Who has not heard or said to a baby the hackneyed phrase "That is not touched"?
All babies have their time to want to touch everything. Their toys or the television remote, the keys ... anything catches their attention. Whatever it is, harmless, fragile, dangerous objects ...
What can we do? Do we have to constantly be saying that this is not touched? Or on the contrary, let them touch everything they want, even if they are dangerous objects?
Before answering these questions, it is worth knowing why do they want to touch it all.
Let us bear in mind that for a baby or a child, the world is a fascinating and unexplored place. They must discover it and this is only possible through experience.
With babies and children theoretical explanations are useless, they need to experience the world, experience it. Their almost continuous exploration behaviors do not respond to a whim but are a necessity of the first order, as important for their correct development as feeding or resting.
Any object is interesting, not only those intended for babies, children's toys, but also fragile objects or even those that may represent a danger to their safety.
How do you act when you want to touch everything?
Our role as responsible adults is to ensure their safety but without restricting their need for exploration.
Continually saying "that is not touched" in addition to being exhausting, can be counterproductive. The baby, due to immaturity, will not listen to explanations or understand our adult logic. If you receive a lot of refusals, your need for exploration will be frustrated. When the negatives are excessive, the baby can react in two ways. It may end up giving up exploration, inhibiting itself, or it may ignore what we say to it and become "rebellious."
The key will be found in prevention. We can reduce the number of refusals and thus minimize the conflicts they cause by removing from their field of vision all those objects that we do not want to touch well because they are a danger, because they are fragile or because we have esteem for them. If you don't see it, it won't get your attention and you won't ask for it.
It is also a good idea to try to keep a coherence in our behavior. If one day we leave them the car keys, it makes no sense to deny them another day. If we don't want him to touch them, let's never leave them to him.
It may happen that in an adult's carelessness, they end up picking up something that we do not want them to touch. Try to perform a peaceful exchange Offering a more attractive object is a good way to resolve the situation without conflict.