Less violence through more conscious parenting
25 November is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. And it doesn't matter which source or which statistics you look at: The figures are simply staggering.
There are certainly many starting points for doing something about violence against women and girls. We believe that education can also make a contribution.
And does it only depend on the upbringing of boys? No. But don't misunderstand: Women and girls are never to blame in any way if they have to experience violence. But social influences have an effect on people of all genders. And it would be blind not to realise that these imprints - unfortunately - still have the effect that there is still a tendency to keep girls down, to trust them less, to teach them to hold back instead of clearly saying "Stop. Stop." That's why it's important to talk about parenting in general.
And three things are extremely important:
Our children must be able to grow up without physical violence.
Our children should not be confronted with verbal and psychological violence. This means: no negative, humiliating comments along the lines of "you can't do it anyway", "you're too bad for that", "you have no talent for it" and so on. No shaming, no embarrassment in front of friends or other people.
And thirdly, as parents we have to learn to accept that our children also have strong, powerful emotions that they are often not yet able to control so well as children. And it is our job to teach them this. To teach them to read and interpret these feelings. Fear, sadness, anger - these are neither good nor bad feelings in themselves. In psychology, they are said to exist in a resolved and unresolved form. And it is, so to speak, an educational task to deal with emotions as openly as possible and to work with the children as much as possible to give them good access to all their feelings. Because if that doesn't happen, an emotion like anger, for example, can develop an incredibly destructive power.
One thing is also important: it's all easy to say. However, in our hectic, stressful everyday lives with worries at the back of our minds, it's not always so easy to put into practice. And that's not a bad thing. Nobody has to be perfect. But it's important to keep reflecting on things. And to discuss it with your child, to apologise if you slip out a stupid sentence. And then make sure that it remains an exception.
If we can change the climate in families a little in this way, perhaps a small step will have been taken against this violence.
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