Are French kids brought up differently to kids in England or were these just some super kids we met on holiday?

[XelaM]

Just returned from a boat day trip in Greece with my teen. There were a few other families there including a French family with two little kids aged five and six. Those kids were honestly some of the "toughest" (and most well-behaved) kids I have ever come across.

To start with, I have never seen kids that age swim so well. Those tiny kids were like fish - jumping from the side of the boat and swimming with zero aids in really really deep waters. We also visited some cliffs and some jumped from the cliffs into the sea (which was SO SCARY 😱) and those little kids did that as well! Even my adventurous teen said the jump from the cliffs was scary and she couldn't believe the two little kids did it.

We were also fed freshly caught sea urchin and sea potatoes (which were an acquired taste to say the least 🤣) and I was certain the kids wouldn't try them only to see those two taking one sea urchin after another with zero complaints.

They were up for anything and you never heard a single moan or complaint out of them (unlike my 14-year-old 😏). And it's not like their parents appeared strict or disinterested - they were having fun and engaged with the kids. The kids were super friendly and chatty (when spoken to by others) but otherwise completely did their own thing not bothering anyone at all.

At the end even my teen who usually has no time for little kids was impressed and commented that "those were some hard core kids" 😅 (her words).

So clearly I went wrong in my parenting somewhere 🤪 but it made me wonder - are French kids brought up differently - maybe more independent and resilient or were those some super-human robot kids? 😁

Yabu to draw conclusions about a whole nation of children based on a sample of one family.

Because France is an awesome country. I've lived there. Discounting the grotty bits (outskirts of some of the big cities) it's really civilised - clean, wonderful food, markets, people say hello to you, they sweep the pavements outside their house. The day after the market the place is pristine. Lovely bike routes through forests, beautiful architecture, their govt looks after them, should I go on? They can't make a cup of tea, though.

😂
You weren't at the Drive-thru MacDonalds just outside Montpellier airport at around 1am on Sunday night/Monday morning then!

The French set a lot of store in high quality, interesting school meals and teaching kids about healthy eating:

www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/karen-le-billion-french-children-eat-anything#

As for the swimming - DC1 would have been able to do that. DC2 was not such a water baby.

I did notice that most people gave you a nod or a hello or a bon soir as we passed. In less busy places I mean, not strolling around a large town/city.

I dunno, I do think having nicer weather makes people less grumpy overall.

Look, I love France, too, and used to live there, have lots of French friends and family by marriage, godchildren etc, but I don’t fetishise it. It’s a country with a rich culture, literature, history, astonishingly beautiful and varied regions, but it’s also a country with significant ongoing problems, like other countries.

All that is available in the UK with the same caveats too though

not all french kids are like that. Obviously some cultural differences especially regarding food and stuff, but im pretty sure deprived kids from a banlieu in paris arent going to be diving off boats and eating sea urchins in greek paradise.

Having done years of holidays on French campsites, i can, on balance, say French kids are way better behaved than UK ones.

UK kids are at times feral in comparison, with parents that continually say "No No No" but then never following it up and let their kids continue with bad behaviors, often with a "well, they are on holiday"

Then again, a lot of France is years behind the UK, they've shops in villages, bustling high streets, police in every town and manic crazed drivers!!!! who drive far too fast and don't give a shit for cyclists... so not all good :(

At 5yo dd1 would have happily swim in deep water, jumped on and eaten strange food
At 14yo she would have done none of those
Dd2 would have done all at both ages.
Ds would not have gone near the water at 5, but probably would have at 14yo. He'd probably have tried the strange food at 5, not necessarily at 14.

You met two children and generalised about the entire county's children from that
If they were badly behaved, would you also have generalised

😂😂😂😂😂

You clearly haven't read the post properly! The entire point of the post is to ask if these children were unusual or if a lot of French children are like this. The OP is asking if they are representative, or not. She's not assuming anything. She's asking the question.

This! It’s so odd.

What is it with the lack of reading comprehension on this thread? She's not drawing any conclusions. She's asking if the sample she met are representative or not.

They just sound like children with interested and engaged parents that have exposed them to lots of different activities and food so they are resilient, confident and happy to give things a go.

I'd imagine if you were with a very outdoorsy family from the UK who have done gorge walking /coastering activities before you would find the same.

Its really not, if you can find a forest where you can cycle, you'll be charged through the nose to park and ride your bike.

IF you can find a town with a market, you re car will be clamped and towed away if you dare return 10mins late, thats if you can afford the £6 per hour charges to visit the market in the first place.

Care to visit a stately home in the UK? £25 pp to visit, £3 an hour to park, in France we went to Chateau Villandry, free parking, £5 to visit.

Not all French kids, no.

But I do think there are cultural differences and school system differences which do play into the difference and make for more resilient children.

I expect that the water thing is partgly exposure. I remember some research that kids who live in homes without stairs struggle to use stairs as well even at 5 compared to children who live in homes with stairs and have to practise every day. I suspect he same is true with water - you choose a holiday with a water element if that's what your kids are raised to do.

I used to teach English (as a foreign language) to groups of kids and teens every summer. It’s wrong to generalise, I know, but by far the best behaved kids were the Chinese and Japanese students. The Chinese in particular were very hard-working and serious about their studies. The Japanese kids were very sweet and a lot more innocent than British kids of the same age.

The French were mostly fine. Not hugely different from British kids. The Spanish and Italian kids could be a pain.

The worst behaved students I had were some boys from Saudi Arabia. Some of them were kind of charming but they were extremely arrogant and over-confident. These kids came from very wealthy families.

But I had nice kids and not so nice kids from all nationalities.

manic crazed drivers!!!! who drive far too fast and don't give a shit for cyclists...

France sounds the place for me.

So clearly I went wrong in my parenting somewhere 🤪 but it made me wonder - are French kids brought up differently - maybe more independent and resilient or were those some super-human robot kids?

You ask this based on a single encounter with one French family?

These threads come up every few weeks. All about how civilised and well behaved 'continental' children are, compared to feral British, or often just English, brats.

The reality is, there are bratty kids and well behaved kids in all nationalities. I taught at an English language school back in the day and there were plenty of obnoxious French kids. Plenty of nice ones too. Just like with every other nationality.

We spent a week this summer in a French hotel where we only heard a handful of guests speaking anything other than French. We're British, not French.

The atmosphere was unbelievable. Unbelievably peaceful! Children played happily and vocally, without any shrieking. Nobody ever complained about any of the children, even though they did some things that some people would have complained about in other places (like breathing too loudly, or playing nearby). There was no messing around at the dinner tables, and whole families, from tiny babies to grandparents, ate together without a single piece of tech appearing.

One little preschooler asked me to retrieve her toy from the pool as I swam by. As I gave it to her and swam off I heard her big sister (10?) say, quietly but firmly, "Dis merci a Madame". Another time a little boy and his grandfather were playing catch, gf in the pool, boy in the side. The boy miss-threw and the ball hit me in the head. Immediate apologies and concern for me from both of them. When that has happened in British pools, the ball has generally been retrieved and the game continued without any acknowledgment from the players.

I can well believe that the French have a very different attitude to child-rearing.

I’m yet to find any country in mainland Europe that makes a decent cup of tea. For one thing, they use those horrible Lipton tea bags that don’t taste of anything. And then they all bring a cup of hot water with the tea bag on the side, and some of them don’t really go in for fresh milk so that’s another challenge. I usually take PG Tips on holiday to be on the safe side, but that’s only half the battle. Same issues in the US and Canada.

Isn't every country 'awesome' if you 'discount the grotty bits'?

I’m French living in Uk - I have 2 siblings and the way they raise their kids is much stricter than mine. The kids have to behave, no talk back, they are great eater…a lovely bunch of kids. My kids on the other hand I don’t think I was as strict as my siblings are with their kids… why ? My parents used to discipline us by slapping/hitting us…we respected our dad because we were fearful of him. Didn’t want that for my kids