Reply to European families appear so perfect with such well-behaved children

Forum Index » Off-Topic

Reply to "European families appear so perfect with such well-behaved children - how do they do it?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]I’m an American living in Western Europe. There are very high expectations for children in public places like restaurants and they get a lot of practice being in adult spaces from an early age. You would never, ever see a child with a screen of any type in a restaurant - even a parent’s phone. They learn to find other ways to be content while waiting for a meal. Most families don’t use screen time for long train rides either. Sport clothing is only for actually doing sports and even children wear “real” clothing everyday. And in general parents are actually less engaged in constantly stimulating their babies - you will see babies just contentedly sitting in their stroller watching the world go by while parents attend to other children. It’s all part of raising children to live in community and learn to respect the spaces around them. Even in schools they practice social behaviors.

As for the parents, there are significant tax credits that support hiring both a nanny and housekeeper, so parents aren’t so drained. Grandparents are also very involved. It means moms have time for self-care and that they have the patience to parent calmly when they are on-duty. Calm is in fact the most important part of family life. Calm children. Calm parent. I rarely see parents just lose it with their child.

That said, we live in one of the more “high expectations for children” counties. But every summer we go to Germany and just let our kids absolutely let loose digging and the mud and being wild because it’s more acceptable. It’s not all of Europe and parenting culture is very different by country![/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics