It was an unusual assignment for the police: A nine-year-old boy had called the officials in Zetel in the district of Friesland on Christmas Day. The reason: he was deeply dissatisfied with the gifts he had found under the Christmas tree.

The officials found a very angry boy on the spot, a police spokesman said on Wednesday. The police would have gone immediately to search for clues and compared the gifts with the boy's wish list. In fact, both did not agree. Ultimately, the officials could settle the family dispute on Tuesday but still.

In fact, it often happens that children - or even more parents - because of trivia select the 110th And once this phone number has been dialed, there is no turning back: A car is coming, no matter how trivial the occasion.

In Hamburg, a mother recently called the police because her three-year-old child was fighting over a tricycle with another child. The two children had apparently clashed in a daycare in the district of Winterhude, as several local media reported. They would have screamed and scratched each other.

There are even parents who request a patrol out of excessive demand, such as when the child does not want to go to bed.

In the new book "I must go on a school trip - my daughter can not sleep otherwise" the SPIEGEL ONLINE editors Lena Greiner and Carola Padtberg unpack midwives, educators, teachers, sports coaches, professors, lawyers, doctors, study counselors and children from what they have experienced with over motivated parents.

Read book excerpts from the chapter "Parents on alert: Police call 110":

Helicopter parents and the police

Teeth cleaning under official supervision:

A seven-year-old fired a police operation in Landshut. The girl did not want to go to bed - and brought his mother to despair. There was a heated argument between the two. The girl insulted the mother and threw various objects at her. When the 28-year-old was no longer able to help, she alerted police around 11:00 pm. The officials were able to calm the heated emotions, and a policewoman brought the girl to bed after "a dental cleaning under official supervision".

Baby fate

"A 31-year-old father in Weiden in Bavaria looked after his three children, twins at the age of five months and a two-year-old sibling." At about one o'clock in the morning, the children woke up and stopped screaming, the mother who had left home that evening, The man could not reach him, so he had no other advice than to call the police in. The officials set up the desperate father and gave some good advice, then left him to his baby fate again. "

I go with my official

"Our Lantern Festival has always been nice for the little ones, but new parents took over the organization of the party last year, and those parents thought it would be much nicer to sign up for a little lantern demo, then on the street Stop traffic and there with the lanterns run, in front of and behind us each patrol car as escort.

We educators took the parents aside and asked them not to do that, because that does not make sense for 30 infants. But the atmosphere was immediately bitchy: The officials finally guaranteed for the safety of the children, in the park so who knows what happen. The parents have actually prevailed, but next year we will definitely do it again. "

Dubious displays:

"Three overzealous mothers from our elementary school recently spotted a man on a cell phone: The man was standing in a street near the school and looking at his display, suspecting that he plans to photograph their children, so they photographed him and have gone to the police. "

Suspicious winter clothes:

In Offenbach in Hesse, the police spokesman reported on several telephone messages from children about men who stood with scarves in front of the school fences. It turned out that the dangerous figures were fathers waiting for their children in the winter cold. The parents had so sensitized their children to call the police in any irritation that the little ones were immediately scared at the sight of men with scarves: "You see dangers where there are none," said the police spokesman.

Shady change of personnel:

"Afternoon care had a new tutor set in. It was his first week of work, and the young man was playing football with the kids in the schoolyard, so when parents picked up their children at 4:00 pm they could not assign his face, but instead of the other caregivers or to ask the headmaster who that was, or perhaps to speak directly to the man, they immediately chose the 110. An emergency vehicle came, and the officers raided the educator in front of the children. "

Mothers in fear and rage:

"After an evening at the cinema, I waited for the train, and there were three women with prams on the platform with me, the women talking, one of whom was a boy of about five, playing first at the fire extinguisher box and then at the edge of the platform He balanced right on the edge, and when I heard the subway coming in I grabbed the boy's shoulder and pulled him away from the edge, shouting as if on a spit, and immediately the three women scolded me and stopped me One woman even called the police, she told the two officers that I had touched the child immoral, and one of the women announced an ad against me. "

Mothers in fear and rage, Part II:

"The parents of already grown children are sometimes so caring that they have to be rebuked by the police A woman from Dortmund was supposed to take care of her cats and a guinea pig during the holiday of her 26-year-old son, but she did not come just to feed the animals, but moved in. That did not fit the roommate, however, because the mother did not volunteer, he alerted the police.

In the use of the police, the woman claimed to bruises and bruises. For this she demanded a compensation of 1200 euros. The Higher Regional Court of Hamm dismissed their complaint and ruled that student mothers who stay in their son's shared apartment can, if necessary, be thrown out of the apartment by police officers. Roommates may call the police to help enforce their house right. "

Of course, these are not helicopter-type parents who are overprotective and ambitious, but parents who think that two tax-funded police officers are the right place to address their private education problems.

DISPLAY

Lena Greiner, Carola Padtberg:
I have to go on a school trip - my daughter can not sleep otherwise!

New incredible stories about helicopter parents

Ullstein Paperback; 224 pages; 10,00 Euro

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