Danish therapist Jesper Juul dies
July 26, 2019
Juul, whose tips were sought by parents worldwide via books and while he was on speaking tours, passed away peacefully at his home in Odder, Denmark, due to a lung infection, Familylab International announced on Friday.
Mathias Voelchert, the director of the German branch of the Juul center founded in 2004, said the therapist had experienced severe pain despite medication from a neurological condition that confined him to a wheelchair.
"He had fought for seven years and just couldn't do it anymore," Voelchert told the German news agency dpa.
On Twitter the German branch said Juul "left us overnight."
Up until 2016 Juul had offered consultations via email and chats. Parent queries included how to handle aggressive siblings, stealing and bed wetting.
Making reasoned decisions
Juul rejected both authoritarian and anti-authoritarian child-raising, but encouraged parents to make unpopular but reasoned decisions through communication. Conflicts had to be worked through by parents and children, he advised.
Read more: Don't expose babies to electronic screens, says WHO
For him, children from birth were fully fledged social beings needing respect and not punishment.
"I'm interested in the interaction of personalities. You have to know: Who am I? Who is my child?, Juul told the German newspaper Die Welt in 2012.
"You can't say anything general about what mothers are for people, what children are for people," he added.
From ship's hand to therapist
Born in Denmark in 1948, he first worked as a kitchen hand at sea in Asia, a concrete worker, dish washer and barkeeper in Germany before studying history and religion at Denmark's Aarhus University, including the topic of "free will."
He entered teaching, became a youth worker in Aarhus and then a family therapist who also trained in the Netherlands and the United States.
Books sold around the world
His 1997 book Your Competent Child: Toward New Basic Values for the Family became a bestseller and other titles were translated into some 20 languages.
During the Yugoslav war in the 1990s he provided on a voluntary basis counseling and post graduate education to local professionals.
His Swiss-based center Familylab International operates around the world.
Interviewed by the magazine Nido in 2016 he admitted to once giving his son a smack on his backside but later turned soft as a father, leaving him worried he might cause harm by being too lax.
Every evening, DW sends out a selection of the day's news and features. Sign up here.