The Danish Way of Parenting: What the Happiest People in the World Know About Raising Confident, Capable Kids

by Jessica Joelle Alexander

In Denmark, spanking became illegal in 1997. Most Danes think it is extremely strange, almost unthinkable, to use spanking as a form of disciplining a child.

In Sweden, it was abolished earlier, in 1979.

To separate actions from the person is called “externalization.” Externalizing helps a person dissolve or deconstruct the problem and then create stories around it resourcefully. White, Narrativ teori.

Children from overprotective families grow up more prone to narcissism, anxiety, and depression. Rachel Sullivan, “Helicopter Parenting Causes Anxious Kids,” ABC Science, August 20, 2012, http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/08/20/3570084.htm.

Annie Murphy Paul, “The Protégé Effect,” Time, November 30, 2011, http://ideas.time.com/2011/11/30/the-protege-effect/.

There is data indicating that spanking can affect areas of the brain involved in emotion and stress regulation. T. O. Afifi, N. P. Mota, P. Dasiewicz, H. L. MacMillan, and J. Sareen, “Physical Punishment and Mental Disorders: Results from a Nationally Representative US Sample,” Pediatrics 130, no. 2 (2012): 184–92.

Erik Erikson (1902–1994) was a German American psychoanalyst and developmental psychologist who believed that personality is shaped much more by the child’s relationship with his or her parents than by instincts and sexuality, and it develops through a series of psychosocial stages progressing from infancy to old age. Robert B. Ewen, An Introduction to Theories of Personality, 6th ed. (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2003).