What children really need - and what they don't
Children are born helpless and need parents who give them a sense of safety and security that allows them to get to know and trust themselves and other people. Parents may feel insecure and inexperienced, both of which are understandable and no reason to question their quality as parents. All good parents, including the very experienced ones, must have one key skill: the willingness to learn with and from the child.
However, parents also have values that guide their thoughts and actions. These can be unconscious values from their own parental home or very conscious ones.
Parents must be able and willing to imagine the feelings of their children and their partner.
In general, there are three situations that indicate that the quality of your own leadership skills is not at its best:
When parents often feel stressed, angry and defensive and dream of a child who is less stressful. This often happens when parents have a clear idea of what they want and forget to get to know and appreciate the child's personal qualities - and instead blame them for all the conflicts.
When it is almost impossible for parents to say «no» to their child. This is often the case with parents who want to be popular with their child and therefore confuse popularity with love.
When parents are afraid to tell the child what they want and don't set boundaries because they are afraid of conflict or don't know how to deal with conflict.
In all three of these family constellations, the children's interests are neglected because they are either subordinated to the parents' needs or because parents confuse the children's wishes with their own needs. In the first case, the parents miss out on all the joy, closeness and fun with their children, while in the second case, the parents suffer from exhaustion and lack the time, space and energy to develop their own adult partnership.
Children are born with empathy, but they need empathetic parents to develop it.
Managing a family with a one-year-old child, with four children aged between six months and nine years or with one or more teenagers is a completely different task in each case - but a whole range of parenting qualities and skills are always required.
Every family needs parents who are capable of empathy. They must be willing and able to imagine the feelings and thoughts of their children (and of course those of their partner). Only then will children feel seen and heard and be able to trust and respect their parents. Children are born with empathy, but they need empathic parents to develop it.
The balance of power in a family is clear, the parents have all the power - including the power over how much of their influence the children are exposed to. Parents alone can be responsible for the atmosphere, tone and quality of relationships, and that can sometimes feel like far too much of a burden.
Children are born with precise genetic blueprints, with a certain disposition, with unconditional love for their parents and a never-ending desire to make their parents happy. The way in which parents exercise guidance and turn their attention to each individual child determines how the child develops its innate characteristics.
Two forms of parental guidance can force children to adopt personality patterns and forms of behaviour that are bad for everyone: Firstly, parents who demand that children prove their love by becoming what the parents want them to be and do not let the children form their identity.
Secondly, parents who violate the personal integrity of the child - its physical and emotional boundaries - through emotional, physical or sexual violence.
Our behaviour is determined by our own childhood
As parents, all adults fall back on their own childhood. In doing so, we tend to copy our parents' behaviour and parenting methods, whether we agree with them or not. Nothing can influence us as much - trigger our strongest affection, our desire to be needed and our destructive behaviour - as conflicts with our own children.
Time and again, we are forced to look in the mirror and recognise things about ourselves that clearly contradict our own values and ideas. This happens in moments of helplessness towards our children and rejection by our partner.
All we need as parents is the will to learn as much from our children as they do from us.
And this is precisely where the importance of our own family lies: it challenges us and allows us to grow up. In our families of origin, we learn a first version of how to love. Our own family is full of opportunities to develop a second and even a third version.
That's why it's important in leadership to realise that our children do the same as we do: they try to be as valuable as possible to the family and enrich our lives. And it is equally important to remember that we are enriching the lives of others just by trying.
Nobody needs perfection or endless success. All we need as parents is the will to learn as much from our children as they learn from us. Not by lecturing or preaching, but by engaging with each other as much and as authentically as we can.
The reasons for conflicts between parents and children depend on the age of the children. Many conflicts arise in the first five to seven years because children are exposed to an intensive learning process in which they have to confront the possibilities and limits of the world, but also their own abilities and limits.
These conflicts continue, while others are added as children become aware of their individual social and intellectual identity and develop their skills and independence.
The parental guidance of the future is based on dialogue. This does not mean that everything should be discussed or negotiated - although the need for both becomes stronger during adolescence. Dialogue builds mutual trust, respect and self-esteem because it allows both parents and children a unique insight into each other's values, feelings and thoughts. The quality of the dialogue lies less in its duration than in the openness of the parents.
Equality between parents and their children
An example: A seven-year-old wants a smartphone. Some of his friends and one of his cousins have one, but his parents are adamant that he shouldn't get one until he's ten.
Son: «But why? Why are you the only ones who think like that?»
Father: «Do you really want to know or are you just angry with us?»
Son: «Yes, I'm angry. It's not fair that my friends are allowed to have a smartphone but I'm not, and you both have one too.»
Father: «I understand that you're angry. I probably would be too in your situation.»
Son: «But why don't I get one then?»
Dad: «Your mum and I have talked about this a lot over the past year because we knew you would ask us at some point. We think that a smartphone takes too much of your attention away from playing with your friends, learning, having fun with us. We don't have that much time for you, and that time is important to us. As you know, we switch off our phones when we're together, doing the housework or watching TV.»
Son: «You're not right, it's totally unfair!»
Father: «I know, but this is our decision and it's okay that you're angry about it.»
This kid is going to be frustrated for a day or two, but that's perfectly okay. This is a natural and healthy reaction at all ages: to grieve or get angry or offended when we lose something important or someone important.
Children must have the right and the opportunity to express their thoughts and feelings without being judged.
The decisive factor in dialogue is equality, i.e. giving the boy the opportunity to express his thoughts and feelings without them being judged.
Children need ...
In the first 12 to 18 months of a child's life, parents need to make sure that they get everything they need. After that, parents need to start a process that makes the child feel like a member of the family. To do this, parents need to realise the difference between what the child wants and what they want or hope for.
Children need the space to develop their independence. They do not need the uninterrupted attention of their parents.
Children need a healthy diet for their physique, their immune system and their brain. They don't need pizza, ice cream or sweets. Children need enough sleep. They don't need five bedtime stories and four songs.
Children need the space to develop their independence. They do not need the uninterrupted attention of their parents. Children need to learn how to deal with frustration, loss and anger. They do not need parents who do everything they can to spare them this experience. Children need the opportunity to develop on their own path and at their own pace. They don't need parents who tell them what they should learn and when.
It is very important that parents learn to take every form of reaction from their children seriously. In this way, children learn to pay attention to the reactions of others and take them seriously. And in turn, parents can determine how they can incorporate the child's behaviour and expressions into the foundation of their relationship with the child.
At the same time, the child learns more about himself and his contribution is valued in the family. So children do not teach their parents to be good parents by becoming teachers themselves - but by parents learning most of what they need to know by paying attention to their children and thinking about what they see and hear.
Nothing is urgent in a relationship with a child - the most important thing you can give yourself and your child is time: to think, to digest, to grow.
Those who take the first step and improve their own behaviour will also lose their feelings of guilt and regain their joy.
Parents often ask desperate questions about parental guidance when the big crisis has already broken out, when they are worried about the well-being of the child or the whole family. In the real world, there are no good answers to these «How can I fix this?» questions.
The only sensible thing to do at such a moment is to realise that your leadership has not been good enough and to change your behaviour. As soon as you become more open-minded, curious and empathetic, the child's worrying behaviour will change - and then you have another 45 years to improve your relationship with the child.
Those who take the first step and improve their own behaviour will also lose their feelings of guilt and regain their joy.
