TERRIBLE CHILD

Behavioral Symptoms

Who is the Terrible Child?

It is a child who does "what he wants": he does not obey his parents, he tyrannizes them and blackmails them continuously, he provokes them by always opposing a refusal to their invitations or their orders, in ways that range from simple and very firm denial (he says say no), to hysterical outbursts if he is among people: in shops, for example, he cries, stamps his feet, rolls on the ground, so much so that parents feel compelled to please him so as not to make a bad impression.

The same terrible child, at times, in the absence of his parents, behaves respecting the rules and limits that are imposed on him and attracting the sympathies of all; at other times, however, he behaves badly even in the absence of his parents, so much so that no one wants to keep him anymore and everyone tries to avoid him. With his companions, especially if younger than him, he always wants to be the leader and if the others do not follow him he attacks them or isolates himself and does not participate in the game and social interaction.
This type of behavior is especially evident after two years, but in some cases it can be so serious that it occurs even before a year.
At school the terrible child behaves like a negative presence, disturbing his peers and disinterested in what he is taught. Everything becomes more complicated in pre-adolescence and beyond, because it becomes more antisocial.
Parents say they tried everything from good to bad, but nothing helped. They feel delegitimized and often go so far as to consult the child psychiatrist under pressure from the school, who has repeatedly insisted on the need to do something.
There are also some less serious realities, but all have as their common denominator the parental impotence in front of a child or a boy who is always insensitive to their calls and who shows a sort of indifference to the rules, even the most trivial, accompanied from a certain propensity to continually provoke parents and sometimes teachers.
The phenomenon is widespread, since only extreme cases come to the psychiatrist's knowledge, which reach the threshold of intolerability, but all those that, in one way or another, are tolerated or considered normal remain unknown.

Among these we must include those situations which are considered abnormal by any external observer but which are instead tolerated by parents, who find it more comfortable to "turn a blind eye" or continually justify their child by always attributing to others, the environment, the responsibility of what happens, without wanting to see the truth.

Causes

What is it that makes the child "terrible"?

To try to explain the causes of this picture, it is necessary to go back to the early developmental periods of the child (ontogenesis): he, as soon as he was born, comes from a world, that of the uterus, in which there was no need, in which everything was automatically regulated. and, precisely for this reason, there is not even thought.

At the end of the pregnancy, the child is expelled from this situation and enters another one in which the need prevails. This traumatic event is however essential to start the processes that will lead to the so-called "psychological birth", the moment in which he will know to exist and will be aware of her own individuality. This journey is called "pregnancy outside the" womb ", because it lasts about the same time as pregnancy (8-9 months). The mother gratifies the needs of the child and in this way allows him to develop his identity.

The process occurs naturally, and is connected to the harmony that takes place between the two: the child feels a discomfort, a lack, even if he does not know what exactly he needs, the mother interprets it and provides adequate gratification. At this point the child has had a positive experience and can begin to reuse it when he still needs it, but he has also found a name for that discomfort (for example, if that discomfort subsides with food, then his name is hunger. ).

Through this fundamental process, thought is born and, as it is repeated continuously, the sensation of self is gradually formed through the knowledge of one's needs, as long as they are gratifying. From this moment on begins the real psychic life based on desire and no longer on need. The need gives birth to thought, but to make it develop it takes the passage to desire, which is a creative act.

Therefore, to give birth to the psyche, the child must be satisfied in its primary needs; frustrations are therefore useless and harmful because they delay this process. Of course it is inevitable that there are, because no mother can always be so vigilant and attentive as to avoid them all, but it is of the utmost importance that, over the first 6-9 months, the budget is shifted in favor of gratification. point, the self-awareness that has taken place represents the solution of continuity between the world of gratification, where the satisfaction of pleasure prevails, and the world of the balance between frustration and gratification, where reality prevails.

Right here is the moment when the no acquires a structuring value because it forces the child to study and apply new tactics and strategies to get what he wants, and it is also in this phase that often, by mistake, the no it does not come from the parents and the child continues to be satisfied without ever undergoing a prohibition that makes him meet the reality of frustration. The result is the non-evolution of desire, because it has nothing more to desire. There is no space for waiting, and the terrible child becomes more and more omnipotent, closed inside a protective shell.