Love And Education Are Two Words That Travel The World Hand In Hand

Education and family building are two exceptional and magical goals.

Indeed, from birth, children become their parents’ greatest treasures, filling their world with joy and happiness.

To educate and to love are two verbs that travel the world hand in hand, because the vast majority of parents, with all the tenderness they have for their children, share their thoughts and emotions with them, rediscover life, explore the world and help to develop the family towards a universe made up of noble values.

It is important to clarify that it is not easy to be parents, because despite the fact that education brings people closer to the real world, educating in love and in positive values ​​is a task that is far from overdue. ‘be easy.

The family, the crutch of our emotional education

Our lights and shadows are projected individually within the family conditions that frame our own development.

The words of Kaye particularly summarize this situation: “ The child is placed, in the family system in which it is born, in a position of apprentice of the system. We can ask ourselves what are the characteristics of family systems that facilitate or complicate the fact that the apprentice will become an adult capable of permanent development or that he will remain blind to this possibility. ”

Being parents is about feeling anxious and the need to learn to play our role in the best possible way.

This implies that we must strengthen our communicative and personal capacities, in relation to our functions as parents and as persons.

However, this confluence requires that we first understand what emotional education is.

Emotional education begins at birth, as it is the way in which parents convey their affection, expectations and beliefs to a child.

Concretely, the first years of life are decisive for several reasons:

• In the first two years of their life, children are strongly influenced by the universe of basic security in which they evolve, which is transmitted through physical contact and by the tenderness that we bring to it.

• From the age of two, a key element makes its appearance in emotional education: language.
  Its appearance and its evolution allow the child to put words into his behavior, to explain his way of being, of feeling and of thinking. This step marks a before and an after.
• At this point, children become experts in emotional exploration and continually seek their parents’ attention as approval.
  It causes them to order, understand, predict, and deal with the world around them and with themselves.

The 5 fundamental pillars of emotional education

To move in the right direction in the emotional education of our children, we must at all costs take into account 5 fundamental aspects:

• Support through words and deeds: communicating well with our children in a sincere and emotional way is extremely important if we want to have a good relationship with them, whether they are very young or already almost adults.
  To achieve this, it is necessary to be consistent and analyze our actions.
• Emotional Self-Knowledge: If you want your children to be in tune with their emotions, you need to be a reflection of good emotional balance yourself.
  You can only achieve this if you understand that there are healthy and unhealthy emotions.
  Always be ready to offer help to your children so that they can get to know each other emotionally.

• Managing emotions: be aware of your thoughts, be assertive when you disagree, create a family in which tensions and stress are well managed.
  All of this will cement the emotional intelligence of your family, which can then be happy and healthy.
• Serenity in communication and conciliation: trust and conciliation allow us to identify ourselves as a family, in all our diversity.
  We need to strengthen our empathic and interpersonal communication skills, which will enable us to resolve problems and conflicts adequately.
• Knowledge of the world of emotions: exploration and curiosity are the basis of any good education.
  Through exploration and discovery, we strengthen the pillars that support a mind that does not judge others and is not based on stereotypes.

• Respect and Emotional Validation: We must be clearly aware that, as Carl R. Rogers said in his book “ The Development of the Person ”, we are not often aware of the pressure we are exerting. about the people around us so that they feel the same way we do.
  We act like this: “ If you want me to love you, you have to feel the same as me. If I think your behavior is bad, you must think the same. If I think this goal is good, you must be thinking the same ”.

Perfect parents don’t exist, but good parents do

Being perfect parents 24 hours a day, 365 days a year is a daunting and impossible task.

We have to accept the fact that we cannot do everything and that not all can be perfect. There is no one ideal model of education that could guide us from day to day.

From experience, directly or indirectly, we all know that it is not important that parents have imperfections or insecurities, but that the main thing is that they allow their children to live in a balanced world, rewarding and emotionally intelligent.

And for that, there is no magic formula. On the other hand, there is an ingredient that is always present in good educational principles: unconditional love.

This feeling makes education much easier and trains parents to give the best of themselves for their children.

Illustrations by Claudia Tremblay and Víctor Rivas Fernández.