Educational consultants on the "Gap Year": "If young people simply sit at home, they tend to develop backwards"

They travel around the world on their own initiative, sometimes they work here and there, they become more or less well acquainted with professional perspectives or study programs: Many young people take a "gap year" after school, ie a one-year break.

But what if the offspring does not know what to do with all the free time and in the worst case, just sitting on the sofa at home? The psychologist Jürgen Wolf advises parents and children in this situation - and in many cases recommends restraint.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: How should parents react, if children insert a "Gap Year" after the Abi?

Jürgen Wolf: It is interesting that you say "after graduation". The gap year is usually discussed for high school graduates. There is this subjective feeling that adolescents are so stressed by the pre-exam and exam time that they would need a break afterwards. Many children and their parents feel the same way at high schools, but this is much less pronounced in primary and secondary schools.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Would a "Gap Year" make sense for all young people?

Wolf: That depends less on the school form than on the individual person. But it can be worth gold to put a buffer between school time, which was often fraught with learning stress and pressure to perform at the end, and the beginning of an apprenticeship or study. This creates distance and often increases the motivation to learn something new afterwards.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is that also true when children simply hang out for months?

Wolf: The school usually ends in June, July, a training or study usually begins in September, October. So there is a natural buffer of a few weeks for doing nothing, which is granted to all teenagers. After that, they should not be sitting at home anymore. A trip, a language course, a Voluntary Social Year, an au pair stay - they can do everything possible, just not nothing. Then they muffle.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Can not help a break to orientate yourself in peace?

Wolf: Definitely; And that a longer time is not planned first, in the life of most people is not so fast again. But young people should definitely use this time to gain new experiences. Then they mature. They just sit at home, they tend to develop back - and eventually find the jump no longer.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: How can parents influence this?

Wolf: Certainly not, while they constantly ask during the Abi time, what the child is going to do after school. Exercising pressure in education does not help anyway, especially not with adolescents. It is also completely counterproductive when parents become active themselves, make constant suggestions, study volunteer programs and ultimately book the trip to Australia for the child. I have already experienced something like that.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What's wrong with that?

Wolf: This is usually wrong. I know of teenagers who have canceled such a trip then, for example. They just drove off because the mother or father wanted that and were overwhelmed. Parents should leave room to stay out of the planning largely. Otherwise they slow down the autonomy development and the separation from the parents' home. The child becomes ever more dependent and "smaller". However, it would be wrong to say 'What you want to do, I do not care'.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Sounds like a fine line.

Wolf: Children have to move out of their homes to grow up and develop. You have to make that clear. If they do not, this first step of growing up will be somewhat prolonged. This is not a problem in itself, also because children mature at different rates. Some take a little longer than others. But parents should kindly open the door and offer children to help them with their plans - as a transitional phase until they stand on their own two feet.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: How does that look in concrete terms?

Wolf: Parents can, for example, offer to co-finance a meaningful project, a trip, an internship abroad or similar, if the child makes his own financial contribution to it and earns that income, for example through jobbing. But they should not do more.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What to do if the child does not get started by itself?

Wolf: It becomes problematic if the relationship between the parents and the child suffers very much and at some point is really bad. If all just annoyed by each other and quiet talks are hardly possible. If parents come to the consultation in such a situation, it is often too late.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What's left?

Wolf: The child has already taken a strong defiance and refusal attitude. It hardly comes out there alone. The parents try to push but in reality they are helpless. You have this fantasy: If I only find the right switch with my child and turn it over, it becomes active. But this switch does not exist.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What do you advise these parents?

Wolf: That sounds tough, but the only chance is to kick the kid out. This is the most unattractive remedy, but only then can the child be detached from the family home, find a life - and eventually build up a good relationship with the parents again.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Does not such a rejection make things worse?

Wolf: That's what the parents ask me too. They fear that their child will crash. Unfortunately, that is not excluded. But parents need to realize that neither they nor the child will get out of the emotional entanglement at such a low point if they carry on as before. They have to free themselves from this, to differentiate themselves from one another and, at best, to accept outside help.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: When should parents resort to this ultimate remedy?

Wolf: Only when all other attempts have failed. In the face of such expulsion, adolescents and parents should consult a counseling center and find consensual arrangements through joint discussions. Such advice is free. Only when young people refuse completely and are not ready to talk, when the relationship has no chance at all, when one no longer meets one another and does not communicate with one another, then the ultimate means of expulsion applies.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Parents should not rush into panic.

Wolf: You can relax as long as the child only depends on the sofa for a few weeks. As long as the relationship is overall good, parents and child are talking and parents have the confidence that their child only needs some time, but then will find his way, everything is fine. Then they can wait.

Read more about "Gap Year" in the guest article by the youth researcher Klaus Hurrelmann and in the current Spiegel.