How children learn from parents

Unfortunately, we tend to talk about learning from models in negative situations. We get upset when we discover unpleasant aspects of our parents in ourselves. A mother is annoyed by her son's behaviour and says: «He got that from my ex!» Or a teacher says disparagingly after the parents' evening: «Well, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.» That's a shame, because this form of learning harbours an incredible amount of potential that is only marginally exploited.

Children are picky. They pay attention to whether the role model is attractive, whether it has something that they would also like to have.

For children (and adults), learning from a model is often the most effective way - especially when it comes to acquiring complex skills. But it is not only skills that are developed in this way; we can also learn values or positive characteristics such as helpfulness, community spirit, perseverance and courage from others.

For this to succeed, a number of conditions must be met. It is by no means the case that children are passive, unwilling recipients who willingly learn everything from us. They are active, selective observers in this process who choose their role models and only adopt something if they are appropriately motivated.

Children actively choose their role models

Consciously and unconsciously, they filter potential role models according to a few criteria. They pay attention to whether the role model is attractive, whether they have something that they would also like to have. This can be status, influence, success or a certain ability, for example, which is why children and young people often take sportspeople, musicians or film stars as role models. However, this phenomenon can also be observed in a group of children.

For example, younger children are more likely to learn from older children than vice versa. In the first few years of life, we parents are the heroes in our children's lives - and correspondingly attractive as models. Language, social skills - children acquire almost everything during this time by imitating us. Children also like to choose models that are similar to them. They can identify with them particularly well.

It is no coincidence that the heroes in children's stories are around the same age as their readers. The sympathy and relationship between the child and its model determines whether something is learnt. We like to learn from people who are important to us and to whom we feel emotionally connected.

What is promising is imitated

When we observe other people, we are always interested in the question of what their actions achieve. First and foremost, we imitate what is promising. Children register how the model feels after certain actions, what it says to itself and how its environment reacts to it.

For example, children only adopt certain values from us when they can observe how they affect us and others - only then do they come to life and become worthy of imitation.

We like to learn from people who are important to us and to whom we feel emotionally connected.

When I was at the river with my children a few weeks ago, a man came by with a bag, bent down and picked up broken glass, beer cans lying around and plastic bags. «Dad, what's that man doing there?» my son wanted to know. I replied: «He's picking up rubbish so that we have a nice place and you don't hurt yourselves on the broken glass.»

I smiled at the gentleman and thanked him. When I was in Kannenfeldpark in Basel last week with Nora, a good friend and the children, we said after half an hour: «Kids, you'll probably want to go to the fountain and splash around a bit - you've really collected enough rubbish for today.»

This man became an effective model for my son for several reasons. Because he did something that he couldn't categorise, his interest was aroused: he observed him attentively. My delight at his behaviour, the explanation and the «thank you» showed him that this action leads to recognition from other people. (If I, as a very sensitive person, had known that he would be constantly touching some disgusting rubbish over the next few weeks as a result, I would have reacted a little more cautiously).

One teacher told me about Zoe, a particularly dreamy, disorganised girl who constantly forgot her material, didn't take out her book and didn't write her homework in her exercise book. At first she tried by constantly reminding her, which only led to Zoe becoming more and more listless in class.

One day, however, she noticed that Zoe's bank neighbour and best friend Anna could do exactly what she still needed to learn. From that day on, she stopped admonishing Zoe. Instead, she walked past the two girls' desks and quietly and casually said things like «ah, Anna is writing the homework in the exercise book» or «Anna has already opened the book, good».

If children are supposed to learn certain things, we can ask ourselves: Are there models that have this property?

Zoe immediately pricked up her ears and did the same as her friend. Soon she was able to say more and more often: «Zoe and Anna have already started. Wonderful.» The classroom climate can also be improved in this way. One teacher said that the rule at his school was «we treat each other with respect», but that this rule was far too abstract for the primary school pupils.

He has spoken to his class about how he wants all the children to enjoy coming to school. Every Friday, he has three pupils talk about an experience that has contributed to them enjoying coming to school and feeling at ease in the classroom. Through this simple approach, the children hear examples of respectful and social interaction every week. For example, Simon says that he thought it was great that Lena explained a task to him again. Lena is happy about it, and Svetlana and Tobias think: «I could do that too.»