Luis Gutiérrez Rojas, who gave a lecture at the Nuestra Señora de la Consolación school, points out three elements to keep in mind when raising children: perfect families do not exist; affection and limits must be combined; and everything related to effort and pain must be valued.

Gutiérrez Rojas argues that children whose parents do not “solve the problem” are more “mature, intelligent, and independent.”

Why is it necessary to use humor when dealing with raising children?

We live in a world that, when it comes to children, sends very pessimistic or distressing messages, suggesting it’s incredibly complicated. I believe that the task of being a parent and raising children isn’t so difficult and is actually quite rewarding, something you enjoy far more than you suffer. Introducing humor offers a more positive perspective: raising children isn’t easy, but it’s not as difficult as it seems; we humans have been doing it since the beginning of time.

And yet, despite having always done it, now parents need to be taught how to raise their children. Why? Is it insecurity?

I believe there are many threats. On the one hand, the traditional paternal and maternal figure, closer to authority, where parents have clear ideas, know what they want for their children, and set limits and guidelines based on their behavior, is a somewhat outdated model. Trends have emerged suggesting that we are our children’s friends and that we must educate through motivation, which overlooks the fact that a person, in order to grow and mature, also needs to be told no. Saying ‘no,’ punishing, reprimanding—these things seem to be incredibly difficult for today’s parents, who even feel guilty because they believe they aren’t doing it right.

So…

We need to reclaim the paternal and maternal figures as authorities, who have clear ideas, know what is right, and set limits and guidelines, so that today’s fathers don’t suffer so much. And then there are other elements.

Which is it?

One is the dramatic drop in the birth rate. We have very few children, many of whom are only children, and this means they have an environment where they face no obstacles: everything is easier for them, they have access to all kinds of leisure activities and luxuries. Before, having one or two siblings was already a burden because they would tell you no, they would set those limits. That doesn’t happen today. People aren’t used to sharing or being generous; it seems they want to impose their will. There’s a kind of dictatorial child who dominates. And this generates tremendous anxiety in parents because they don’t know how to handle it.

What key points should parents keep in mind when raising their children?

The first point is that perfect families don’t exist. We have to be aware that many things go wrong, that our children can’t excel at everything. They have flaws. And it’s important to know ourselves and our children well, their limitations, because sometimes we only point out the positive aspects in this kind of overly optimistic way, and it seems we overlook their flaws.

What else?

Combining love with boundaries. I love you very much, I accept you, and I love you as you are, but I point out the things you’re doing wrong. Parents have to set limits: what time you go to bed or get up, what you’ll do in the afternoons, what access you’ll have to material possessions. And furthermore, you have to earn them; human beings don’t value what they’re given for free, and today’s children don’t value things because they haven’t had to work hard to get them.

And lastly?

Value everything that involves effort and pain. Now everything is about comfort, luxury, satisfaction, having a good time. And where is the other side? Life has its downsides; you have to give things up, make sacrifices. We see it with athletes: if you want to achieve a goal, you have to give it your all. But our children, as soon as they suffer a little, get depressed and end up in psychiatrists’ and psychologists’ offices because they get down, because they feel incapable. People who are closer to pain and suffering are much more mature and capable of overcoming the obstacles that exist in the world. Our children are so protected, we have loved and supported them so much, that we have made them quite helpless.

And how do you deal with all this with humor?

Somehow, we parents get desperate, we complain, we get anxious; we say, “My child is a disaster, the world is a mess.” Humor is the opposite; you have to take things less seriously, downplay them, put them in perspective. For children, everything is dramatic: “I’m not talking to you because you’re not my friend anymore. The teacher has it in for me,” and we can’t stoop to their level, we have to lighten the mood. But, in this world, parents align themselves with their children’s neurotic and childish narrative, and if they say they’re being mistreated at school, they go and make a huge fuss.

And that’s where the relationship between parents and teachers comes in.

If I said earlier that we need to reclaim the authority of the father, we also need to reclaim the authority of the teacher. A world in which father and teacher are aligned is good for the child. But today, the alliance is, if you ask me, between father and son against the teachers. And teachers explain the difficulty they have in exercising authority, in disciplining, in saying no. What does it mean to approach this with humor? To say: ‘If my child isn’t good at this, it’s okay’; there’s no one more unbearable than a person without flaws.

But day-to-day life is tough. Managing tantrums or problems, depending on their age, is complicated.

If a child comes to me with a tantrum and I say, “Tell me what happened, how, give me the details, what did they say?”, it becomes an infinitely bigger conflict. If I say, “They’re having a bad day, they’ll raise their voice a few times, calm down, and then we’ll talk,” the parent is less anxious, and the child will stop doing those things. These behaviors—and I see this in my practice—of children who threaten suicide or run away from home or who insult their parents, are much less frequent in families that address these kinds of behaviors, while in those that give in to them, they multiply exponentially. And it’s not so hard if you know how to handle it from the beginning, from when the child is three years old. If you’ve done it right at three, you won’t have a problem at 16. If you’ve done it terribly at three, the solutions are more complicated at 16.

His speech clashes with…

It goes against the grain of many things I hear. I base my opinion on my experience, what I’ve read, and what I see. When I see very dysfunctional families start using these kinds of techniques or guidelines, the whole picture changes. When you stop listening to your child so much, the child improves. Whereas that hyper-attention, coupled with a very low birth rate, is disastrous because we create a useless child whose life will be filled with conflict and trauma. Why do we do our children’s homework for them? Why do we join the  WhatsApp group  with other parents to see if they have to do exercise 8 on page 5? That parent lives a bitter life, and, ironically, their child is 34,000 times more useless. Are you going to take their notes at university too? The child whose problems I don’t solve for them is more mature, intelligent, independent, resourceful, and faces the difficulties and problems inherent in being human.