Il bambino “adorato”. Come ripensare l’educazione familiare

The psycho-social investigations carried out in our country emphasize that nowadays children are ever more alone: only child families increase and their children grow up without brothers, sisters, and cousins; furthermore, there is an increase of family instability and a procrastination of parental transition. In addition, procreation control and planning (e.g.: by medically assisted fertilization) have created a more adored than loved child. We witness a real mythologizing of childhood; this new concept of childhood has changed educational relationships within the family, which presents unexampled fragilities and different questions than the ones in the past. Many parents feel their educational role as more demanding and complex. The essay reviews sociological, psychological and contemporary philosophy references about some aspects of these new changes, in order to start a pedagogical reflection about the emergence of new family educational relationships. The need of an educational sharing between adults and the rethinking of the concept of parental competence (as a dual entity) are proposed and discussed.