Of Ivano Zoppi, secretary general Carolina Foundation
Look our children in the eyes, listen to each other, even if they have nothing to say. These are the first steps to recover a relationship with the new generations that seems to escape the control of us adults. Rules, laws and measures are necessary, but not sufficient.
The case of Latina confirms it once again, the logic are always the same: we understand the discomfort, the discouragement, the malaise of our boys only when it explodes and translates into often irremediable consequences. Too late, too little. Institutions, school and parents believe that children live underground, away from adult radars.
The reality is that they can’t wait to talk to usto seek a comparison to have a starting point, an anecdote, a support that can help them on this incredible journey that is called “growth”.
They themselves ask them every day: “Where you are“.” They do not do it with words, there is no room to ask for help in the fleeting dialogues at the hours of meals, between a “how it went to school“And a”Why don’t you put your room in your room“.
They do it with the conduct, with the notes at school, with the delays, the indolences and the inviolable silences that we trivially classify as adolescence.
The reality is very different. Until we talk about faults and not of responsibility, as long as we do not find the time to sit with them and look at them in the eyes, we will always be forced to chase. Let’s try to accompany them, according to them. Let’s try to make silence and listen to us, even if they don’t seem to tell us anything.
If we transmit our desire to be with them, then we can really relate to us. They will open themselves, to look for us to probe the ground.
This is the difference between repairing something that breaks and building something that resists. A relationship that resists the mistakes that we all make in adolescence. That resisting the temptation to keep everything inside, to the shame of not feeling well, of not being happy and carefree as we imagine them.
Even before talking about authorities, obligations or restrictions, So let’s face our shortcomings, which are our fears. Those that lead us to deny the small, great sufferings of our boys. And then maybe you have to have some courage, that courage to educate, to welcome and actively participate in the life of our young people. Without judging.
“What did you combine?!” “Who was it?”. “Why didn’t you tell me before?” Difficult to get authentic answers with this approach. Instead, let’s try to surprise them with a question that do not expectalthough you seem the most obvious in this world, but which today is incredibly unusual, at least how to ask for permission before getting out of a subway. “How are you”, what do you think? “. A small lexical exercise, but which transmits to the new generations the awareness of being able to count on the past ones.
