Q&A with Pamela Druckerman - author of French Children Don't Throw Food. Post your questions - ANSWERS BACK

I was just coming on to say, its probably because French children would get a slap for throwing food and similar behaviour.

In Paris (which is where Ms Druckerman is writing about), children sit separately. Even very tiny children - when my DD was just 3 she went to her first Bat Mitzvah and was expected to sit at a table of 20 little girls she had never met for an entire evening, right across a huge room of people from her parents and brothers (who were on a table of boys).

Not in my experience but I suppose it's what your idea of the big occasions are.
Every meal we have had in France with French people our kids and their kids have always been sat at the table to join in.

No - it's the opposite. On big occasions, French DC are siphoned off to another room/table and have special food. They absolutely do not eat with the adults (that is the Anglo-Saxon way, which shocks French people deeply). But French DC are expected to behave well and are punished if they aren't.

i think french children are often less picky about food as theyre expected to join in with massive occasion mealtimes with no special kids food, but behaviour wise, theyre no different

I think the way French DC behave around food and eating en famille, is simply an extension of the way the French (generally) parent, in that adults return to adult orientated life asap and DC are expected to fit in with that.

This is an expectation across the board. Food and eating is just one part of it.

Tee2072 - Yes, I have read the book (when it was first out), as did plenty of my Anglo-Saxon Parisian girlfriends. I have also recently read the preface to the French edition, written by Elisabeth Badinter. Now that was more illuminating (about the whole of Elisabeth Badinter's oeuvre) than Pamela Druckerman's book!

I haven't read the book, but I do think it's possible for fairly young children to sit and behave at the table. We regularly eat out and lots of people have commented on how well behaved the boys are. I love the compliments (who wouldn't!), but do point out it's just a snapshot of their behaviour and they are just children. All children tantrum and behave badly sometimes. It's part of the developmental process and I would be astounded if French children are any different.

IME good behaviour when eating out relies on several factors. Familiar restaurants, eating when they are actually hungry, not having unrealistic expectations on how long they will sit are just a few. I notice our 2 are much better behaved in when familiar surroundings.

Living in France at the mo and see plenty of tantrum throwing by French Kids.
Call me old fashioned but doesn't it come down us as their parents to just teaching our kids basic table manners, respect our elders & be grateful for what we have. I know that growing up I never misbehaved at the dinner table. We were taught by example by our parents & I wonder why in one generation so many of us seem to have let these basic principles fall by the wayside. Are we too busy these days? Are we now so used to instant gratification, living on credit, mobile phones, internet, etc that we expect our kids to get the lessons in one go & give up when they don't? My kids are by no means perfect and they have & do fall down along the way & drive me to distraction sometimes but it can only be to my benefit & theirs if they grow up with basic manners & respect. That takes time - it's a lifetime of learning. Just something to mull over.

I have not read the book. I have never been to France. My son doesn't throw food. Luck, not parenting, I think.

I am fascinated, though, that there are really only 2 questions directed at Pamela here.

As anyone on thread read the entire book?

My ds is 2.2 and eats almost anything you put in front of him. When he's not throwing it that is. How do you explain that?

There must be a middle way, surely?! Mine sit quietly in a restaurant and eat what's put in front of them - they always have done. I was quite strict when they were younger, and we had the advantage, when they were little, of seeing some uncontrolled kids running round a busy restaurant, and one ending up with a plate of salad on his head, because he crashed into the server (luckily it wasn't hot soup!).

The French family who live underneath us put their baby to bed at a set time every night, and she screams for hours and hours. They never go in to her, and she does (eventually) go to sleep. But she screams every night from around 8 to one in the morning. I think they must use ear plugs.

Well I loved the book - my dcs were born in Paris and I think Pamela is pretty much spot on. In fact I've bought it for all my English friends in Paris who are having/or have had babies - not as child-rearing manual, but just so they, like me can read bits out to their dhs and generally laugh knowingly at the French. I don't think it's intended as an instruction book any more than the Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, but like that book it is a brilliant read.

I am deeply averse to the French traditional control-and-command culture for that very reason - that it infantilises people. The pernicicious effects of this culture are much more visible when they become adults unable to think for themselves than when they are obedient children.

However, it is much easier to instigate and maintain order in a control-and-command culture than in a culture where everyone needs to be consulted and to cooperate with joint decisions. The British sadly often just fail to do anything much with their children and, instead of raising thinking adults, don't civilise their DCs at all.

I am just as shocked at anyone believing their country has a recipe for perfect childrearing.

Don't get me wrong I am quite averse to the control and command culture, I believe it infantilises people. However, I also see faults in the way childhood is viewed in the Anglo Saxon world.

I've dipped into this book since having my second child and have accordingly parented DD2 slightly differently, applying Le Pause and so on. I did enjoy the baby chapter... I will read on.

Question: proportionally do more mothers of young babies return to ft work in France than in the UK/US, and what is the link between that and their parenting styles?

Very interested in reading this book. We've been in France for 8 years now, since my youngest was a babe in arms. I teach in various French schools and think that at school the kids are much the same as in the UK..... Reserving judgement on parenting choices until I've read the book (if I'm lucky enought to win)

France has traditionally been a control-and-command culture, not a cooperation/consultation culture.

No-one has the recipe for perfect child rearing Franca, but I certainly don't adhere to the punish failure mentality that I see around me.
The idea that French people do 'much better' at child rearing seems to me to be simply a ploy to sell books, it's insulting and over simplistic of the author.
I don't see a sense of superiority here but a level of shock as to how the author could make the implication that French parenting is better.
There are good parents and bad, in every nation, but the style is different in France to the UK.
FWIW I'm raising a child with ASD in France. If I were to raise him in a 'French' way he would be traumatised and deeply misunderstood. It's bad enough that he gets punished at school for his ASD, I couldn't bring that home.

LeBFG I would love it too if French restaurants gave kids crayon packs too. I did go to my first themed restaurant yesterday (outside of Disney) with soft play, which my DS adored. I am guilty of playing with the mobile at the table though

Where I live, the French teens drink tons just the same as the UK kids. There are lots of opportunities at friends' houses, parties etc...and I'm in the god end ass of nowhere. Teens are teens wherever. My comments were about teens on holidays with schools. I supervised UK kids in Normandie on their week about the war. The other nationalities (mainly French) were atrocious. Some of ours did try and join in but us teachers were too wiley for them you would hope so - the French teachers couldn't give a sh*t - I've heard the same from French teachers tbh so I don't think it was a one-off.

Of course there is no one-size-fits-all. I'm sure some UK kids would benefit from a bit of Frenchness. I must admit, when I go back to the UK I like the stuff they give small children in restaurants (packs, crayons etc). I've never seen it in France. My Portugese friend in the UK is horrified though and much prefers the French expectation of sitting properly at the table.

Something I've noticed in common with both countries however is how everyone sits at the table with their blasted mobile phones. Now that, I can't bear.

Less prone to tantrums as toddlers, more prone to tantrums as adults? (I only really have experience of the latter..working with French businesses from 1986).

There are variuos posts omhere, TheAccidental, lamenting the behaviour of French teenagers abroad and linking their behaviour to the way they are brought up, as if parenting was an exact science, which is not.

I am just pointing out that also English (and various other nationalities!) adolescents don't behave perfectly all the time. Parenting may be different, but we still don't have the recipe for a perfect human being .

the sense of superiority is out of place, imo.

Not sure anyone said that Franca. I don't know many adolescents so I can't comment. But yes I have seen English people drinking too much. Only seen French teens drinking too much on fete de la musique and Beaujolais nouveau night.

No one answered me, then.
French adolescents are all according to you lacking in lots of departments.
What brings the average Uk teen to drink until senseless then? Have you seen the programs on the bbc about teens on holidays?