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???

"don't make rules, that's so middle class"
"I want to be my child's best friend"
"I wannnnnah!"

The difference is, do you want your children to grow up, mature and act like adults or do you secretly want to be a child ?

A few people have mentioned the book French Children Don’t Throw Food, so I thought it was worth mentioning that it’s not by a childcare expert but by an American journalist tapping into the sort of cultural cringe displayed by lots of anglophones towards the French, who is now mainly writing about her sex life. It’s not a reliable guide to French parenting!

I’ve lived most of my life with undiagnosed adhd (now diagnosed). It makes life difficult/ then I see posts like that and realise that many people are suffering more and walking the earth seemingly with bring undiagnosed twats. It must be awful walking round apparently unaware most people will think you’re a wanker - I’d rather have my ADHD any day. You have to wonder what dad pathetic lives these people lead that means they get their kicks going round judging children - how sad.

This is so true when I first met my partner when we was 16 (now 31) his family never sat at the table and I was amazed. I thought it was the best bit of freedom ever. In my house we sat at the table every night, watched a film/TV most nights whilst they all sat in bedrooms separately.
When I went out for a meal with them it was chaos with his younger brother who was about 8 at the time and I wonder if it was due to no eating at the table.

Apparently it doesn’t stop them throwing petrol bombs at police a few years down the line though. Personally I’d rather a few peas came my way than bricks riots are much more regular in France. Guess we need to allow for cultural differences though.

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/12/02/france-mulls-state-of-emergency-after-paris-riots-wont-change-policy.html

But how do YOU know whose child is or isn’t appropriately diagnosed, it isn’t for you to decide or blanket statement. Your experience is based on your child, not anyone else’s, thus it isn’t for you to say who has or hasn’t disciplined their child correctly. I don’t know your child’s behaviours or whether they can be resolved with threat of punishment or a promise of reward but I know mine child’s cannot. If people are misusing private diagnosis to excuse for poor behaviour then that’s one thing however I highly doubt people regularly fork out thousands to convince private doctors that their child is disabled to gain….oh wait, nothing…I remember thinking a diagnosis would give us access to support…nope. In my experience it is very much, here is your diagnosis, here is your leaflet explaining your diagnosis, you are now discharged goodbye.

Anyway, my thought was I avoid taking my son out to places like restaurants, not because he would have a meltdown he actually enjoys busyness, but because of fear of proven judgement from complete strangers. He is not obviously disabled to the eye and his extremely loud vocal stimming (which he has ZERO control of) and other pronounced stimming behaviours is often misinterpreted as bad unmannered behaviour and therefore I am a bad parent. This behaviour can be redirected through the use of a screen, but I am still a bad parent because I let him use one. We can’t win, best stay home!

Exactly, I do apologise that disability is seemingly very inconvenient to some strangers apparently 😂. Hugs to you!

@Nottodays8tan I'm sorry you've had horrible experiences. I would never judge your son for having tics. This is not the behaviour I'm talking about. I'm sure this doesn't happen everywhere but I live in an area of London where this is very common. Even working with kids, I hear parents use the diagnosis as a reason for everything. It's really damaging to a child self esteem and not healthy. It's ok for kids to be naughty sometimes and for it to just be that! Doesn't make you a bad parent. I'm not in favour of the treatment of kids in France. It's abhorrent and I wouldn't really want my kid sitting staring into space for hours during a meal. Running to dance in between meals sounds very sweet and what childhood should be about.

@Foxesandsquirrels I appreciate that. I didn’t know that was really a thing but perhaps isn’t so much where I live, I do remember wanting a private diagnosis assessment when I first had concerns because the waiting list was so far in sight and I just wanted answers from someone who knew what they were talking about and I desperately wanted answers now but if that’s being misused then that’s just gross. I did wonder why services don’t recognise private diagnosis so if this is why then that’s really saddening however for some it probably is the ability to fund the desperation for answers also.

And yes, agreed! 🙂

behave

no-one is quoting the stabbing and racism going on in the UK right now, and the number of kids that have lost their life right here.

Stop making ridiculous comparison and talk about "cultural difference" about events that have nothing to do with anything.

Exactly! Is our stabbing rate because kids haven’t learned to use a dinner knife here? 🙄 because that makes as much sense

As a child myself we always ate at the table - DF was French, DM English in an attempt to help our language skills we were only allowed to speak French at mealtimes - I was still shocked when we visited family in France how long mealtimes were and that the kitchen or dining room was the hub of the house - some did not even possess sofas or easy chairs
when my own DC were young we always ate together (without the French!) and they were always well behaved in restaurants
It was also our time to catch up on everyone’s day and be sociable

@Nottodays8tan I don't want it to sound like I'm dismissing a private diagnosis. Most people have no option but to get one. All of my DDs diagnosis were private at first, as without them we didn't meet the threshold for a referral to NHS services. There has been a boom in the market though. I know there's been talk about this all over the place. I don't feel NHS diagnostic assessments are all that much better than private, but there are some real cowboys out there.
I guess my issue really isn't even with the diagnosis. It's the conversations people are having with their kids around that, using it as an excuse and reason for everything. It's really sad as yes, it's bloody difficult to live with a disability but there is a lot more to ND kids than their disabilities. They're funny, kind and caring. But as with all other kids, they can be mean naughty and down right bratty. That's not always caused by their diagnosis. They are also just kids navigating emotions in a very selfish world. It's frustrating to me as I see the consequences of this 'its my diagnosis miss' trend, and it's not great.

This!!

The French love a bit of dissent so just because they are well behaved at mealtimes doesn't mean anything. I personally don't see why a child should have to sit for 90min over a meal, they are kids they need to play let off some steam. Yes they should be able to sit and have a meal but not for that length of time.

I am just back from Italy where we also stayed at a campsite resort. Mainly Italian, French, German, Spanish and Dutch kids there (we are Irish). I found the kids a bit feral tbh flying around on bikes very little parental supervision and well being kids. Not sure how they were at mealtimes but they definitely had freedom to roam unsupervised most of the day. I am not saying this was a bad thing I thought it was great it reminded me of my childhood.

I’m just pointing out that apparently well behaved children mean nothing when it comes to behaviour away from the dinner table. Turns out French kids grow up just as feral as apparently British kids are. I think this is highly relevant. So far on this thread we’ve seen

1. the French seem to hide neuro divergent kids away
2. they have big mental health problems in France
3. their kids grow up just as likely (if not more so) to participate in extreme anti social behaviour

Therefore French parents are no more successful at raising wonderful little darlings than the rest of us (and arguably less so). The presumption set out in the OP was that French parents were raising kids who were much better behaved than British ones in the thread and that had been refuted.

These figures from 2019 (latest I could find) shows France has more than twice the number of deaths from knife crime as the Uk per 100,000. We probably don’t want to go down Frances racism issues do we?

I'm half Italian, and super strict. My children always sat at the table and were expected to eat and chat until finished. We had so many compliments over the years. The best was from an elderly Italian Contessa who bemoaned the bad behaviour of Italian children, and praised the British for their strict upbringing and English Nannies. How times have changed.

I work in primary education and I’d actually say the opposite is true. There are lots of children where you strongly suspect ND yet they’re nowhere near being diagnosed. The journey to that diagnosis is often a very long one. In my 20 years of working with ND adults and children, over diagnosis has not been my experience.

On the flip side I also see lots of primary aged children with a distinct lack of respect for boundaries, undoubtedly more so since the pandemic. There are certain year groups at school that are another level at the moment and you’ve got to wonder why. Those kids aren’t ND though. It’s not unheard of for some parents to ascribe those behaviours to undiagnosed ND, but for me a diagnosis is a diagnosis.

Most british families do not eat meals at the table every night. In France they do. The French teach this every day, that is the difference .

And talking about other behaviour is irrelevant. No one is saying being able to eat at the dinner table without problems means that child is very well behaved in all settings. It means simply that the parents have prioritised teaching kids to behave well at meals.

Maybe the French have time for this though.? Instead of needing 2 parents working full time in minimum wage jobs. Haven’t food and power prices been capped by the Grench government?

The thing is with screens, everyone’s always complaining about them but if my autistic child kicks off and has a meltdown every single person will be staring at me and tutting their teeth waiting for me to do something ,
i try talking, soothing, distracting, going for a walk , nothing is going to work
if I whip out their iPad and headphones it will calm them down quicker

if it’s somewhere that we can make a hasty exit I will , but in places like doctors or dentists , iPad is the only short term thing that might distract them and stop them from screaming and trying to run away

so I’m going to get judged , either for not doing anything to
“ discipline” my child or I’m going to get judged for resorting to an iPad and being a lazy parent

im not that old yet but it was only 25 years ago I was being put in front of the t.v to watch videos , told to go and entertain myself , or told to go outside for the whole day and on,y come back in for food
so many kids were left to their own devices and our parents didn’t even know where we were half the time
you can’t do these things anymore because the kids will end up kidnapped or worse

Maybe you're an exception. But generally the sort of parents who like to congratulate themselves on their parenting have naturally compliant, docile children.

Like I said above, you can see this at parties. It's very easy to identify the children who are easy to take places. And their parents aren't usually the ones running around working hard at parenting.

But people do like to pat themselves on the back about how "superior" their parenting is. There are many people who seem to view it as a major achievement if other people say to them, "Oh, we didn't even notice your kids". Or even better, "we were dreading dinner when we saw your children, but they are just so well-behaved and a credit to you". Parenting points x 100 😂.

Very few children will still be throwing food and running around restaurants at 18. Most get there in the end. Some have a harder time of it. End of.

they MAKE time.

French children also go to bed much later than the Brit, the Spanish ones even much later. They have time for diner.

Only Brit kids are packed to bed as early as the parents can get away with, then complain that it's still too hot and too bright in the summer, and the kids wake up too early.
Children need the same amount of sleep in any country, but the Brits are curiously inflexible and that's the one routine they feel very strongly about.

But generally the sort of parents who like to congratulate themselves on their parenting have naturally compliant, docile children.

And their parents aren't usually the ones running around working hard at parenting.

😂😂😂

that's just the excuse some people give themselves to justify their lazy parenting. I don't think I've ever heard or met a docile toddler 😂 but some are guided, some.. are not.

I don't think anyone has mentioned the book that obviously hasn't been written

'European kids still get spanked'

It explains a lot.