What do parents think about their children? How do they feel about their children? How do they act?
Love and independence encourage us to look closely. It is worth it, because there is a way to accompany our children respectfully and in love. A way that brings us into deep and clear contact with our children and can even connect us with our children beyond puberty.
But we still often wonder how we can get our children to do what we want them to do. This is exactly where we are stuck in the dead ends of familiar educational attempts. Alfie Kohn helps us by clearing up the myths and desires of established educational teachings and taking us back to the point at which the question really makes sense: What do children need and how can we meet these needs?
A basic need of all children is to be loved unconditionally. To know that they are accepted even when they turn up the volume or when something goes wrong. Common educational methods such as punishment or reward fail at this point. They focus on control and communicate to our children in such a way that they are only loved when we like them or when they impress us.
Alfie Kohn refers to comprehensive but little-known research results that show what damage it can do to give children the impression that they "deserve" our recognition. This is the message that underlies most of today's widespread educational methods, whether we like it or not.
A multitude of practical examples rounds off love and independence. They show us in everyday life how we can work with children instead of just treating them as objects. They show us how we can replace praise with unconditional support for the elixir that children need so much to grow into healthy, warm and responsible people.