British mums in France - tell me about parenting and raising children in France!

[SophieInTheSky]

Hello,

I am French and living in England, and I have been reading the threads about lockdown in France. I have really enjoyed reading accounts of French life seen from a British perspective, and now I want to hear more about what you think and feel, as far as raising children and parenting is concerned.

E.g. what do you miss the most about raising children in the U.K.? What you prefer in France and also in the U.K.? What do you love and hate about French parenting? What about schools?

For instance I still don’t get how early a lot of (most?) British children have their dinner and go to bed.

We are major foodies and meals are done on the whole from scratch and offer him to taste stuff when we do. He wont go near chicken nuggets but loves a homemade risotto and what people would call 'adult food'. Also we are always positive about food!! Love the stuff

If he tries something and doesn't like it we don't push it but praise the trying and also eat new things with him at the same time.

Maybe he's just too stubborn Thank you all for your thoughts, I've always been so keen to raise him in a french manner as on the whole I think its wonderful

Following to be nosey. I’m in England and British but dream of living in France. I hate coming back here after being in France, it feels so claustrophobic... it’ll be interesting to read what the reality is compared to how I imagine it.

Bubblesbubblesmybubbles We don't praise in general, and definitely not for eating or trying. we don't put the attention on the food but to the conversation.
We put plate on the table and don't ask if he likes/dislikes. And risottos are yummy .

thatmustbenigelwiththebrie some teachers are nurturing some are not not, but the majority will be very strict and we praise when it is deserved not for every thing. If you do a crappy text, you are told to start again, not praised for effort. Praises are rare and requite hard work to get. But you made a good point, because teachers can be very harsh and in high school vey sarcastic.

Here I hear mums praising all day long, from good brushing teeth, good putting on shoes, good walking, good paying if they hand the credit card at cafés and so on. Why would you praise for normal activities, including eating. Praises lose their value and importance.

@LeGrandBleu shall try that, thank you!

I think the French are proud of their food and menus. Different attitude in the UK where it is more to fill you up.
I was in France as a teen in 1970 grape picking.
Meals were in courses. First course lettucey salad with olive oil, second course an animal with sliced meat from it (turned out to be a whole rabbit ?roasted), third course french beans with butter, bread with every course. Seldom a pud. Heck of a shock coming from UK with its stodgy stews, chips, etc and sweets.
Sweets weren't really available anywhere.
So healthy.

I live in rural Brittany and moved here when my DCs were 3 and 12 months so they've only been to school in France.

I was horrified that children started school at 3 and quite often as soon as they're potty trained. I work in a creche now and most parents are pushing the potty training so they can get the kids into school.

My kids started school at 3 because there were simply no toddler groups at all here. I came from the UK where every morning we did Jo Jingles or playgroup to nothing. So my DCs went to school just to be with other children.

I loved the afternoon naps in school right up until they're 5. My DCs really needed that.

Childcare is affordable and very good. Even school holidays I paid very little for holiday club and my kids loved it.

It's very much learning by rote, which works very well for one of my DCs but not so much for the other.

My eldest was able to repeat the same school year when he was 6 because he just struggled so much. During this repeated year he was diagnosed with ASD dyslexia and dyspraxia. Since the age of 6che has had 1:1 classroom assistant next to him in all lessons. Without that help he would not have survived school. He has had lots of help with his autism from external sources. I struggled at the beginning because he had a psychologist who followed the french way of thinking at the time which was autism was the mother's fault. He's left me with years of guilt and questioning my parenting.

I think children are allowed to be children longer here. Every time I came back to the UK I was surprised at how adult like children were here. I don't know any children under the age of 13/14 with a mobile phone here.

Teenagers can't really work here. My son is 17 and its difficult to get a weekend job. He's 18 in July and is already sending off his CV.

My DCs have been constantly told throughout school that they will never be as good as the French. That has made a negative impact on them especially my youngest. My oldest had the highest mark in French in his class last year, but he was still told he wouldn't understand certain things because he's not French.

I don't regret bringing them here to grow up in France. I don't think either of them will stay here they both think of futures living and working in different countries.

When my son was in the municipal crèche they used to feed him fennel and beetroot and guinea fowl purées on a regular basis his favorite foods are broccoli and spinach.

I'm in Italy not France but I've always found the uk mealtimes weird. We've never done separate child mealtimes even when they were tiny.

I lived in paris briefly with my DD for 6 months when she was 2.

French people are very harsh in their discipline and some even permissive. I remember a 7 year old (no obvious SEN) hit my DD and when I told him no, his dad just sat a few metres away glaring.

I’ve been thinking of moving to France and would be very interested in this! From what I’ve read French schools can be very rote learning and stifle creativity. Is this true? Certainly I spent a year at a French university and it seemed b structured but it wasn’t a very creative subject I guess. French mealtimes seem to me perfect, English too early, Spanish too late. Also considering moving to Spain, like the relaxed vibe there but the very late eating and bedtimes for children would drive me up the wall!

Im English living in France with two young children.

I love the food culture, proper meals at set times, not endless snacking. I’m very grateful that my children eat pretty much everything.

As above, I feel children can be children longer here. I appreciate that generally sunday is a family day as a lot less is open here.

I struggle with the school system, my eldest is only 7 but the youngest in her year with some undiagnosed SEN. Even if her best try is worse than the others in the class, she still needs praise because it’s her best. I feel like her sparkle is being bashed out of her with constant negativity and the English system would suit her better.

I feel people are les snobby around jobs/careers here. No one really cares if you have an important office type job or are a supermarket worker and I think that’s great.

In general, I’m very happy to bringing my children up here. I live in an area where we have lots of sun, the sea, forests and mountains on our doorstep.
We are busy but live a slow life at the same time.
Whenever I’m home in England for visits, life seems like a frantic dash from shop to shop for goodness know what.

@LeGrandBleu Streaming is definitely something that my Mum (British woman bringing up kids in France) missed in French schools... I suppose it goes completely against the French idea of «égalité des chances» though

@Wannabegreenfingers some of the children in DH's French family are fussy, and I've seen the whingeing for ice cream etc but the main difference is the attitude of 'tough, there's nothing else if you don't want to eat it'.

@LeGrandBleu sounds like it's a French thing then. I can understand it but DS had a dairy allergy and I'd have to go to the supermarket to buy things for DS when we are staying with his family. One night sure he could go without, but over a week I liked him to have some dairy free milk and yoghurt (he was 18m) rather than go without for a week.

Learning by rote would really suit DS. There's a couple of french schools near me and I'd consider sending him.

@SophieInTheSky (and other French mums) : what’s the French approach to kids and chores ?

@birdlady12 you can have a large garden here and animals you know! We do. We live in rural England and my kids have a very outdoors lifestyle, swimming in the river and climbing trees. I don’t think that’s a huge difference.

I live in France. Fussy eaters exist. I find my DD's diet restricted (possibly sensory as she would rather eat plain fruit than any dessert with cream or ice-cream) but some of her friends are a nightmare to cater for!! One boy doesn't like pasta in any form !?
There are two lovely twin girls who could stay with us for a week in the holidays if they weren't so fussy. I have to limit their visits to max three meals other than breakfast. These are 15 year olds.

But because meals are generally composed of more parts, as said above there is rarely any substitute. Adults and older children eat what they like from what's on offer.
Allergies / intolerances are catered for in the circles in which I mix.

I have to say I find threads like this a bit, well, pointless. The way my urban Muslim neighbours live is doubtless very different from a care worker in an EHPAD in Brittany or an aerospace engineer in Toulouse, but they're all French

I disagree - obviously as I am the op - because I wanted to hear from British mums in France and what they thought of parenting in France. Yes, parents are all different, but I wanted to hear about cultural aspects and what most people do, i.e. meals, school, etc.

I am really enjoyed reading all your answers!

Root learning and school is an interesting point.
From primary school, memory is part of the education. We had poems or fables to learn by heart almost every week and it actually helped a lot when it was time to learn the time tables. We did them all in a year,
We also have dictation (la dictée) in which the teacher reads a text and we had to write it down.
We had textbooks and whenever we had finished a chapter we would be tested on its content, could be science, history, geography .
Learning all those medieval Kings of France was absolutely a loss of time and neurons!

But today, I appreciate the general culture it gave me.
In history and French , we did a century per year, so Rabelais and Monstequieu, Moliere and Racine the next, Voltaire and Rousseau the following and so on. History starts quite deep in primary school with pre-history and Cromagnon, then the birth of writing with the Sumers, and so on.

In the 12 years of schooling you cover all our planet's past and present. I did a Bac littéraire , which is focused on literature so can't say if root learning is done in maths or science for the last years of high school. It wasn't for philosophy, I wish it had been so !!
Definitely a lot of homework, a lot of tests, an awful lot. We studied a lot. I was in a very demanding Lycée and the teachers had no mercy. Grading was also very strict and the equivalent of A (20/20) was almost never given in a whole year. The highest mark in the class would be a 17, rarely a 18.

Preschool is free in the public system in France. If a fee is required at the maternelle, it is to cover for the canteen, or some material) . There are 3 years of maternelle, but you don't learn to read or do maths, but to use scissors, hold pencils, sit and a lot of craft. You do tracing, of lines and even letters, but no reading . You learn and identify numbers,

For this reason, you don't see many kids around in French cities during the week. Here in Australia it costs $160-200 per day!! What would be charged for more than a month and that's why you see so many kids around . Oh and in Italy and Spain , preschool is also free.

I like the free spirit in the French lycée and the lack of uniform. As long as you are decent, you can wear what you want. Have the hair you want and the earrings you want.
And we don't have assemblies! Or religion classes

One thing I will say is a lot of British mums are aghast that preschool is now obligatory from age three (unless you're homeschooling), but actually it's basically free nursery, so I think it's a good thing. My daughter is in PS at a public maternelle which is run along Montessori lines, we're very happy with it.

Another thing which I think is good is Macron's focus on the early years in deprived areas, capping class sizes at 12. This has worked really well in our local REP+ zone.

Oh and there was an interesting experiment in Paris 18e a few years ago where they rezoned the catchment areas so all the rich and poor families ended up mixing together. Again from memory, it worked really well to reduce the impact of social inequality on results.

I read the book and thought it was fascinating, but noticed a lot of comments in the reviews stating that it was a massive generalization and not really typical of contemporary French parenting.
On the note of food, I am second generation forrin in UK and in our culture there's a proverb that food is like a religion. Lots of food, meal times very sociable, freshly prepared, no convenience food etc. I remember my health visitor telling me not to give the dc curry as it would be too spicy for them! Ds 10 went to a friend 's house before lockdown and came home and announced he had eaten "a meal from heaven". I was intrigued, it turned out to be potato waffles and chicken nuggets, which he now pans to have at his wedding meal 😁 All my years of spending lots of money and slaving away in the kitchen have been wasted [DM sadface]

I found FCDTF really annoying. Such a tiny microcosm of 16th arrondissement privileged life generalised to 65 million people.

@MamaKarmaLlama well for us we wouldn’t have had that opportunity in the uk which is why I mentioned it!! For us it’s a huge difference. We could never have bought a house in the uk like we have here, with the close work opportunity we have too. Obviously not worth mentioning though in your eyes