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Are kisses on the mouth bad?
A little baby’s face is so cute. This child that we have brought into the world, we could spend hours admiring him, cuddling, caressing, fondling him… Mostly kisses, on the feet, on the stomach and… on the mouth. A pleasant and shared soft feeling. A unique moment of complicity, forbidden? And this question, is it wrong to kiss your child on the mouth? A recurring subject that questions and divides young parents. On our forum, the messages are inflamed: ” I find it unhealthy “,” I kiss my boys on the mouth, so what ? “,” They are so cute when they put their little mouth in the shape of a fish to receive a kiss “… Dolto said:” A mother does not kiss her child on the mouth, neither does a father. “And if the child plays with this idea:” You have to kiss her on the cheek and say: but no! I like you very much; I love him. Because he’s my husband – or because he’s my wife. “
“Kisses on the mouth belong to lovers”
The psychoanalyst Catherine Bergeret-Amselek shares this point of view: “We must avoid kissing our child on the mouth, even when he is a toddler, in any case do not take the initiative because it gives him excitement. which is not welcome ”. And, continues the specialist: “from an innocent kiss to the baby we can fall into something incestual, inappropriate. The child receives too much excitement in this exchange of parental kiss, invisible at the moment which remains encrypted in a kind of memory of the body and it is later that it can have negative effects, in particular in the installation of the Oedipus complex and its resolution. “
“Discovering the sensations of a kiss on the mouth with your parent is incestual. “
Avoiding kisses on the mouth obviously doesn’t mean skipping hugs. A toddler, and especially a newborn, is in a situation of total dependence. A baby needs to be touched gently, to be carried, to be rocked. “From one year, he needs a portage already different and the parent should not feed on the hugs he lavishes to fill his gaps, he has to do with a little person, he also needs the firmer and more playful paternal contact ”, underlines the psychoanalyst. It all depends on the age of the child, before two years, this does not have the same effect as between 3 and 6. In addition, if your child after 3 years kisses you by surprise, there is no question of being alarmed either. “Tell him that he’s grown up now and that these kisses are reserved for lovers,” suggests Catherine Bergeret-Amselek. It is a transition that must take place naturally, without it becoming a moralistic taboo. “
“It’s up to parents to set limits”
Most of the time, there comes a time when you realize on your own that those kisses on the mouth are no longer appropriate. An infant is not a 2-3 year old boy or girl. Moreover, as they grow up, some children dread cuddling too close together, in adolescence they often no longer want to be touched. For Catherine Bergeret-Amselek, the most important thing is that the parent is not asking and that these kisses do not become a kind of ritual or game with the child. ” Welcoming a kiss is not the same as arousing it, she insists. It’s up to the parents to give it a go so that this situation does not take hold. “
Parents is a partner of the colloquium “Living together, young and old, today and tomorrow”, organized by Catherine Bergeret-Amselek, on February 7 and 8, 2015 in Paris.
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