That a child feels safe is essential for their development, a duty for the welfare society and a longing of families. But when we live in a world where bad news arrives everywhere, it is more difficult to maintain the sense of security.Wars, AI threat, climate emergency, floods, weather alerts, emergency kits... We want to protect them and spare them any suffering, but, at the same time, it is not a solution to deceive them by saying that it is all a lie.How do we do it? Two ideas:The first would be to lower the noise of the alarm: a smoke detector warns us when there is a fire. Let's imagine that this alarm rang every day: we would end up living stressed, scared, and in a state of alert. This is what happens to children if we let all the bad news reach them, especially if we have not prepared them or their brain to understand when the danger is real, exaggerated, or fake news.That is why it is important to reduce screen time and, above all, try to control what reaches them. If we know what they have seen or listen to the news with them, we can provide context, contribute critical thinking, and prevent them from ending up frightened by the catastrophism or exaggeration that some media outlets often use.And the second would be to strengthen them from within: avoiding all worries for them is overprotecting them, which ends up leaving them unprotected because we waste opportunities to train their resilience, adaptability, and inner strength. It would be like putting them in a bubble so they never feel fear, and when one day that fear arrived, they wouldn't know how to manage it because they hadn't been trained.Information, context and resources

Children are much stronger than we usually think. Let's trust them, because adaptability is an innate capacity of human nature. We just have to try not to annul it while we educate. Parents should, first, stop, look at them, and ask them: "What have you understood from what you just heard? What is it that worries you about this news?"Fear grows when there is uncertainty, that is to say, when information is missing, or when we only have a part of the information, the bad part. Completing it, contextualizing it, and helping them to think is educating them in inner strength.I remember that a couple of years ago, during the severe spring drought, a very distressed 5th-grade group arrived at the summer camp. They told me that it wasn't worth the effort or thinking about the future because the world would end before they turned thirty. They were convinced that, due to climate change, we would all die of thirst. I asked them: "And in countries where there is a desert, how do they manage? Do they all die of thirst?" They looked at each other in surprise and answered no. I remember how their expressions changed and some smiled. I explained to them that humans are extraordinary beings, also capable of doing beautiful things, of adapting to circumstances, of inventing solutions, and of overcoming enormous challenges.I believe that here lies our responsibility as adults: we cannot promise our children that nothing bad will ever happen, but we can train them so they know they will have resources to face these situations, such as pausing before a piece of news, thinking critically, asking questions to calm down, and feeling that the world is a safe place to grow up and live in.

]]>

Learning to wait is one of the most important emotional skills of childhood, and it is built in the small situations of everyday life. We live in a society accustomed to immediacy where everything goes too fast. A click buys what we want, a message arrives in seconds, and any doubt is resolved almost instantly. In this context, waiting has become one of the most difficult skills for both adults and children. But precisely because the world is accelerating, cultivating patience is more necessary today than ever.

]]>

Parents and mothers arrive at summer with an invisible backpack full of expectations. We want to make the most of each day, create unforgettable memories, make up for the time we haven't had during the school year, and ensure that our children will be super happy. But expectations often come with pressure. Social media, moreover, increase this anxiety when we see perfect families smiling in front of a sunset, relaxed and tanned parents, and siblings sharing the same shovel without arguing. And when we see others' photographs, we possibly have the feeling that only we are improvising.

]]>

When summer arrives, it seems like we all have to do something extraordinary. Social media fills up with paradisiacal beaches, family trips, activities, unique experiences, and calendars so full that they even need a break.

]]>

A few years ago, psychologist and neuroscientist Alba Cardalda (Barcelona, ​​1989) uploaded a video to Instagram to answer a simple question: how do you politely get someone to go to hell? Rosa dels Vents saw it and asked her for a book to try to answer it. How to get shit started politely (2025), which has placed among the best-selling non-fiction books in Catalan this past Sant Jordi.

]]>

Music, drawing and even relaxation are some of the allies that Neus Cester uses to approach death and mourning with very young children. A kindergarten teacher, Neus Cester (Martorell, 1995) says that even when they are very young, children can understand the death of a family member or an animal; it is enough to adapt the way of explaining it to each age to make it more understandable. "We have to normalize death as part of life," she says. It will depend on the maturity of each child, but by the age of three they can already feel how adults suffer from death, although they may not associate it with a permanent disappearance. It will be a little later, by the age of five (these are not mathematical limits but approximate), that they begin to feel "curiosity" and get fed up with asking questions. For Cester, it is not necessary to be alarmed or nervous, but it is a good time to resolve doubts about life, because the important thing is "that they feel listened to, to validate their feelings," she says. He also says that there is no fear at the moment, so we can take advantage of the interest so that they can grow without that "taboo."

]]>