A matter of opinion: Our children – all little tyrants?

The little house tyrant is an absolute nightmare

Parents should better avoid going into bookstores. Now they no longer have to fear only "educational emergency" and "Pisa catastrophe". Now they are again being shown in many ways "Why our children become tyrants". If you believe the book by the psychiatrist Michael Winterhoff with this title, it happens very quickly: Parents who prefer to bring up a partnership rather than hierarchy, grandparents who also pamper their grandchildren, plus a kindergarten where the little ones can decide for themselves what to play – It doesn't take any more, and he's done: the little house tyrant. This is a truly unsympathetic contemporary: egotistical, dependent, addicted to domination, lazy and, to top it all, still gleeful: Nothing gives the little tyrant more joy than tormenting his parents.

In short: the little house tyrant is an absolute nightmare. What happens when you have totally failed as a mother or father. And that's exactly why the fear of him is so deep. Who wants to be to blame for turning an innocent baby into an unscrupulous self-centered monster?

This petting is not at all in the child's interest: how else should it ever become independent? When a baby cries and cries in its crib, there is only one correct reaction for it: "Then, dear mother, get hard! Just don't start taking the child out of bed, carrying it, rocking it, driving it or to hold it on your lap, even to breastfeed it. The child understands incredibly quickly, "threatens the author. "After a short time it demands this preoccupation with it as a right, there is no rest until it is carried, rocked or driven again – and the small but relentless domestic tyrant is done."

The book was a wonderful fit for the National Socialists: The early hardened fruits of this upbringing, they hoped, would later make excellent soldiers for the Führer, the people and the fatherland. Johanna Haarer was ideologically in line with them, as the title of another book from her pen shows: Mother – tell about Adolf Hitler.

Bad sleeping habits?

For example, in the evening, when we have put our baby in his cot, tired and full, according to the textbook – and it immediately roars like a stick. Take out immediately? Or leave it for now? So the heart, which can hardly stand the desperate screaming, quarrels with the head that has read the counselors. New, modern guides. Which nevertheless stir up the fear of spoiling your child. And, even worse: To let your child manipulate you. A good example of this is the guide every child can learn to sleep, even in the latest edition.

At first it seems quite harmless, and on the first pages you can read a lot about the value of closeness and love, which parents should not deny their children under any circumstances. Only: "Unfavorable sleeping habits" should not develop from this either. That is why it is really not a good idea to take out a crying baby in its crib and weigh it, drive it or even let it fall asleep on its chest. Instead, leave it screaming and crying in its room and only check it out every few minutes so it learns to fall asleep on its own. The author Anette Kast-Zahn explains this learning process as follows: The baby "comes to the conclusion: 'I make an effort and scream, and what happens? It's not worth the effort for that little bit of attention. I prefer to sleep. (.. .) Screaming longer doesn't do any good either. My parents still don't do exactly what I want. '!

Domestic tyrant reloaded

These considerations are all the more astonishing as they are ascribed to a six-month-old baby who, according to the current state of research, neither has a sense of causal relationships ("If I do this, it happens"), nor can consciously "decide" to fall asleep. Above all, however, the child is subjected to an astonishing degree of calculation: The infant strategically plans how he can force his parents to do his or her will. And then realizes that it has drawn the short straw against the consistent parents in terms of power, and accepts his fate.

The assumption that a child is obstinately trying to enforce its (unjustified) will through desperate crying is taken even further to the extreme: some babies throw themselves into their cribs when they are screaming according to a schedule. However, according to Kast-Zahn, breaking off the sleep training program and hugging your child would be fatal. Because it learns from it: "Screaming doesn't give me the sleep aid I want. Vomiting does." Blackmailed by vomiting – the little house tyrant has acquired new weapons over the years.

The monsters are on the loose!

The little tyrants. How children can train their parents and how mothers and fathers can counter this was the headline of the star in 2005. Last year it followed up with a multi-part series on the "adventure of upbringing". Headline: Little Tyrants. In May 2008 the cover story: Come on, educate me! Why the feel-good society creates little monsters. Children are referred to as "bonsai terrorists", "Pocket-sized Saddam Hussein" or simply "pukes". And since this spring: Why our children become tyrants.

According to the dictionary, the tyrant is an unscrupulous ruler who illegally holds power and torments and harasses his subordinates. So that's supposed to be the appropriate way of describing a crying baby, a protesting two-year-old, a rebellious five-year-old? Why do we actually bring up such guns when describing our children?

Call someone who should know. The Konstanz historian Miriam Gebhardt has been researching for years how Germans raise their children – from the German Empire to the present day: "Oh yes, the little house tyrant," she sighs. "It always has a boom when the Germans are particularly insecure again. After wars, but also in shaky economic times. Then there is a vague concern that your own child could suffer a kind of competitive disadvantage through being spoiled: it has to be later Be independent and be able to assert yourself! Then the little tyrant comes into play – and with him the tips to harden the child early and to suppress the needs that he expresses through his crying. "

And why do we find it so difficult to finally dump the specter of the mini-tyrant as educational hazardous waste? Because the little tyrant has gotten stuck in the image that our society has of children over the last 70 years, says Miriam Gebhardt. And of course, because the little house tyrant comes in handy for all experts who want to convey to parents: If you rely on your gut instinct, it can backfire catastrophically.

"Whether the supernanny shows off parents who have failed in their upbringing on television or the educational researcher Klaus Hurrelmann demands a" parent's license "- what remains is the impression that most mothers and fathers are naturally incompetent in dealing with children," says Miriam Gebhardt. "And the little house tyrant is the symbol of what happens when such parents raise their children as they see fit."

Rediscover the gut feeling

So it's high time to finally send the little house tyrant into well-deserved retirement. But how?

First of all, by clearing out our language: our children may sometimes be rascals, rascals or louts, but neither tyrants nor terrorists.

The second step is more difficult: we have to regain the trust that nothing bad will come of if we rely on our intuition first of all when bringing up children. On the contrary: in many studies it has been shown that parents can sense what their children need and when with an almost dreamlike certainty. The impulse to pick up, carry or breastfeed a crying baby right away is just as much a part of it as that of laying a calming hand on the shoulder of a raging two-year-old.

Of course, that doesn't mean that it doesn't make sense to read one or the other guide. Good parenting books or magazines can even help parents regain greater confidence in their own abilities. Those who are not put off by the specially set up table that advertises the new tyrant book can already find them in bookshops today. They just don't shout that loud.

This article originally appeared on Eltern.de.