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???

Better than a lot of the self-congratulatory twaddle on this thread.

I love the idea that we can judge how effective and involved people are as parents by how well their children can sit still in public. If only life was that simple.

The blanket assumption that none can, is bollox.

As is the blanket assumption that if one dc with SN, all can.

You may eat in front of the tele up to you, not here though.

Massive generalisation much?

I don't know anyone that eats in front of the TV. I don't know many people that still watch TV really. If anything they'll be on the phones or iPad.

Go to a french soft play and you will see they’re just like all the other kids, some wonderful and others little terrors! On the whole though I would say both school and parenting is stricter and expectations of behaviour in public higher. However it’s hard to say whether that’s a good or a bad thing! I’m currently raising little people in France and whilst the 4 yr old could sit through a meal (and always has been able to), the 2 yr old can’t so we choose places they can have a run around, like in a square.

This also includes the willingness to riot as it goes as our value system places higher importance on the concept of 'not rocking the boat' and knowing your place whereas the France belief system puts higher importance on the idea that it is ok to challenge authority if not listened to by other means.

It's funny, because it sounds nearly .. contradictory?

French children being taught boundaries, to respect others and their environment, while the little Brits are left to run riot (pun intended)

but they would end up growing not scared of challenging authority vs knowing your place and keeping that stiff upper lip and putting up with what is thrown at you.

I am sure my kids are not currently up to French standards of behaviour and manners, but I know what I would prefer them to grow into.

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.

So what it exactly were they doing in all that time? They can't have spent all of eating considering the small portions they must eat because their kids aren't all obese like ours. They can't have all been engaging in or following adult conversations - I certainly couldn't do that till I was much older than 5. Parents must have been chatting to them, keeping them engaged?

I don't know anyone that eats in front of the TV. I don't know many people that still watch TV really. If anything they'll be on the phones or iPad.

I see people say this all the time on here and find it fascinating - everyone I know watches TV!

We don't eat dinner in front of it, though, though we do eat breakfast/lunch in front of it quite often.

@Foxesandsquirrels

There are people on this thread saying that they eat in front of the tele.

The assumption that every kid you see playing up at the table or watching screens, is ND is nonsense. Some will be of course.

No screens at our table which we eat all meals at.

Well it’s a general discussion and we can’t go through the individual circumstances of some 20 million parents can we?

If all the "difficult kids" were plonked in front of screens we wouldn't be talking about their dining behaviour! We would be having the (admittedly concurrent) discussion about kids being screen zombies.

The point I think they're making is that some kids will more naturally incline towards a desired behaviour, and others won't.

But no one is saying that. Please read the thread instead of just the last 2 pages.

It is interesting. We definitely eat breakfast with phones, which is bad I know but no one can be bothered to talk so early. Very rarely do we have lunch together unless it's Sunday.

not even sure it matters in the long run, you don’t see adults needing a colouring book etc!

You definitely see phones and there’s often a lack of table manners when eating out - loudness, swearing, being the centre of attention etc. It’s a bit like kids that don’t really appreciate “ eating out” with other people and need to learn how to do it.

Yes but it’s up to us to make them conform, for some that will be harder work but not a reason not to do it.

I’ve been a lurker on here for years, and I’ve noticed more and more and more threads about out of control kids (usually teens). Who smash the house up, backchat their parents, openly smoke weed and disturbingly quite a few teen boys who beat up their mums. I’m horrified at the responses - yesterday’s being that a 15 year old who smacked his mum should be taken shopping and praised (those exact words).

I think this tendency to love bomb kids rather than properly discipline them actually comes from a place of fear - parents not wanting to confront the unpleasant sides of their child’s personality head on and deal with it. Instead they take the easier and less scary route of sucking up to them in the hope their child will end up liking them enough not to batter them, or steal from them.

It absolutely is not working and we are raising a generation of entitled, violent, impulsive children who are used to doing what they want with impunity, safe in the knowledge their parents will bail them out or house them or tolerate their atrocious behaviour.

I know I’m going a bit further than the dinner table discussion now but I genuinely believe we won’t have a capable workforce in about 20 years as so few adults will be up to working - sitting still, getting up early, obeying commands and doing things they don’t want to do because somebody else is the boss.

We’ve never been so permissive and ‘understanding’ as parents yet behaviour has never been so bad. If it worked we would be seeing a generation of well adjusted, polite and hard working young people come to the fore right now but that is far from the case isn’t it?

That came out a bit longer than intended, sorry folks 😂

ArseInTheCoOpWindow · Today 11:22
ND figures from the Autistic Girls Network. 1 in 22 in NI.
As to the poster who said French kids stay up late. Do they get up late too? Do French schools start later than British schools?

Primary school starts at 8.30 or 9 but you can usually drop off at the garderie earlier, and finishes at 4.30 or 5 but you can pick up later from the garderie.

Lower secondary school start lessons at 8 or 8.30 and finish at 5 or 5.30. they can stay in longer to use a library or do some of their homework (usually 2 hours a day).

In my lycée lessons start at 7.50 and finish at 6.

Wrt to meals: packed lunches are usually not allowed in school, you go home or eat at the canteen, entrée + plat + salade+fromage + dessert, on china plates, everyone sits and eats at a table as they are expected to at home. The menu is published so parents know what the children get.

I teach in a big semi-rural public general lycée with a vocational lycée on the same site so a very varied public, we also have a big unit for people with various conditions who can't be in class all the time, they do the same lessons as everyone else doing their cursus, except when they can't. There is in-class individual support for those who need it, some of my pupils benefit from this.We would like more but funding is finite.

Everyone eats at the same canteen. I haven't ever in 10 years there seen bad behaviour although mealtimes are very lightly supervised by the many part-time pastoral assistants (they are university students usually).

They have to be able to sit still, we have 3.5 and 4 hour long school exams, quite apart from anything else.

I don't think French children and young people are perfect at all or any better than their peers elsewhere but by and large they are civilised when the context demands it. I think it is possible the average French parent doesn't do everything the same way as the average UK parent eg we don't ask them if they want to say hello please thank you goodbye, we tell them. but our societies are a bit different, and what is an average parent anyway. Most of our pupils of secondary age take public transport or walk or ride mopeds to school, very few are taxi-ed about by parents and I'm told that's not the same in UK.

Oh and we are not our children's friends, we are their parents. Sometimes we have to be unpopular, so what, it goes with the job. Today's children are tomorrow's adults and they can't just become ok overnight at a particular age.

I’m going to go against the grain here - I think British parents are TOO involved with their children, they do too much for them, involve them in their adult lives too much.
it’s all ‘look at the… what is that…’ performative parenting. The child having the have the parent scaffold every instance of play. Children from other cultures are largely ignored and left to get on with things and definitely not involved in adult conversation or activities.

they are totally feral when not with their parents though, I go yearly on a residential with year 6 children to France and the place we stay have lots of (usually older) French school children too. Yes, they will eat anything out in front of the but the are loud, mean and rude.

@Sweetashunni agree. I will never forget about the mums toddler who pulled her to the floor and she was on the ground in tears. Sometimes tough love is needed.

@Sweetashunni I agree. There was a thread a couple days ago. A 16 year old girl didn't want to take her maths exam so swore all over it. Exam board pulled it up and contacted school. The majority of the thread was blaming the mum for encouraging her daughter to take an exam she didn't want to take. Ignoring the fact the school decided she could do the exam, paid for it and taught her the content for 6 months, how bizarre that this behaviour is not only tolerated, but the fault is with the parent because God forbid they suggested their child takes an exam?! That apparently gives this girl the right to swear all over it and the mum was told by posters to apologise to her child!!

I think you are on holiday and you all get to do a bit of what you enjoy, so if they go off and have a little dance between courses that's fine, as long as they sit down when the food comes and don't generally run around or cause problems.

In fact I might be tempted to go off and dance between courses myself. If they don't want people to do that then start the disco when dinner is over.

We’ve never been so permissive and ‘understanding’ as parents yet behaviour has never been so bad. If it worked we would be seeing a generation of well adjusted, polite and hard working young people come to the fore right now but that is far from the case isn’t it?

What a pile of steaming bollocks.

What a compelling counter argument.

@Catspyjamas17

Spot on.