Do you know if your child is a lonely child?

Loneliness, even in children, also has its positive aspects, which help the little one to find himself. But there is a negative loneliness that sometimes has causes that are difficult to decipher. One of these: not understanding the child's “messages”.

Have you ever encountered a lonely child? Try to remember what you saw. The expression is sad, boring. Play without energy, with little interest. If she speaks to you, she reacts with shy gestures; shows fear and mistrust. She doesn't like to talk a lot; only answer with monosyllables. It gives the impression of living more in your inner world than in reality, but that inner world does not seem to be the most pleasant either.

A child can feel lonely, despite being surrounded by all kinds of people. Even the parents themselves may not be aware of what is happening. The family lives on a high floor, there is no time to take the little one to the park to play with the neighbors, and or he has to get used to it: the new situation. At first, you may react rebelliously and refuse to accept confinement.

The adults in the house, parents, uncles, older brothers, will also react to this rebellion, either by scolding or punishing him and, then, the situation will become even more difficult, until he gives up. Thus, so easily, he will become a lonely child.

The loneliness of the child is not always due to compulsory confinement. It can also be produced by parents who do not understand their messages. The little one brings them a candy or a half-bitten cookie to offer it to them, and the father or mother, who is not hungry, takes it and throws it in the garbage can, or tells him that he does not want it, that he eat it . An old doll, a button, a toy can mean that the child wants to tell you something, that he wants you to pay attention to what he is talking about.

With so much emphasis placed today on group activities and on teaching cooperation from the earliest years, it is impossible for us to believe that a child who attends school can feel lonely.

The loneliness of children is also sometimes voluntary. If, due to some incidents in the family, due to bad relationships with siblings or cousins, due to the effect of a negative father or mother, who subconsciously rejects it, or due to some physical defect that does not have to be evident, the child feels not wanted, unwanted. This will lead him to think that he is a different person from the others. With his limited knowledge and his emotions that he cannot control, he will reason that, being different, he cannot be with others, because all his actions would go wrong. By becoming sullen and cranky, his peers will act accordingly, and the chain reaction will break out that will create a much worse environment for the little one.

The positive aspect of loneliness

The child also needs to be alone to find himself. When you step aside to play alone and enjoy your privacy, your decision must be respected. In interaction with his own thoughts, the child tests himself, looks within himself for emotional resources (moods) that help him to know himself, and rehearses words, ideas that come to him through the language of the elders, and characters encountered in school, books, or on television. This is the world of fantasy, which becomes real when the child withdraws from external activities.

All psychologists agree on the value of fantasy in the development of the infant mind. The girl who listens to music and who imitates the actions of an orchestra conductor is opening a valve to her artistic sensitivity, to her need to give expression to that sensitivity. The child learns to communicate her ideas through fantasy. Since her vocabulary is very limited at first, she thinks of ideas in the form of pictures and figures. She plays with them in her mind, transforms them, exchanges them, and her inner world, which in the lonely child was empty or not pleasant, becomes a stimulating reality full of color and life.

To make up for loneliness

Unfortunately, many times the child is thrown into a loneliness that oppresses him, not because of his character, nor because of the indifference of his parents, but because he is in a strange environment, either because the home has been broken due to a divorce, or because one of the parents has died, or because they have moved from home and school. The child is faced with an environment that is unfamiliar to him, and is forced to call upon all his resources, including fantasy. In those moments, the so-called "imaginary companions" emerge, which are people or animals that come to life in the child's mind, with whom he talks and communicates. Sometimes, he is a friend who has various qualities that he admires and that believe not possess.

It is the example that we have seen so many times in the movies of a few years ago, when the orphan girl imagines that her father brings her a gift every night, a gift that is nothing more than a pebble that she herself has put under her pillow.

Stories are not always so sad. The child tries to eliminate those elements of his personality, which he considers undesirable or of little value. This process is facilitated by the "Imaginary Playmate", who presents himself as the person the child would like to be, be it a hero, a princess, someone of great power or great wealth. These images are forgotten and disappear from the child's mind, having helped him to develop more creatively, or to compensate for a difficult but transitory situation.

An observation job

As we can see, the child who is alone does not always feel lonely as expected, parents can find it very difficult to decide when the child wants to be alone, and when he leaves because he feels rejected, or because he is not receiving adequate attention. . The same problem is presented to teachers. The shy child, who finds it difficult to communicate and adapt to the group, goes almost unnoticed when the teacher is busy with the duties and plans of the rest of the classroom. It is always more acceptable for the person in charge of a group to be devoted to the majority, as time is tight and there is so much to do.

In reality, you don't have to be a detective or a psychologist to know that the child is not feeling safe in the group, or that she is seeking solitude because the world around her is becoming more unbearable every day. That bored and anguished little face that we described at the beginning, those slow manners, and the little interest in conversation and exchange with other human beings, are obvious signs that the child has preferred to withdraw within himself, not for pleasure, but because he feels abandoned or unloved.

Hence the solution. Never ignore the child, pay attention to their requests for attention, which may seem unreasonable, extreme, but almost always are pointing out something that we stop doing in due time.

Parents need to feel ready and open to all the efforts their children make to communicate with them. Proper care, respect for individuality, and opportunities to play with other children are essential elements in the formation of a balanced child. Although it may seem impossible to believe, the child of domineering and harsh parents may feel like the loneliest person in the world, because he cannot even find himself.

The kind and loving conversation and the genuine interest in what the child does, translate into that tolerant and safe atmosphere, which is just what will allow it to manifest itself without fear of being rejected.

Then you will not be afraid to reach out to others, because you will be convinced that you are giving the best you have, and that, as a reward, you will get much more.

Main image source: https://aleteia.org/2018/04/30/how-to-help-your-child-make-friends/