person in the child. Diversity is strength and gift, the creation of something new, different, and distinct from others. Diversity is not to be ridiculed from the mainstream, but to be embraced, as a child once said to a stranger: "Hello!".

Throughout my practice since 2004, when working with children, I have come to understand: these children, whether with autism or Down syndrome, with tics or hyperactivity, with depression or schizophrenia, abandoned by parents or excessively spoiled, with dyslexia or giftedness, they challenge us and show us our weaknesses and strengths.

In this challenge, our society changes: how we respond in sanity when we respond "hello" or not. These children give us the opportunity for the best change and embrace us as soft earth.