On the sense of limits in the affective education of the child

The article addresses the issue of limits as an important element of the education of the child from an early age and argues that breaking its barrier can account for significant aspects of the discomfort of our age. After reviewing areas of collective life that denote how the sense of limits is currently taken to the extreme, the article analyzes through a pedagogical lens the thinking of Massimo Recalcati and Asha Phillips, two authors who have made the meaning of limits a fulcrum of their theoretical positions. The concept of a mutation in the collective superego as imperative to unlimited enjoyment and that of a watering down of the generational conflict between parents and children are adduced as peculiar characteristics of a crisis of educational discourse. On the same level the tendency of parents to have more and more difficulty expressing a no to their children is found, even when frustrations are inevitable for adaptation to the normal conditions of daily existence. Arguing how to say no in any human relationship exercises an essential normal function for both poles of a relationship, it is discussed that the fact that parents are not able to exercise a healthy experience of the limits in the education of their children is a clear tangible sign of the current social crisis.

Tommaso Fratini, Sul senso del limite nell’educazione affettiva del bambino in "EDUCATION SCIENCES AND SOCIETY" 2/2019, pp 354-366, DOI: 10.3280/ess2-2019oa8625