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Support Instead of Education

Parenting-Free Practice

What does a relationship without parenting look like in practice? It's a broad field! Equal individuals interact with each other from their respective positions, encountering each other in all their diversity, and the result of their interaction is as multifaceted as life itself.

As early as 1980, a scientific study involving children investigated and confirmed the possibilities of amicative communication. According to the amicative approach, non-promotive relationships are entirely practicable and beneficial and helpful for both adults and children. There are children who grew up amicatively and are now adults themselves, and they in turn have children who are growing up amicatively. A new tradition has begun.

The theory of amicative practice is well developed, and there are reliable answers to the countless practical questions that arise today. For example, it is often expected that amicative parents will let their children do whatever they decide for themselves. That, after all, is the essence of all amicative theory! But it is not so simple.

“Put your hat on!” – “I don't want to!” A mother conflicts with her three-year-old daughter. The world is interpretable. Who interprets it correctly? The amicative answer is: everyone interprets in their own way, one is as right as the other. The mother tells her daughter her view of things, the daughter tells the mother her view of things. The mother may say it several times, the child may respond several times. Then they may agree: “I'll put on my hat” or “All right, then go outside without it.”

Or they stick to their opposing views and cannot agree. In that case, the adult will usually prevail, and the child will have to do what the adult wants. This is no different in amicable families.

But despite all the frictions in the realm of actions, on a psychological level there is no encroachment on the child's inner world and sovereignty. The child's “no” is understood as the expression of an equal human being with full inner sovereignty who wants to take a different path – but one that the adult cannot allow for their own reasons.

The conflict is only about the practical “do it” or “don't do it,” not about the psychological “accept this – I am right.” In amicative conflict, there is no assault by the adult on the child's soul and identity and therefore no correspondingly vehement defence against it. Amicative conflict takes a different course.

On a psychological level, the amicative position and the traditional pedagogical position are opposed to each other. Here (amicative) exists the assertion of the child's sovereign inner world – relationships and exchanges happen with a fully-fledged human being. There (pedagogical) exists the assertion of an absence the child’s sovereign inner world – one must raise and instruct someone who is merely in the process of maturing into a fully-fledged person. Amicative adults do not become incapacitated by recognising the sovereignty of the child. However, their actions are of a different psychological quality than those of pedagogical adults.

A freedom from patronising, lecturing and breaking resistance, enables other things for the amicative adult: psychological listening – empathy. In the same way, the child can perceive the adult psychologically. Because they are not being attacked psychologically, they do not have to waste their energy defending themselves against the adult. Both can therefore perceive the urgency of the other. Both are open to noticing how important the other's interest really is – on an emotional and existential level.

The adult and the child thus inform each other about their interests and communicate their urgent needs on an emotional level at the same time. This goes back and forth a few times, sometimes with words and explanations, sometimes without. Then it may happen that one of them gets their way – sometimes the adult, sometimes the child – usually one lets the other do what they want. This is because the urgent needs of two people are rarely of equal weight. “Fine, do it then” – this is more likely. However, this only works if the conflict does not revolve around existential issues: understanding and obedience that the adult demands from the child, and dignity and respect that the child demands of the adult.

In amicative practice, conflicts are not resolved with (admirable) effort, but usually resolve themselves thanks to the empathic structure of amicative communication. This is not something that is somehow made, prepared, worked out or otherwise strived for. Amicative everyday life with children cannot be staged. It is an authenticgive and take between equal partners. The relaxed peace with children is experienced as a gift that results from the amicative attitude.