Child and adolescent psychologist Caroline Goldman believes that a lack of limits harms children and their parents. She also denounces too much “comradeship between generations”, which would cause anxiety and insecurity among children.
Guest of the RTS show Tribu, Caroline Goldmann does not mince her words: “Positive education has been misused by self-proclaimed specialists […] gurus who used cult practices and tried to wreak havoc on families to sell them educational methods and parenting books.”
According to the child and adolescent psychologist, children need limits. “Setting limits for the child means teaching him an appropriate social attitude that does not harm others […] It’s a bit of an instruction manual for what life in society is like. That can only make him lovable. And for a child, it’s no small thing to be friendly on the social scene.”
“Handcuffed” parents
The author of numerous books on the issue, including the “Guide for Today’s Parents” published in 2024 by Flammarion, is a fan of time outor temporary exclusion of the child, as punishment, from the age of 12 months. “From the age of one, when the child looks at you, challenges you […] and does what you told him not to do, you feel that love is not going to be enough.”
The psychologist believes that sending your child to his room is an effective method. “After three punishments for the same object, we never have any more problems with children throwing food on the floor. I’m not going to tell you that the moment you put him in his room the first two times, he’s happy. No, he’s sad, he’s angry, but he’s also sad that they put a pipette of antibiotics in his mouth and take him to the pediatrician, and yet it’s for nothing. his property.”
According to Caroline Goldman, today’s parents are “handcuffed in the exercise of their authority”, because they are made to believe that by setting limits, they will “break parts of the child’s brain, crush it, turn it off”.
Camaraderie between generations denounced
The psychologist also regrets a lack of hierarchy between parents and children, a “camaraderie between generations” which has the effect, according to her, of distressing the children. “This results in extremely insecure children. They are afraid of everything, because no one is higher and stronger than them, so no one protects them […] It takes away their lightness and carefreeness and it also hinders their freedom.”
According to her, this horizontality of relationships is accentuated in single-parent families..
Train rather than educate?
Some early childhood professionals criticize Caroline Goldmann for an “old-fashioned” vision, which would like to train rather than educate children. The psychologist retorts that her detractors are often “completely crazy ideologues” who have for the most part “never treated a child in their life”.
“These people are criticizing me because I’m breaking their business […] I put a big dent in their marketing business, so they don’t like me at all,” she concludes.
Julien Magnollay/The Tribe
