Children need exercise, fun and games, not chess championships and early Chinese.

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Encourage instead of demand: "I just want to play!"

18.6.2018

Translation: machine translated

Encouraging young children means first and foremost giving them enough space in everyday life to fulfil their innate need to discover the world. This does not require early Chinese, but space to run, play and explore. The consequences of too much pressure and too high expectations, on the other hand, can be seen not least in the United States.

Some parents ask themselves this question even before they look their child in the face for the first time: How much encouragement does it need? There is hardly any other explanation for the fact that there are now devices that expectant mothers can insert into their vaginas from week sixteen of pregnancy to stimulate their unborn babies with Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.

There is no evidence to date that children then sit down at the piano and compose symphonies themselves thanks to prenatal sonification in kindergarten. What we do know for sure is that children want to develop on their own initiative. They have an inner urge to grow and acquire skills and knowledge. This basic assumption also underlies the book "Baby Years" by the well-known Swiss paediatrician Remo Largo. Children want to move forward, feel, taste, understand and speak - but at their own pace. In the first weeks, months and years of life, nurturing therefore means above all: parents should organise their child's everyday life in such a way that they can have all these experiences in line with their development.

Stones, pencils and dishwasher

So it's not primarily about teaching the child something, but about giving their curiosity enough space. This can mean: Creating space for movement, places where children can crawl, walk and run freely. Offering them a variety of materials to play with and discover - stones, water, sand, but also crayons or fabrics. Communicate a lot with children, even when they are far from being able to answer in words themselves. Enable children to have sufficient contact with other children and adults. Let them take part in the everyday lives of adults; let them chop the vegetables for lunch, put the dishwasher away and even run the hoover around the home.

On the other hand, there's no need for early Chinese if your daughter doesn't show a keen interest in it. Growing up in a multilingual family can certainly have its advantages. However, a language that a child learns in a course and that is completely irrelevant to their everyday life usually doesn't stick. In the worst case scenario, children risk losing the joy of learning new languages at an early age.

Birth of the "American question"

In the United States, parents have long been concerned about sufficient stimulation. In the 1960s, the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget was asked so often at lectures in the USA how children's cognitive development could be accelerated that he called this the "American question". Europeans may dismiss this as exaggerated American behaviour. However, American professor Sara Harkness is convinced that this ignores the underlying reasons. The anthropologist has long been studying the question of how parents organise their children's everyday lives and what influence culture has on this. "We Americans live in a very competitive society and the pressure of competition is particularly high on the labour market," says Harkness. Many parents have doubts as to whether their children will be able to succeed there one day. In addition, the social safety net in the USA is not comparable to conditions in Western Europe; paid parental leave, for example, does not exist in the United States.

Too much pressure and too many expectations can have devastating consequences: Many more cases of ADHD in children are diagnosed and treated with medication in the United States than in Europe. Of course, the fact that the respective school and healthcare systems react differently to the same situation must also be taken into account as an explanation, says Harkness. Nevertheless, it is clear to her: "Too much stimulation and too little sleep play a role here." American children and adolescents also suffer from anxiety and depression more often. The strong focus of parents on cognitive development, says Harkness, is at the expense of emotional and social development.

Questioning expectations

This does not mean that you should no longer read books to your children. In her studies, Harkness found, for example, that Italian mothers and fathers, like American parents, cultivate the ritual of bedtime stories. The only difference is that the former are not primarily concerned with achieving a specific learning goal and preparing children for school - but with a moment of closeness and the opportunity to allow children to calm down.

Of course, a daughter should be allowed to take a karate course if she wants to, just as a son should be allowed to take flute lessons. But parents would do well to ask themselves from time to time what they hope to get out of it. <p

Header image: Children need exercise, fun and games, not chess championships and early Chinese.

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Ümit Yoker

uemityoker@gmx.net

A passionate journalist and mother of two sons who moved from Zurich to Lisbon with her husband in 2014. Does her writing in cafés and appreciates that life has been treating her well in general. <br><a href="http://uemityoker.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">uemityoker.wordpress.com</a>

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Encourage instead of demand: "I just want to play!"

Stones, pencils and dishwasher

Birth of the "American question"

Questioning expectations

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