It’s a scene that should be familiar to many parents: the child throws itself on the floor at the Coop cash register crying, wanting something sweet, but can’t get it. How do you act in such a situation without being disturbed by the disapproving looks of the people around you?
“At such a time, parents are usually under a lot of pressure,” said Linda Steiner, course leader of “Strong Parents – Strong Children,” a parenting course run by the Swiss Foundation for Child Protection. The reason: the social expectation that children should behave.
The courses teach tools to prevent these kinds of situations and how to solve them non-violently. Your courses are well attended, Steiner says. Many of the parents wanted to avoid violence in their upbringing.
Almost half of all children experience violence
In fact, however, nearly half of Swiss parents use physical or psychological violence against their children during their upbringing. This is according to a study by the University of Freiburg. Of the 1,013 parents surveyed, 40 percent said they had used corporal punishment before. Psychological violence is also common: almost every sixth parent indicates that they regularly use it in the form of name-calling or withdrawing from love.
The survey also revealed that the legal situation is not clear to many parents. The parents surveyed considered psychological violence to be legal. Corporal punishment is different: 95 percent of mothers and 89 percent of fathers thought it was illegal.
Legal situation is unclear
However, the legal situation is unclear. In Switzerland, in principle, there is no penalty ban. Although children are protected under criminal law – certain bodily harm is punishable – there is no explicit prohibition against corporal punishment that does not cause visible harm.
The Federal Supreme Court also does not consider corporal punishment within the family to be physical violence if it does not exceed a certain socially acceptable level and the punishment is not repeated too often.
This creates legal uncertainty. That is why organizations such as Kinderschutz Schweiz have been calling for years to enshrine the right to nonviolent education in the law. “In neighboring countries you see that such a law has led to a reduction in violence against children,” said Regula Bernhard Hug, head of Child Protection in Switzerland. The UN has repeatedly criticized Switzerland for not having such a law: it violates the Convention on the Rights of the Child to which it is a signatory.
Motion wants to embed nonviolent education in the ZGB
Politically, however, such a law is controversial. Many attempts have already failed in Parliament. And the Federal Council has also opposed it so far – because criminal law already offers sufficient protection. He also warns against government intervention in raising children.
The Freiburg Central National Councilor Christine Bulliard-Marbach (63) is not deterred by this. In a motion she demands that nonviolent education be anchored in the Civil Code (ZGB). Today the proposal is being discussed by the legal committee of the Council of States.
It needs clarity
A law in the ZGB would clarify and correct the “no longer tenable view that a necessary degree of violence is needed in education,” Bulliard-Marbach says. She is convinced that if physical violence were explicitly banned, it would also lead to a change in parenting behaviour. And: the less violence children would experience, the less they would reproduce it as adults.
Linda Steiner’s courses always start with the parents and their own story: “The parents first go into their childhood and the values they were taught.” At the end of the course we will discuss how to deal with conflict situations. Then the parents already know better how to deal with their own needs and feelings and those of their children. And that can lead to a sense of achievement: like that of a student who told Steiner how she sat next to her crying child in the store for ten minutes, comforting him. Without getting angry.