What really matters in parenting.
KINDER BRAUCHEN UNPERFEKTE ELTERN
(Children Need Imperfect Parents)
by Caroline Märki and Knut Krüger
Kösel, April 2024
Perfect parenting results in perfect children? If only it were that easy. Many parents are exceedingly ambitious and want to do their job as ‘flawlessly’ as possible. But in doing so, they miss out on how much families can benefit when parents do NOT raise their children according to some standard textbook. In their book, Caroline Märki and Knut Krüger, two close confidants and companions of Jesper Juul, get to the bottom of assumedly golden parenting rules, exposing the deeply rooted but erroneous axioms and parenting myths that are hidden underneath. Notions such as ‘Parents must be consistent!’ are refuted and discarded once and for all, not only because such ideas make our lives needlessly more difficult, but also because they frequently produce misunderstandings and self-doubt.
Well-founded, entertaining, and with many examples from everyday family life, this advice book proclaims this to all mothers and fathers: You have a right to make mistakes, and children don’t need parents who are perfect. Instead, they need parents who are willing to develop along with them. Make mistakes! Dare to be imperfect. Only then will you be just right for your children: approachable, empathetic, and authentic.
Caroline Märki, born in 1971, is the founder and director of familylab Switzerland, an offshoot of the international counseling network in leadership and relationship skills based on Jesper Juul. She works as a certified psychosocial counselor SGfB, and is a parent and adult educator, as well as head of the 4-year course Experience-oriented Family Counseling.
Knut Krüger has a degree in German Studies, and has worked in bookselling and publishing. Today he is a translator, editor and freelance writer, but his heart belongs to football. He claims that, at the mini World Cup in 1974, he (Italy) scored two goals against his opponent (Argentina), but unfortunately no one can confirm it…
There are so many questions about love and life, fundamental ones being: Exactly what is love? Will I simply be found by love or should I go looking for it? How can I share love? After Christine Dohler began to consult her heart as her most adept compass, life began opening up from a completely different and more truthful perspective. In this inspiring book, the author explores 22 questions about love – and the answers arrive authentically and intuitively from the heart. They are universal and encouraging, impart confidence, and open up a liberating perspective on true love. Accompanied by many practical exercises and impulses, this book is an invitation to self-reflection.
Elise Hellman was once heralded by audiences and critics as a “playwright to watch.” Then they forgot all about her. When a prestigious theater company unexpectedly offers her a generous commission to write a new play, she has an opportunity to turn her career around. With sixty-five days left until her deadline, Elise starts scribbling a few pages of stream-of-consciousness first thing every morning as a way to get over her writer’s block—a technique called Morning Pages, popularized in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way.
Max is about to finish high school. On paper he has everything – the girlfriend, the grades, the class- clown best friend, the loving family – but under the surface he is floundering. Grappling with questions about his birth parents and his sexuality, he feels that there is a seed of badness deep within him that will inevitably be exposed. After an incident at the end-of-year party sets Max’s world to crumbling, he must finally figure out who he is and where he came from – and who he is allowed to love. Max is a beautiful coming-of-age novel from an exciting new voice in New Zealand fiction.
Olivia Hodges used to do horrible things – back when she worked for a Spanish crime syndicate – but she fled that life and moved home to Australia, building a family in the hippie, hipster community of the Dandenong Ranges.