Preconception health and mental and physical well-being

Preconception health care is extremely important because everything related to this sphere of health includes important stages of life such as conception, birth, and the postnatal period. This concept is also essential to promote the well-being and future development of the child. Suffice it to say that, even before we are physically born through childbirth, we are born as an ideal in the minds of mom and dad.

At the moment of birth, both parents project onto the child what they had idealized before, project themselves and seek themselves in every aspect and action of their child. In fact, parents look for any aspect in the child's daily life, during play, in his behaviors and actions, that can meet their expectations and, above all, find a part of themselves. Such psychological and mental operation that the parent performs can be overwhelming, because the child is put under pressure because of the fear of disappointing his parents.

It is natural for parents to look for themselves in their children, but it is also extremely important to give the child the opportunity to have an intermediate space between the parents' expectations and his own identity, without being exclusively the result of how the parents have imagined him, because it is precisely in that intermediate space that the child can show his identity. It is necessary, therefore, to provide the child with the opportunity to be spontaneous and - through spontaneity - to amaze the parents in order to allow the development of his individuality: in this way the child creates his own identity and self-esteem. Specifically, a child who says "no" to the parent should not be considered a rebellious or disobedient child, but a child who trusts their parents' love so much that they are sure they can transgress. Parents need to understand that everything that is offered to their children should not be a bargaining chip and that they should not expect anything in return for what is given to their child because this would make the child think that he or she always owes a debt to the environment that surrounds him or her and that raised him. The child, in transgressing or telling a lie, assumes a great responsibility, because it is by disappointing the expectations of mom and dad that he manages to develop his own identity. A child who transgresses is, paradoxically, a child who feels more loved and has greater self-esteem than a child who does not know how to say "no" and who does not tell lies.

It is essential to keep in mind that the development of self-esteem in children does not derive only from sports or school performance, but is closely correlated with the experience of feeling loved: a child develops self-esteem from feeling so secure in the love of his parents that he can transgress. This happens not so much in childhood, but especially in adolescence. In this period, the ideal child no longer exists but, through the "no", the adolescent creates a distance from his parents that is necessary for him to be able to develop his own identity and indispensable for growth; On the other hand, a parent can accompany their child on this path of growth only with trust and not with control.