Lempp R
Z Kinder Jugendpsychiatr. 1985;13(1):43-55.
The legal position of children is based essentially on the assumption that the family can always safeguard the child's welfare in confrontations with a third party. Therefore children have not been granted autonomous legal status; their interests are protected by the term "the child's best interest", which although incorporated into law is not defined. In recent years more attention has been paid to the legal status of children, and a certain amount of autonomy has been granted, although not without contest. This tendency is an expression of a change in family structure, which until recently conformed to the ideal of the nineteenth century bourgeois family. Our own limited investigations show, in addition to already well known demographic changes, that in the course of our century young children have become more and more limited in their opportunities to form strong emotional bonds. Only since then has the dual bond of early childhood been recognized as being of primary importance. The family is becoming increasingly inadequate. Children are therefore increasingly endangered by the death or divorce of their parents. As a result it is essential that better legal provision be made to ensure that they are regarded as autonomous individuals.
儿童的法律地位基本上基于这样一种假设，即家庭在与第三方对抗时总能保障儿童的福利。因此，儿童并未被赋予自主的法律地位；他们的利益由“儿童最大利益”这一术语来保护，尽管该术语已被纳入法律，但并未给出定义。近年来，人们对儿童的法律地位给予了更多关注，并且赋予了一定程度的自主权，尽管并非没有争议。这种趋势是家庭结构变化的一种体现，直到最近，家庭结构都符合19世纪资产阶级家庭的理想模式。我们自己有限的调查表明，除了早已为人所知的人口结构变化之外，在本世纪，幼儿建立牢固情感纽带的机会越来越有限。从那时起，幼儿期的双重纽带才被视为至关重要。家庭正变得越来越力不从心。因此，儿童因父母死亡或离婚而面临的危险日益增加。所以，必须做出更好的法律规定，以确保他们被视为自主个体。
