Re the schools, in my opinion the yob like school kids has more to do with the parenting than the children.
There are some truly rubbish parents out there these days who won't even say 'boo' to little Jimmy because he is their precious offspring. The adults don't assert themselves as being in authority over their kids because they're too scared of being politically incorrect or maybe they just lack parenting skills, so the kids grow up with zero respect for the adults.
There also seems to be this culture of 'let's send the kid to school and not bother to direct him the rest of the time and then when he doesn't turn out the way I want, I can blame the teachers.'
There's loads of 'gang' kids round here and even 11 year old's that taunt me if I'm walking passed at school leaving time. Kid's from the 1950's and 60's wouldn't DARE do that because the older generation bothered to parent.
My friend said why don't you get a taxi instead so you avoid them but I'm damn well not paying for a taxi because of some snotty little kid with no manners.
H is really strict with our kids - sometimes I think he is too strict - and I think for a mother I am fairly strict too but apart from the ocassional bout of tiredness induced crying, our kids are REALLY well behaved. They don't swear, they don't bad mouth an adult, they don't scream. They sit quietly when we're in restaurants and stay relatively quiet when we're at meetings etc.
I take my 2 year old to this religious group and apart from talking during the service, she is really well behaved - doesn't go running off or disrupting anything.
She asked to go to the toilet and someone brought her some biscuits when we just arrived, but after that she just sat on my knee for the whole two hours and all I had out of her the whole time was 'Mummy, I have an idea!' and 'Mummy, I love your hair!'
She sat still and ate her biscuits, talked a little, smiled at the other people, then waited for the cab outside at 9pm with no complaint. We got home, she talked enthusiastically about the nice ladies who gave her the biscuits and she asked to go again. Then I got her ready for bed and she went to sleep.
I never have any trouble out of her apart from the usual crying and toddler tantrums. The others are the same. I think it's because we teach them to respect their elders. If I ever found out my daughter was behaving like a gang member at school, she would be grounded until she's 40.
I personally found from my own experience of schools that the teachers have their own agenda or the school has it's policies which leave little room for parental imput and if you try to change the system you are met with hostility. There is also a government based timetable of what the child should learn, which wasn't always what we wanted them to learn.
Plus there's homework for little 4 year old's and quite a large number of our kids with behaviour disorders or stress disorders which I think is just not normal for that age.
There are break times at school but they just put them in a concrete yard, which is also not right in my opinion.
The Steiner school I sent mine to (fee paying) had a proper garden for the kindergarten kids, with trees and flowers and a real wooden tree house, and a tyre tied to the end of a rope for them to swing on
Inside the kindergarten they had all wooden toys and rocking horses and most of it was free play until age 7, apart from story time, ring dancing, art and bread making. They sing in French and German. In the summer months they also did organic gardening and they celebrate all the festivals throughout the year.
For instance, I still take Alicia to the Steiner toddler group and this May 1st, the school are doing May pole dancing with the kids.
There is nothing written till age 7, when they start doing academic stuff and learn reading, writing, maths, foreign languages and flute playing.
We couldn't afford the fees after we split up and I was resigned to sending them to public school with no other choice, but H said no way I will do it myself.
I don't know whether this is any better than the more enlightened public schools, but my eldest dd is now 9 and reads Harry Potter books even though she only learnt to read 2 years ago so H must be doing something right with them.
