On May 31, 2022, at the Faculty of Educational Studies in Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, a panel discussion was held. The topic of the debate was „Modern family-children relations – Is there room for law?„
As participants of the debate, the following pedagogues employed at the Faculty were invited:
Professor UAM Agnieszka Barczykowska,
Professor UAM Maciej Muskała,
dr Hubert Tomkowiak
dr Hanna Karaszewska,
dr Sonia Dzierzyńska-Breś
The host of the debate was Professor UAM Marek Andrzejewski from the Institute of Legal Studies in the Polish Academy of Sciences, having a part-time job at the Faculty.
The debate was a part of a scientific project “The Content of Parental Responsibility” supervised by the Central European Academy in Miskolc within the framework of the Central Europeans Professors’ Network founded by the Ferenc Mádl Comparative Law Institute.
The event was organized at the Faculty thanks to the kindness of the Dean of the Faculty of Educational Studies, Professor Agnieszka Cybała-Michalska.
In the beginning of the debate, the host, Professor Marek Andrzejewski introduced the Central European Professors’ Network to the audience and outlined its objectives and aims. He presented the Network as a group of scientists who set the goal for themselves to define and identify the identity of Central Europe and its specific character that sets it apart from Western and Eastern Europe, especially in the area of formulation of laws and their application, in this case of the family law.
A need for a debate between lawyers and pedagogues was justified by the need for a joined reflection on the problem of parents and children relationship. In the reflection, law should play an important but by no means a decisive role.
Lawyers dealing with the subject of the family (both scientists and family judges) should draw their knowledge and inspiration not only from the field of pedagogy but also from active psychologists, social workers, doctors and sociologists. Lawyers dealing with family issues must open up to other people and their schemata; they should not only limit themselves to analyzing legal texts based on the meta-language these texts use.
The starting point for the discussion was a thesis that the contemporary times are tougher for contemporary parents bringing up their children than for the previous generations. It is a consequence of the development of technology which hinders communication between representatives of different generations, the primary example being the fact that young people express their thoughts and feelings in a way not comprehensible to the older generation. Parents simply lack the password to the world of their children, which exacerbates their mutual misunderstanding.
The law sets rules of behaviour. The category of parental authority concerns the right to make decisions about children and for children, partly also with children. As such this authority is supposed to facilitate the development of children and serve their well-being.
The participant attempted to answer the following questions and issues:
- What is the specificity of contemporary relations between parents and children?
- What new legal problems does this specificity generate? What old problems does it modify?
- Do contemporary problems in the parent-children relationship require any special legal regulations?
- Should children or parents be more supported in this relationship?
- Whose attitude or conduct requires more correction: of parents’ or of children’s?
- Should parents have a legal right to intervene in a child’s privacy?
- Nowadays, who can or who should support parents in their influence on their children, in fostering a better understanding of the world in which their children are functioning? In helping them choose the right methods to correct what is wrong with their children?
- Are the autonomy of the family life and the primacy of parents in childrearing (Articles 47 and 48 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland) the proper starting points for the debate about the law concerning the relations under discussion? Or is it the influence of public institutions (such as schools, and social organizations) on children that should be foregrounded?
The debate has shown that the issues under discussion are very complex, and the formulation of any diagnosis and the ways to cope with the new problems is very difficult.
