The Importance of the Personality of a School

I recently read an article about schooling that hit a chord with me. Well, actually it went right for my jugular. It gave advice about finding the right school for your child. Although it was specifically written to help expat families there was one particular element that jumped out at me which is also relevant wherever and however you choose to school your child. Personality. That of the school and of your child.

There's more to choosing a school than meets the eye

When we chose a school for my eldest we looked at the method of instruction, faith, location, school results and the school building and facilities. The school seemed like a good choice.

However, it turns out that it was not the right choice. It was far from the right choice. It is like my son is walking around in shoes that are a complete misfit. The shoes are not letting him walk the way he naturally walks, and they are seriously hindering his growth. It's been a painful process to get to this point where we admit defeat and need to find an alternative school for my son. But my children must be able to be who they really are, not just at home but also in school, and not forced to fit in an ill-fitting square peg. Children are not standard. They come in all shapes and sizes, all with their own instruction booklets. One method does not fit all. And I believe that any school that refuses to acknowledge that basic fact is in the wrong business.

However, the journey we have been on over the last eighteen months has not been in vain. We've learnt a lot. It's not faith, teaching methods, school policies or aesthetically pleasing school buildings that make a school the right place to be; it's a school's personality that matters. Does the school personality match the personality of your child? A scientific, rational, evidence based school is not the place for an emotionally sensitive child.

Before we enrolled in school, we didn't know what type of personality we were dealing with. It's like looking forward to a quiet dinner party with good friends and ending up sitting next to an outspoken, boorish man who chews your ear off for the duration of the party and couldn't care less about who you are and what interests you. It's not a place you want to sit for long. After attempting to make polite conversation, getting nowhere and trying a strategy of telling it like it is and still not getting any message through, it really is time to make an exit. Time to down cutlery down and abandon dinner. And so time for a change of school.

This time around the priority is whether a school's personality will fit with my son's. The rest we'll work around because without that basic fit in place it's a lost cause, and a miserable education experience for a child. Thankfully, my son is early on in his school career and he'll bounce back from this setback. And we've learned that we won't always get it right first time but I'm glad we figured out why it wasn't working and were then brave enough to make it right. Personalities matter, even when it comes to school. Important parenting lesson number 342 learnt........

Raising Bilingual Kids in the Netherlands

Yesterday my son came home from school pulling a red suitcase on wheels behind him. The "logeerkoffer" as it's called in school. The lucky recipient of the case gets to choose a favourite book and any objects or toys related to the book and put them in the case to take back to school the next day. Then the child talks about the book, and the teacher reads a paragraph or two to the whole class.

Last time my son brought the case home he chose the Dutch version of The Gruffalo and took cuddly toys of the Gruffalo, the mouse and a snake to accompany the book.

This time he chose a book that he is constantly dipping in to and although not really a bedtime story book, asks me regularly to read it at night as he's tucked up in bed in his pyjamas. The book "My Day at the Zoo" by Terry Jennings was accompanied by a very wide assortment of stuffed toys representing animals that could perceivably be found in a zoo. His first statement whilst he filled up the case was,

"I know what "My Day at the Zoo" is in Dutch!" and when the deputy head, chatting to him in the corridor in school, asked him this morning which book he had tucked away in the case he effortlessly replied,

"Mijn Dag in de Dierentuin"

Of course, the most interesting point is that my son took an English book to his Dutch school and I was curious what the teacher would do.  When my son came home at lunchtime he said he told the class about the book and the juf had read from the page about dolphins out to the class. In English. Trying to get any further information from him has proved fruitless but he did say she didn't translate the bit she read, and some of the children in his class (group 2) can count in English. 

I realised today that raising my children to be bilingual in the Netherlands (at least with English & Dutch in any case) is a far easier job than it would be if we lived in Britain. English as a second language is very normal here - it's just that my children have a head start. 

Getting It Right The First Time

There's so much spinning around my head right now that it is hard to come up with one topic for a blog post that I can really get my teeth in to. It's hard to focus my energy and tackle one subject at a time.

Who knew parenting would be so hard? Who knew parenthood meant being the expert on so many matters without actually having the experience to back up the expert status? As my children get older I'm finding it harder to just wing it, difficult to take it day by day and hope my parenting choice was indeed the right option for my child. Because often, as it turns out, there was probably a better choice that could have been made. I hope my eldest son will not always end up being our family guinea pig; I hope we'll have done enough things right to help him be the best he can be, whatever he chooses to be.

I realise that parenting is a learning experience every single day. Parenting is the sharpest learning curve that exists. There is never a right or wrong answer when it comes to parenting. And each day that passes gives me the chance to be a better mother tomorrow. 

I also understand how being the mother of a baby was the easy part, even though it didn't feel like it at the time. The sleepless nights, the questions about feeding and worries about keeping a little bundle safe were all real. Alarmingly real. Yet looking back the challenges a newborn bring all seem manageable now. Third time around there are few doubts about your own abilities to look after and care for a newborn. 

Six years of parenting and it's still instinct and hoping
(c) Amanda van Mulligen

Making the right choices for our six year old however is a whole new ball game. There is no precedent when I make decisions about my eldest son. I don't have experience to go on. Getting it wrong with my eldest with the knowledge that at least I'll get it right for my three year old is not a path I want to go down. I want to get it right the first time around. 

I've learnt that parenting is largely about trusting my instincts. Something needs to feel right. Parenting is a judgement call every time a decision is made. There is no right or wrong. There is no one right answer that fits all children. Each child is unique. With individual needs. With different operating instructions. Each requiring something different from our parenting toolbox, which only gets better equipped with each day that goes by.  

After six years on the parenting journey I've reached a point where I have to ask myself if I actually know what I am doing. Parenting is full of firsts. Even when you've seen a first day at school before with your eldest child, there comes another first day at school.....and another. Three children, three firsts. All different. And with each first I ask myself if we've done it right, if we've made the right decision. Do we need to up our game for the next time? Can we do better? 

And the answer to that is of course we can do better. We can probably always do better - with hindsight, experience, wisdom. I'm sure we'll find we could always have done something different. But it doesn't mean we didn't do it right the first time around. We'll always do our best the first time, the second time and the third time. And I'll keep hoping that it's enough. 

Motherhood, Passion and a Creative Hat: A Career Crossroads

A Career Crossroads is not always easy to negotiate
Photo Credit: http://www.uniqraphy.de/

I wanted a career that allowed me to wear my creative hat every day, not one that sucked the life out of me. So I made a change. So easy it was not....obviously.... but I did eventually make the switch to a career with the added bonus that I could combine it with motherhood. A career that gave me the freedom to work from home (or anywhere for that matter) and still be around for my children growing up.

I realise how lucky I am to have been able to make a change when I stood before my own career crossroads, to follow my heart and let my passion dictate my career - and my story makes up a piece I wrote for the latest Expats Blog writing contest. Follow me on over there.... take a read and tell me what you think on the Expats Blog page by leaving a comment or liking the post. And whilst your over there, check out some of the other great posts from fellow expats across the world.

There Are No Words

Imagine waking one morning to hear the news that your children are missing. Suddenly. Without a trace. No one knows where they are. For two weeks you cling to a thread of hope that your little boys are unharmed and waiting to be found. Waiting for you to bring them home. The only thing you can think of is to hold them in your arms again, keep them safe for ever more. Your community goes out en masse to help with searches of anywhere the police think the boys may be. Complete strangers unite to scour woody terrain for any clues of life. The police and military are out in force to bring your boys home to you. Hundreds of thousands of unknown faces say prayers each night, hoping that their minuscule action plays some part helping in the safe return of two young boys to their mother. As days go by hope turns to dread. Everyone thinks it but daren't say it.

Two weeks of an agony that no mother should ever feel. A fortnight of frantic worry. A fortnight of panic. Two weeks of emptiness.Two weeks of hope. Hope suddenly extinguished on a Sunday afternoon as two small bodies are found by a passerby.

The mayor of Zeist described the family's grief as immeasurable. Immeasurable. An end so unspeakable. The emptiness of a mother without her children. Immeasurable. The tears for her lost children. Immeasurable.

I don't think there is a parent in the Netherlands who has not been touched in some way by the family drama that has unfolded over the last twenty days. It is incomprehensible. It is sickening. It is heartbreaking. There are no words.

The family of brothers Ruben (9) and Julian (7) do not want a "stille tocht" (silent procession) to mark the loss of the boys but recognising that so many would like an outlet for their feelings and so many want to pay tribute to two lives cut so short, they have asked people to light candles and place them in their windows between 7pm and 8pm on Sunday 26th May. There is also a national condolence register available online.

There are messages of 'sterkte' coming in from around the country for Iris, the mother of these precious boys and the rest of their family, but that doesn't convey how we all feel. Wishing her strength and courage and our deepest sympathy doesn't touch the surface of our feelings. As parents, we know there are no words for a mother who has lost her reason for being. For a mother whose grief is immeasurable now, and for all time. I pray she learns how to put one foot in front of the other again, finds a way to live with her loss and hold memories of her boys in her heart.

May Julian and Ruben rest in peace.

Filling Our Family Memory Treasure Trove

One of my favourite quotes
Photo Credit: Gretchen Rubin
The Happiness Project

I've just booked a family photo session with Vinita Salomé. It's our second appointment with her and we'd really like to make an annual thing of a family photo session because whilst some days seem incredibly long looking after three young boys I'm very aware of how fast the years are flying by.

Fun was the key word of our first session with
Vinita!
Photo Credit: Vinita Salome

It's striking that we have thousands and thousands of family photos but the one thing that is notable looking through is how few we have of all five of us.  Take a look back at your family photo collection - how many photos do you have with all of you on there? A professional photographer capturing the five of us together at least one time a year is us "indulging in a (not so) modest splurge" (see Gretchin Ruben's The Happiness Project for more on this idea) to add something really special to our treasure trove of family memories.

We met Vinita for the first time last summer early on a clear, beautiful, sunny summer Sunday morning in an unforgettable setting: the Binnenhof in The Hague. The Dutch parliament square is usually bustling with tourists, media and politicians whenever it is featured on the TV news. It's been a hive of activity whenever I have been there in the past. This particular morning it was a deserted terrain. We had the Binnenhof to ourselves for at least the first half of the photo session. And our two eldest boys (then 2 and 5) revelled in the space and freedom to run around and play, chasing each other through arch ways and up and down stairs. Their energy was contagious and heart-warming. How funny to think they were having such fun just meters away from the political heart of the Netherlands!

Ending the session on an even higher note!
Photo Credit: Vinita Salome

As the minutes went by the Binnenhof began to fill up with people; police officers on horseback, the familiar face of the regular ice cream vendor and of course snap happy tourists from far off lands. So to round the session off we treated the boys to an ice cream and they were let loose with dripping, creamy covered cones.

Not only did Vinita capture precious moments with her camera but the six of us had a fabulous time. It was playful and relaxed - and that shows on every photo. We not only have prints and a CD of many wonderful pictures of my family, but we also have the memories of excited, carefree children running to their heart's content in a place they usually wouldn't be able to explore so freely.

The image of my two year old careering around a corner laughing uncontrollably to himself is ingrained in my memory bank. Peals of laughter filled the Binnenhof for ninety minutes - nice to think of such happy sounds replacing the usual political rumblings and grumblings that take place in that particular square.....

So, this year's session will take place in September so that gives us enough time to come up with another magical place.


You can see many more photos from our session on Vinita's photo blog.

Do you have any tips for our next location? Where have you had family photos taken? Do you think a family photo session with a professional photographer is worth the investment?

Bilingualism: Keep the Brain Trained for Old Age

As we age wouldn't it be great to stay mentally
active as well as physically? Bilingualism may well be
the answer
Photo Credit:John Boyer

When we bring up bilingual children, we are not just giving them the gift of communication in more than one language, we are giving them the gift of efficient, quick working brains.

No really. I kid you not. Recent research showed that those in their 60s who had been raised speaking two languages could quickly move from one task to the other with almost an automatic action. People from the same age group who are monolingual reacted much slower to a change of task and had to use much more of their brain and effort to carry out the switch from one task to another.

It has been thought for some time that bilingualism slows down some ageing processes and helps slow down the onset of dementia in an ageing brain. This latest research may explain why. In essence being bilingual means that your brain is trained from an early age to switch from one task to another i.e. it switches from one language to another automatically. Two languages are always active in a bilingual person's brain. This early and constant training seems to make the brain work more efficiently when it comes to task changing. Bilingualism is brain training from an early age!

Yet one more reason to bring up bilingual children......

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!

Different Expats, Different Challenges

It's school holidays here in the Netherlands and we've just got back from visiting friends in Prague. My friends are also Brits but are abroad for a work assignment for a couple of years. It was a stark reminder of how expat life is a varied thing indeed. Some become expats for the adventure, for some it's a move to be with a partner and for others it's for work.

Keeping children in touch with
their grandparents needs to
be worked at if you live abroad
Photo credit: Gokhan Okur

The different reasons for being an expat throws up different challenges for our children. My children are not actually expats themselves but I am. That means there are cultural and language issues to deal with. There are issues keeping in touch with grandparents and aunts and uncles that live overseas. The issues are more mine trying to understand a school system I did not go through, understanding a culture that is not mine. However, whilst they stand out sometimes, most aspects of life for my children are stable and consistent and not effected by my expat status.

For my friends in the Czech Republic almost every aspect of their lives is effected by their expat status. Their challenges are more related to providing their children with some kind of stability in another country, knowing that their stay there will come to an end. Their challenges include making a temporary dwelling that is not theirs a real home for the children. Expat life means the friendships their children make are temporary, and indeed the friendships they themselves make mean learning to say goodbye after a year or two. It's not an easy cycle to go through.

A temporary stay abroad also means a change of schools for the children and provides another challenge once the expat assignment ends, because it calls for the children to slot back in to the British state system. After being in small classes with a varied curriculum and an abundance of teachers how do you help children to adapt to classes of 30 plus and overstretched resources? The flip side of course is the gift of excellent education for at least two years in an environment the children are thriving in! And what an opportunity for children to go to school with such a mix of nationalities alongside them, in a cultural richness you won't find in national schooling. We arrived in Prague two days after the new Dutch king came to the throne. Thanks to the Dutch influence in her class, my friend's daughter knew all about Willem Alexander and Maxima, made crowns to mark the occasion and she proudly told us,

"The new Dutch queen is much better, because she's much prettier than the old one."

I'm pretty sure she would have known very little about this Dutch event had she still been in a British primary school.

Old Town Square, Prague
(c) Amanda van Mulligen

And on top of that what a rich culture Prague has to offer. A bustling city full of history and beauty. A surprise around every corner you turn in it's Old Town. What an amazing place for children (and their parents) to soak up and store in the memory bank. An expat life that surely enriches their children, but that inevitably comes with challenges. There are pros and cons to every decision we make. Different expats, different challenges.

Yes, expat life is a varied thing indeed but there is one common factor - we're raising the global citizens of the future!

What do you think? How does the reason for your expat status effect your children? Is it better for children to have the expat experiences and deal with the challenges as they arise or play it safe and avoid the big changes?

Sharing Our Roots - an interview with Suzanne

In the fourth post of this Sharing Our Roots series, Dutch mother Suzanne shares her viewpoint on raising culturally aware children whilst living in Britain.

Making friends the English way - school
uniform and all!
(c) Suzanne

Suzanne was born in the Netherlands but now lives in London in England with her husband and two daughters who are two and four (or as her eldest prefers "four and three quarters"). Suzanne's daughters were born in Britain and hold British passports but not Dutch ones. Suzanne explains why,

"The sole reason is the inconvenience of legalizing their British birth certificates, which is a requirement of the Dutch embassy. The passport of my eldest will expire soon and I’m thinking of taking advantage of the situation to get both girls a Dutch passport as well as extending their British ones. As we have different surnames and nationalities I always get questions at the border and am asked to show their birth certificates when my husband isn’t travelling with us, which is most of the time."

Thinking to the future, Suzanne also sees another advantage of obtaining dual nationality for her daughters, but also considers the practicalities of the unthinkable,

"I can also imagine it being easier for them to move to the Netherlands with Dutch passports if we or they should ever want or need to. For example, their legal guardians (should my husband and I both die) are in the Netherlands. I can imagine a few legal hurdles would need to be overcome before they’d be allowed to leave the UK in such a case."

Asked whether she thinks it is important for her children to know about the country she herself was born in Suzanne replies,

"I don’t dwell on it, I don’t even consider myself an expat - I’m just Dutch and happen to live in the UK. I do think it’s great for kids living in a “dominant” culture (like the UK or North America) to have a true appreciation of the differences between the country they’re growing up in and the other country they’re culturally linked to (or countries, as my London-born husband’s parents are Italian). It also helps them relate to their cousins who are huge role models for them."

So how do you share Dutch culture with your children whilst living in London? Suzanne teaches her

Getting used to Father Christmas, even though
Sinterklaas still visits Dutch children living
abroad!
(c) Suzanne

children about the Dutch holidays and communicates with them in Dutch. Whilst she is working the family has a Dutch nanny who keeps the Dutch language in use in the family home. Suzanne says,

"Between us we read stories, sing songs and show videos that provide context around Sinterklaas, koninginnedag and day-to-day traditions such as hagelslag (chocolate sprinkles), cycling, street play, the absence of school uniforms and so on. Our nanny is a lot younger than I am and can share more of what the current generation experiences."

The children soaking in the Dutch culture
during a visit to Leiden
(c) Suzanne

The family also visits the Netherlands around three times a year which is hugely beneficial for the language skills of her children as Suzanne explains,

"Whenever we visit my family in the Netherlands they get a full 4-5 day language and culture immersion resulting in a huge improvement of their spoken Dutch."

Suzanne relays that she doesn't seek out the Dutch community locally or attend Dutch related events. Instead she makes optimal use of the internet and brings back Dutch books from their trips to the Netherlands.

"We also call the grandparents a lot and sing at least one Dutch song at bedtime each night," she says.

The only real issue that Suzanne relates to bringing up children in a country she was not born in revolves around language although she does notice a potential culture difference in parenting styles,

"My husband doesn’t speak Dutch so I find it hard to speak Dutch consistently. Besides this I cannot think of any negatives. I’m completely at home here and don’t have issues with not being able to relate to how they experience childhood. I do find kids a bit self-entitled and spoiled here and feel I’m always the tougher parent (“no, you can’t have a biscuit the second you walk out of the school gates even though all the other kids can”) but that may be a trend of the time rather than the place."

Whilst bringing up bilingual children can throw up challenges for parents, Suzanne has a gem of advice for other parents when the going gets tough,

"If you do want to teach your kids your language, stick to it. Don’t worry about them getting behind in the other language. They will catch up very quickly and will be forever grateful for being bilingual."