Parenting without scolding: Our topic in November

Dear reader
Suppose you go out on the street and ask parents whether they regularly scold their child. How many do you think would honestly answer yes? 50 per cent? 80 per cent? For my part, I don't need to dwell on the question for long: yes, I scold our children. And yes, not too much.
How else can you do it when child 1 is messing around in the morning until you could walk up the walls, while child 2 is spilling cocoa on the floor? How else are you supposed to react other than to get loud when child 1 is fighting with child 2 so relentlessly over a pencil sharpener that you have to intervene before blood flows? And how on earth do you manage not to fly off the handle when child 1 refuses to clear the table and child 2 just wrinkles his nose when he sees the cat's litter tray full to the brim? Once you've exhausted your arguments as a father, the child says: «Why don't you clean it yourself if it bothers you so much!»
«Scold them. Almost everyone does it. And no one is happy with it. When parents have scolded their child, perhaps even snapped, there's a hangover afterwards. The children are unhappy, and so are the parents. But there are alternatives.» That's what Julia Meyer-Hermann wrote in her exposé for this dossier entitled «Scolding». We were excited - and were not disappointed. Our author describes classic conflict and argument situations, clarifies with experts what scolding does to a child's development, at what point scolding is considered psychological violence and what scolding and shouting reveal about us parents.
And Julia Meyer-Hermann answers the most important question of all: How does parenting work without scolding? This much can be said in advance: Taking the pressure out of everyday life helps. Because anti-scolding therapy starts with ourselves.

«You can't be too careful when choosing your parents.»

Paul Watzlawick (1921 - 2007), Austrian psychotherapist, psychoanalyst, author and philosopher

On our own behalf: While many newspapers and magazines are reaching fewer and fewer readers, the Swiss parents' magazine Fritz+Fränzi continues to grow and reaches more readers than ever before in its 19-year history. This is confirmed by the latest readership figures, which are compiled twice a year by WEMF AG für Werbemarktforschung. Switzerland's leading parenting guide now has 208,000 readers, which is 4,000 more than a year ago. Fritz+Fränzi has thus increased its readership by 61,000 in four years and is one of the few print titles in Switzerland whose readership is constantly growing.
On behalf of the non-profit Elternsein Foundation, publisher of the Swiss parenting magazine Fritz+Fränzi, and my editorial colleagues, I would like to thank you, dear reader, for your loyalty, praise and criticism. And for allowing us to continue to accompany you and your children - in both easy and challenging times. Thank you for staying with us in the future.
Yours sincerely,
Your Nik Niethammer