What is going on with British kids?

[FrenchAreDoingSomethingRight]

On holiday in France. An upmarket holiday camp and we are the only British family here. It was recommended by a French friend and I didn't realise it only has French families on holiday

Dinner is set 3 course dinner. My kids are 5 and 3. My older boy has ADHD we think (referred by school), our younger one doesn't as far as we know. Both kids are trying their hardest at dinner. There is v loud music playing and the pool party bit is still open. They run off after every course for a dance. Older one tries to stand up sometimes. We have colouring in books etc. Really they're fine. At restaurants and pubs they are totally average in terms of being able to sit at the table. No screens.

Not a single French kid has done anything wrong. No screens or even colouring. They might not all be talking to their parents but every single one is sitting through the whole 90 min dinner and waiting to dance at the end. So patient.

Do no French kids have ADHD or ND? Or even just kid like and cheeky? I have always tried my best with dinner times but these kids aren't even considering running off.

What is going on???

The French are stricter on dc, smacking was certainly more common & I think there are former boundaries between parents/children.

Yeah yeah yeah. The French are so much better at everything.

French mothers eat brie and smoke gitanes throughout pregnancy and give to birth to beautiful, healthy, well-behaved, stylish thin children who grow up to order wine with meals at the age of 5 and discuss Sartre with adults and speak better English than the fat screen-addicted Brit kids at Eurocamp.

And then they give up this exquisite, well-mannered behaviour at 18 in order to become the other French stereotype beloved of the FBPE - rioters.

Based on personal experience, yes, at least until I was big enough to hit back.

Have French penfriends ( 2 women and one guy all the same family ) since I was 7, so nearly 50 years now.
When I was younger and in France which was every year i would sit at the table with them for dinner, it was quite ceremonial. Handmade purse to keep your personal napkin, wine, three courses plus cheese at the end. Everybody sat and ate and talked for at least an hour ( it was probably longer ).
They now have kids. We still visit and even when they had babies everyone is at the table eating what they are given ( babies had blended versions of the adults food ) and talking.

We have always done the same as tbh my family were much the same ( less courses, no wine though ) We are not French, we are Irish/ British.

Our French penfriends and their friends that we now know we’ll wouldn't dream of supplying entertainment ( drawing etc) at the table as you’re there to eat and join in the talking as a family.
Nor would they entertain any mucking about, leaving the table, interrupting people whilst they’re talking.

Mealtimes is an important part of French culture and family time to be together .

Yes this happens a lot! I was in a 2 michelin star restaurant in Lyon with my family when I was a teenager. A nearby table had a one year old child making noise (I'm not sure if they were French) and when the child started crying, another table of French people started yelling at the child and his parents for ruining their meal. Was quite an experience!

I've nannied in France and I'd say the differences are:
Low tolerance for ND children in public
French parents are not afraid to threaten and smack
Parenting generally is more authoritarian

And actually a lot of French parents (especially mums) would tell you that they don't particularly love having children sit quietly through long adult meals, and it falls to mums to manage behaviour or take the child out rather than sit back and enjoy the evening.

In mainland Europe people live an outdoor life because they have good weather so yes they will socialise more. Let's not forget in UK we live very much indoors which means our kids live an indoor life this is one big thing I miss when I come back off of holiday. Its a different way of living completely.

I was in a Spanish resort recently with a mix of parents from across Europe. Some of the parents had ipad/iphone holders on the pushchair so kids were strapped in and distracted all evening. Most of them were English speaking families.
The kids dancing round were a delight, I'm still weirded out by the ipad holders though.

Wherever I am in the world, a pinch of flour will make me ill. Whatever causes your symptoms, it isn't coeliac disease.

Sadly British kids are often badly behaved because it is tolerated by parents, l always wanted to be able to sit through a long meal and the Dcs behave and they did....
It may have been luck but l think l was stricter than many.

This is literally it.

Its embarrassing.

Nobody gets an adhd diagnosis because they push for it.

This is how important it is:
https://www.parents.com/recipes/tips/unexpected-benefits-of-eating-together-as-a-family-according-to-science/

London in quite a few places, nice areas and not so nice. Why do you need to know?
Not sure why you have to be rude.

Your description about foraging and casseroles is just plain silly, and says more about you tbh.

I think it’s not just “tolerated”, it’s not necessarily recognised as bad behaviour in the first place. Just on this thread notice the number of people referring to children being loud, running around in a restaurant etc as “having fun”.
if parents don’t see it as an issue than they won’t even consider discipline.

This is what I’m talking about. It’s possible for all types of people to be ignorant and discriminatory towards other cultures.

It’s incredibly offensive to suggest English people are so ill taught and backwards that they don’t have family meals with knives and forks. Just get over yourselves.

Just got back from a Spanish campsite, not far from the French border. Mostly Spanish, and a few French. The Spanish kids were the worst- all left unsupervised in the pool and leaping around and onto people's heads and no one batted an eyelid. Kids sitting on steps and screaming at you and refusing to move if you asked them to move. A three year old ignoring the requests of a lifeguard to stay in the shallow end, as he had no armbands and was swimming away from his older sibling. I asked a parent to intervene with her child who wouldn't let my DD get out of the pool, and she didn't. In the end had to tell my DD to stay away from all children in the pool and only swim in the quiet bit. One had landed on her head then repeatedly jumped back in, cms from her. Another day, a french child continuously attacked my DD in the paddling pool to try and steal her doll off her, and wouldn't stop even after I intervened. Parents didn't do anything- dad was asleep in a baby tent and mum just sat there halfheartedly saying 'don't do that', when she saw me getting antsy. I eventually had to pull the child off my DD because she had hold of her hair, and low and behold- the French parents erupted. Screamed at me for grabbing a two year old by her arm and then proceeded to then yank the two year old around by her arm as they got ready to get the family away from me- the 'focking british', in his words. It was a nice campsite as well, high season, so not cheap. So I think it depends.
Didn't see a screen in sight, the whole two weeks, for what it's worth.

In my head it's the 'mass' test, I'm Irish Catholic and in 1980s when i was young all children went to Mass, it was scandalous not to. A toddling child may be kept home but from around 2.5 or 3 they were old enough and everyone i know sat there through the most boring drivel imaginable without distractions. We were usually allowed a book but no talking or messing. It was 45 mins every Sunday without fail. I often wonder why it was possible, I work in pre school now and any training always mentions how pre schoolers cannot sit still and it shouldn't be expected... but what about all those generations who went to mass? They were not neurologically different, just trained differently

Mine go to mass & are quite capable of being quiet. Equally in other places they can behave like shites

@FKATondelayo , the rioters are not French, they are Algerian.

Largely, parents tend to parent with the similar attachment behaviours they were modelled. Parents who struggle with being safe and predictable around their children, often result in those same children parenting their respective children in the same way.

Children who experience significant ACEs, go on to struggle to meet their own children's needs, this is generation after generation after generation. Ive read files from 30 years ago in families where you could be literally reading a current case note about the grandchildren now.

🤔

It isn’t coeliac but I am aware that when I eat bread, cakes etc I have an inflammation response in my body and a terrible gut - so I avoid. On holiday I don’t have to avoid anything- so I have noticed a difference with the food and my body response. I prefer the food there!

Like fuck it is. I wasn't diagnosed until my forties and had a waiting list of nearly three years to be seen.

Autistic women and girls are still hugely underdiagnosed.

Do some homework instead of spewing ignorance.

German and Dutch children are just as feral as British children if that helps 😂

I live in France. French kids are not fed sugar for breakfast, lunch and dinner (cereals, bread, pasta, chips etc).

Outdated trope.