«We deal with our fears consciously and constructively»

"In our environment, many families have one more and one less anxious parent. That's not the case with us. This is perhaps also because we divide our family responsibilities equally: So there isn't one parent who has to pay more attention to potentially dangerous situations for Tiago.

Neither of us are particularly fearful people anyway, especially when it comes to expeditions into nature and the mountains. We spent a lot of time outdoors with Tiago from an early age. He has also always accompanied us on mountain tours.

We sometimes worry whether we are spending enough time with Tiago and will regret the balancing act between job and family at some point.

We recognise potential risks and show him how to deal with them, for example if the weather changes, a section of path is narrow or a meadow is slippery. Tiago is a cautious, sometimes anxious child. If he doesn't dare to do something, we don't push him. As he is very careful, we don't have to worry about him ignoring dangers.

The biggest worries as parents concern other things. Letting go is an issue for both of us. Before the first sleepover away from the family, for example, we asked ourselves whether it had to be so early. We didn't want Tiago to feel alone at night.

We also both sometimes worry about whether we are spending enough time with Tiago and whether we will regret the balancing act between work and family at some point. Even though we both enjoy working and have always wanted to do it this way, there are sometimes flashes of fear that we might not be able to accompany some developmental steps and special moments enough. We alleviate this worry by focussing on each other during our time together and consciously organising and enjoying our time together.

We show our son that we can influence our everyday lives and our future. That reduces anxiety.

Another concern is coming to us from outside: in view of the conflicts, wars and the climate crisis, we are asking ourselves what kind of world Tiago has to deal with. Our approach is to deal with these fears consciously and constructively. We explain to Tiago in a child-friendly way what our fears are and why we think environmental protection, for example, is important and why we want to do our bit.

We show him that we can influence our everyday life, our attitude to life and our future. That reduces anxiety. Incidentally, Tiago also takes away our insecurities: On our last holiday at the Baltic Sea, we wouldn't have dared to touch dead jellyfish without his thirst for discovery. And in the past, we would have simply sucked up many a giant spider. But our son insists that we take them outside alive."