“Be good or I’ll tell Santa Claus”, because the threat must be avoided

2024-12-17 23:06:00

When 2-5 year old children throw tantrums, resort to emotional blackmail to make them stop, especially ‘putting’ Santa Claus in the middle (“be good or no presents”), is not a good idea.

Because it can have “consequences, it can leave even more lasting traces than you think”, affecting “first and foremost a sense of emotional insecurity” in children. And secondly it can “stimulate rather inappropriate feelings of guilt, pushing children to “feel responsible for certain conditions such as the failure of Santa Claus to come by, which has a very heavy weight in their minds”.

Claudio Mencacci, co-president of the Italian Society of Neuropsychopharmacology (Sinpf) and director of emeritus of Psychiatry at the Asst Fatebenefratelli-Sacco in Milan, commenting on the data from the University of Michigan study to Adnkronos Salute.

Among the possible consequences, he warns, “there is that of emotional repressionrepress what can also be emotions such as frustration rather than anger, therefore a difficulty in managing them. And then – he analyzes – there is the theme of dependence on the approval of others, which is very great”. It means that the child is led to think that “his value depends on obedience and pleasing others and not necessarily on his way of being. Basically” it also induces a sort of emotional confusion, the not fully understanding what is happening. All this, if we stop at that age, is something transitory”, but if it continues a little longer “certain conditions can be established which later in life can compromise one’s own identity realization”. in fact trigger “on the one hand the tendency towards submission, towards sacrificing one’s own needs to avoid conflicts. On the other hand, never feeling worthy enough to be loved, a fear and anxiety of rejection as a threat of disappointment towards others.”

“Getting used to being blackmailed”, continues Mencacci, can have the effect of “establishing difficult relationshipstoxic dynamics” which could then be perpetuated “also on the professional front. In fact, these models are unfortunately ‘transmitted’ and leave a sense of emotional dysregulation, difficulty even in expressing negative feelings”. The question of education, therefore, concludes the expert, “is complex, especially now” in an era in which where “the pressure is high” even on children, “parents spend more time on their technological systems”, there is a need to “shorten the time and the use of blackmail becomes a way to save time”. ? “Offer simple explanations and clear”, replies the expert. “express what the boundaries are, because certainly children also need to be limited, to know the limit, but within a feeling of unconditional love. We cannot raise little dictators, obviously, but we must raise people who know how to manage themselves emotionally, with a sense of limits and with empathic abilities towards others.”