«Children need to know what they need»

Giving up responsibility is not easy. Karin and Stephan Graf explain how they are raising their three children to be independent.

Stephan: «Learning to take responsibility means preparing for life: Gaining experience, planning and implementing actions. Trying something out, with the risk of it backfiring, and gradually learning to stand up for it.»

Karin: «But children need a training ground so that they can develop these skills, and they need patience and guidance.»

Assigning tasks to children does not reduce the workload, but rather increases it.

Stephan: «You can't just hand over responsibility and call it a day. Recently, the boys have been responsible for clearing the table and putting away the dishwasher, but only some of the dishes made it into the kitchen and blocked the shelf space.»

Karin: «We had to formulate the order more clearly: «Please take all dirty dishes to the kitchen.» There's now a poster there to remind us where to put it before it goes in the dishwasher.»

Stephan: «At first I kept an eye on it, as they admit - now I keep a low profile. Where the risks are manageable, I try to leave the boys to it. But I don't wait until it smells burnt when Luis is cooking breakfast cereal. I was there until he knew how much heat was needed. Assigning tasks to children doesn't relieve the burden, it adds to it. To intervene or not, sometimes it's a balancing act.»

Karin: «Luis often refused to wear his trousers as a toddler. I simply took them with me, and at some point he demanded them too. The relationship with the child was more important to me than getting involved in a power struggle «because that's the way it should be». Children learn from experiences if we allow them to. Sure, there are limits.»

Acting responsibly means taking responsibility for your own feelings instead of blaming them on the other person.

Stephan: «The other day I looked out of the window. Suddenly there was Lionel, in the tree opposite - at the top! I just shouted: «Get down, now!» Lionel came home upset. I later explained to him that I had lost my temper out of fear.»

Karin: «Sometimes my temper gets the better of me. At best, I manage to walk out of the room and say that I'm angry and need a moment to myself. Or I apologise afterwards. Acting responsibly means taking responsibility for your own feelings instead of blaming them on the other person. We endeavoured early on to support the children in finding words for their feelings and to let them experience that these are respected.»

Stephan: «Personal responsibility requires empathy, which we have to show children if they are to learn it. For me, this includes teaching them that it's okay if they don't trust themselves to do something. Whether we succeed in acting responsibly also depends on how well we recognise what we need and whether we are able to ask for help. I want to strengthen my children in this, because I often see adults stumbling here.»