Christie Drozdowski has recently moved to Germany with her husband and 14-month-old baby and is trying to raise her family in the German way. Living in Germany, she has learned how to parent like a German. Now she's sharing what she has learned.
"I'd read that German mom teach their kids the value of independence and eschew "helicopter" parenting," she wrote in Romper. "So I decided I'd cut my daughter a little slack whole she was in Germany and let her explore her new surroundings a bit more."
Last month, Christie Drozdowski and her family went to Germany to live there for the next four months. At the start of their move, Drozdowski figured she might as well do some researches about German parenting such as the post in The Wall Street Journal, considering they would be staying in Germany for several days.
She discovered that German parenting for early-childhood underlines the significance of outdoor activities like outdoor play. She also found out that German parenting puts high importance on teaching children responsibility and independence from very early age, unlike American parenting that tends to stick around with the kids and would keep them inside the house more often.
To immerse herself in the things she has learned about German parenting, she decided to try all those learnings for one week. In seven days, she decided to parent her child in a way German does.
While strolling in Germany, she noticed from crawling babies to active youths playing outside in the worst weather, which lead her to assume that Germans work according to their mentality that there's no inclement weather only skimpy clothing. And so she challenged herself to go outside with her child every single day, no matter how bad the weather is.
In one week, Drozdowski tried to leave her daughter in different places such as parks, forest, and German supermarket. Though she would not usually have her daughter to stay in a stroller for a long time, she decided to take a word from German mothers and let her child go out and then explore.
After going out several times, she noticed that they are getting used to the bad weather in Germany. She also decided to try a calmer, German-inspired parental approach to outside play and let her child go out on their balcony on her own while she cleaned their kitchen. Furthermore, she took her daughter to Duisburg Zoo as a German friend told her that many German parents would take their kids to a zoo.
On weekends, they just stayed at home, played puzzle board and watched German children's TV channel KIKA. At the end of the week, she realized that trying those German parenting approaches helped her prepare well for their stay in German.
