the child’s attention, for example by telling a story about her own life. (‘Stories about parents are always interesting to children,’ the psychologist says. After reading this, in every crisis I shout to Simon: ‘Tell a story about your life!’).
The psychologist says that, throughout, the mother should stay in close communication with the child, embracing him or looking him in the eye. But she must also make him understand that ‘he can’t have everything right away. It’s essential not to leave him thinking that he is all-powerful, and that he can do everything and have everything.’
French parents don’t worry that they’re going to damage their kids by frustrating them. On the contrary, they think their kids will be damaged if they can’t cope with frustration. They treat coping with frustration as a core life skill . Their kids simply have to learn it. The parents would be remiss if they didn’t teach it.
Laurence, the nanny, says that if a child wants her to pick him up while she’s cooking, ‘It’s enough to explain to him, “I can’t pick you up right now,” and then tell him why.’
Laurence says her charges don’t always take this well. But she stays firm, and lets the child express his disappointment. ‘I don’t let him cry eight hours, but I let him cry,’ she explains. ‘I explain to him that I can’t do otherwise.’
This happens a lot when she’s watching several children at once. ‘If you are busy with one child and another child wants you, if you can pick him up obviously you do. But if not, I let him cry.’
The French expectation that even little kids should be able to wait comes in part from the darker days of French parenting, when children were expected to be quiet and obedient. But it also comes from the belief that even babies are rational people who can learn things. According to this view, when we rush to feed Bean whenever she whimpers, we’re treating her like an addict. Seen in this light, expecting kids to have patience is a way of respecting them.
But mostly, as with teaching kids to sleep, French experts view learning to cope with ‘no’ as a crucial step in a child’s evolution. It forces them to understand that there are other people in the world, with needs as powerful as their own. A French child psychiatrist writes that this
éducation
should begin when a baby is three to six months old. ‘His mother begins to make him wait a bit sometimes, thus introducing a temporal dimension into his spirit. It’s these little frustrations that his parents impose on him day after day, along with their love, that let him withstand, and allow him to renounce, between ages two and four, his all-powerfulness, in order to humanize him. This renunciation is not always verbalized but it’s an obligatory rite of passage.’ 9
In the French view, I’m doing Bean no service by catering to her every whim. French experts and parents believe that hearing ‘no’ rescues children from the tyranny of their own desires. ‘As small children you have needs and desires that basically have no ending. This is a very basic thing. The parents are there – that’s why you have frustration – to stop that [process],’ says Caroline Thompson, a family psychologist who runs a bilingual practice in Paris.
Thompson, who has a French mother and an English father, points out that kids often get very angry at their parents for blocking them. She says English-speaking parents often interpret this anger as a sign that the parents are doing something wrong. But she warns that parents shouldn’t mistake angering a child for bad parenting.
On the contrary, ‘If the parent can’t stand the fact of being hated, then he won’t frustrate the child, and then the child will be in a situation where he will be the object of his own tyranny, where basically he has to deal with his own greed and his own need for things. If the parent isn’t there to stop him, then he’s the one who’s
The psychologist says that, throughout, the mother should stay in close communication with the child, embracing him or looking him in the eye. But she must also make him understand that ‘he can’t have everything right away. It’s essential not to leave him thinking that he is all-powerful, and that he can do everything and have everything.’
French parents don’t worry that they’re going to damage their kids by frustrating them. On the contrary, they think their kids will be damaged if they can’t cope with frustration. They treat coping with frustration as a core life skill . Their kids simply have to learn it. The parents would be remiss if they didn’t teach it.
Laurence, the nanny, says that if a child wants her to pick him up while she’s cooking, ‘It’s enough to explain to him, “I can’t pick you up right now,” and then tell him why.’
Laurence says her charges don’t always take this well. But she stays firm, and lets the child express his disappointment. ‘I don’t let him cry eight hours, but I let him cry,’ she explains. ‘I explain to him that I can’t do otherwise.’
This happens a lot when she’s watching several children at once. ‘If you are busy with one child and another child wants you, if you can pick him up obviously you do. But if not, I let him cry.’
The French expectation that even little kids should be able to wait comes in part from the darker days of French parenting, when children were expected to be quiet and obedient. But it also comes from the belief that even babies are rational people who can learn things. According to this view, when we rush to feed Bean whenever she whimpers, we’re treating her like an addict. Seen in this light, expecting kids to have patience is a way of respecting them.
But mostly, as with teaching kids to sleep, French experts view learning to cope with ‘no’ as a crucial step in a child’s evolution. It forces them to understand that there are other people in the world, with needs as powerful as their own. A French child psychiatrist writes that this
éducation
should begin when a baby is three to six months old. ‘His mother begins to make him wait a bit sometimes, thus introducing a temporal dimension into his spirit. It’s these little frustrations that his parents impose on him day after day, along with their love, that let him withstand, and allow him to renounce, between ages two and four, his all-powerfulness, in order to humanize him. This renunciation is not always verbalized but it’s an obligatory rite of passage.’ 9
In the French view, I’m doing Bean no service by catering to her every whim. French experts and parents believe that hearing ‘no’ rescues children from the tyranny of their own desires. ‘As small children you have needs and desires that basically have no ending. This is a very basic thing. The parents are there – that’s why you have frustration – to stop that [process],’ says Caroline Thompson, a family psychologist who runs a bilingual practice in Paris.
Thompson, who has a French mother and an English father, points out that kids often get very angry at their parents for blocking them. She says English-speaking parents often interpret this anger as a sign that the parents are doing something wrong. But she warns that parents shouldn’t mistake angering a child for bad parenting.
On the contrary, ‘If the parent can’t stand the fact of being hated, then he won’t frustrate the child, and then the child will be in a situation where he will be the object of his own tyranny, where basically he has to deal with his own greed and his own need for things. If the parent isn’t there to stop him, then he’s the one who’s
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