2023-11-15 12:48:35
There is a song called “If you want, I’ll accompany you on the road” that says “But even in the wrong direction, my thing is to go with you, partner.”. It was written by an Argentine priest and musician and speaks of a very powerful and challenging attitude: the decision to accompany the other unconditionally.
At Espacio Colibrí, we welcome fathers and mothers who, upon reaching adolescence, find themselves facing new challenges that they do not know how to solve. Many ask themselves: “How do I get my son to collaborate with the housework?”, or “I want him to study and do his schoolwork, but he doesn’t do it”, or also, “We agree that he will return to school.” 2 am but he arrived later and didn’t warn us.” In these situations, most adults usually oscillate between two attitudes: controlling or accompanying.
Control can be associated with care and protection. Phrases appear like: “I am your father and I do this for your good.” However, this attitude is born more from personal fear than from concern for others. When we control, the focus becomes on us and on the result (“Did he do it or didn’t he do it – like I wanted it to be done -?”). We usually approach using imperative phrases and conditions, such as: “If you don’t do your homework, you won’t go out tomorrow.”
When we control, we believe that the more we shout and suffer, the closer we are to achieving what we hope for. However, maintaining this position is usually very demanding and difficult to sustain. When this happens, the wear and tear is so great that many parents end up resorting to authoritarianism (“This is so because I say so!”) or resignation (“You know what? Do whatever you want!”).
Accompanying, on the contrary, is an attitude that is born from trust in our abilities as parents and in those of our children. We accompany when we recognize that there is another with ways, processes and characteristics different from mine. This differentiation is what allows us to discern what to pay attention to when establishing limits or creating new agreements. If controlling is waiting for the other to follow our orders, without doubting or questioning, accompanying is an invitation to ask questions, giving space for reflection that allows adolescents to be protagonists in the search for solutions.
Neuroscience shows that these attitudes (control and accompany) are related to different parts of the brain. Control has to do with fear, an emotion that arises from our oldest brain, the reptilian one, which is responsible for survival. Fear sees the other as an enemy, promoting distrust and competition. On the contrary, accompanying is born from trust, an emotion related to our social brain, the most evolved, which sees in the other a person with whom it is possible to collaborate and work. Depending on where and how we approach our children, we are going to connect with very different sides of them.
To finish, there is a poem by Machado that says “Walker, there is no path: the path is made by walking.” This phrase gives us a clue as to why we often fall into control. And accompanying has to do with embracing and respecting the freedom of that adolescent son, who is a different person from me and the “child I was before.” It will only be possible to accompany them if we dare to let go of the “shoulds” to walk alongside them in a bond of trust and security, which encourages them to explore the world and, also, to return to us as many times as they need it.
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