Eulàlia Torras de Beà is a doctor, psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and one of the signatories of the "More time with children" Manifesto.
She is married and has three children and six grandchildren. A couple of days ago it was news after being published in The counter from La Vanguardia an interview of his entitled "The nursery can not raise a baby healthy" in which he states that nurseries can slow the development of babies.
The interview is very interesting and in general I quite agree with everything he says and that is why I wanted to talk about his words in this post.
Before doing so, I would like to comment that the interview title in La Vanguardia (“The nursery cannot raise a baby healthy”) is not a literal phrase by Eulàlia Torras and is taken out of context. I make this clarification because not agreeing with this phrase I wanted to look for the moment when I expressed it and when I saw it I noticed that it was not his words.
What does a baby need
The nursery is a service that is offered to meet a need of the parents: that someone takes care and educates the children while they cannot take care, "But it's not what a baby needs".
A baby needs “The warm, constant and sure closeness of their loving parents” and the consequence of not providing it "could compromise the development of babies”.
A baby can develop properly in a stable environment that provides security. Feeling safe is what encourages you to explore and a baby who dares to explore can mature properly.
Altering your environment by entering a daycare center may cause you to temporarily back down on skills you are acquiring such as talking, walking, etc.
What the latest studies in neurosciences say
The latest findings in neurosciences and evolutionary psychology say that, “From zero to two years, when the brain is more plastic, the baby's neurons develop according to the quality of the stimuli it receives through interaction with the central people of its world: hugs, gnats, caresses, laughter, rocking, movements, sounds, voices, songs, words, pampering, affection, music, smells, colors, flavors… ”.
All these stimuli make the baby establish a healthy emotional and cognitive relationship with both their environment and with themselves.
It is true that a child education center can offer all that but normally it will not to the extent that a baby or a child may need. Involved and loving parents can offer all that.
Children get sicker
Eulàlia Torras says that when entering the nursery the chances of getting sick are multiplied, since the baby is more exposed to germs.
A baby that can stay in your home, with a small circle of people and with the arms of dad and mom will have greater emotional, cognitive and physical strength (You will have heard once that massages, for example, make babies gain more weight).
On this subject there is a recent study that concludes that children who go to daycare do have a higher risk of suffering a respiratory problem during the first months, although this situation is reversed as they turn years (at five years are children those who suffer the most respiratory illnesses have not gone to the nursery) and it does not involve any subsequent problems (at eight years the situation is equalized and everyone suffers the same disorders and is equally likely to be asthmatic or allergic).
Given this study, it would then be possible to decide when we prefer our children to have respiratory problems, if very soon still babies, or later (personally I join the second option, since I can choose).
School failure
In Spain (and in other countries) it is thought that advancing schooling and subjects would avoid school failure, however to a child “You have to school when your home starts to run out small”, moment that usually does not arrive before the three years.
In Finland, the country with the lowest school failure in Europe, children are not required to go to school until they are seven years old. The State pays parents during the first year and allows intensive or reduced working hours so that it is the parents who raise their children.
In Spain instead we are separating them early, we have a high school failure, and instead of analyzing the causes we are cutting the symptoms without analyzing the causes: we are “The third country that prescribes the most psychoactive drugs to minors”.
Overprotect children
One of the parents' greatest fears and what they are most accused of is pampering and overprotecting children.
Address the needs of hunger, sleep and above all love "It's not overprotecting it, it's protecting it from what's coming!". A child raised with love and security “Enjoy emotional stability, self-esteem and coherence: will be well prepared for the setbacks that will come”.
A child who has been raised in a nursery with poor stimuli will be "Little oriented, intemperate and more aggressive, more vulnerable to frustration, more depressive ..." (Note that the interviewee says “more than” before each possible adjective).
Early childhood education centers can be useful
Many they have excellent caregiversHowever, the ratios are too high and distributed among so many children makes it impossible for the quality of care to be personalized.
There are times when a nursery can be very useful for children: “Before a home with abandonment, permanent conflict and chronic aggressiveness” a child will be better at a nursery than at home, but "It is not the main option to raise a baby healthy" (As you can see this phrase is far from "The nursery can not raise a baby healthy," which La Vanguardia wanted to use as a title).
What could be done for the good of the children
Something that we have already commented more than once in Babies and more, stop dedicating resources to inaugurating centers for early childhood education and subsidizing parents so that “Spend time raising your children up to three years”.
“Spending time to the children of little ones will save you a lot of time when they grow up”, says Eulàlia Torras, citing Dr. Julia Corominas.
To end this post I want to quote an acquaintance of mine: “Armando, it's so absurd that scientific studies have to be done to show that a child, what he needs, is to be with his parents…”. He left me speechless for the simplicity of the phrase and I thanked him for making me understand how painful a society is that needs to prove to itself that he is wrong when he separates some beings in full emotional learning from the people most emotionally linked to them, His parents.
