10 questions about development and psychology
How important are siblings?
A child does not need siblings to thrive. Of course, having a brother or sister has advantages - but also disadvantages. An only child is quite simply a variant and no reason for parents to feel guilty. This feeling of guilt is more likely to be fuelled by wishful thinking or the image that parents paint of a family. You can safely forget it.
Only children have neither more advantages nor more disadvantages than siblings. It is much more important for a child to grow up in an environment in which they can thrive than having a sibling.
Jürg Frick, sibling researcher, psychologist FSP, author, lecturer and counsellor at the Zurich University of Teacher Education
What can I do if a child often hits or snaps?
Children only learn how to deal with their feelings and develop an inner sense of control in the course of their kindergarten years. What appears to parents as defiant behaviour is often due to the immaturity of the child's brain, which is simply not yet able to control some reactions.
Impulse control develops naturally over time. However, children can be supported in developing their potential for self-control and delaying needs. In order for children to train their impulse control, they need the guidance of adults. They are often not yet able to formulate their needs, impressions and feelings and therefore react emotionally and physically.
It is therefore important that parents express what the child is feeling. With increasing maturity, the ability to empathise with the other person's situation also grows. «I don't like being hit, so my friend doesn't like being hit either.» This essential insight works better than any ban.
Moritz Daum, developmental psychologist
How important is early intervention?
The realisation from brain research that the human brain develops depending on how it is used leads many parents to the erroneous conclusion that you have to train the brain like a muscle. Because they want to make their children fit for the globalised world, many parents have caught a dangerous virus : conveyoritis.
Fearing that their children could lose touch with a globalised educational society, they try to support their children in every possible way: Early English, children's yoga, painting classes and music lessons alternate in a tight schedule. Parents overlook the fact that the social environment has a much greater influence on brain development than any training programme. Parents cannot be encouraged often enough to take their children's play seriously.
André Zimpel, educational scientist
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Should parents allow their children to slip into their parents' bed at night?
All parents understand that small children can easily become distressed and stressed when they are alone on the way to sleep. And everyone knows that young children can't really be alone during the day either. However, opinions differ on how to deal with sleep. Some give in to children's need for closeness, others oppose this and favour more distance. Even today, the answer in this country is very often: you have to manage it on your own. You have to learn to sleep - the right way: alone. The sleep problem seems to be a legacy from human history.
After all, when it comes to sleep, all living creatures, big and small, are initially faced with a safety problem: anyone who falls into a kind of coma is defenceless and unprotected for quite a while. So it's good to set conditions for the Sandman! We grown-ups, for example, make sure that the front door is locked and that it's not too cold through the window. Our children ensure safety in their own way: they can relax when they know they have their trusted, protective carers with them.
So it's no wonder young children get stressed when they feel left alone on the way to sleep. I think it helps if we look at our own sleep; there's no one trick, but it's always about relaxation, about the feeling of a sleep home - when we get there, we wind down.
Perhaps we should remember the fire where we once sat and told stories. Would we have got up and put our child to bed behind the bushes? And fretted about what stories we were missing out on? No, the child would have fallen asleep at some point, in the middle of it all. It would have found its sleeping home somewhere. This way of thinking allows us to take a more relaxed approach to many things today, even for ourselves.
Herbert Renz-Polster, paediatrician and bestselling author
What should parents do if their son is a bully?
Physical confrontations are part of the male biography. It is important that a boy can distinguish between a fun fight and a brawl. How does that work? By giving the child a kind of inner voice as a guardrail. And he only gets this if he has parents who set boundaries. Who teach them what is fair and what is unfair, who tell them that they have to stop immediately when the other person says «stop» or «no» - and that the other person's head is off limits. I think it's wrong to ban scuffles as a matter of principle. However, children need to learn how to deal with it.
Allan Guggenbühl, psychologist, psychotherapist and expert on violence issues
How important is it that I let my child be a child?
Childhood is an inalienable treasure that is untouchable in the true sense of the word. Because we are all only children for part of our lives. But inside us, we live our whole lives from the fact that we were children - real, genuine children. If we no longer allow children to have a childhood because we would rather make them fit for the job straight away, then perhaps it is time to ask ourselves: what exactly are we looking for in life?
Herbert Renz-Polster, paediatrician
How many toys does a child need?
At pre-school age, a child needs a maximum of four toys. Generally speaking, less is more. However, children's rooms are bleak without soft toys and games. That's why toys belong in every nursery.
It becomes problematic when there are too many toys lying around. This is because, from the child's point of view, they radiate an expectation, namely to play with them. Overstimulation leads to children not being able to immerse themselves in their play because they constantly feel this invitation.
Toys that are not fixed, such as balls or blocks or construction games, are ideal. They give children's imaginations free rein, and the beauty of these games is their versatility: children construct something different with them at every stage of their lives. As a baby, they put a toy in their mouth and throw it around. Later, a building block becomes a car. And role-playing games come even later. As a rule, such games are always better than fixed games.
André Zimpel, educational scientist
How important is it for children to be able to play freely?
Play is important because the human brain is primarily a social organ that develops through experience. Children can «ape» better than our closest relatives, the chimpanzees, to whom we are genetically more than 98 per cent similar.
Playing is therefore not a waste of time, but the most effective form of social learning. Nothing makes children as clever as self-indulgent, freely chosen play. When children slip into different roles while playing or give everyday objects a new, playful meaning, they automatically develop their abstract thinking skills.
This ability is the most important prerequisite for learning science or foreign languages later on. At the same time, they playfully grow into the expectations of their environment. This means that they improve their social skills.
André Zimpel, educational scientist
What do you need for a successful life?
Three things are needed for a child to be successful in the long term. Firstly, a good self-concept. This means that the child feels like a good person and has confidence in themselves and their abilities.
The second point is that the child must have a certain tolerance for frustration . In other words, they must be able to overcome a hurdle without giving up or without mum and dad showing them how to do it.
Thirdly, curiosity. This is something that a person needs in order to be successful at school, willing to perform and motivated to learn. And they should learn because this is a need that comes from within and not from pressure from their parents.
These are the personality traits that parents should focus on when bringing up their children. However, too little attention is usually paid to this. Intellectual abilities are valued too highly.
Margrit Stamm, Professor Emeritus at the University of Fribourg and Director of the Swiss Education Research Institute in Aarau
How can parents best support their child through difficult times?
Firstly, parents should realise that they are allowed to make mistakes. Nobody is perfect, and it is an important signal to children to set an example of this, but also to be able to apologise. Those who own up to their mistakes earn more respect, because children want and need authentic parents as role models.
Secondly, parents should always stand behind their child - no matter what happens. It is important for a child to feel and hear that their parents love them and will stick with them through thick and thin when they are in trouble or not behaving as expected.
Thirdly: Relationships are based on (basic) trust. This means that the child should know that their parents are there for them when they need them. A relationship between parents and child is strengthened when parents firstly take an interest in the child's world, secondly talk to the child, thirdly through gestures and facial expressions, fourthly by spending valuable time together - this includes all moments when the child wants to tell them something, show them something, ask them something - and fifthly by parents showing their presence.
Sarah Zanoni, educational psychologist
100 questions and answers on education, family and school
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