Why We Should Tell Our Children Expat Tales

A love story with a trailer
Photo Credit:Michal Zacharzewski SXC

My eldest son is at the age where he has started asking lots of questions about my past, about how life was in England, how I met his father and how I came to the Netherlands. It's a fabulous period of curiosity but also a great reminder for me and my husband of how far we've come. The details of exactly how we met (online in a chatroom) don't really make any sense for him yet (it's something we still find hard to believe looking back so we certainly can't expect a six year old to wrap his head around it) but the story of his papa coming to England by boat with a borrowed Dutch police trailer to collect his mama and all her belongings falls on eager, listening ears time after time. And we love telling the story.

There's nothing traditional about how I came to meet a Dutchman, sell up my flat in Watford, England and move to the Netherlands to make a new life and so it makes for some awesome story telling for our curious children at the stage where they want to know everything that happened before they arrived on the scene.

Last week, a great blog post by Drie Culturen asked whether there was a difference between children and adults living abroad.  In the post, Janneke argues that there is a big difference, namely because adults living abroad have already formed their own identity but a child's identity is still evolving. Whilst she talks about children from the point of view of them growing up abroad her tips are still relevant for those of us raising children in a country where they are native but we, as a parent, are not. She talks about helping children to form their own identity by telling stories about their heritage. She says tell your children stories about their grandparents. I couldn't agree more. And I would also add tell them about your own life back in your home country, about growing up in another country. Tell them their parent's love story. Tell them their birth story. Tell them every story you can think of about their family.

Not all stories need come from books. Share your
family stories with your children
Photo Credit: Patrick Nijhuis

Not only does it help mould their identity, it turns out that story telling is good for their memory too!  An excellent article called "The Stories That Bind Us" in the New York Times about research undertaken to find out whether children that knew more about their past faced adversity better than children with less knowledge about their family's past states,

"The more children knew about their family’s history, the stronger their sense of control over their lives, the higher their self-esteem and the more successfully they believed their families functioned."

That's quite something - research showed that children who have a good knowledge of their own family and past functioned better in challenging situations. Brian Gresko followed this topic up in an article and wrote,

"Storytelling has benefits beyond entertainment, which explains why humans have been telling stories for as long as we know. It’s one of the elements that makes us human, I think.........Having a shared story, a shared collection of memories, is a powerful unifying force between people – whether those stories be ones we tell as a nation, an ethnic group, a workforce, or a family."

And as expats, we have some amazing stories to tell our children.... so what are you waiting for? Share those stories today!

What stories do you tell your children about the country you were born in? What stories do you tell about grandparents and your brothers and sisters growing up? I would love to hear your stories!

Do Ducks Fart?

Ducklings: can they or can't they?
Photo: (c) The WritingWell

I took my sons to feed the 'local ducks' after school on Monday this week. I had some stale bread. The sun was shining so we dawdled home and took a detour after picking my eldest up from school.

As we approached the oversized pond a pair of black coots and their offspring swam nonchalantly over to us and waited for huge chunks of old bread to be lugged at their heads (my two year old has not grasped quite how small the pieces of bread should be, or that he can throw it gently near the ducks). As my two older boys were throwing slices of bread a larger white duck came waddling over to get in on the action.

My eldest turned his attention to the newcomer and proceeded to throw bread at for the white duck. When the duck had finished his meal he shook his feathers and flapped his wings (when I say he, I don't exclude she - who knows?). My eldest son started laughing,

"Volgens mij mama heeft hij net een poepie gelaten." ("I think that duck just farted.") Then he stopped giggling and looked very seriously at me to ask,

"Laten eendjes wel poepies mama?" (Do ducks fart mama?)

"I imagine so," I replied, blindsided by the unexpected question.

Before I became a mother, I had never contemplated whether a duck passes wind. It has never come up before in any conversation I have ever had. It's not a topic du jour. Now it's a question I am pondering in two languages. I told my son I imagined a duck could fart (though I didn't use that word with him - it's not a word a bilingual five year old needs to add to his vocabulary - his Dutch vocabulary is already more than sufficient on this subject....) but actually I don't know. So I googled it. I wish I hadn't.

I do now know that a Duck Fart is a cocktail (and a nice sounding one at that) but whether ducks actually fart.... none the wiser. I read on one site that they don't. They can't get rid of gases so if you give them gassy food they explode...... Another site assured me that ducks do indeed fart - why on earth else would there be bubbles in the water around ducks? *sigh*

I would like to be able to go back to my curious son and give him the correct answer. So.... question of the week:

"Laten eendjes wel poepies?"