«Children want to be with children, not with adults»

Mrs Roebers, you once said that school forces children into a corset. What do you mean by that?

Our society has determined which tasks and, derived from this, which skills and abilities are correct and important, and what is promising or unprofitable. It also places this demand on schools. Our society does not value a child who stands out due to their creative talent in the same way as one who is good at maths. Consequently, neither does the school.

We are all of the opinion that we also need artists or footballers. But at school, German, maths and science are the subjects that count most, because it is assumed that these skills are crucial for a successful life. That's what I meant by the corset.

What does that do to the children?

As long as a child fulfils the requirements, everything is fine. If their greatest talent is football or music, they have a problem. Then the school will gradually force them into a mould that they don't fit into. They have no choice but to muddle through. This is not good for long-term personal development.

How could it be better?

There are differences between children, that's the reality. I realise that school is an institution that has evolved over time. But we can't ruin children by pretending that everyone is the same. I find it significant that in many Scandinavian languages there is no term for class repetition.

It is not the case that a child has to repeat a class because of their learning speed or talent profile - it would be a system failure. Instead, there are enough specialists who encourage the child's talents, but also offer them support where they have weaknesses.

In your opinion, this support should start very early. What do you understand by the term early intervention?

The term is often misunderstood. It is not about approaching the child from the outside and prescribing training. Early intervention in the context of developmental psychology means the opposite: it is based on the awareness that development starts with the child and is individualised. Early intervention means observing a child attentively: What interests it, where is it pushing towards? This allows us to shape their environment accordingly.

In my experience, this works very well in daycare centres in this country: in an environment with peers that offers a wide range of stimulation, the child can choose for themselves what they want to do and with whom they want to interact. Early intervention means supporting the child's development in the way he or she chooses, but also offering alternatives: If a child is only interested in building blocks, I can also motivate them to do handicrafts. Early intervention has nothing to do with language courses and the like.

Because such initiatives do not come from the child?

And because they are not sustainable. Sure, you can train children early on in area-specific skills, be it early English or climbing. The question is what it will do for the child in the long term. Let's assume you send your child to an English-speaking kindergarten. Of course, the foreign language will set processes in motion that would otherwise not be stimulated.

However, if you do not continue with this consistently after kindergarten, for example by sending the child to an English-speaking school or emigrating to Canada, development will come to a standstill from the moment the child stops going. It is more sustainable to invest in skills that will help the child in all situations in life.

For example?

In the home environment, parents can primarily support the child's independence by offering them challenges and then withdrawing for a while. Let them dress themselves, pack their bag, fold laundry or help with cooking and do not intervene immediately if difficulties arise.

In everyday tasks, the child practises independence and problem-solving skills. By overcoming obstacles, it trains frustration tolerance, a certain perseverance and motor skills. However, it must be clearly stated that many of the prerequisites that are important for good child development simply cannot be provided by parents alone.

What do you mean?

Research shows that if children are given the choice of who they want to interact with, they choose peers rather than adults from the age of three at the latest. It is a child's natural need to be with other children. That is one thing. But when it comes to developing social skills or self-regulation, i.e. the skills we use to control our attention, emotions and actions, the company of peers is more important than that of parents.

Arbitrating or resolving conflicts, taking a back seat and getting involved - children learn this best from other children. They are closest to them in terms of development. Peers don't show any consideration when a child is unruly and leave them to it. Parents cannot offer this kind of social learning environment to the same extent. Today, children spend too long and too often with adults before they enter the school system.

Educational scientist Margrit Stamm once said that most problems when children enter the school system are of a social nature. She also observed that quite a few children are emotionally retarded, for example at the age of five they are not yet able to wait and then react with outbursts of anger. Do you agree with this assessment?

Not at all. Children today are more competent in many areas than we were at their age - just look at how four-year-olds ride bikes or operate digital devices. Children adapt to the environment in which they live. And yes, it has changed. Many children today are growing up in cities and in small families, with increasingly dense traffic and less connection to their peers, which limits their opportunities to move freely and be part of a group. Naturally, this has an impact on their development. Children are the result of the learning experiences they have had. And unfortunately, these are not always appropriate to their age and development.

It is said that today's parents don't trust their children enough.

Parents can only be blamed for this to a limited extent. We have talked about the difficulties that prevent them from letting children go off on their own. Added to this is the ubiquitous availability of information, but above all the constant bombardment of it. It has made adults more sensitive - not only to dangers, but also to all deviations from the apparent normality.

Today, parents can access information at the touch of a button whenever they are unsure of how a child should develop. Apart from the fact that such content is not always correct or often oversimplified, it obscures the diversity of what we developmental psychologists consider to be normal.

You need to explain this in more detail.

I spend most of my time explaining to students how wide the spectrum of normality is. We now know more than ever about child development and have increasingly reliable methods for documenting it. This allows us to say what is average - but not just average.

The main merit of our science is that we have a better understanding of variability, i.e. the statistical dispersion around the mean value. This dispersion is much broader than one would generally assume. What I want to say: There is a lot of room in the normal range of a development. The information from the Internet ignores this fact. The meritocracy does the rest: it sets benchmarks for children that I believe are out of place.

What are you thinking about?

It is widely believed that a four-year-old child should be able to count to 20 because this has to do with school readiness. The latter is true, but does not mean that a child has to be able to do this at the age of four. If they can count to 20 at six, that is early enough. Many parents believe that small developmental advances - the child can read, do maths or ride a bike earlier or better - are an asset for the future.

This is not the case, because development is dynamic: a child can be ahead in terms of language, but further behind in terms of motor skills or social skills, and three years later the tide turns completely. Some are interested in numbers, others are more interested in letters, others are strong in motor skills, and somewhere the development comes together: Then everyone can read, do maths and ride a bike. Children develop differently.

There is limited room for this diversity at school: today, children are assessed much more comprehensively, and there are already multi-page questionnaires in kindergarten.

Such assessments are certainly helpful. There is a specialist who gives parents an overview of the child's development, emphasises their strengths and explains what they still need to work on. This should give parents guidance, no more and no less. If, on the other hand, the whole thing is presented as a catalogue of deficits and parents feel obliged to let their child catch up on something, something is going wrong in the communication with the teacher.

For many, Curriculum 21 is a ray of hope in this context because it emphasises not only school subjects but also interdisciplinary skills.

Personal and social skills are more important than ever, and there is no substitute for specialised knowledge. Young people need to know their strengths and weaknesses and have good self-regulation so that they can focus their attention, stay on top of problems, develop learning strategies or organise their time.

This is becoming increasingly important with decentralised, digital forms of learning and working. Social-emotional skills such as the ability to work in a team are just as important. If schools really succeed in prioritising such skills not just on paper, but in everyday life, we might achieve what is known as sustainable education. It would be desirable to move away from a focus on performance.

Even as parents?

Of course. However, parents have a much harder job today than they did 30 years ago. We live in a society that declares competition to be the highest maxim and suggests that we need to prepare our children for it. Added to this is the wealth of information that mums and dads are confronted with. All of this is unsettling. I notice that parents often pull out all the stops too quickly and their child is diagnosed with a behavioural disorder that I, as a developmental psychologist, would not even classify as such.

So we have to assume that children who are in principle unremarkable will also receive a diagnosis?

Yes, in the case of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ADHD, for example, the diagnostic criteria are based on the context. One of the decisive factors is whether parents and teachers perceive the child's behaviour as disruptive. If, as I often experience during school visits, a single teacher is confronted with 25 children and is understandably overwhelmed, I can understand why they would find a lively child disruptive.

But then there's a good chance that it's not the child but structural circumstances that are the problem. The same applies if parents are at the limits of their jobs or finances and then perhaps have neighbours who are constantly complaining about the noise. This leaves little tolerance for the child.

Have developmental and behavioural disorders actually increased?

There is no scientific evidence for this. I suspect that we perceive more children as conspicuous because the context in which they find themselves does not match their level of development and their needs. There is no longer room in our society for many facets of child development that are completely normal from a scientific point of view. You can see this in the fact that there are fewer and fewer places where children can make noise or run around without causing a disturbance. We - parents, teachers - have the wrong idea of normality. That's the problem.

What do you suggest?

Children in this country grow up in the knowledge that anything is possible; they are overprivileged when it comes to healthcare and educational opportunities. At the same time, they are not seen for what they are: our capital. If Switzerland had oil reserves, we would invest heavily to get the best out of them. We don't have oil, but we do have healthy, well-educated children and young people who have every opportunity open to them. They are our resources and I wish we would invest more in them.

Where would you start?

With the parents. When you have a child in this country, the midwife will give you tips along the way, after which you are essentially on your own. Other countries do it better: in Iceland, a specialist visits families from birth right through to school age. The midwife acts as a reference person who can help parents with advice, but can also reassure them as an expert and say: Don't worry, it's completely normal.

This takes the pressure off parents and helps them to avoid feeling insecure, which is a real challenge these days. The logical continuation of this support would be fully developed childcare to complement family life at pre-school age. As I said, this would also be crucial for other reasons: the most important factor driving children's development is other children.

Are you in favour of compulsory daycare?

I would be in favour of children - all children - being looked after outside the home from the age of two. Not 40 hours like in France, but perhaps 25 or 30. We are a rich country and should be able to afford this. Then we would also have a different situation in terms of equal opportunities. Investing in children as our future would also mean providing schools with far more resources. Research shows, for example: If you reduce the class size by a few children, it does little good. If, on the other hand, there are always two teachers in the class instead of just one, the effect on learning development is phenomenal.