How can we be present parents without replacing our children?

What does it mean to be a parent today? Too often, it means navigating a complex and constantly shifting world, where speed reigns supreme and reference points are lacking. Psychologist and psychotherapist Cecilia Ferrari guides us through this complexity in her book , Io ti attesa qui (Bompiani, 2026, €18.00, 208 pages, also available as an e-book). She does so by avoiding trivializations, pedagogical fads, or ideological concessions, and by addressing the central themes of today's educational experience: from electronic registers to parents' WhatsApp groups, from the relationship with screens to the delicate balance between autonomy and control. She does so, as psychiatrist Gustavo Pietropolli Charmet writes in the book's introduction: "by daring to invite us all to the most difficult task: not to fear mistakes, but rather to navigate them, seizing the profound growth opportunities they offer. Because if we don't allow our children to make mistakes, we risk raising 'skinless' kids, unprepared for life's difficulties."

Above all, Cecilia Ferrari conveys not only the sense of effort, but also the extreme beauty that accompanies the task of helping girls and boys grow in the chaos of the present.

This chaos has certainly increased in recent years, highlighting the potential hardships for younger generations. Cecilia Ferrari herself confirms this:

There's a lot of attention paid to adolescent distress these days, and it's a focus that has grown exponentially since the pandemic. We have signs of this distress, and we also have young people telling us they're not feeling well. And parents must confront this distress as they struggle to keep the pieces of the postmodern society we live in together.

Here it is: probably to keep these pieces together, today's parents are very protective of their children and tend to want to keep their lives under control, thanks also to the electronic devices that accompany our days like smartphones and electronic registers. But does all this make us feel better as parents?

"On the one hand, being able to keep everything under control is reassuring because we practically always know what our children are doing. At the same time, the more we monitor, the more helpless we feel, because control doesn't calm anxiety. In fact, we want to know more and more about what our children are doing, and they find themselves with their own increasingly restricted space."

So what?

Young people have less opportunity to experiment independently, and also less opportunity to experience the mistakes, frustrations, pain, and struggles that are an inevitable part of growing up. Parents do this with the intention of protecting them, but the risk is that they deprive adolescents of the opportunity to add a developmental element to their identity. In short, we don't allow them to make the mistakes that help them grow.

What can parents do to reverse this trend?

In this postmodern historical era, we are being challenged to find a third way between the normative family of the past and the emotional family of today. The normative family was one in which parents and children had very distinct, separate spaces. The focus was on rules—clear, firmly reiterated rules that were not to be broken. In today's emotional family, however, much more space is given to affection, to the sharing of emotional states, which is certainly a fundamental aspect, as it makes children much more emotionally literate. However, the rules and the separation that should exist between parents and children have been forgotten.

A crucial point, I think. Can we elaborate on it?

Parent-child relationships should be vertical, not horizontal. In our loving families, we have many affections and few, awkward rules, because we're afraid to set boundaries between parents and children. However, we must understand that while affection provides warmth, rules give structure to the relationship. Without rules, affection risks becoming entangled. It makes us lose sight of the difference that exists and should exist between parents and children.

So what can we adults do?

"Aside from specific situations, with kids with serious problems that need to be monitored, we must have the courage to take a step back, without disappearing. This is the meaning of the book's title: I'm waiting for you here—that is, I'm watching you, I'm here, I'm attentive, I'm vigilant, if you turn around you'll find me and see me—but I'm not coming there with you to share that experience with you, I stay here and I keep the things in my life and I stay in the things of my life. And I think this is the challenge we're called to face, that is, to hold these aspects together in a new way."

The book opens with a quote from Plato: "Difficult things are beautiful." Does this still apply, even in our postmodern society, which rather shuns effort and complexity?

Difficult, or rather, challenging, paths allow us to discover much more. The tendency when faced with young people's struggles is to lower the bar. Sometimes it's necessary; perhaps there's too much pressure and it can be lowered. Often, however, we realize that we have young people with brilliant, sharp minds, but they're under-stimulated. And we don't offer stimulation or obstacles because we're afraid of having to deal with frustration. Instead, when young people can experiment, they certainly encounter frustration, but at the same time, the beauty of doing difficult things, stumbling, backtracking, slowing down, following paths that may not be linear, but are stimulating and fulfilling. Growing up is tiring, difficult, demanding, but beautiful. This is what we must convey to young people.