The self-confident child: our topic in March

Dear reader
27 March 2001 was a Tuesday. On that day, «The Times» in England reported that imported meat from Asia was responsible for the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. In Lüneburg, environmental activists chained themselves to the railway tracks to prevent the transport of spent fuel elements from German nuclear power plants. At the same time, then Foreign Minister Flavio Cotti travelled to Israel and the Palestinian territories. US director Quentin Tarantino, singer Mariah Carey and world goalkeeper Manuel Neuer were celebrating their birthdays. And Switzerland was discussing the Swiss electorate's «No» to the «Yes to Europe» popular initiative.
Something else remarkable happened on 27 March 2001: Ellen Ringier, 50, daughter of a fur wholesaler from Lucerne and a banker's wife from London, former top climber, doctor of law and wife of publisher Michael Ringier, founded theElternsein Foundation. She asked herself what was really needed in Switzerland to help families, the mother of two recalls. «I wanted to support parents in their parenting skills and in their educational tasks and create an understanding in society of what it means to bring up children.» The first issue of Fritz+Fränzi, «my printed social project», as she still affectionately calls her parenting guide, was published in September 2001.
20 years and 162 issues later, the Elternsein Foundation, under President Ellen Ringier and the prudent leadership of its Managing Director Thomas Schlickenrieder, has long been more than just the publisher of Switzerland's most successful parenting guide: the foundation produces educational films, organises awareness-raising campaigns against cyberbullying and is committed to helping children from economically disadvantaged families.
20 years of the Parenthood Foundation means 20 years of supporting and accompanying parents in both good and challenging times. Not with a warning finger, but with information, assessments and analyses. And with comfort. The foundation wants to convey a message in every text and with every campaign: Despite all the effort, being a parent is a great joy.

«All happy families are alike. Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.»

Leo Tolstoy (1828 - 1910), Russian writer

«Aggression is not a sign that a family is falling apart, but that it is alive,» writes Jesper Juul in his column «Ondt i familien» - literally translated as «Hurt in the family». As is so often the case, this text by the Danish family therapist, who died far too young in 2019, is about the culture of conflict and disagreement in the family, integrity and self-esteem. It gives me great pleasure to present Part 1 to you in German for the first time: Aggression in the family.
And if you, dear male parenting enthusiasts, are wondering which text in the March issue might be of particular interest to you - voilà: «Excel parenting - how men can learn family work». In his column, Mikael Krogerus promises nothing less than a «holiday from ourselves»: «With this method, you will have everyday life, this hell of the present, under control.»
Sincerely,
Yours, Nik Niethammer