I ordered 100 modeling balloons online this week: 50 in tropical coral and 50 in bubblegum pink. Modeling balloons are latex tubes that, when inflated, can be used to shape dogs, flamingos and hearts. However, I will use them to make a carnival costume with my ten-year-old son. He wants to go as a sea anemone.
I won't be able to tell you until next week whether our creative project will work out or whether I'll suffer a circulatory collapse or nervous breakdown while inflating it. What I already know: Just figuring out the question “What do you want to go as?” always provides a lot of fun and a certain depth in our family.
Who am I and who do I want to be? That's what we negotiate, among other things, when we slip into costumes, into other roles, and play with their attributions around carnival or carnival. Scientists – whether psychologists or cultural anthropologist – seem to agree on this.
Sure, my son probably doesn't want to suddenly mutate into a sea anemone. But I see the choice of an eye-catching costume that will barely fit him through the door as a statement. My son is a rather quiet child who rejects fashion experiments. At carnival alone, he likes things to be elaborate.
Over the past few years he has always asked his grandmother, who is very talented with a sewing machine, for a costume and loved choosing the right jersey and plush textiles with her in the fabric store. Dolphin, squirrel, sorcerer's apprentice. The result was stunning creations that my son hardly wanted to take off.
I sometimes find myself wanting to moderate ideas that don't seem quite right to me. Sometimes it's too macabre, too scary, sometimes too politically incorrect for me (think of the debate about controversial Indian costumes). Most of the time I manage to hold back. In an interview, the Cologne educator Wolfgang Oelsner said: "Children want to choose who they want to be in carnival - and that's a good thing."
By the way, the sea anemone's twin brother wanted to go to the carnival this year as a Death Eater. When he announced this, I unfortunately missed the beginning of the sentence: "Wouldn't you rather than..." But only because he was already a Death Eater on Halloween. I made the scary cardboard mask myself.
In any case, he had another idea: to dress up as a very rich person - as a pepper sack, as we say here in Hamburg. With a hat and a suitcase full of money. For the sake of variety, I talked him out of being a Death Eater: "It's better to go to the carnival as a billionaire, child!"
My reading tips
One could easily speculate about what fantasies a child lives out when he dresses up as a rich person. Does it seem important to my son to have a lot of money one day? Rather, it made me question: What exactly in life will make him truly happy?
more on the subject
Parents' couch: What better than security by Theodor Ziemßen
All the best from SPIEGEL: How we become happy – even without a lot of money By Jan Petter
In a column I once read possible (and clever) answers from a father, for example this one: "That in the long run it is nicer to be friendly and empathetic than to be successful." The text is more than six years old, but the The thoughts in it are so encouraging that I would like to recommend them to you here.
Many parents in Hamburg have had a stressful time: the registration week for secondary school is just over. Thousands of families had to decide whether they would send their current fourth graders to a district school or a high school starting in the summer. We are also part of it. What complicated things was that our twins were recommended different types of schools. Should we separate them?
more on the subject
And? Will they go to the “Jümnasyum”?: What pressure to succeed does to childrenBy Fatma Mittler-Solak
Our parenting columnist Fatma Mittler-Solak – also the mother of twins – wrote a text on the subject that is worth reading a year ago. It says: "The plight of our child pains me, not only because of the dyscalculia, but because he - like almost all primary school students in this process - knows exactly what is happening: he is being selected, classified and intended for a certain type of school. «
I know from many parents that they are already overwhelmed by this with just one child. The fact that the question of the high school recommendation causes division (and unfortunately also derogatory remarks) among classmates. And that choosing a school leads to stress. Not to mention how much you sometimes have to worry about getting a place at your dream school.
I have listened to many presentations from school leaders over the past few weeks. Some of it sounded dusty and like fatal pressure to perform (“Your child has to be interested in doing homework, otherwise he or she will be dropped from school after grade six!”). Some things gave me hope (a pilot project for grade-free middle school at the high school, a focus on democracy education).
But what dominated was the feeling that early separation from children was wrong - and that didn't just have to do with personal concerns as a mother of twins. "According to an Ifo analysis, some studies suggest that a later division is socially fairer, that lower-performing children learn better and higher-performing children do not learn worse," wrote my colleague Silke Fokken in a comment in which she demanded: "The high school must go." .
One country that consistently ranks high in the PISA study tests is Estonia. According to experts, one of the most important reasons for educational success there is that all children learn together up to ninth grade.
In Bavaria, the weeding out of underperforming children begins in the third grade, my colleague Anna Clauß noted in her parenting column this week. The high school teacher Bob Blume
wrote in a guest article last year
: "
The school system is designed to create losers because it also creates winners."
What experiences have you had with your child's transition from primary school to secondary school? What concerns and questions concern you in this context? Please feel free to write to us (familie@spiegel.de).
The Last Judgement
more on the subject
Food for the nerves: Today we have Pasta e patate by Verena Lugert
Time for something comforting! And this can be found regularly in the stories of our cooking columnist Verena Lugert (click here for the recipe archive). This week she wrote about the dish Pasta e patate and the so-called
smile effect
, the scientifically proven pasta smile. »Eating pasta activates the emotions. And stimulates the most positive memories and feelings," says Italian psychologist Vincenzo Russo.
Pasta e patate means in German: pasta and potatoes. “Comforting carbohydrate after comforting carbohydrate,” writes Verena. This simple but delicious dish is an old Neapolitan leftover meal with various, colorfully thrown together types of pasta, cozy potatoes, hearty bacon, spicy parmesan and wonderfully deep rosemary. It guarantees maximum satisfaction, as only a good bowl of pasta can.
My moment
On the subject of school, I found this anecdote from a reader in our family mailbox. She wrote about her first grader:
»The first week of school, my son came home with his sweater on backwards. I asked him if he hadn't noticed that after exercising. 'No, I did that when I was helping with homework,' he answers proudly. 'We were supposed to paint ourselves and I didn't feel like painting the monster truck off the sweater, so I turned it around.' Hopefully he'll continue to show that creativity for years to come."
Kind regards and “Helau” – or should I say “Alaaf”? In this quiz you can brush up on your knowledge of carnival shouts. And then I hope you have fun celebrating.
Your Julia Stanek