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First love in kindergarten
According to the famous Italian psychologist Francesco Alberoni, children are more likely to fall in love during the big changes in their life. When they start kindergarten around 3 years old, they usually experience their first emotions. At that of elementary school, they can experience a real feeling of love. It helps them at some point to feel important to another child, a peer who helps them fit in with others. As if the little lover was a “guide”, a “support” for the passage into another universe.
Don’t laugh if you find that a little ridiculous or over the top. Some children are very emphatic. Conversely, do not live his love life for him by suggesting that he give a gift for Valentine’s Day for example! Let him manage what already belongs to the private sector!
He has real crushes
Children have very deep feelings for certain comrades. They have hooked atoms, it is obvious and sometimes feel real crushes. They thus create a “couple” for the better, the games, the bursts of laughter, and for the worse, to face the others, to integrate into the group, not to be isolated. But it is we, adults, who very often tackle our great behaviors on them by submitting them to the fateful question: “So, do you have a little lover?” “.
Don’t push him by asking him every 5 minutes if he’s in love. Some children do not have one or prefer to keep it to themselves. He shouldn’t feel like it’s an obligation, or worse, that he’s “weird” because he doesn’t have one.
He stares at a friend
The only friend he wants – even accepts – to invite is Eléonore, “because she is beautiful and he loves her and he will marry her”. If unfortunately she is absent one day at school, he is very sad and isolates himself. It’s a real obsession, which would almost scare you! Children, even very young, can love in a whole and total way. They can experience real passion with its emotions and disenchantments. It is however different from a passion between adults since the child does not have his destiny in hand and depends emotionally and materially on his parents.
Don’t try to separate him from his alter ego. This relationship is important to him, even if it seems too exclusive to you. However, the danger in this kind of “couple” is the separation that will inevitably occur at one time or another, for example during a change of school or class. The ideal is to prepare it little by little. By inviting other comrades, by doing completely disconnected activities, like a sports club that the other does not go to.
He has lots of lovers
Today it is Margot the brunette, while yesterday it was Alicia with her long blond princess hair. Your son changes lovers all the time and yet he seems very infatuated every time! It is that at this age time counts three times. He can have a devouring passion with Alicia who is “beautiful as a princess” and suddenly be attracted to Margot because she is doing the painting workshop with him and the current goes. Remember that life is responsible for frequently separating children of that age (moving, divorces, class changes). Better to “know” how to change! This does not bode well for the future. It is absolutely necessary to avoid locking him in a love engraved in stone. And it’s a safe bet that your 4-year-old Don Juan’s lover will never become your daughter-in-law!
My child’s first heartache
The first heartache at 5 years old. You did not expect it! And yet it is very real. Your little one has a real feeling of abandonment and loneliness. Children generally know how to formulate what happens to them: “I am sad because I no longer see Victor”. Parents can then minimize the trauma: “We will invite him for a weekend” but must anchor their child well in reality, “It will not be like when you were in the same class”. Do not minimize heartache because your child will feel ridiculed. What he saw is very strong, even if it can pass very quickly. And so much the better! Respect his secret garden if he needs privacy, but stay tuned. You can also open the dialogue by talking about your own experience: “When I was your age, Pierre moved during the year and I was very sad. Is that what is happening to you? ”.
She takes advantage of his kindness
You can’t help but look in your child for the adult he will become. So when his girlfriend makes him do all his whims you see him already submissive in his relationship. Relationships among children are often based on a dominant / dominated relationship. Everyone finds in this relationship the characters they lack: the dominant, kindness and gentleness, the dominated, strength and courage, for example. They learn a lot from these relationships. It allows them to position themselves in relation to others and to experience other ways of being. It is best to let your child have their own experience while keeping the dialogue open. He can then talk to you about what may be bothering him. Often, moreover, teachers are very attentive to the relationships of love or friendship that children have and warn you if they notice that your child is disturbed.
He needs your support
Adults tend to have fun with these “love affairs”. For Francesco Alberoni, they forget the very strong feelings they may have experienced at the age of their child, considering that past loves are less important than those of today. Sometimes it is also the lack of time or respect for privacy that their parents are not or little interested in it. Yet the exchange is important. The child should know that what he is feeling is natural, that you may have been through the same thing at his age. He needs to put words to his little heart which beats very hard, to feelings which can overtake him or frighten him. He deserves to “know the rest”: to know that he will grow up, to know that it will perhaps pass, or not, to know that he will perhaps remain in love with her or that he will meet another. and that he has the right to do so… You can tell him all this, because you are the best vector of experience.