Psychologists and psychiatrists abound: it is from childhood that you have to tame loneliness. To tell the truth, knowing how to be alone would be essential for personal balance and psychic maturity.
Structuring Solitude
We fear her, we crucify her: certainly, loneliness is frightening. Not only do loners mystify us, we often pity them. For many, loneliness rhymes with boredom and anxiety, and to avoid this for our children, we stimulate them by all means. Lessons from this, lessons from that, in addition to the park, the hyper-structured daycare, school and outings. And before you've even had time to catch your breath, they'll have grown up and be glued to the computer, still busy socializing or playing video games.
But why run away from loneliness? This need to protect our children from boredom is often motivated by our own anxiety, and therefore by our own shortcomings. Because there is nothing wrong with being alone. On the contrary, taming your loneliness would be essential to personal balance. To be comfortable with oneself is to be able to be comfortable with others and, therefore, to engage in he althy affective relationships. In fact, the experience of solitude is beneficial andstructuring. It promotes self-discovery, allows you to bring out your desires and aspirations. In addition, solitude encourages artistic creation. This is all the more true for the child who begins to define himself as a person in his own right by developing his own tastes and passions.
In the baby
Fundamentally speaking, the child needs security, identity, self-esteem, to love and to be loved. These needs must be met satisfactorily so that the child fully assumes his life and does not always seek the presence of other people to fill a certain inner void later. According to Donald W. Winnicott, the more we would have benefited, as a baby, from a reassuring environment, the better we would cope with loneliness as we age. The famous English psychoanalyst says that the ability to be alone develops when you are a baby, in the presence of the mother (or attachment figure). The infant is totally dependent on his mother during the first weeks of his life, but little by little, baby will experience his autonomy. He will realize that he manages to do things by himself, in the presence of his mother and reassured by her. Winnicott then speaks of the ability “to be alone in the presence of someone” else. The older the child gets, the less available his mother will be and the more independent he will be. The sight of his mother is no longer necessary. The child will learn, in fact, that even if he does not see her constantly, his mother is present.
The inability to be alone
According to the psychoanalystCatherine Audibert, the inability to be alone develops very early in childhood. Children who are overly solicited by their parents will have more difficulty developing their personal life. It is important for the development of the child that he has fun alone, explores, without having a hand or a constant presence at his side. Let's be clear: this does not mean leaving and abandoning him in the house, or forcing him to stay cloistered in his room. But the child must learn to be alone with you, which will allow him to like being alone.
Conversely, many adults today are unable to be alone because they themselves suffered from deficiencies, child: abandonment, the absence of a parent create fear and anguish. Catherine Audibert also emphasizes that “good solitude is that which is carried by the Other. An Other who knows how to be present and absent at the same time. »
Separation anxiety
Around eight months, the child experiences a natural stage of his development, during which he is subject to suffer anxiety, this, as soon as he is separated from his mother . This phase is very important and should be welcomed by parents. It is among other things during this period that he learns, little by little, that those who leave come back. He realizes that people still exist, even if he no longer sees them, and finally realizes his own individuality. The child must of course be guided, during this important stage of hisdevelopment, and, in her essential book Le Sommeil de votre enfant, Anne Bacus provides a dozen valuable tips to achieve this. We therefore encourage babies to tame their independence, while having fun on their own. To reassure him, you can talk to him from afar, or sing, but must not interfere in his play. And if Bacus encourages his readers to accustom the baby to separation and change (by leaving him, for example, a few hours with someone you trust), she warns against major separations, such as traveling or returning to work during this period of separation anxiety.
Lucky Boredom
Recently interviewed on Radio-Canada's Première Chaîne, Marcia Pilotte admitted that she had not enrolled her children in after-school courses. According to her, boredom was important, even necessary, since it developed the creative sense. Loneliness forces a return to oneself, an introspection. Yes, there are less obvious, more destabilizing moments: but it is also through these periods of doubt that the child learns to know and define himself. Catherine Audibert affirms it: this dead time allows creativity in the broad sense of the term, which consists in bringing something out of nothing. "This emptiness that we finally master, in which we feel peaceful, peaceful, we do something about it: this can be expressed through artistic activities - writing, painting -, but also quite simply by the ability to make projects. »
So allow his childto tame his loneliness, to embrace it and to be good with himself, it is among other things to offer him a chance to live more harmonious relationships with others, in the short, medium and long term.
