deutsche muttis! would you accept this school journey for your children?

[cocopopshater]

Hi,

I know that children go by themselves to school in Germany, do you think this journey is acceptable for 3 Grundschule children aged 6,8 and 9?

Walk to the end of the road (5 minutes), catch bus (not school bus), go around 2 km, get off at a shopping centre, walk another 8-9 minutes through a busy shopping/residential area to school.

Same journey home from school. Children must do this journey by themselves.

(by the way they got on great with the Bavarians they met, but the hassles they had with getting set up, paperwork, being forced to attend 600 hour courses of some kind etc proved to much for them)

SSSandy , I watched that the other night too, the looks on their faces, I know it all too well. When I had ds I wasn't at the time married to dh but I was of course at home and not working but as we are british we were registered at the ausländeramt and I got the nastiest letters from them stating that there was no proof of income and that I would have to leave the country , I was in a state of shock 2 weeks after giving birth (another horror story, could compare giving birth in UK and giving birth in a swabian hospital) I could see my little family being split up and couldn't face the long wait at the ausländeramt - mimimum wait 2 hours, I also understand that man with the axe!
cocopopshater, I bet, apart from being separated from you , your kids will be happy away from all the mess. You made the right decision. They don't seem to take into account that kids have feelings in Germany too.

didn't know they could do that. Unbelievable.

A Polish woman told me she was here on a limited working visa. When the Ausländerpolizei found out she was pregnant, they tried to have her thrown out of Germany. She appealed (the father was German) and was allowed to stay in the end. I think the fear is that single women with babies could end up dependent on the welfare system. Wonder if it is like that in other EU countries too. Seems very harsh.

So you got married FAST I take it! No wonder you love this place!

No, I didn't get married fast! After the initial shock, I sat down and wrote a leter of complaint to them and then one to the Jugendamt to say how distressing and ridiculous it was for a family to have to get that sort of letter especially since the european union and the fact that I was british and I didn't think german citizens got hat treatment in the UK, also one to the frauenbeauftragte at the town hall - a very handy person who helped alot as she forced them to write a letter of apology, in the end I got 3 apologetic letters and the aufenthaltserlaubnis!
By the way that would be a good idea for cocopopshater, try and find out if there is a frauenbeauftragte in your town council, they help single mums and in cases of discrimination, sometimes a letter from one of them to the right behörde gets things rolling.

Good grief

Cocopopshater, did you have any luck? Did you end up sending dc back to the UK?

Admylin, on the way to school today (20 min walk through a nicer area, crossing a couple of bigger streets at lights but otherwise residential area - so no tunnels and dodgy shopping centres). This mum I know from kindergarten comes running up to me. She's off to work. Her two dd have set off for school and there was a funny looking man waiting in the street who seemed to have waited for and then set off after them. She had a bad feeling about it so I promised we'd run after them and I'd keep an eye on things.

Couldn't find them and I was in a real state. Then we got to school and asked another mum who travels the same way by bike. She said she saw him following the girls too and rode right up behind them and stuck to them all the way to school. She felt he was up to no good.

We're lucky we know so many mums here and we know whose kids are whose and so on. Just wouldn't risk sending them alone. Did you hear about the woman in Dresden who raced up to a man trying to pull an 8 year old into his car on the way to school? Luckily he ran off when the woman intervened. And then the other girl here in Berlin who has disappeared. She got off the bus and had a 200 m walk to her flat but never got there. Apparently the police are combing the area, checking cellars and attics.

I'm starting to get really paranoid about it all.

That is really awful, imagine if they'd gone missing and how you would have felt after saying you would catch up with them. I take it your dd never sets foot outside alon? My 2 certainly don't. My problem now is that ds is 8 years old and has atlast, after 1 year here - started to make friends in his class but the boys he plays with are roaming up and down chausseestrasse by themselves somedays, on bikes or with other boys. We've seen them since we've started going on bike rides as we go that way to the Volkspark at Humboldthain. I think they are quite far from home to be up that end of our area and now ds wants to arrange to meet them in the half term. I'm not ready to let him out with them if they call so what do I do?
Luckily dd ( 7 in a week ) has friends who are not allowed out by themselves and al get picked up from school.

I'm dreading the day I have to let her out on her own. It's tough on ds I know but TBH I wouldn't risk it. There's a boy (8) in our street who goes to school alone by Ubahn and is often out on the street on his bike by himself. Dd is always very impressed by this and I can see she is dying to go somewhere by herself. I saw the photo of that poor child Georgine who has disppeared on a board outside the newsagents on the way home.
She only had a 200 m walk to her home. Where are they safe these days?

Have you decided what you'll do about dd's school trip to FEZ? Let me guess!

Actually teh FEZ trip is cancelled (phew) because only half the class returned the form so the teacher sent a letter to say that for this half of he year he would not be going on a school trip which means I'll have to face it next year.
I did find the place on the internet (FEZ, Fuchsbau) and it would have been great fun and looked OK so if she had said she really wanted to and all her friends were going I would have maybe let her go and had 2 sleepless nights myself with worry but I kno wpart of being a parent is letting go so it has to start sometime. Just for now, thank goodness it has been put off for a few more months!
I wa sthinking of starting by letting my 2 go together to teh end of the road to buy an icecream but then that horrible thing in Belgium happened where 2 girls went missing and wer efound murdered and thrown away, so that put me back abit too as even together they are not safe.

I know. I was considering letting dd go round to the toyshop at the corner to pick up something by herself (6) but after today I just didn't feel it was safe.

I wonder what happened to Cocospopshater, hope she sorted out her school troubles.

me too. I can just imagine the letters she got informing her the police would be round to escort her dc to school if she didn't do what she's told. That delightful tone. Some days I think I should have become a civil servant and bossed people about all day.

Did you hear about the 6 year old girl in Berlin who was playing in the courtyard of her house when a man with a bag over his shoulder asked her where the letterboxes were? She assumed he was a postman. She went inside and showed him and he tried to pull off her pants! I mean you can't even safely let them play in the courtyard of your house while you're at home.

No I didn't hear that - it makes me uneasy, my 2 are down in the garden now and I convince myself they are safe but every few minutes I go and look out of the window to make sure they are there and if I don't see them I have to shout down the stairs for them.
How are the holidays so far? Any plans? This week we are going to be bored and next week gran and grandad come over thank goodness some time off for me.

I used to let mine draw pictures on the pavement with chalk and I'd look out now and again but I don't even want to do that anymore. It's creepy and I see the 14 year old who disappeared after getting off the bus from school hasn't been found after nearly a week.

hello, thank you for asking!
well, the court refused our emergency appeal for the children to go back to school, so the children departed for France. 2 days later, the police called in the morning, to take the children by force to language classes (NOT REAL SCHOOL!!) that they dont need, and where children of different ages are put together in what Im told is a bear garden where nobody learns anything.
Told them the children didnt live here any more, and am currently flat hunting in a different bezirk. Its a bit delicate, because if the schulamt finds out my new address, they will be right back on my back again. Children are missing German school, I am livid about the whole thing, how is dd1 to get to the gymnasium with this sort of upset.

We are still waiting for the final decision from the land schulamt .

when the police called they spoke to the neighbour under us, to ask her if she had seen the children in the past 2 days. When they had gone, the bitch put up a notice, "WICHTIG! KINDER VON FRAU COCOPOPSHATER!" "The police have asked me to notify everyone in teh building that if 4 englisch children are seen, to phone the police on this number.....etc etc"
Needless to say, I took it down without further ado. Surprise, surprise, this woman is....a minor bureaucrat! (So that's what they do in their private life!!)

After 4 difficult years of being separated from my children, I only had them for a few months, and now we are separated again thanks to a lying teacher trying to cover up her own mistakes and a mean schulamt who didnt even bother to speak to the children to find out if what the teachers said was true or not. I am feeling rather bitter at the moment as you can imagine.

Message withdrawn

hello ggg....ah France if only. I swear all I ever wanted was a quiet life.
I will email you I am in an internet cafe at the moment.

cocopopshater Glad you got them out of the country in time but can't get over the fact that you would need to do it. Seems unbelievable however living here myself, I can 100% imagine things escalating to this point. Whole thing seems mad.

Love your neighbour putting up that notice. Have you confronted her about it at all?

Don't know what to make of these compulsory language classes. In dd's (1st year) class, there is a boy who came from Paris 2 weeks before school began and doesn't speak a word of German but he is not attending any language classes. I did think it would be very difficult for him but it seems to be working out somehow. Wonder why he wasn't obliged to attend the classes your dc have to attend?

Really hope things can get sorted out for you. Can't imagine having to send dc overseas

hi sandy
ha ha no I didnt have the nerve to confront the neighbour. Thought about emptying my cutlery basket onto the parkett floor just above her bedroom at 7 am, but cant be bothered!

the language classes are just in bayern as far as I know.