Why Should You Let Children Fight
Kids have a lot to fight about – the last big dinosaur nugget to taller and become Juniper’s Player of the Week. In America, parents tend to react to these childhood fights with irritation, going into referee mode and forcing children to share with each other, apologize, or take a break at opposite ends of the room. We want peace and we want it now … please?
But there is another approach: let the kids handle it. In the Wall Street Journal article ” Parenting in German: Let the Children Fight, ” Sara Zaske writes that when she lived in Berlin, she found that local parents and teachers did not get involved in every dispute – instead, they trust these children, the majority can resolve questions yourself, if given the opportunity. She explains:
Of course, it’s natural for children to fight. But the way the German teachers in our whale [kindergarten] approached these conflicts was very different from the American ones. They were in no hurry to intervene, unless the child was about to get hurt. They did not punish, warn, write the names of disobedient children on the board, or attach them to a colorful diagram of death behavior.
Instead, the German teachers watched the situation. Sometimes they would take the children aside to talk to them individually; sometimes they spoke directly or indirectly to the whole group about fairness and kindness by reading stories that touched on the issue. Sometimes they didn’t do anything at all.
Did all the children magically live in harmony after that? Oh no. Zasuke writes that when her daughter was five years old, she had problems with two close friends, and she was “expelled from friends dozens of times and not invited to distant birthdays.” (My American Heart Mom wants to call the parents of these kids right now for a little chat.) But teachers would never scold children for such things. Rather, away from the heat of conflict, they would help them think through their actions, highlighting the consequences for others , which has been shown to induce both children and adults to change their behavior. And then they retreated and let the children figure it out on their own.
The reckoning will come later. In Japan, parents and teachers take the same relaxed approach to wrestling, viewing them as a natural rite of passage for children. The study compared American and Japanese students in fourth and fifth grades and their thoughts on fighting, hitting, and related actions. When asked why they shouldn’t do this, 92 percent of American children said they didn’t want to get into trouble. Their actions were shaping external forces. The vast majority of Japanese children, on the other hand, did not mention punishment and explained that they should not fight or beat because it hurts others. They have gained the wisdom and maturity that can only come from life experience.
In kindergarten that year, Zasuke’s daughter learned important lessons. “By the time she got to elementary school, she was known as a peacemaker,” explains Zasuke, who has written a new book called Achtung Child: An American Mom on the German Art of Raising Independent Children . “To this day, she rarely has problems with the ‘bad girl’, whether the victim or herself.”
It can be harder to stand aloof and observe emotional situations than trying to solve problems for your children on the spot. But they need constant guidance, a place to explore their feelings, a model of kindness. What they probably don’t need is a referee watching every game.