“Today a friend shot me while we were playing!”
“What did you do?”
“I told the teacher.”
“Next time he shot you, shoot him too! You will see that then it will be thought twice! ”
“Then the teacher will scold me too.”
“Nothing, tell me mom / dad told you. If there was anything, talk to me.
By Lorela Garuli, counseling psychologist and child therapist
Careful!
We adults are responsible for orienting children’s actions and we can do this in 2 ways: out of anger and out of reflection.
Anger is when we advise the child to “reverse” the negative behavior of the friend. It is very natural to get angry when someone does something wrong to us, but teaching a child to act on the basis of anger also has a number of negative consequences.
Not only does it not solve the problem, but it makes it even bigger because the violent response will continue from the other side as well. In the short run, this approach feeds the ego of the child and the parent, but in the long run it is teaching the child to solve problems by force!
Thus, the child will learn that through aggression he will gain a kind of unhealthy and artificial domination over others, an element that will certainly be reflected in other future relationships. This often explains why victims turn violent; the fear-aggression cycle is dangerous!
Meanwhile, reflection makes it possible for the level of anger to decrease and children to internalize a healthier form of response. In the long run, children will learn to seek resources for conflict resolution and that communication is a very important key when it comes to difficult situations. His self-confidence will develop healthily when I see that he manages to solve problems without hurting anyone. At the same time, if he is encouraged to ask for help from the teacher or any other responsible adult in the given context, he is taught to respect the rules of the institution where he is located.
