Parenting without scolding: is it possible?

The new parenting guide «Parenting without scolding» provides lots of practical tips and information on how to deal with parental scolding. 3 questions for author Nicola Schmidt.

Mrs Schmidt, what exactly do you mean by scolding and when was the last time you scolded someone?

Scolding is when we hurt someone with words without solving the actual problem constructively. When my children were recently arguing in the car and there was a dicey situation, I made it very clear that I find such arguments on the motorway really dangerous. That wasn't very helpful - the children were bored and it was my fault that we didn't have a radio play with us. It's very difficult to understand that it's difficult to drive on the motorway when you're not driving yourself. I could have done things differently two hours beforehand to save myself and the kids the stress of «arguing out of boredom».

Author and political scientist Nicola Schmidt organises courses for parents with her project "artgerecht". The mother of two children aged 8 and 11 lives near Bonn.

What do you do if you overhear parents scolding their child at length in the supermarket, for example?

I try to empathise. I say something like: «Shopping with a tired child can be really exhausting.» Sometimes I help pack the shopping. In this way, I try not to stress the parents further, but to co-regulate them, i.e. to calm them down so that they can get out of their stress, are not ashamed and see their child as a child again and not as an enemy. We parents often think that we have to «be consistent» or «follow through», even though this really doesn't help at 5.30pm in the supermarket. A tired child learns nothing at that moment. We might as well just buy the bar and leave the lesson «there aren't always chocolate bars in the supermarket now» until tomorrow, when the child is neither tired nor hungry.

«A tired and hungry child does not learn the lesson»

Nicola Schmidt

What should you do if you have become loud again and scolded your children when it really wasn't necessary?

Then it's important that we talk to the child about it: «It wasn't okay the way I behaved, but you, my child, are not to blame.» I have to take full responsibility for my behaviour and look for solutions. In this way, children learn that everyone makes mistakes and how to deal with them - a lesson for life!

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