Holidays: 5 new conflicts between parents and children
The arrival of holidays can lead to an increase in family conflicts, due to the change of schedules, habits and routines, by others more relaxed typical of this time. Family comfort is intensified with respect to the rest of the year by having more free time and many parents are struggling these days to save family conflicts that arise with the youngest of the house.
The social networks, the meals, the nocturnal exits, the impatience ... they carry out some of the most thorny conflicts of the summer. "The main problem we find is the formula of educating children, establishing a symmetry with respect to adults.
In some families, children, both children and adolescents, feel positioned on the same scale as adults, underestimating and distorting the parental figure. In this way, they feel they own their time and their decisions, getting upset and irritated when the parents show them some recommendation or they put a cut, so they are in a state of permanent dissatisfaction, "explains Verónica Rodríguez Orellana, Director and Coaching Club Therapist.
Social networks: territory of risk
Social networks have become an inexhaustible source of debate and controversy between parents and children. Therapies related to this subject already occupy an important position among the most requested, with 21% of cases. For the children, they constitute a space of autonomy and freedom in which their capacity for decision and action knows no restrictions. For the parents, on the contrary, the social networks suppose a swampy and risky territory in which adolescents and children are exposed to the incessant dangers of the unknown and the unknown.
The generation of the 'already'
An added problem is the proliferation of new technology in the market: smartphones, tablets, plays, etc. that leads children and adolescents to increase their level of compulsive consumerism in their desire to be up to date and not be left behind with their friends. During these dates, the impatience of the children grows alarmingly.
Problems with food
Some families, raising the flag of the supposedly healthy diet, suppress certain foods that they consider harmful such as meats, dairy products or flours. This decision of the parents negatively affects the diet of the children, who imitate the choices of the elderly without having an approximate idea of what such decisions imply.
"The concern of some parents because their children eat very healthy can be transformed into anxiety, obsession and even terror for certain foods, which ends up affecting, in addition to their own health, in their sociability: if they go to a birthday or if they have A celebration in the school can not eat cake with granola or reject the shakes that are not natural, the barbecues, etc, "explains the therapist.
Conflicting outputs
It is a star theme when it comes to provoking disputes between parents and children: the moment when they demand to start hanging out with their friends at night, igniting all possible alarms at home.
"Normally, we recommend parents not to use the weapon of prohibition at a time when sociability is very important and crucial for their development, but to negotiate arrival schedules, establish clear rules and teach them action guidelines to protect themselves. "
Fuzzy limits
There is a great risk for parents when they want to focus their relationship with their children as if they were friends. This leads to the creation of a symmetrical relationship lacking in authority understood as a reference of care, love and limits.
"There are many parents who fear losing their children's love, especially in the case of divorce, so they do not intervene by setting limits." Very busy parents are observed in the coaching sessions, which makes it easier for them not to generate conflict situations (to follow doing what they are doing) and access to everything their children ask them to do, it also happens that it is difficult for them to sustain and accompany the frustration and anguish of their children because it requires a personal rethinking and above all to maintain authority, "explains Verónica Rodríguez Orellana.
Marisol Nuevo Espín
Advice: Verónica Rodríguez Orellana, therapist and Director of Coaching Club
