5 THINGS GERMAN PARENTS NEVER DO 🇩🇪 Parenting the German way

Hey guys, welcome back to my channel and if you're new here it is so great to have you. I'm Antoinette, a New Zealander living in the beautiful wine region of Lower Franconia, Germany. I make a lot of videos on this channel sharing my adventures as a New Zealander living here and raising my three bilingual multicultural children here. A topic I particularly like to talk about is German parenting. I am fascinated with this topic and I think I've got an interesting video for you today. In this video I'm going to be sharing five things that German parents never do. So I will be jumping into that very soon but first I would like to take a moment to talk a little bit about iClever. iClever is an innovative brand of premium yet affordable children's What sets iClever headphones apart from other well-known brands on the market is their advanced safety technology focusing primarily on protecting children's delicate ears while providing comfort and crisp clear sound quality. We live in a world where technology and media is so advanced and although I strictly monitor my kids media use I do give them a little bit of screen time daily and it's extremely important that I know that the ears are fully protected from hearing damage. iClever kindly sent us three pairs of Bluetooth wireless headphones to test out and my kids were over the moon with them. They were able to choose from a wide variety of really fun colours and models. Amelia picked out the BTH12 Bluetooth headphones in this really cool purple and pink colour. They have USB quick charging, colourful LED lights, a built-in microphone, premium stereo sound with volume limited hearing protection and the option of wire mode which I thought was really cool. Mateo and Luca both picked out the BTH18 headphones in blue and green which have many of the same features as Amelia's pair. Both headphones have this really cool LED light design which the kids absolutely loved. I love that they can be easily adjusted to fit any head size. Even my little three-year-old Luca could wear these comfortably. These are going to be so perfect for our upcoming summer road trip. So guys if you're interested in checking out iClever I will leave the links to all three of these featured headphones in my description below. Okay guys so let's jump into it. This is in no particular order. I'm going to be talking about five things that German parents never do. Actually I'm going to rephrase that. I'm not saying German parents never do these things but you very rarely will see German parents doing these things. So number one, something German parents hardly ever do is dress their children like little mini adults and design clothes and all the latest trends and lots of accessories. It's just not something you will often see in Germany, a child dressed like this. And if you do see a child dressed this way usually it is a non-German child. So it's kind of considered, I hate to say it, but it's considered a little bit sort of tacky and just not really, I don't know, socially acceptable to dress your child like this. German parents dress their children in comfortable, practical, good quality clothes. They're not worried about all of the latest trends and that kind of thing. Of course it's inevitable later children when they get towards their teenage years they had their own sense of style but I'm talking about younger children. I love this. I don't like seeing children dressed like little mini adults and walking around in uncomfortable shoes and clothes just for the sake of fashion and yeah it's just not done in Germany. There's nothing worse than seeing a little child struggling at the playground in their patent leather kiss and heels and tight designer dress. It's just something you don't really see often in Germany and yeah there's no excuse for this in my opinion and German parents, it's just not on their radar to even consider dressing their child like this. German parents dress their children in comfortable, practical clothes which makes complete sense in my opinion. Okay moving on, it is not very often that you will hear a German parent apologizing for their child's behavior in public. So let me give you an example of this. Just say you're in a toy store in Germany and you see a little boy around the age of say I don't know four or five and he is on the floor having a tantrum because his mother won't buy him something that he wants. You don't see this often. German kids are pretty well behaved but kids are kids and as I always say I don't expect children to be perfect and yeah this happens. It's happened to me before but German parents will not apologize to anyone around them for their child's behavior. They will just be focused on their child. They won't be afraid to tell them off in public with people listening but they are not going to apologize for a child being a child. In contrast in New Zealand a parent would be a little bit more cautious of the people around them and worried about what they're thinking and whether this is you know disturbing their shopping experience. They'll say oh sorry about that, he's tired or something like that. A German parent just would not even explain. Children are children, they have tantrums once in a while and it is what it is. I feel like Germans in general are just very tolerant of kids being kids. So German kids are often brought along to restaurants and beer gardens and they're just part of the community too, the kids you know and if a child is crying then a child's crying. Something else I barely ever hear German parents do is talking to their children in baby talk. This is something you hear all the time in New Zealand, parents talking to their children in this baby voice like come on darling, oh my god you were so cute. I didn't think anything of it until I was at a playground, this was years ago when my 11 year old daughter was like two and this little girl came over and started talking to me and I was talking back to her in this like little baby voice and the mother looked at me like what are you doing? Why are you talking to my daughter like this? I instantly kind of clicked on and I switched over to just a normal voice and I thought yeah German parents don't really do that and you know it makes sense, it's kind of annoying. Why do we talk to little kids in this baby voice? It's a little bit kind of silly, I don't know, I don't think it's terrible but maybe if you're German and you're watching this you can give me a reason as to why Germans hardly ever speak in a baby voice to their children. It's probably because they just want their child to learn how to speak properly and not like a baby but it can be really tempting when a child sounds super cute and you just want to copy them. Okay something else I have noticed that German parents don't do is give their children unnecessary compliments and this is something done a lot in New Zealand, just say a child draws like a scribble on a piece of paper and they'll bring it up to their parent, their parent will say something like that is so beautiful, I love the colors you've used, you are so clever and it's just not something you hear in Germany, like a German parent will not tell a child that their picture is amazing, like the best picture they've ever seen if it's actually not. They may say something like oh thank you that's really nice but they won't go on and on about it like you hear New Zealand parents doing and I remember growing up my dad had more of like the German attitude when it came to this which was quite unusual at that time and so I was very much into drawing. I used to draw all the time when I was a kid, I must have been about seven and I remember being really excited to show my dad a picture I had drawn and I will never forget I took it to him, I remember him looking at it and he said hmm the colors are nice but that tree in the corner it's awful. I remember being really upset because I was used to mum saying oh that's beautiful, that's amazing and dad sat me down at the table and showed me how to draw a really realistic tree with lots of you know branches and detail and I was like oh yes that's how you draw a tree and he actually you know took the time to show me how to draw this beautiful tree and I'm so grateful that my dad was very honest when it came to giving me feedback which was not normal in New Zealand at that time. Since I've lived in Germany I've realized it's pretty normal for parents to give their children constructive feedback or constructive criticism so they can improve and not have this false sense of how amazing they are and then they're not going to want to do better. So I totally understand this concept and it can be a little bit sort of harsh like it can sound a bit harsh if you are hearing this for the first time in Germany, a parent giving their child constructive feedback but in the long run it is so much better for that child and it builds resilience and it gives that child motivation to want to improve. Of course if you're criticizing your child that's also not good but if you're constantly complimenting their child then they're not going to want to strive to improve. So that makes total sense to me and I actually really like this aspect of German parenting. Okay guys so last but not least something that German parents hardly ever do is buy their children tricycles like three-wheel tricycles or trainer wheels for their bikes. The majority of German parents will buy their children balance bikes and I know this is something that is gradually becoming popular in New Zealand but you do see a lot of kids in New Zealand still on tricycles and with trainer wheels. Balance bikes are amazing for so many reasons. Obviously it teaches your child to balance on their bike because they're just using their legs, there's no pedals and you know to be able to scoot along on your balance bike you need to you know develop a little bit of a rhythm and technique and this makes transitioning to a proper bike a two-wheeler bike so easy and that's why you see a lot of really small German kids riding two-wheeler bikes without trainer wheels and I was really shocked by this when I first came to Germany seeing these really tiny kids like three-year-olds on bikes you know real bikes. I found this was the case for my daughter Amelia and for my son Matteo and my three-year-old Luca is still riding his balance bike but I think pretty soon he'll be able to ride a two-wheeler bike because he's developed that really great technique and so I think balance bikes are amazing. I've actually left a link to my Amazon storefront and I've linked the balance bike that all my children have used so if you're interested check that out. I've got a lot of other really cool things I recommend in my Amazon storefront but anyway balance bikes are the way to go and yeah you barely ever see German parents buying their children tricycles or trainer wheels it's just not really a thing in Germany. I don't know whether it's always been like this, whether this is just a new thing. My daughter is 11 and all the time I've lived in Germany I have barely seen a tricycle so yeah that's just something I've noticed. So guys I have come to the end of this video. I really hope you enjoyed it. I hope you found it interesting, entertaining. Before I go I wanted to remind you if you are interested in checking out the amazing headphones by iClever I will leave a link for where you can do so in my description below. Thank you so much for watching guys. If you enjoyed this video then don't forget to give it a big thumbs up. It really really helps my channel and it helps to get my channel noticed so your thumbs up would mean so much to me. Also if you haven't already subscribed to my channel I would love you to consider subscribing. I know that so many of you who watch my videos are not actually subscribed so if you would consider subscribing that would mean so much to me. Feel free to connect with me on Instagram and I will see you again really soon. Bye!