The psychologist and journalist Isabel Rojas Estapé He has just published his first book. ‘The explorer neuron. I need a hug’ (Timunmas, Planet) is a story for children to understand sadness and advice to overcome it, which is born from her own experience as a mother. “When my daughter was two years old, I started to notice that she was blocked at certain times and that’s when I told her that she has a neuron in her brain with which she can talk and that together they can get out of bad moments.”
Isabel Rojas Estapé is the daughter of the psychiatrist Enrique Rojaswith more than 30 books published in his extensive career. and sister of Marian Rojas Estapéone of the authors with the most copies sold in Spain. For this reason, he explains to this newspaper, “it didn’t make much sense for me to start writing for adults when they already do it.”
It is the first book in a collection of four that deals with different emotions: sadness (the first and which is already on sale), joy, anger (especially dedicated to children’s tantrums) and fear.
The importance of understanding thoughts and emotions
Cris is the protagonist of this story. Neurite It is your explorer neuron. The little girl is given news that she doesn’t like at all: her parents have decided to move to another city. Naturally, this situation makes him very sad. So much so that he just wants to cry, and is unable to get out of that state.
Luckily, Neurita knows how to help her take control of that sadness and turn “gray thoughts into colorful moments.” So, with this story that children from 4 years old can read“it will be very easy for parents to help their children manage their own emotions.”
Clinical psychologist and journalist, she works at the Rojas-Estapé Clinic where she carries out research, dissemination and psychological therapy. Since 2017 she has been co-founder of Ilussio Bussiness and Emotionsa company dedicated to emotional management within the professional field, together with her sisters Marian and Cristina. Guest professor at various Spanish universities (University of Navarra, UNIR…) and Latin American universities. He has received several awards, including the CEU Ángel Herrera Award for the dissemination work carried out.
As happens to Cris with the move to another city, “leaving everything you love and know always produces a little sadness and although we believe that small children are not affected and do not find out, it is not true.”
And the most worrying thing is that on many occasions “parents do not know how to detect this feeling in their little ones and that is why it is so important that let’s know how to help them manage emotions“.
“The book is quite aimed at male parents because, unfortunately, psychology has not yet fully caught on in the male world and I wanted to help those fathers who come home exhausted from work and be able to teach their children without needing inventing nothing or resorting to the imagination,” says Isabel Rojas Estapé to ‘Health Guides’.
And we must keep in mind, he clarifies, that not all advice can be transferred in the same way to all children. “We human beings are unique and unrepeatable and to What works for one, doesn’t work for another.“.
Thus, the psychologist proposes a guide for parents with five exercises to help children, although it is important “that we have that exercise of getting to know our children.”
How COVID-19 ended mental health stigma
With the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic, the paradigm surrounding mental health has changed. We have left behind the stigma of these problems. And fortunately, professionals are increasingly being used to manage the behaviors that “worry us about our children.”
With this story, children will be able to detect, understand, accept, manage and, above all, overcome those emotions to which we have given greater relevance since the COVID-19 health crisis.
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“I am seeing the suffering of parents who were not taught emotionswho are now suffering and that is why I wanted to go to the children because they are the future of society.
The great “emotional wounds” emerge between 0 and 12 years of age. And what we see most in psychology consultations are anxiety disorders, because “we live in hyperalertness and with the need to get to everything,” and control, which can trigger depression.
And since “children learn what they see”, parents are responsible for how they ‘negotiate’ feelings with them: “sitting down and explaining what is normal and what is not, is essential.”
