From what age can a child fall in love for the first time? What does this feeling mean to him? And how (well) to react? Lighting with the Doctor of Psychology Emeric Lebreton.
Everyone remembers, even as an adult, their everything first love... When in the playground, we received a heartfelt letter and our little comrade kissed us and held our hands, all proud. Your child is also in the process of to fall in love ? Does your little girl only talk to you about her dear Thomas or your boy about his girlfriend Alexandra? We take stock to better understand the relationships and feelings of love in children.
At what age can we speak of a child’s first love?
“You can be in love at any age, there are children aged 4 or 5 who are in love”begins the Doctor of Psychology Emeric Lebreton, also author of “How do we fall in love?“. So it can start in kindergarten. “In the toddler, being in love is learning that is done a lot by imitation. He observes what is happening around him, sees and understands that there are different types of relationships between people.he deciphers. Moreover, “some do not hesitate to put a word on it and declare themselves in love. Even giving their girlfriend or boyfriend kisses on the mouth, or giving them gifts, when they are only five years old”notes Emeric Lebreton.
It is especially from the age of 6 or 7 that a strong attraction for another boy or girl makes it possible to talk about a first great love.“, specifies Stephan Valentin *, psychologist and author of the book “Arthur is in love”, published by Pfefferkorn.
Why do babies kiss on the mouth?
It is simply the reproduction of what they see from their parents. “Toddlers watch their parents and how they show love to each other. For the child, giving a kiss is then the sign that we love each other and the desire to be with the other, to spend time together.“, explains the specialist Stephan Valentin.
If our child tells us that he is in love, discuss it with him to better understand the issue, and ask him questions such as: what do you feel? Why him ?. Emeric Lebreton notes that children “can be in love with a person without ever or almost speaking to them. Sometimes the person concerned is not even aware”. Dothers love each other and formalize their relationship, holding hands or/and cuddling, so it is easy for the parent to realize this. Finally, another indicator for the parent: when his offspring talks to him repeatedly about the same person or/and praises him. How do we react? In all cases, “it’s necessary get him to express his emotions, to listen what he feels to try to understand the possible issues”suggests Emeric Lebreton. On the other hand, “if we see that he doesn’t want to talk about it, we respect, we don’t force dialogue, it’s his secret garden”, he adds. He might want to talk about it later.
What if my child is heartbroken?
It also happens that this love is declared, but it turns out to be unrequited. The child can then suffer from it. Our role will be to comfort him. And if he hasn’t told us about it and we see that he’s sad, that his behavior has changed, that he’s more withdrawn… in short, Does he have the symptoms of heartache? We open the dialogue to understand where the problem comes from. We can then bring him, gently, to ask himself if, in the end, this was the right person for him. For example, when it is not reciprocated, is it really useful to persevere? Is she/he infatuated with this person because she/he is nice to her/him or just because she/he is beautiful or popular. And, why is it so important to him? The idea is to bring the child to seek to build constructive relationships and not to a mirage. That there are other types of relationships can be more fulfilling.
What if my child is still glued to his lover?
“It is important to ensure that the child is not too exclusive and that he continues to see his other friends. It is not the intensity that is in question, but the fact that the two lovers live in a bubble. By offering to play with his other friends, the child learns early that being in love should not endanger friendly relationships. For Stéphan Valentin, it is also important that parents approve of their toddler’s relationship. “Parents need to show that they are okay with their child liking a girl or a boy and not getting “jealous”“of this feeling of love.
What difference is there with the feeling of love in adults?
Are the feelings, the intensity as important as in adults? “It’s usually not not as stable and crystallized as in adults. They have the definition of the term, a fairly intuitive notion, which nevertheless remains very flexible”, notes Emeric Lebreton. Before the age of 10, children can be in love with one person, then a week later with another, or even be in love with two people at the same time. In fact, “they are learning to put words to their emotions and to identify the nature of the relationships they have with others. Falling in love therefore contributes to their learning”, he reports. Among the older ones,“around college, being in love is usually taken very seriouslylived in a very intense way”, he remarks. And then, teenagers still have a more concrete user manual than their younger siblings. If this love is declared and reciprocal, they will be able to position themselves as a couple, to kiss, or even for the older ones, to have their first sexual relationship.
Why do children fall in love?
Every relationship meets a need. For example, it is common in middle school or high school to fall in love with someone because they are the darling of the establishment or because they are super handsome. He/she thinks of him/her all the time and watches him/her in the yard, without ever speaking to him/her. Finally, he/she doesn’t even really know who he/she is. “The feeling of love at these ages is really often based on appearances”, analyzes the psychologist. They fall in love because they project an ideal onto an individual they sometimes barely know. Admittedly, love always begins with admiration, but if it is a love that is unrequited, unrevealed or directed towards someone on whom things are projected without it being real, it can be interesting to seek to understand why: what does he/she need through this desire for this relationship to materialize? Is it to be able to enter a social circle that seems closed to him? Is it to become popular in turn? “The role of the parent will then be to try to explain to the child that there are other alternatives to flourish than to walk around on the arm of the star of the establishment. Or that beauty does not not do everything”, he says. To teach him that a romantic relationship is not just that. The idea is that he understands that the most important thing is to build a satisfying and reciprocal relationship. It is not a question of telling him to stop loving such and such a person, but of showing him that there are other possible ways and that they could even make him happier. In this way, “we prepare him to have more fulfilling relationships when he is older”, he assures.
“The new generation children generally have little problem with sexual orientation, it becomes something quite natural. Parents are more often the problem.”, notes Emeric Lebreton. His advice: don’t take offense. Especially since if our daughter tells us that she is in love with a girl at eight years old, this does not necessarily predict her future sexual orientation. “Their behavior has become more nomadic, they oscillate more easily from one sexuality to another”, he remarks. They experiment. “There is a kind of bisexuality, freedom of choice, they let themselves be guided more by the heart than by gender”.