Parental anxiety: Our topic in October

Anxiety is good and healthy, says science. If you don't feel anxiety, you become a psychopath. So far - all clear. When it comes to children, things get complicated. There is no parenting without fear. Parents protect their child with their fear. At the same time, children need protection from their parents' fear. Because anxious parents often have anxious children. Parents who live in constant worry have a negative impact on their child's development.

What are parents afraid of? When is parental anxiety justified? And when is it too much? Julia Meyer-Hermann explores these questions in the dossier «Parental anxiety». The fear of many parents is by no means limited to the possibility of their child falling out of a tree, having an accident on the way to school or being dragged into the bushes by an ogre.

My advice to parents who are constantly worrying is to do like Pippi Longstocking, who once said: «We've never tried that before, so we'll probably be fine.»

The fear that drives many parents is more diffuse, goes deeper: it is the fear of not being enough. Of breaking down because of their own expectations of parenthood. It is the fear of not doing justice to the child, of misjudging its abilities and aptitudes, of not being able to teach it the values that make it a good person.

It is the fear of not being a good mother, not being a good father, not accompanying one's daughter or son wisely when consuming media, not giving the child enough attention and love.

My advice to parents who are constantly worrying is to do like Pippi Longstocking, who once said: «We've never tried that before, so we'll probably be fine.» To fathers and mothers who wonder whether parental care will one day become less, I say: rather no. My mum still asks me every time we see each other or talk on the phone whether I'm eating healthily and getting enough sleep. My mum will be 91 years old in October.

As a father of two children (11 and 13), the case of 14-year-old Ayleen from Gottenheim in Germany, who met her future murderer, a sex offender with a criminal record, in the Fortnite online game chat, has particularly affected me.

I asked our media expert Thomas Feibel for an assessment: How dangerous are online games? How easily do young people come into contact with strangers in chats? And how can parents protect their children from online dangers? Feibel's most important statement is: «Parents don't need to be interested in online games themselves - but they do need to be interested in their child and their online topics and interests.»

«Every child has the right to a qualified teacher,» writes Beat Schwendimann, secondary school teacher and member of the Executive Board of the LCH Teachers' Association. Hand on heart: don't you also know qualified teachers who have missed the profession and career changers who are great teachers thanks to their passion and feel for the learning child?

Like Mike Huss, who has just been appointed headmaster of a primary school in Ione, California. He once attended this school himself as a pupil, later worked as a school caretaker for 14 years - and then as a teacher for 19 years. As a caretaker, he got on so well with the pupils that teachers encouraged him to change careers, Huss told the programme «Good Morning America». He wanted to show his son that you can «always grow in life».

What do you think about the issue of «staff shortages in classrooms»? I look forward to receiving mail from you.

Yours sincerely,
Yours, Nik Niethammer