Today I have to go back a little.

Last summer I wrote here that my son, who had just started school at the time, had difficulty separating from us parents in the morning.

The first days and weeks were a drama with tears and wailing.

To make it easier for first graders to start their new life, parents are allowed to accompany their children to the schoolyard.

After the first autumn break, the dwarves should at least take the last few steps alone.

At our elementary school there is a so-called “Kiss & Go” zone in front of the main entrance.

This is probably the case in most schools.

You say goodbye outside and leave the children to themselves. Good idea, I thought back then - and suspected that my son might see it differently.

But I was wrong.

My son didn't even need someone to accompany him to the school gate.

In the morning I dropped him off at his best friend's house, who lives 500 meters from school as the crow flies.

And the two boys just wobbled off on their own as if they had never done anything else.

I was surprised, impressed and incredibly proud.

It went like this for about a quarter of a year.

Completely problem-free.

Then came a morning in January.

We rang the friend's doorbell together again and waited until he was ready.

The two boys walked off, I said goodbye and went in the other direction.

Everything was as usual.

But then I heard strange noises, a rhythmic clattering punctuated by sobs.

My son had turned around, left his dismayed friend and was running towards me with his satchel flapping and tears in his eyes.

He couldn't say what it was.

Since then I have gone to school with the two boys every morning.

And now I'm standing in the schoolyard again - like I was in the first two weeks - and waiting for a teacher to take my son by the hand and lead him into the classroom.

It seems a bit strange to me, but the teachers make me feel comfortable that it's okay.

And I'm not alone in my fate: a classmate's father also stands there every morning.

We nod knowingly at each other, talk about the weather and discuss what's going wrong at HSV.

In the afternoon my son comes home from school in a good mood and tells me how wonderful the day was.

And I'm waiting anxiously to see when he decides to go alone again in the morning.

My reading tips

My wife and I ask ourselves what happened, why our son behaves so differently in some respects than many of his peers, whether we can, must or should do anything differently.

I'm starting to think that these questions are based on a misunderstanding: we like to think of human development as something linear.

A follows B and then C. It seems difficult for us that someone doesn't jump from C to D, but takes another detour to B or perhaps arrives at Q in between and then works their way back to A via O and V to be processed.

A dear colleague recently told me: Only drunk people try to walk a straight line.

Maybe we should just accept that life takes turns every now and then.

I browsed through the SPIEGEL archive to see if there were any articles on this non-linear development.

I came across this beautiful story by my esteemed colleague Johann Grolle on the subject of evolution: “A coincidence called man.”

And I thought to myself: If we as a species are based on coincidences, then I don't always have to look for meaning in my son's behavior.

Sometimes I also wonder whether we spend a little too much time thinking about our son.

The comedian Felix Lobrecht likes to quote his father in the podcast “Gemischtes Hack” with the sentence: “Children didn’t used to be that important.” I think there’s something to that.

At the same time, I don't see it as a step backwards, but as a step forward, that children are more important to us today and that we think about their well-being and their rights.

And I'm curious to see how Lobrecht looks at the issue if he ever has children himself.

By the way, you can read an interview with Lobrecht about his childhood and youth in Berlin that is well worth reading here.

There are two other interviews in the SPIEGEL archives that fit this topic well: My colleague Heike Klovert spoke with Michaeleen Doucleff about education in different cultures.

Doucleff says with regard to Western societies: "We have gone too far in letting children always just be children." 

And the sociologist Norbert F. Schneider told my colleague Lesley Sevriens: "Children are much more robust and competent than we let them be today." I can well imagine that Schneider is right.

But I ask myself how this helps me specifically when my son stands in front of me crying and doesn't dare go to school alone.

He is not very receptive to the theories of sociologists.

If you have just become a parent and are wondering whether your child is developing properly, I recommend our newsletter series “My Child in the First Year”.

The Last Judgement

Spring is almost upon us, but tonight it was really cold, at least in Hamburg.

In this respect, it is still the right time for Brussels sprouts.

Our cooking columnist Verena Lugert introduced me to a very tasty Indian variant: Brussels sprouts and onion bhajis.

As Verena always writes so beautifully at the end of her recipes: Enjoy it!

My moment

In my last newsletter I wrote about the fact that my son is now taking piano lessons.

By the way, he is making impressive progress.

In addition to “Little Little Hans,” he now also plays “Hansel and Gretel” without any notes from his head.

Once again I received many wonderful letters.

I don't want to withhold this episode from you:

»As a student (theater studies and journalism), I taught some students at a Berlin music school for years.

At some point a father from the upscale Berlin town of Zehlendorf brought his 12-year-old daughter to me.

After six weeks, the father asked me when his daughter would finally play Chopin.

After eight weeks, I noticed from the lack of progress that my daughter had no desire to play the piano at all.

I told her it wasn't a big deal, maybe she'd discover the instrument later and I could talk to her parents.

She pushed around but finally gave me the okay.

I told my father my impression over the phone, and he was extremely upset.

A week later he came to class.

The setting: I am facing the two of them from the piano stool, both of them sitting next to each other on two chairs without visual contact with each other.

The father started.

He spoke to his daughter again.

The daughter realized that every beginning was difficult, but she had now gotten the hang of it and wanted to continue taking lessons and practice diligently from now on.

What he couldn't see during his well-ordered lecture was that his daughter sitting next to him was rolling her eyes the whole time, shaking her head and occasionally squinting in despair."

Have a nice weekend and have fun with your family!

Kind regards,


Malte Müller-Michaelis