In the search for autonomy, the adolescent will question
the values, habits and especially the prohibitions of
childhood. It is common in this phase that the
adolescent starts assuming habits of adults. Alcohol and
drugs emerge as one of those options. The parents then
ask themselves: is he going to become a dependent? It is
not easy to answer this because the chance of becoming a
dependent after having experienced it depends on many
factors: genetic (having a dependent in the family),
family models (the fact that the parents drink, for
example), tumultuous family relationships, temperament
of the family. young (shyness, for example).
What can be done to prevent the young person who has
tried alcohol or drugs from becoming a dependent? First,
delay this initial experience with alcohol or drugs as
much as possible. The sooner he experiences the greater
the chance that he will become a dependent. Parents
should make this initial experience as difficult as
possible. The more the consumption is made easy,
obviously, the more consumption occurs. If parents take
a stand against it, there is less chance of having an
addiction disorder in adulthood. Second, and this is the
most important thing, helping the adolescent to
experience positive feelings, so as not to have to
compensate for his weaknesses and frustrations in drugs.
Assist him in developing adaptive behaviors, where you
find healthy forms of pleasure.
Development of psychic health in a child
What I am going to say may sound very banal, but after
years of study, what I have been able to conclude the
best (and I gave up scientific research when I realized
this) is that the path to psychic health is love. We
examined a sample of 2500 children, staying with each of
them for more than 9 hours, and found that the main
factors that triggered psychotic symptoms were bullying
and violence. What causes a person who has a genetic
tendency to evolve into mental disorder is a hostile
interpersonal environment: lack of support for the
child, isolation, feeling alone, with no one to count
on.
The safer a teenager feels, the less aggressive he will
be. When we look at the history of these young shooters
in American schools, there is one thing that is
practically common to all: they felt hostile, excluded
and isolated.
I am sure that a world with more tolerance and more love
would be a world with less violence.
How to differentiate a material psychotic from a
spiritual outbreak.
I don't think it is necessary to differentiate this. In
fact, everyone who is experiencing false perceptions of
reality needs treatment regardless of the cause. Even
because almost every person who is experiencing a mental
disorder is connected with entities that have either
caused this imbalance, or that are linked to the
individual by the natural law of affinities. I cannot
say, from a spiritual point of view, how medicines work,
but somehow they block the possibilities of disturbance.
Parents and prescribing medications for children
I would like to speak in particular to parents who
suffer for their children, I would like to encourage
them to maintain hope and continue to persist. I ask
that these parents overcome prejudices and do not
hesitate to seek the help of a psychiatrist, because
medicine is improving a lot and modern medicines and
therapy methods can bring a lot of relief. Many people
still have prejudice against the figure of the
psychiatrist, especially for children. But
children also suffer, and a lot.
In some cases, medications such as antidepressants,
anxiolytics and antipsychotics may be needed. If
necessary, these drugs should be tried. Medicine is
advancing at a rapid pace and more and more drugs are
available with fewer adverse effects and which do not
induce dependency. Medicines are very useful resources
in emotional moments of great darkness, when it is
difficult to see the light or to get out of a state of
anguish or more intense despondency.
In North America, there was clearly an excess of
prescriptions for psychiatric drugs for children. In
Brazil, I do not see this, because it is not our culture
to take a child to a psychiatrist. I see more neglected
children, needing to take the medication without doing
it, than a child medicated without needing it. Don't be
prejudiced, because some children need this help.
Spiritist resources
I would also like to remember the power of prayer as a
process of self-healing or intercession for someone.
Faced with mental illnesses, we should not open hand of
prayer and spiritual passes.
Opponent /defiant disorder
The adult's approach is to prevent the child's secondary
gains from this type of behavior. It is the main way for
the child to stop opposing and challenging. It is almost
always not an outbreak in which the child gets out of
control; it is a pattern of behavior that is being
sustained, because it has been gaining, and these gains
are due to the fact that through opposing / challenging
behavior they control people and the environment around
them.
Adolescence
It would be absurd and opposed to nature to want to
prevent a young person from developing autonomy. That's
why they came into the world: to become adults and
collaborate with the world. We believe that they are
here to transform the world.
We have to learn a new form of relationship. The
instinct of the infant brain causes children to pay deep
attention to the authority figures (those people who are
most imitated and cared for). Fortunately, this instinct
disappears. Because we do not want an adult to submit
blindly to the determinations of an authority. With the
end of childhood, the individual will lose the instinct
of blind obedience and he will question. It’s good that
he will question, because a value is truly yours only if
you’ve questioned it. It
is reasoned faith.
Cultural evolution occurs through questioning. But it is
in the moments of questioning that the most difficult
dialogues are established.
How does a child see his parents? As the best in
everything: "my father is the strongest man in the
world"; "My mother is the most beautiful woman in the
world". The child strongly believes that her parents are
role models for everyone. In adolescence the brain loses
this instinct and the teenager realizes that his/her
parents are people like any other. They don't know
everything and they make mistakes too. Deep down, there
is a great disappointment, without anyone being
responsible for it. They thought things about their
parents and found that it is not so. And they will
question many things about the family: religiosity and
morality. Worry if your child is not questioning. But
that passes and in time many will do the same as their
parents.
Concern
When we see the young man walking away, the feeling is
hopeless. Why? Because we anticipate tragedies when we
are facing the unknown. This is our mind. It is a
defense mechanism acquired many millennia ago. Often the
important part of a dialogue is our fantasy. Most of the
time everything is fine.
Keep calm if you need to call your child’s attention, to
limit what is really serious. Less
important things is a matter of following up.
All your child doesn't want to hear is that you are
worried. Because he is also insecure, lost, but he needs
to face the situation that is presented to him. Your
concern increases his insecurity. He's trying to
convince himself that he's under control.
Dialogues
The teenager knows about 40 thousand words, but still
does not know how to talk. He is beginning to use
reciprocal dialogue to regulate himself, to express
himself, to get what he wants, to form coalitions, to
influence people, which are the functions of dialogue.
We cannot expect him to talk like an adult. Do not
expect maturity from his conversation. We are the adult
in the conversation and we have to talk like the adult
that we are.
Before talking to him, get ready: take a deep breath,
think well what you are going to say and how you are
going to talk. Take care of your feelings first and then
talk to him. Our feelings are shown, they are evident,
it is not possible to disguise them. You will not have a
good conversation if you have bad feelings. Talk when
you're ready for that conversation. Put pride aside: the
conversation is not about who is most right. Put the
distress aside: talking is not the time to be
prospecting everything that may happen. Deal
with your anxiety before you talk. A
dialogue implies in two ways. At the same time that I
issue, I receive. I walk through his thoughts and put
myself in his frame of reference, to go with him and
understand him.
Start a conversation by talking to yourself. Understand
yourself, console yourself, relieve your own guilt, calm
your anxieties and then when you are well, go and tell
all this to the other. And in this intimate moment of
talking to each other, we don't need to be alone in this
conversation, because we have the possibility through
prayer to bring God into our dialogue.
I suggest that before talking to your children, say a
sincere prayer. We can talk to God before any
conversation with our child and ask for the wisdom that
we don't have and the love that we are not yet able to
deliver. And we go into this conversation with the
certainty that our children are not only ours, but also
children of God and you will not be two in this
conversation, there will always be three.
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