To wonder about other countries approaches to raising children

[Mamabear04]

I was approached in a supermarket by an elderly woman who I think just wanted a chat because she was lonely. I was with my baby and she proceeded to tell me about her son who lives in the Netherlands and how they let their kids stay up late, unlike British parents who can't wait to get their kids to bed. It got me to wondering about how other cultures raise their kids. I do put my children to bed early at 7pm, yes because I like to have the evenings to rest but also it means they gets a solid 11-12 hours sleep and wake for the working day at 7am. A friend who lives in France said that kids are seen and not heard there and have hardly any play parks (I was a bit shocked about the play parks tbh), she also said Israeli families consider their kids the biggest blessing from God and so let their kids do anything (in a nice way not an antisemitic way. They are a multicultural family). I also have a friend who said her cousin still sleeps in the same room as her parents at 9 years old and they live in UAE. I'm just so curious about how other cultures raise their kids and also how people see British families as well. I only ever hear that British families don't eat together and don't engage with their kids. Anyone from outwith the UK want to tell about how they raise their children? Do you really think of British families like this?

Oh and you NEVER saw fat little toddlers playing naked or in their knickers on the beach. Americans are massively uptight

@Heywhatawobderfulkindofday @Watchagotch72 @Caspianberg thanks that’s interesting.

My own observations are mostly from being on holiday. Most recently we were in a place with predominantly German/Scandinavians. I didn’t see one device until the Irish and British turned up.

It was remarkable really!

I did wonder if perhaps there’s a really different work/life balance so that ‘holiday’ for Irish/British is the only time to relax for the parents so they stick the children on devices.

I'm in Ireland too. Its not dissimilar to the UK but its more relaxed. Kids play more sport generally, loads seem to do GAA and football and swimming. And kids play out still in most of the country.
But the biggest difference is our kids are kids til they are 18. Expected to stay in school generally, have a weekend job but not responsible for themselves yet.

We lived in Portugal until DD was 7. She always came out to eat with us and always ate the same food. We always ate together at home. She developed quite a taste for seafood and olives and will now eat almost anything.

Her bedtime was definitely later than in the UK and napping was usual in nursery up to the age of 5 although safeguarding was not really a thing.

She would be seen by the paediatrician for all her regular check ups.

Unfortunately she has SN and provision for that where we were living was pretty non-existent. School wouldn't let her defer starting for a year even though her paediatrician and the nursery said it would benefit her. That was one of the main reasons we came back to the UK where she has had lots of extra help.

That last bit. Most kids are the same in the UK unless you think we send them to factories at 14?

I agree - there is good SEND provision in the UK
Pros to the UK system are : robust safeguarding and SEND provision

Originally from a caribbean country. Co-sleeping is the norm and a young baby would never sleep in their own room for superstitious reasons. It wasn't something I wanted to do but DC decided that they didnt want to sleep in their crib so I just went along with it. I'm also hoping to get them in their own room before 18 months 🤞🏾.

Babies are stretched and moulded (hard to explain!) in the bath to encourage strong legs, back etc. It's common to wean from 4 months and potty training is done before 2. The wider community will discipline a misbehaving child, although this is less common now in the UK within my community. Tantrums/misbehaviour in public is heavily frowned upon and if a child hurts themselves as a direct result of not listening to a parent's warnings it is seen as the child's fault and they are expected to learn from it.

Grandparents are more actively involved in childcare and grandmothers are seen to have wisdom when it comes to childrearing. It is expected that when a new baby is born they will meet their grandparents as soon as possible. Older siblings will help with younger siblings and the running of the house at a much earlier age than in the UK generally. It's also very common back home for grandparents or other family members to look after children while their parents are abroad for work and until they can bring the child abroad themselves.

Also very common to see an open bible placed at the head of a newborns crib, although the health visitor wasn't too pleased 😅

The UK does have more thorough safeguarding, elsewhere could do with a bit more, but schools in Finland do care a lot about children's welfare. Yearly health checks are done at school by the school nurse, who is also available for the children to make an appointment with if they want to, and the school doctor does more thorough check ups every few years including questioning the parents about their own health and lifestyles (I reckon a lot of British parents would not be happy with this). Schools have psychologists assigned to them and curators who look after students welfare and intervene at pretty low thresholds it seems. And these days schools seem to have a big emphasis on mental health, with special lessons on handling emotions and whatnot.

And all the children have to eat school dinners, packed lunches aren't an option and usually there aren't any choices of food, they just eat what's there (alas it doesn't stop my DD being fussy at home)

How is that different to the uk?
Our kids are expected to stay in education until they are 18 too just not necessarily at a school ,it certainly gives my non academic 16 more choice

Irish too and I notice too ( from MN only!) that Irish children seen to be treated as children for longer. They start secondary school later, 12 or 13, seem to believe in Santa for longer etc. Not sure about school leaving age, but mine will have turned 19 before they leave.

My son has left wchool.he's 16 but I'm.expecting him to go to college for three years as he's not academic anyway and missed a large part of this school.year due to.being, very ill in hospital ,so I'm not expecting fantastic grades
In his,GCSE,s and he I assume wiii, access a,levell.two course leading to.level three so will.also be 19 once he leaves

I grew up in the middle east where school began before 8 am and finished at 1ish. We had a long afternoon nap(2-3 hrs I think) after lunch and went out for dinner or did activities or swimming etc most evenings and stayed up late. I guess we sort of slept in two shifts!

Vocational training would start post 18 in Ireland and kids would be in school til then, and they all have to do Maths, English and Irish plus 4 other subjects. The less academic are catered to better these days thankfully, with a wider range of Leaving cert subjects on offer, plus a vocational version offered by many schools. So DC stay a school environment rather than going off to a more independent college or 6th form environment.

British kids here, and we have always eaten with them (around 6/6.30) and they go to bed at 8/8.30 (5yo) and 9/9.30 (8 yo). I do often have to wake the 5yo in the morning for school.

I recognise PPs comments around UK generally over scheduling kids with extra curriculars and I am definitely guilty of that. I think we would benefit from a slower pace of life. But the main thing I wish was different in the UK (or at least in my village) is kids independence and playing out. I sometimes see secondary school kids out and about but rarely see primary aged kids. It's no wonder that kids end up on screens a lot. I could let my 8yo out to play but it's not like there would be anyone to play with.

I have in-laws in the US (two families) and the contrast there is interesting. Extra curriculars and getting kids into the right school or college is as big, or even more important to them, than here. Breastfeeding and expressing once back at work was a big deal and they judged others who didn't do this. Nursery (or "daycare") was frowned upon. In one family the mother gave up work to be SAHM, the other family has my PIL doing full-time childcare. They were surprised when we sent out DC to nursery.

Food wise it seems bizzarre. The parents eat reasonably well and cook fresh food and are particularly concerned about having organic eggs, milk etc. However, they don't insist on the kids sitting down and eating their meal. Instead they just provide something and if the kids eat it fine, if not fine. All four nieces and nephews are consequently very fussy eg will only eat plain pasta with no sauce. They tend to take a bite or two of dinner (if anything), then disappear, but seem to consume endless snacks during the day. Two are overweight.

One family lives in the suburbs in a massive house. There are no pavements and you have to drive everywhere. Theoretically I guess kids could play out but I didn't see any doing so. The other (with the SAHM) lives in a 2-bed apartment in a more expensive city so they are very squashed for space.

The idea of a social contract is what makes me feel incredibly lucky to live in the UK. While I do wish more people here would conform to societal norms like not littering etc, I would rather have a bit of anti social behaviour than feeling like my behaviour is being monitored and judged. I certainly do notice that while travelling in countries like Iceland, Norway etc.

I wouldn’t.

We live in a country of some 80 million people. Rules and social conventions are what keep those 80 million people from punching each other’s lights out every day. It matters that we queue, take turns, let other cars out, don’t scream and swear when we walk down the street, don't litter or let our dogs shit all over the pavement.

I believe it’s good for a person to have responsibilities and to know their actions affect other people.

I like the social contract, its definitely a good thing. You go hiking in a forest here and you'll see places where you can make a fire to cook your lunch, and there will be an axe there, just loose not chained down or anything, to chop the wood for your fire, and it doesn't get stolen. Try the same in the UK and it'll be nicked for sure, or teenagers would mess about with it, chucking it around and someone'll get hurt and then it would be taken away because people can't be trusted with it.

Precisely,
The social contract ironically allows for more freedom in society and that is a good thing
I feel that in other countries there are so many rules for every little thing because people cannot be trusted to do the right thing

But of course there’s a social contract in the UK. Every time you pick up your dog’s shit when no one is looking, or don’t light a bonfire when the breeze is tending towards your neighbours who are in mid-barbecue, or don’t start mowing your lawn at 8 am on Sunday, you’re obeying a social contract.

My sister lives in Sweden and it seems structurally more child-centric but culturally less child-centric/more relaxed.

This is a really interesting point, and I think it's true of a few other countries as well (not just the Nordics). In countries that are structurally child-centric there are things like widely available affordable childcare, good parental leave, and a value placed on work-life balance. But not being culturally child-centric there's also an importance on having an adult life and identity apart from parenthood, an integration of children into public life and spaces, and an emphasis on teaching children how to be part of a society, rather than shunted off into a separate kid-world.

I don't think we have that here in the UK - there's much less in the way of structural support for children and families, which means things like the cost of returning to work lies disproportionally with women. There was a thread earlier about a woman's flexible working request being met by her boss telling her if she couldn't afford kids she shouldn't have had them, when what she couldn't really afford is a workplace that underpays her relative to the cost of childcare. But yet there's a huge cultural emphasis on the right way to parent, feeling judged for your parenting choices and stress and anxiety over the way children behave in public. It's as if children are tolerated in society as long as they behave like mini-adults who can regulate themselves better than most adults.

According to this thread whatever we do in the U.K. is wrong 🤣. Too child focused/ not child focused enough, we helicopter parent/ we give them too much freedom, we make them eat food they don’t want/ we let them have too much choice over meals etc etc etc. Basically we are ALL DIFFERENT, all do things differently, and everyone thinks their approach is correct.

I went to a summer camp type thing in Israel when I was 18 - I was one of the oldest, the youngest attendee was 15 I think. At around 9pm one Saturday we were visiting Tel Aviv, where the adults in charge told us "ok breakfast is at 8am, you'd better fucking be back here by then or you're dead" and turned us out unsupervised into the night 😅 We all made it back on time and in one piece, if a bit the worse for wear in some cases, but my God, can you IMAGINE that happening in the UK?! This was before most people had smart phones so I'm not even sure now how we found our way back to the hotel...

At the time I thought it was great, of course, but now I'm older (and a teacher) all I can think is how scared shitless I'd be if I was one of the adults in that situation!

That was just life in the 70s and 80s in the U.K.. we were just kicked out as children and allowed to roam anywhere.

I was also so surprised by this. My sister’s children in Germany only go to the Kinderarzt. And they really go all the time about every cough or fever.
my children in the UK have never seen a paediatrician and it’s increasingly hard to even be seen by a GP.