Slightly dishevelled from the night before, I head to the park with my kids.
Feeling delicate, I opt out of Frisbee and lay on a blanket to watch the world go round. With the kids playing happily, I turn my attention to people around me.
Boys with footballs, girls hanging upside-down from a rope bridge - when do they learn to do that?
Kids crying on the seesaw. Sisters - aged 7 and 4 I would say. The game goes like this.
Little one winds up big one. Big one chases little one and pushes/hits/pulls hair before heading back to the playground. Little one cries to mum and then goes back and starts again. Mum says nothing. I don’t like kids being violent with each other.
Then another scuffle breaks out on the roundabout. Five kids aged 3-11 were playing nicely until the youngest starts getting agitated.
He picks up the wood chippings and starts throwing them at the others. Not getting the attention he wants he screams at them and then spits on his sister.
Again the parents watch the whole episode without intervening.
Now it’s true there is a million reasons as to why this boy is acting the way he is, but you would need a very good excuse as a parent not to intervene wouldn’t you? Not to reprimand or at least threaten to leave the park if he does it again?
‘Beyond Chocolate’, my bible on arrival here, informed me that parenting in Switzerland was more ‘laissez-faire’. Like today, some parents are just less likely to step-in over out-of-control behaviour.
I’ve seen many instances of that here in Basel (not all Swiss I hasten to add). I don’t buy it myself but then I guess I don’t need to. I just file it into that box marked ‘interesting differences of living abroad’ and pick up the Frisbee.
Tags: children, Life in Switzerland, parenting, Swiss
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It’s funny you should say that. I’m a South African in London, and have felt alienated since I arrived by what seems to me to be the very “hands-off” British attitude, and correspondingly poor behaviour of kids here. Consider the problems faced by teachers etc. In contrast, the impression I’ve formed on visits to Switzerland (my husband’s family are Swiss and live near Zurich) has been that the approach is closer to the South African model. Guess I need to take a closer look!
Nice write-up! Personally, I feel like parenting is an everyday topic in Swiss politics and as always when debating upbringing questions, opinions are divided. Over the last few years the government (or better: every single canton) has included social competence in their lesson plans. Honestly, I still don’t know what to make of this because I feel like this is something the parents are responsible for. Anyway, elections will be soon, let’s see if there are some fresh minds introducing fresh ideas.
I must agree, it certainly appears that the’laissez-faire’ mindset is alive and well in Switzerland. I was brought up with the notion that children show respect towards adults by addressing them as Mr./Mrs. etc. I was totally shocked when my young nieces and nephews addressed their parents and grandparents by their first name…whatever happened to Muetti, Vatti, Grossmuetti & Grossvatti? As a matter of fact my young nephew, age 6, was asked to talk about his granparents in school and did not know who (these people) actually were. I was shocked.
Your observations seem totally comprehensible to me. The demographic reality in Switzerland shows that there are too less children. But still there are many parents who don’t seem to be ready for taking care of their responsibilities as such. Are responsible people less into having children in general or is there another source of these ‘problems’?
Dean, I find this observation difficult to support. I do agree that such a bad behaviour is not acceptable on the playground and I would expect the parents to take action immediately. The one thing that I doubt strongly is that this should be a Swiss phenomenon. Anyway, I will be keeping an eye on it!
These are interesting observations, which I made myself this summer.
Many parents today are working in addition to bringing up the children. Moreover, parents are getting younger and younger when they are having their first child and are, in my opinion, often not ready for it yet or don’t have the time to assume responsibility for them.
So, maybe the role of teachers in the education of children becomes more important. But I don’t know if this is the right way to go.
Thanks all for your interesting comments.
My thoughts are: UK v Swiss v elsewhere: My perception is that in Switzerland many young kids (1-9) are left to discover the rights and wrongs of the world through experience more than through parent intervention. I don’t think this is due to ‘bad parenting’ (any more than any other country). Rather that culturally this is seen as the appropriate way. In the UK, I think parents are more likely to step in when their young child is misbehaving. I think in the UK things often go wrong as the children become teenages.
Re schools: My view is that while all adults that influence a kid’s life should naturally help them understand right from wrong, learning-in-the-round (from citizenship to mathematic) should be led from the home. Considering kids are at school for most of their waking hours however, I think the rules and behaviors at school are more important in supporting children to understand right from wrong than ‘teaching’ citizenship 1 hour a week. Also a school teaching ‘don’t spit at your sister’ is pretty ineffective if that norm isn’t supported outside the playground.
Steim 16: I agree it’s not solely a Swiss phenomenon but I do think there is a cultural difference at play. I lived in Italy for 3 years and my experience there had some similarities to that in Switzerland. Italian parents are not hands-off (generalizing of course). In my experience mums in particular they have a tendency to foster over-dependence in their children. But from what I saw they often struggled to control their young children. From an early age you would see little kids not listening to their parents and the parents losing/giving up on battles they, in my mind, need to win. Thus a similar outcome of unruly/boisterous behavior for a very different reason
I agree with the general idea that moms and dads nowadays fail at parenting (of course there are also plenty good parents).
On the other hand I do not think that this is a typical Swiss issue. If you observe properly you will also find enough foreign parents who simply do not care about their children’s behavior.
I think it is more a general problem that the parents are swamped with work or are just lazy and try to give over the responsibility to the schools and teachers – which is just wrong.
Dean, I basically do agree with your opinion, nowadays parents are often overwhelmed with their parenting style. But in contrast to your opinion, I feel that this is not a swiss-only problem. These days there is for nearly everything a course and an exam or similar things. But practically everyone can get children without knowledge or any support, and not all of them are really looking into “how to be good parents”.
As opposed to most of my commenters, I’m more a supporter of the “laissez faire” approach. The behaviour of the youngest of us seems not to be acceptable to everyone. But I think its a very healthy thing. Children in this age try out their boundaries. In my personal opinion, its far better for the child if its learns by realizing “Oh, wenn I behave like this, the older child will hit me and it hurts” as if the parents shouts at them and it thinks, ” What is wrong with me, I just wanna play. etc.” Just a little food for though.
Kids here (and in every western country) seem to get away with anything. Perhaps this is the reason behind the increasing violent youth society. They don’t know where the borders are with rules. However, the Swiss get their own back controlling adults such as the multitude of (money grabbing) speed cameras everywhere punishing drivers if they even go 1kph about the limit.
Just for fun: I’d like to say that all these problems are caused by teachers. They turn the youth into a mob of badly educated apes. Of course you could say that teachers are not in charge of teaching good behavior, but let’s be honest parents don’t have the time to spend time with their children. They have to work all day long and in the evening they have to watch, “Family Guy” followed by “How I met your mother” and “Teleshopping”.
To be serious: Of course these parents are just overchallenged and unfortunately there is no supervisory body which is authorized to withhold permission for pregnancy. I know it sounds very, very, very hard but some people should show their qualification first. Do they have the budget, are they addicted to alcohol and/or other things which would indicate a (probably) problematic childhood…Well that’s of course overstated and no solution. But…if..argl!…
By the way: Do you know the movie “Idiocrazy” our doom on DVD.
Dear Dean, generally i share your opinion. But I think, it is difficult to define the frontier between “laissez-faire” and intervene. If everything is prescribed the kids cannot make their own experience, because also failings help to develop. Because I do not have children, this is only my theoretical opinion. Perhaps, once I have my own children, I will change my view.
I see it as a development which started decades ago when the 68 movement decided that punishing children is not appropriate to educate them. They decided that it is necessary to discuss every topic with children. And they think parents and children are equal partners. But in my opinion they are definitely not. Parents who act strictly like this just won’t to assume responsibility and they just want to avoid disputing with their children. But it’s their responsibility to lead them and teach them to become good, friendly and decent people. Otherwise they end up terrorizing others and as load for the whole society. In think the appropriate education strategy lies somewhere between classical and modern methods, hardly depending on the situation.
Very interesting topic. I remember that my (Swiss) parents always intervened in equal occurrences (despite the fact that I was a real nice boy ;)). You may agree if I say that we all have seen scenes like Dan did. I have no experiences in educating children but my opinion is that an intervention should have taken place here and it seems that I’m not the only one. So, could it be an ‘issue’ of a generation? Nevertheless, a good mix of (a little) “laissez-faire” and (enough) intervention may be the key to a good education.
I think raising children is a very hot and also delicate every-day-topic, not only in politics like witsy said!
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Nowadays, you need a certificate for almost everything, but not for parenting. Even grandparents must prove that they are able to watch kids. So of course there are as much different opinions as there are parents, politicians and all the other self-proclaimed experts (maybe even more…
For my part, I don’t agree with Dean:
As a child (yeeees, long ago…), while playing outside, we could behave the way we wanted to and do whatever we wanted to: being children in the first place!
Of course there were parents who jumped from every quacking, but we haven’t been stopped until it really went too far.
Yes, children of all age are noisy, loud and sometimes rude!
But I wouldn’t like to be the parent, who “turned down” his child for fifteen years…
All people should do a “parenting test”, when they are adults. Anyone who fails the test should be sterilised. There are too many people in this world who have zero idea of how to bring up kids or have zero time to look after them. The world’s population is getting too large anyway.