to challenge anyone to better this example of the heights of pushy parenting?

[BonsoirAnna]

Yesterday I was chatting to another mother from DD's French-English bilingual school on the bus. She has two daughters, one in DD's year, who will soon be 5, and another one three years above, who is 7.

This mother told me that during the summer holidays her 7 year old, who has been having private Chinese lessons for the past year (in addition to having an American nanny to teach her English), is being sent to stay, alone, for a fortnight with a Chinese family in China in order to practise the language.

oh right...although...not sure...because it is so entirely different to experiencing something alone or with your parent/or any person, you feel save with, that you know, and that knows you, iykwim...

This is not really comparable, in a way, but, when I was little I had a fair few hospital-stays, and in them days your parents would not allowed in, they would only be allowed to look at you through a window when you are a Baby, and also very strict visiting times, no matter how far the parents live away...and whilst physically I was cared for (in the manner the nuns/nurses in the 70's felt was appropriate)...my psychological needs were not....and of course being in Hospital, poked and prodded and operated and starved (because they often re-scheduled the surgery, because somehting urgent came in)...is not the same as going on Holiday to a foreign country....it was something alien to me, and it did freak me out....and tbh, I may well have been in a foreign country...

Anna, what was the outcome of this? Did the girl go to China?!

Poor child indeed. Gets to learn another language and experience another culture at a young age. We must really feel sorry for it.

sounds great to me.different language,culture. i expect they have it well planned and all the minutiae dealt with