When a child yells at their parents, many see it as a sign of disrespect and poor upbringing. An expert sees things differently.
Stuttgart – Sometimes just a little thing is enough to make the camel overflow. When children have outbursts of anger and also direct their frustration at the parents, it is often painful or uncomfortable for the latter. Who as an adult likes to be yelled at by a child? As a study has now found, parents should see the screaming as a compliment in the future, instead of questioning the upbringing of their own child. Because the rants of the little ones are by no means a sign of failure on the part of the parents. It should be taken more as a compliment.
Children as “domestic tyrants”? According to one parenting expert, this picture is completely wrong
Raising children is not an easy thing. Some believe that rules and boundaries are good for development, while other experts recommend giving children more freedom. A renowned educator said, for example, that parents raise children to be “softened miserable creatures”. Many parents are afraid that their children will dance on their noses. Some people actually force themselves to be tougher and stricter with their offspring. The fear of punishment is still a means of pressure that many parents use as a method of bringing up children. For the psyche and the development of the child, however, this is pure poison. However, the effects of an extremely authoritarian upbringing usually only become apparent later. Experts advise strict parents to let their children be self-centered.
Many parents are afraid of raising their children to be little “tyrants” or “poison dwarfs”. Especially if you have children who are strong-willed and sometimes cheeky, you can quickly get the feeling that you are being too soft. “But that doesn’t mean that we have to harden up or suddenly insist adamantly on rules that could just as well be handled more flexibly,” says Nora Imlau, journalist and expert on family issues, in her book “My Family Compass”. “Because the behaviorist image of the petty tyrant just waiting to seize control of our family in a moment of weakness is in no way supported by the findings of modern developmental psychology.”
Kindness only becomes problematic when we understand that we are not allowed to respect our own boundaries.
But according to the expert, this fear of rebellious children is unfounded, because children do not want to take on the leadership role. “The fact that in some development phases they feel like they want to determine everything, insist on their demands and are not very willing to compromise has nothing to do with the fact that they want to do our job – in this way they simply discover their own self, their own will, their own will place in the world,” says Nora Imlau. However, mothering the children is also not the right way. For example, “parent taxis” for going to school have been sharply criticized.
With anger against parents, children show signs of “vulnerability and attachment security”
In the process of self-discovery, they need their parents to support them. “The fact that our children sometimes really work themselves out from us by scolding and screaming and raving and raging – none of this is an attempt to seize our power, but on the contrary: signs of great vulnerability and security of attachment,” says Nora Imlau.
Children who fear for their parents’ love would never write to them, says the expert. Only children who feel completely safe would dare to show anger, despair and sadness. “As absurd as it may sound, if a child calls us the dumbest parents in the world who should be dead, that’s one of the biggest compliments there is,” says Nora Imlau. As bad as it can be when children smack their parents in the face with hurtful words – it is still a sign of trust in the child’s unshakeable love for his parents. Meanwhile, a brain researcher warns that children’s joy of discovery could suffer if parents intervene too much in their development.
The fact that children sometimes yell at their father and mother is not a sign of weakness, but that they are absolutely not afraid of their parents. “And that’s incredibly valuable,” says the expert. However, this does not mean that one should only be friendly to the children without showing them limits. “Friendliness only becomes problematic when we understand that we are not allowed to respect our own boundaries. So believe that the friendly answer is always yes and the unfriendly one is no,” explains Nora Imlau. “This is a mistake: we can be friendly and still be clear in communicating our needs and boundaries.”
