Interview with Jesper Juul (1st Part)

Interview was prepared by Ivana Gradisnik and Anja Cotic Svetina
 

One of your main ideas is that children are competent. What do you mean by that?

The fact, that children are competent is actually a very important discovery done by the American psychoanalyst Daniel N. Stern and his associates in the eighties, when they studied the early relationship between mother and child. His findings corresponded with my own experiences as a family therapist and I chose the title “Your competent child” because I wanted to underline that children are not “half-competent” as earlier developmental psychology had taught us.

What we found was among other things that the reactions/behavior of children always are meaningful – i.e. the are to be understood as valid feedback to the adults; That children are born with the ability to be emphatic and the ability to take responsibility for their own person. These are the most interesting competencies as they are completely opposite from what I learned in my education and as a father 35 years ago. It means that there is good reason to regard upbringing and education of children as a mutual process where parents can and must learn along with the child. As the child is learning about the world, his family and himself the parents are learning about their child and themselves as human beings. It also means that raising children is no more a one-way-street, where adults are doing something to children, but a mutual process of personal growth and development.

 

So, children are competent, parents are competent – why do we then need so much »professional advice«, so many books on parenting, parenting manuals etc… When one reads through your work one of the thing that become immediately apparent is that you don't fall into that »method« trap – giving »cook-book recipes« that are supposed to work for anyone. How come?

I thing there are two reasons. The first is that this new insight creates a whole new perspective on children and their personal and social development for which we have not yet developed a corresponding adult behavior. The second is that the world and our societies have changed tremendously over the past generation so that young parents actually are faced with the challenge of re-inventing not only partnership but also how to raise children with  respect for their personal integrity. The fact that children are competent does not mean that they know or are able to do everything. They still need adult leadership, but a very different kind of leadership that respects their individual existence and personal integrity instead of just forcing or manipulating them into copies of their parents or to adapt to society as it is.

Children are just as different as “real people” and the ideas that there are techniques or methods that works with all children is simply outdated. Family life must be based much more on dialogue in the future and we must learn to regard also the behavior of children and adolescents as valuable feedback instead of as insubordination.

 

What you are proposing is »the third way« - the way that is neither autocratic nor so called permissive. How would you describe this alternative way and why do we need it?

It is actually a lot like the way we now regard the relationship between men and women. Women might not yet be politically, socially and economically equal to men but they deserve (and demand) to be regarded as independent, autonomous human beings. My own generation was the first to face this enormous challenge and we are still learning every day.

My term “Equal dignity”, when used about children, does not mean equality in a political sense. It means that parents (as well as pedagogues and teachers) must regard the emotions, reactions, thoughts and dreams of children and young people as just as important and valuable to the fellowship as those of adults and that they should be included .

 

But contemporary families have been actually trying to base their family life on democratic principles. Democracy is supposed to be good, but you say that it just doesn't work in the context of family relations. Why is democracy in family life not enough or better said not good enough?

The principles of democracy are very important also within families. What I have said is that they are not enough to form the basis of values. It has to do with the fact, that adults are and must be responsible for the quality of the relationship between adults and children. Children are simple not able to responsible for that. (This is a competence they do not have).

Let’s take an example: parents can discuss the plans for the summer holidays with their children and the decision can be shared or democratic in nature. But how the family is functioning and how everybody is feeling during the holidays depends solely on the quality of the parental leadership.

Or to put it in another way: the wellbeing of each family member is far too important to vote about. The decision-process in families cannot be based on opinions and attitudes alone. It must include mutual empathy and a desire to be of value to each others lives.