"Until further notice"?
New article by Agnès Bailly, psychoanalyst psychologist.
During this unprecedented period of confinement due to the Covid-19 epidemic, children are no longer going to school, "until further notice."
If this suspended time is a challenge for all of us, it is particularly difficult for young children: how can we imagine time when it can no longer be counted and stretches on, without limits? We no longer even know what day of the week it is because our lives are no longer regulated as before by the home/school/work rhythm, our various trips and outside activities.
A little girl I saw the day before the announced closure of all schools was very anxious: "But what does that mean until further notice?" she kept repeating. This is not at all a lack of "understanding" but rather something impossible to bear. This is what psychoanalysis calls the real: that which is lawless, that which falls upon you, that which has no meaning, that which escapes you. It is as if we suddenly had to deal with an Other, capricious, all-powerful, unregulated, who decides everything as he pleases and who leaves us in great disarray in the face of the unlimited.
So, how do you explain to your child what happens when you find yourself in the same situation as them, stunned by what has fallen on you without warning? And how do you reintroduce a little temporality into all of this? We all know that children love the rituals that organize their lives. And what if one day we miss this fixed thing and they wait – because something unexpected got in the way? This will be an opportunity to tell them that we can't do everything and that we don't know everything. It's a great relief for them that adults miss things too!
Let's bet that, in place of the absolute knowledge that doesn't exist, a small dose of personal invention can be found in this void. In this area, children show us the way. What if these moments of surprise, when we discover ourselves to be different and rather inventive, became our compass for dealing with this new CDI, Confinement of Indefinite Duration?
