Dr. Neufeld’s note: Dagmar Neubronner is my publisher in Germany as well as the Director for the German language for the Neufeld Institute. Parents in German-speaking countries have been steadily losing their ability to make decisions regarding their children’s care and education. The official policy in many European Union countries today is the defamilization of care — the state gradually replacing the family regarding care and education. We tend to take these parental rights for granted in North America, resulting in a dangerous complacency that could be our eventual undoing. Developmental science is unequivocal in its evidence that parents are a child’s best bet. It is in this vein that one should read the following editorial.
The first six or seven years of life are, as we know, essential for a child’s development and maturation, and a warm, safe and caring home has been most children’s best bet for millenniums. But now, facing the changed working patterns of society, many parents feel they need to have daycare for their children from an early age.
This is not necessarily a problem in itself, since we could use all the rich scientific developmental knowledge to organize ways of caring for our little ones that are attachment-safe and developmentally friendly. But if we look at the reality of kindergartens, preschools, and early daycare-centers, they do not meet these needs and are not even aware of them.
Therefore, some dedicated parents in Germany still prefer to educate their young children at home. You have to pay only for a very small part of the real expenses, since daycare, preschool, and kindergarten institutions are heavily subsidized by the government. So all those families who do parent their young children at home, subsidize with their taxes institutions they do not make use of.
But worse: They are seen as weird and not doing the best for their children, since public opinion has convinced everyone that young children urgently need an institutional education and the companionship with many peers to thrive to their optimum and become socially fit. So those parents who leave their children at home are seen as social misfits. Mothers who do not go to work are suspected to be lazy and overprotecting, following an old-fashioned and ridiculed “mother’s mythology” in thinking they were most important for their children. When I start with a new Neufeld-seminar, course, or give a keynote, I usually get these very relieved reactions of parents learning about the attachment needs of their little ones: “I always felt deep in my heart that I am right, but everyone told me I was crazy to spend so much time with my child(ren).”
The political request to make kindergarten and preschool mandatory in Germany has led to very intense political discussions. Right now, we are still free in this point, although more than 90 percent of children older than three are in a preschool or kindergarten, and varying among the federal states. About 58% of all children under age three are in daycare in Eastern Germany (communistic until the wall came down) and about 30% in Western Germany.
Several years ago, our German government passed a law forcing the communities to provide daycare institutions for 30% of all one-year-old children, starting with August 2013. The law said that every child had a “right” to have a daycare place from birth. Since the communities were forced to invest huge amounts of money, they of course now want their institutions to be filled with children, since the money they receive from the government relates to the numbers of children. A young immigrant friend of mine told me “the authorities” had phoned her several times to invite her very seriously to give her two-year-old into daycare. She had not planned to do this, but got so frightened that she followed the invitation.
But daycare or not, every four-year-old has to pass a language test, and if his or her German language capability appears not well enough for this age, preschool/kindergarten is made mandatory for this child. This is supposed to forward the integration of Germany’s many immigrants. The kindergarten, if not the daycare center, is seen as an important cultural melting pot. But depending on circumstances, also many bright German children fail this exam, simply because they refuse to answer questions or tell a story to a person strange to them.
In Switzerland, kindergarten is mandatory starting with age four; in Austria it is also mandatory starting with age five (at least 16-20 hours per week), and it is planned to antedate to four years in Austria, too. This is supposed to facilitate “early education and equal opportunities regardless the financial background of the family.”
The situation in other European countries is very diverse, but since we all share the worldwide change of working patterns, the challenge is similar and the governments’ answers have also much in common.
Since the actual expenses (not the fee parents have to pay!) for a public kindergarten place are near to 1200 €/1600 CAD per month and child, some parent associations in Germany requested that at least a part of this money should be paid to those parents who are ready to take care of their children themselves. The main argument against this request is the statement, that a) many parents would buy expensive TV screens or alcohol instead of using this money for the benefit of their children, and that b) there was a public interest of as many mothers as possible going to work.
My own experience with kindergarten was rather short: I enrolled my elder son Moritz to kindergarten when he was three years old. We went there together, I stayed in the room, until after half an hour or so he told me: “It is okay for me if you go home now.” Every morning he went to the kindergarten in a serene mood, and I was wowed. Then, after two weeks, he said: “Mom, now I know what it is like in kindergarten. You can de-register me again.” Moritz was very astonished when I told him, that we expected him to go there for the next years. It was September, and we agreed that he would continue to go there until Christmas. If he then still would not like it, he wouldn’t need to continue. So he went there for two more months and did not lament or mourn a lot, but at Christmas he still preferred to stay at home, because “I can play better at home!”
His younger brother followed this career pattern, only I did not wait until Christmas when he told me there was never enough space to just play because of all the morning circle, common breakfast, walking excursions, singing, listening to stories, etc. Both of them enjoyed their first six years at home.
I have to admit, though, that those who warned me not to let this happen because they would not like school either, were right – my boys prefer to stay at home until today. They are 16 and 18 years now and Moritz just was in a national TV-show again the other week because he made his high school exam externally, without school. In Germany, where homeschooling, let alone unschooling, is strictly forbidden and persecuted, this is unheard of and worth a TV appearance. So from my point of view, I hope that German politicians will take their cues from North America regarding freedom in education – starting early, with kindergarten staying a voluntary step.
