Education: Les enfants européens seraient-ils trop bien élevés? (Are European children too well-behaved?)

He said ‘this is American culture,’ and I should get used to it. Christopher Herbon (German exchange student)

When I first came there, I [had] a little bit of disappointment about the place … and I said to myself, ‘Well, you’re here now. You just have to accommodate yourself and….make the best of it and take it. Guillaume Le Mayeur (Belgian exchange student)

 I said, ‘Why not?’ This is America. (…) We have all seen Charlie’s chocolate factory. We thought, ‘This is good.’    (…) We are supposed to be here for cultural exchange and education, but we are just cheap laborers. Harika Duygu Ozer (Turkish exchange student)

I spent some of the worst moments of my life during that exchange. Ignacio Torres Sibaja (Costarican student, about his summer work at Hershey’s Pennsylvania plant)

You wanted a cultural exchange. This is America and this is the way we do things here.  Council for Educational Travel representative (to a Costarican exchange student)

What struck me in England was how extremely patient and gentle English mothers were with their children compared with French parents. They would get upset much less often and never seem to have the great shouty crises we have. But at the table, French children are without doubt much better behaved. It’s remarkable how British children just don’t sit nicely and aren’t taught any respect for people around them. It would be unthinkable to most French parents to inflict their children on other people. (…) French children may be better brought up in the strictest sense, but they grow up to be very individualistic. British children are more open. They may be noisier and less well behaved, but they seem to become much more social and community-minded as adults. Lise Fuccellaro (former French expat in London)

British parents definitely have a different approach. They are much less likely to shout ‘stop’ at their children and more likely to be calm and ask, ‘why did you do that?’ We are more Latin… it’s a case of ‘stop that or you’ll get a smack’. « I often notice I am the only parent shouting at my child in the street.  (…) The biggest difference in bringing up children in France and Britain are the schools. If, for example, a British child is artistic but not so good at maths, everyone says never mind, it will come. In France, the teacher will summon the parents and tell them: your child cannot write and cannot add up, we don’t care about anything else. Whether they are happy, have friends or are kind is an added bonus in the way we educate our children. Juston Bénédicte Juston (French expat languages professor, London)

I was at an English friend’s house and her six-year-old son was thumping the piano as we were trying to speak. His mother said ‘yes that’s lovely, but not so loud’. He just carried on. I said to myself if this was France the child would have been hauled off to another part of the room and made to stop. British parental culture is very relaxed, while we terrorise our children. In the wake of May 68 we were more relaxed and we rejected authority. But my generation saw the damage that lack of limits did to children and how it ultimately caused them problems, so we went back to being authoritarian. We consider our children to be small people, but they are not equal to an adult. They need authority, they need rules and they need to be kept in line. A child is a child and has his place. In France we see authority as a form of affection and believe that a child blossoms because of, not in spite of, that authority. The bottom line is my child can have his own opinion, but it’s me who decides. Bénédicte Lohe-Le Blanc  (French expat teacher, London)

French women are often loth to leave the arena of womanhood and enter that of motherhood. They do not define themselves as mothers and don’t want to be defined as such. For American and British women, motherhood has become such a big event in our lives. It’s amazing that women’s liberation has brought us to this extreme that motherhood is the coolest thing to do in your life. The place of a child in its mother’s mind is much more defined and separate in France. An Anglo-Saxon mother faced with the piano-thumping child would be saying ‘what is my child feeling?’. A French mother would be asking ‘what am I feeling?’. If we empathise too much with our children that it becomes intolerable to punish or limit them, this is terrible for the child. If you believe your main objective is to be liked by your child, you are in big trouble. But we Anglo-Saxon mothers have created a backlash in which smart, accomplished women give up everything and their child becomes ‘the project’. This in turn puts pressure on the child. Bringing up a child successfully is about enabling that child to leave you and go out into the world on their own.  Dr Caroline Thompson (Paris-based child psychologist and family therapist)

In her book French Children Don’t Throw Food, out this month, American mother-of-three Pamela Druckerman, who lives in Paris, asks how the French manage to raise children who, unlike many of their US or British counterparts, sleep through the night at two months, are not picky eaters, do not throw tantrums in the supermarket and go to bed without making a fuss, while their mothers « continue looking so cool and sexy ». « What British parent hasn’t noticed, on visiting France, how well behaved French children are, compared to our own? » ask her publishers, suggesting that « with a notebook stashed in her diaper bag », Druckerman discovers the « secrets to raising a society of good little sleepers, gourmet eaters and reasonably relaxed parents ». That is a bundle of generalisations and stereotypes, but then few things are guaranteed to polarise opinions – and boost sales – as much as how we raise and educate our offspring. Discipline versus encouragement, chastisement versus laissez-faire, a sharp shrill « ça suffit! » (that’s enough!), versus the mollycoddling « now let’s not do that, shall we? » reasoning of the so-called Anglo-Saxon – meaning British or American – mum. And above all, that essential Gallic parenting tool, la fessée, or smacked bottom, versus the British naughty step. It is probably safe to assume that Druckerman’s copious note-taking among « Parisian friends and neighbours » centred on a certain section of what would be described as middle-class families in English or aisé in French. Speaking to mothers who fit that description – as opposed to those struggling to raise families in France’s gritty suburbs – the Observer discovered a general consensus that parents either side of the Channel have a radically different vision of their children and an equally contrasting way of raising them. In France a child is rarely considered an equal, but a small human being ready to be formatted, partly by its parents but mostly by the state education system. It has to be encadré, kept within a clearly and often rigidly defined framework that places disciplines such as manners and mathematics above creativity and expression. A French child who has a tantrum is unlikely to be cut any slack on the grounds that it is expressing itself, is quite likely to be smacked and, if the tantrums continue, packed off to see a child psychologist. The « terrible twos » is not a recognised phenomenon in France. Kim Willsher (The Observer)

Les enfants trop bien élevés feraient-ils des adolescents et des jeunes adultes trop dociles et vulnérables?

Alors qu’après son enquête internationale sur l’adultère …

La journaliste américaine expatriée à Paris Pamela Druckerman semble faire un carton avec son dernier ouvrage sur l’éducation des enfants à la française …

Ou, plus précisément peut-être, sur une tradition (plutôt catholique?) de plus grande déférence à l’autorité face à une tradition (plutôt protestante?) de plus grand respect de l’individu …

Et à l’heure où, dépassés par leur propre succès, les programmes d’échange américains pour étudiants étrangers semblent par ailleurs connaitre de sérieux dysfonctionnements …

Retour, avec un reportage de la chaine télé américaine WTOP, sur ces adolescents européens qui passent une année dans des familles américaines et qui –  pour ne pas avoir osé dire non? – se retrouvent victimes de harcèlements divers …

Foreign exchange students sexually abused in program overseen by State Department

Anna Schecter

Rock Center

Mar 13, 2012

Dozens of high school foreign exchange students have been raped, sexually abused, or harassed by American host parents in towns and cities across the country, an NBC News investigation has found.

In one of the most egregious cases, at least four exchange students were sexually abused over the course of two years by the same host father, even after the first victim sounded alarms.

“He said ‘this is American culture,’ and I should get used to it,” Christopher Herbon of Germany told NBC News in an exclusive interview to be broadcast Wednesday night on Rock Center.

The organization that placed them with the host father has been accused of orchestrating a cover-up to protect its reputation over the safety of the students.

Every year more than 25,000 teens from around the world come to America as part of a program overseen by the State Department that is hailed as an integral part of U.S. diplomacy.

Most of those teens have a great experience and cases of sexual abuse are rare. But NBC News’ investigation found two major flaws in the system. A lack of oversight can allow sexual predators to take advantage of the program. And when sexual abuse does happen, there is evidence that the students are sent back to their home countries with little or no support from the exchange organizations or the State Department.

There are more than 80 organizations that pay a fee to get the State Department’s stamp of approval as a « designated sponsor organization. » That distinction allows the organizations to place the students with host families for one academic year. Each organization in turn must follow regulations designed to protect the students from harm.

The host families do not receive any compensation, but the students’ parents can pay more than $10,000 for their child’s year abroad. The largest organizations for which there are records take in an average of seven million dollars each year, according to an NBC News review of their Internal Revenue Service filings.

The more students they place, the more revenues for the organizations, and critics say the financial incentives create an environment ripe for abuse.

« These sponsoring agencies make a lot of money for each of these kids. The profit margin is very big, and they’re motivated to get them into some house, somewhere, without the proper vetting. So it’s a perfect storm. It’s sort of abuse waiting to happen, » said attorney Irwin Zalkin, who along with attorney Andrea Leavitt represented Herbon and three other exchange students sexually abused by a host father and local coordinator for one of the organizations.

GUILLAUME’S STORY

In August 2003, the year before Herbon came to the U.S. as an exchange student, 18-year-old Guillaume Le Mayeur of Belgium was excitedly packing for his American adventure.

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Le Mayeur’s parents paid the equivalent of $10,200 for their son’s year abroad. A Belgian agency, World Education program, made the arrangements with an American organization called Educational Resource Development Trust, ERDT.

Le Mayeur was hoping to live in New York or Los Angeles, but instead ERDT placed him in run-down trailer in rural Arkansas. His host father was 34-year old Doyle Meyer.

Meyer, his then wife Gigi, and a former exchange student were sharing the cramped trailer when Le Mayeur moved in.

“When I first came there, I [had] a little bit of disappointment about the place … and I said to myself, ‘Well, you’re here now. You just have to accommodate yourself and….make the best of it and take it,’” Le Mayeur said in an exclusive interview with NBC News’ Rock Center.

Le Mayeur said within a month of his arrival, Meyer started talking about sex, touching and hugging him, and unsuccessfully trying to get him to sleep in his bed with him.

“He would hug me, well, trying to hug me a lot. He would take my hands and he would ask me to lie on his chest when he was watching TV,” he said.

He said Meyer bought alcohol and marijuana for other exchange students living nearby, showed them pornographic films, encouraged them to show him their genitals and once measured a male student’s anatomy with his bare hand.

On an ERDT trip to Washington, D.C., Le Mayeur said Meyer allowed students to videotape two teens having sex, and watched the tape with them.

The students slept two to a bed in a local motel, and Le Mayeur said he was assigned to sleep in the same bed as Meyer, who tried to massage his stomach and touch his genitals. Le Mayeur said he jumped out of the bed.

Once back in Arkansas, Le Mayeur said he tried to report the molestation and Meyer’s irresponsible behavior to his local coordinator, Pat Whitfield. He said he set a time to meet with Whitfield, but she called Meyer and invited him to sit in on the meeting.

“So I couldn’t say anything I wanted [to say]. But they were like best friends and [Meyer] went to talk to her first,” said Le Mayeur.

Le Mayeur said Meyer became intent on having him expelled from the program in order to silence him. He said Meyer reported him to ERDT executives for driving a car (against the program’s rules) and smoking marijuana, both of which Le Mayeur admits.

ERDT did expel Le Mayeur. Back home in Belgium, ashamed and shunned by his own family for being kicked out, he found the courage to write an email to ERDT staff detailing what happened to him and other students and warning them that something must be done to protect other students.

“I think that something must be done to stop that as fast as it is possible…because [one] day or another something bad is going to happen,” Le Mayeur wrote in the email.

ERDT never reported Le Mayeur’s allegations to state authorities or the State Department. Instead the organization launched its own investigation led by staff who later admitted in a 2010 deposition that they had no experience with an investigation of alleged abuse.

“SWEPT UNDER THE RUG”

Plaintiff attorney Andrea Leavitt said ERDT circled the wagons, protecting the reputation of the organization over the safety of the students for whom the organization was responsible.

“There are no disclosures to parents for the children coming in. There are no disclosures to the kids. There are no warnings. Everything is swept under the rug, concealed. Absolutely every parent’s nightmare,” Leavitt said. “They begin to circle the wagons. And rather than protect the vulnerable kid, they start to protect themselves from liability and exposure,” she said.

ERDT executive Kelli Jones wrote to her staff asking for anything “positive” they knew about Doyle Meyer as she was preparing a report for the Belgian exchange company, WEP.

In August of 2004, two months after Le Mayeur sent his email, Jones wrote to her staff saying that Meyer should know that ERDT “went to a lot of work, time, and energy to clear his name and support his good reputation.” She went on to disparage Le Mayeur, writing, “As far as I’m concerned it may not be over with yet. [Le Mayeur] may rear his ugly head again.”

ERDT decided Meyer should not be a host father the following year, but would remain working as a coordinator, whose job it is to supervise students.

According to fellow coordinator Theresa Benevides and host father David Krenn, Meyer was known as a “high placer,” meaning he was able to find an above-average number of families to host students.

“He placed almost 20 kids. He was very valuable to ERDT because he brought in so much money,” Benevides said.

A SECOND ROUND OF ABUSE

During the fall of 2004, Meyer served as 16-year old Christopher Herbon’s coordinator. Herbon said he was unhappy living with an unfriendly elderly couple with no children, isolated in a remote area. He told this to Meyer, and in early 2005 Meyer arranged for the teenager to move in with him. By this time, Meyer had separated from his wife and was living with another current exchange student on the outskirts of Little Rock.

Herbon said Meyer began to give him alcohol and Oxycontin shortly after he arrived. He said Meyer would press him to show him his genitals once he was intoxicated, and even gave him male enhancement pills.

“I was afraid that if I wouldn’t make him happy, he would kick me out, and that I would be sent home. I didn’t want to disappoint my parents. I was very afraid that he would send me home because my parents would be very disappointed,” he said.

In addition to Herbon, Meyer was sexually abusing other exchange students that academic year. When one of them finally told Benevides, she alerted the police and Meyer was arrested in May, 2005.

“KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT”

When word got out about the arrest, Benevides said ERDT executives flew to Arkansas and told the local coordinators not to speak about the abuse. She said at a meeting convened in Arkansas, Jones told her, “Keep your mouth shut.”

Meyer pleaded guilty to first degree sexual assault and served four of a six year sentence. When NBC News reached him by phone at his mother’s Arkansas chicken farm, he refused to comment on this story, saying that his parole was almost up and he wanted to move on with his life.

In 2010, attorneys Zalkin and Leavitt filed a civil suit against ERDT on behalf of Le Mayeur, Herbon, and two other students. ERDT settled the case for an undisclosed amount without admitting liability.

Kelli Jones, who has since been promoted to President of ERDT, declined to comment on this story. But in a 2010 deposition, she told Leavitt that she did not consider Le Mayeur’s account of Meyer’s behavior to be sexual abuse, but rather “immature idiotic boy behavior.”

The ERDT regional coordinator who handled the investigation is still in the same job. Whitfield, who was Meyer’s friend and fellow coordinator, was fired. She is now working for another exchange organization hosting and placing students in Arkansas. Whitfield declined to comment on this story.

STATE DEPARTMENT DEFENDS THE PROGRAM

When asked why ERDT is still operational after a case like this, State Department spokesperson Toria Nuland said that ERDT was one of the organizations that helped the Department draft new regulations in recent years to better protect exchange students from abuse.

“They have been complying as we’ve strengthened the regulations with the improved standards, which is why we’ve kept them on our rolls. They themselves were horrified and victimized by this situation,” Nuland said.

In 2009 the State Department asked the Inspector General to investigate Youth Exchange Programs following a series of reports of mistreatment of exchange students.

The Inspector General’s scathing report found “insufficient oversight of the youth exchange programs at all levels.” It said communication among staff “borders on unprofessional,” there was a “lack of human and financial resources” in the office running the programs, and an “erroneous assumption” that the exchange organizations monitor themselves.

Nuland said that as a result, the Department increased staff overseeing the program, dropped a number of organizations from the list of designated sponsors, and implemented new regulations to more thoroughly check out host families.

In addition, Nuland said that before exchange students come to America, they now receive a package of information about their rights, and what they should do if they encounter any problems in the U.S. or problems with the host family.

“We are strengthening the checks on the front end, staying with the kids so intensely during the program,” she said.

The State Department did not have a central log of complaints until the 2009-2010 school year, but issued NBC News its data from the 2010-2011 year that showed sexual abuse or harassment was reported by less than one percent of the total number of high school students who spend a year at an American high school. They said that percentage includes any and all harassment, even if it did not involve a host parent.

“The vast majority of high school foreign exchange students have an enormously gratifying, rich, fantastic American experience that lasts with them for a lifetime,” Nuland said.

But problems in the program persist, and ERDT is not the only organization involved. Rock Center’s investigation found fourteen different organizations where students had alleged being sexually abused or harassed by a host parent. Several of the organizations have faced lawsuits for placing students in harm’s way.

Wednesday’s broadcast will include an interview with a student who says he was sexually abused by his host father this past Christmas.

Nuland said that from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s point of view even one child abused under these programs is one child too many.

“Our standard has to be zero tolerance. So to the degree that which we still have cases reported we are not there yet. Are the reforms that we’ve put in place sufficient? I think we need to watch that over the next couple of months and see where it goes. But we are absolutely committed to continuing to tighten these regulations and improve this program until we get to zero.”

Editor’s Note: Kate Snow’s full report, Culture Shock, airs Wednesday, Mar. 14 at 10 pm/9 c on Rock Center with Brian Williams.

Voir aussi:

Do French parents have a certain je ne sais quoi?

In this Feb. 7, 2012 photo, Pamela Druckerman, author of « Bringing Up Bebe, » poses for a picture in New York. The just-published « Bringing Up Bebe » is written by an American who was struck by the good manners of kids in Paris, where she raises her own brood of three. Now she shares her lessons with those of us whose kids, alas, don’t have quite the same je ne sais quoi.

JocelynNovecek

AP National Writer

WTOP

 2/23/2012

NEW YORK (AP) – So you’re visiting someone’s home with your child and hot chocolate is served. As the hostess’s kids sip the delicious concoction politely and silently, your own little dear takes a gulp and promptly spits it back into the mug.

Admit it, parents: Something similar has happened to you.

But for Pamela Druckerman, an American mother in Paris, it wasn’t just an isolated incident. That embarrassing moment with her daughter, Bean – she would have kicked her under the table, but couldn’t be sure which pair of legs were hers – was one of many during her early years as a mother in France: years of fearing her children would act up, melt down, or otherwise commit a serious faux pas at any moment.

Because, as Druckerman explains in her new book, « Bringing Up Bebe, » French children don’t spit into their mugs. They don’t have tantrums in the park, they don’t shun their vegetables, they don’t forget to say « bonjour » or « au revoir, » and they most certainly don’t throw food (in fact, « French Children Don’t Throw Food » is the book’s title in Britain.)

Are children in France born polite? Do they come out of the birth canal saying, « Bonjour, Maman, » and apologizing for the discomfort they’ve just caused?

Clearly not, but Druckerman, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, set out to determine just what French parents are doing right. Boosted by the fact that France and parenting are both subjects people love to talk about, « Bringing Up Bebe, » written in a winningly chatty and humorous style, debuted at No. 8 on The New York Times best-seller list earlier this month and hit No. 1 on The Sunday Times hardback nonfiction list in Britain.

The book has also drawn attention through comparison to Amy Chua’s « Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, » last year’s provocative account of Eastern-style parenting. Chua’s book was excerpted in The Wall Street Journal under the title, « Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior, » and Druckerman’s under the headline « Why French Parents Are Superior » _ a phrase that doesn’t sit well with everyone.

« First Tiger Mom. Now, I dunno, Fromage Mom? » Jen Singer wrote recently on her blog, Mommasaid.net. « Nowadays, it appears that everyone is better at parenting than Americans are. »

She added: « Here’s the dirty little secret about their `superior’ parenting philosophies: They’re not about the kids. The so-called French parenting method seems to make life easier for parents who want to socialize. »

In a recent interview at a Manhattan restaurant, Druckerman stresses that she isn’t trying to present the French style as perfection. « I don’t have any magic bullets, » she says. « I was just trying to tell my story. »

Her story is, though, overwhelmingly favorable to the stricter French parenting style, and judging by comments on the Internet, not all American moms disagree.

Kat Gordon, a mother of two sons in Palo Alto, Calif., read the excerpted article and immediately wrote on Facebook, « I smell a best-seller. » She meant it as a compliment.

« It sounds like French mothers are experiencing more joy and feeling less frazzled by parenthood, » Gordon explained in a telephone interview. « That’s something all mothers should want _ if we can get over our defensiveness. »

Gordon recalls an incident when her older son, Henry, was 2 1/2 years old. Her in-laws were over for dinner, but Gordon, who’d worked all day, was being pulled away constantly by Henry, and she felt conflicted and guilty. Her mother-in-law set her straight.

« Henry should always feel that you’re available to him, » her mother-in-law said. « But he shouldn’t feel entitled to you. »

Druckerman touches on just that theme. French mothers, she writes, love their children as much as anyone, but don’t see them as their entire life project, to the exclusion of professional satisfaction, adult leisure time and quality time with a spouse.

« If your child is your only goal in life, it’s not good for the child, » one French mother tells her. « Guilt is a trap, » says another.

Druckerman writes about how many French babies, at an extremely young age, sleep through the night, thanks to La Pause: Parents wait a bit when the baby fusses. Maybe the baby can sort it out alone.

This helps with more than sleep, Druckerman says: It’s also a crucial building block to developing patience. « I had always assumed that some kids were good at waiting, and others weren’t, » she said in the interview. « I didn’t realize one could teach a child to wait. »

Similarly, Druckerman always assumed some kids were picky eaters and others weren’t. But the French, she discovered, simply teach their children to appreciate adult tastes, from their first year.

Forget chicken nuggets. The author attends a planning meeting for meals in Paris creches, or daycare centers, and it sounds like a morning meeting at a Michelin-starred restaurant: Four-course meals are de rigueur for 3-year-olds, with perhaps a fish in dill sauce, a side of organic potatoes « a l’anglaise » and a cheese course, bien sur, before dessert.

But that doesn’t explain why French children, according to Druckerman, so rarely have tantrums, at least in public. She explains that they’re given a strict cadre _ literally, a frame – to guide them. A nonnegotiable: saying « bonjour » and « au revoir. » It’s not mere politeness, but a way of acknowledging the world doesn’t revolve around them.

To one fellow American mother in Paris, it all sounds good, but doesn’t quite work that way.

Elizabeth Brahy, a mom of two who’s lived in France for 17 years, thinks French children only seem better behaved because their parents are very strict with them – sometimes overly so. But when away from adults, she says, they’re not nearly the same.

« They toe the line when they’re with their parents, » she says, essentially because they are scared of getting in trouble. « But away from them, they’re worse behaved than American kids. »

And where Druckerman admires how French parents stay at the perimeter of the playground while their kids play independently, Brahy sees something different: « You go to the park, and you see these kids running wild, pushing and shoving and stealing toys, and no one is disciplining them. »

It’s not all negative. « The things that work really work, » Brahy says. For example: « It’s healthy that parents here have lives apart from being parents. In America, parents put their kids first and live by the kids’ rhythms. »

Ami Salk agrees. A mother of three children who has been in Paris for 23 years and teaches professional writing to corporate employees, Salk feels confident saying something many American moms wouldn’t: « My kids are important, but they’re not more important than me. I also don’t think they’re more important than my relationship. »

Salk recently brought her three kids to the United States for a summer visit. She was appalled at the behavior of some American children she encountered _ some who never said « hello » or acknowledged her presence.

« They never took off their headphones, » she says. American kids, she observed, also tend to snack all day – something that doesn’t happen in France. Then they’re not hungry at mealtime.

On the other hand, she says, « Everyone thought my kids were great. They said `hello’ when introduced. They said `goodbye’ when they left. They ate almost everything. Address them, and they responded. »

What it comes down to, Salk says, is really a contrast between a traditional parenting style _ one that she had as a child in the U.S. in the 1960s _ and a modern one, that has in some ways gone awry.

Druckerman would agree wholeheartedly. One of her favorite bits of feedback, she says, came from a mother in England, who said that she’d been feeling guilty about her occasional trips alone to get her hair done.

« She wrote that my book had freed her, » Druckerman says.

« That made me cry. »

Voir de plus:

L’éducation à la française, enviée outre-Atlantique

Les anglo-saxonnes vont finir par nous détester: après French women don’t get fat (les Françaises ne grossissent pas) ou French women don’t sleep alone (les Françaises ne dorment pas seules), un nouveau livre sort fin janvier en Grande-Bretagne et mi-février aux Etats-Unis, intitulé French children don’t throw food (les enfants français ne jettent pas leur nourriture), comme quoi il n’y a pas que les mères chinoises qui ont leur livre.

Pamela Druckerman, une journaliste américaine qui vit avec son mari et ses enfants depuis plusieurs années à Paris, y raconte ses difficultés de mère face à la simplicité apparente avec laquelle les Françaises élèvent leurs enfants: tous ceux qu’elle connait «font leurs nuit à partir de deux ou trois mois alors que ceux de ses amis américains mettent un an ou plus à y arriver. Les enfants français mangent des repas complets qui ont plus tendance à inclure des poireaux braisés que des nuggets de poulet. Et alors que ses amies américaines passent leur temps à résoudre les petites disputes entre leurs enfants, ses amies françaises sirotent leur café pendant que leurs enfants jouent», détaille la 4e de couverture.

Comme le résume de façon humoristique The Observer, voici les règles de l’éducation à la française selon ce livre:

•Mettre son enfant à la crèche de ses trois mois à ses trois ans 12 heures par jour, cinq jours par semaine, et retourner au travail. Il apprendra à être à la fois indépendant et sociable.

•Apprendre à son enfant à dire «bonjour» à chaque fois qu’il voit un membre de la famille ou un ami («Un enfant qui ne dit pas bonjour est considéré comme un sauvage»), et à tendre la joue pour une bise quand on leur demande «même de personnes qu’ils ne connaissent pas».

•Le repas est sacrosaint. «Toute main non utilisée doit être posée à plat sur la table. On ne crie PAS. On ne sort PAS de table sans demander. On ne balance absolument PAS de nourriture, spécialement de pain, qui a une importance quasi-religieuse».

•«Ça suffit! est l’arme la plus efficace de l’arsenal parental français […] Neuf fois sur dix ça met terme à une dispute, des plaintes ou un mauvais comportement», là où les anglo-saxons se contentent d’un «ça serait bien d’arrêter de faire ça, non?». Et la fessée le dernier recours, pour les quelques rares occasions où le «ça suffit» ne fonctionne pas.

Le journal a parlé avec une Française qui vit à Londres avec ses enfants et son mari, et pense elle aussi que les parents britanniques sont trop laxistes avec leurs enfants:

«J’étais chez une amie anglaise et son fils de 6 ans faisait résonner très fort le piano alors que nous essayions de parler. Sa mère a dit « Oui c’est très joli, mais moins fort », et il a juste continué. Je me suis dit qu’en France l’enfant aurait été trimballé à un autre bout de la pièce et forcé d’arrêter. La culture parentale britannique est très relax, alors que nous terrorisons nos enfants.»

Pour Docteur Caroline Thompson, une psychologue pour enfant basée à Paris mais née aux Etats-Unis et dont le père est anglais, les différences d’éducation viennent principalement de la façon dont les mères se voient:

«Les femmes françaises ne se définissent pas comme des mères, et ne veulent pas être définies comme telles. Pour les femmes américaines et britanniques, la maternité est devenue un évènement si important dans nos vies. […] Face à son enfant qui tape sur un piano, une mère anglo-saxon se dirait « qu’est-ce que mon enfant ressent? » là où une mère française se demanderait « qu’est-ce que je ressens? »»

The Observer note que l’auteure a pris ses notes principalement sur «une certaine section de ce qu’on décrirait comme des familles de classe moyenne en anglais, ou des familles aisées en français», et pas à des familles pauvres qui ont du mal à élever leurs enfants, et qu’il est plein de généralisations et de stéréotypes.

Mais la thèse de Pamela Druckman ne repose pas non plus sur rien: une étude de mars 2010 a notamment montré que les mères de Colombus, dans l’Ohio aux Etats-Unis, trouvaient la maternité bien moins plaisante que les mères de Rennes.

Voir encore:

The parenting gap: why French mothers prefer to use the firm smack of authority

As a new book asks why French children don’t have tantrums, Kim Willsher, who has raised her own children in Paris, looks at contrasting views of family life

Kim Willsher

The Observer

1 January 2012

First British women came under attack for being chubbier and less chic than their stylish Gallic sisters. Now another critical salvo has been fired across the Channel, this time over our ability to bring up well-behaved children.

Forget the euro crisis. This latest attack in the entente discordiale strikes at the heart of parental angst and highlights a fundamental gulf in parenting philosophy between the British and French.

It also taps into the British self-flagellation previously aired in the 2004 dieting tome French Women Don’t Get Fat.

In her book French Children Don’t Throw Food, out this month, American mother-of-three Pamela Druckerman, who lives in Paris, asks how the French manage to raise children who, unlike many of their US or British counterparts, sleep through the night at two months, are not picky eaters, do not throw tantrums in the supermarket and go to bed without making a fuss, while their mothers « continue looking so cool and sexy ».

« What British parent hasn’t noticed, on visiting France, how well behaved French children are, compared to our own? » ask her publishers, suggesting that « with a notebook stashed in her diaper bag », Druckerman discovers the « secrets to raising a society of good little sleepers, gourmet eaters and reasonably relaxed parents ».

That is a bundle of generalisations and stereotypes, but then few things are guaranteed to polarise opinions – and boost sales – as much as how we raise and educate our offspring.

Discipline versus encouragement, chastisement versus laissez-faire, a sharp shrill « ça suffit! » (that’s enough!), versus the mollycoddling « now let’s not do that, shall we? » reasoning of the so-called Anglo-Saxon – meaning British or American – mum. And above all, that essential Gallic parenting tool, la fessée, or smacked bottom, versus the British naughty step.

It is probably safe to assume that Druckerman’s copious note-taking among « Parisian friends and neighbours » centred on a certain section of what would be described as middle-class families in English or aisé in French. Speaking to mothers who fit that description – as opposed to those struggling to raise families in France’s gritty suburbs – the Observer discovered a general consensus that parents either side of the Channel have a radically different vision of their children and an equally contrasting way of raising them.

In France a child is rarely considered an equal, but a small human being ready to be formatted, partly by its parents but mostly by the state education system. It has to be encadré, kept within a clearly and often rigidly defined framework that places disciplines such as manners and mathematics above creativity and expression.

A French child who has a tantrum is unlikely to be cut any slack on the grounds that it is expressing itself, is quite likely to be smacked and, if the tantrums continue, packed off to see a child psychologist. The « terrible twos » is not a recognised phenomenon in France.

Lise Fuccellaro, mother of four children aged eight, 12, 14 and 16, lived in England for seven years before returning to the Paris region.

« What struck me in England was how extremely patient and gentle English mothers were with their children compared with French parents, » she said.

« They would get upset much less often and never seem to have the great shouty crises we have. But at the table, French children are without doubt much better behaved. It’s remarkable how British children just don’t sit nicely and aren’t taught any respect for people around them. It would be unthinkable to most French parents to inflict their children on other people. »

Bénédicte Juston, 37, a French languages professor, who lives in west London with her three boys aged six, eight and 10, agrees: « British parents definitely have a different approach. They are much less likely to shout ‘stop’ at their children and more likely to be calm and ask, ‘why did you do that?’ We are more Latin… it’s a case of ‘stop that or you’ll get a smack’.

« I often notice I am the only parent shouting at my child in the street. »

In France, British expat parents are often dismayed at the stifling rigidity of French schools, in which learning by rote is more important than learning to reason, where creativity is strangled by conformity and where what a child has to say is less important than doing so with impeccable grammar and writing.

Friends in London admire our children’s faultless script – they learn to use fountain pens in the first year of primary school – but are horrified when told that the neighbours’ six-year-old was declared « nul » – useless – by his teacher and marked down, even when giving the correct answer, because their ornate, loopy, joined-up handwriting was not up to scratch.

« You couldn’t do that over here. The parents would be up to the school complaining about the teacher in a flash, » said one British friend.

Juston added: « The biggest difference in bringing up children in France and Britain are the schools. If, for example, a British child is artistic but not so good at maths, everyone says never mind, it will come. In France, the teacher will summon the parents and tell them: your child cannot write and cannot add up, we don’t care about anything else.

« Whether they are happy, have friends or are kind is an added bonus in the way we educate our children. »

Druckerman makes a great deal of how French children are taught to be better behaved in public and social situations. Passengers on the Eurostar can often identify a child’s nationality without hearing them speak. You can more or less bet the one running up and down the carriage screaming his head off will not be French.

Bénédicte Lohe-Le Blanc, 38, a teacher originally from Brittany, and her husband Vincent, 39, live with their three children, Sten, 11, Yaelle, nine, and Kenan, six, in west London. She believes British parents are lax with their children.

« I was at an English friend’s house and her six-year-old son was thumping the piano as we were trying to speak. His mother said ‘yes that’s lovely, but not so loud’. He just carried on. I said to myself if this was France the child would have been hauled off to another part of the room and made to stop. British parental culture is very relaxed, while we terrorise our children. »

She is convinced this is a backlash from the laissez-faire attitudes that prevailed in France after the May 1968 student riots, that brought a form of the swinging 60s to French society.

« In the wake of May 68 we were more relaxed and we rejected authority. But my generation saw the damage that lack of limits did to children and how it ultimately caused them problems, so we went back to being authoritarian. »

She added: « We consider our children to be small people, but they are not equal to an adult. They need authority, they need rules and they need to be kept in line. A child is a child and has his place. In France we see authority as a form of affection and believe that a child blossoms because of, not in spite of, that authority. The bottom line is my child can have his own opinion, but it’s me who decides. »

French mothers often have a greater sense of detachment from their children, says Dr Caroline Thompson, a Paris-based child psychologist and family therapist who grew up in America until the age of eight and has a British father. She believes differences in parenting are largely down to the difference in how the mothers view themselves.

« French women are often loth to leave the arena of womanhood and enter that of motherhood. They do not define themselves as mothers and don’t want to be defined as such. For American and British women, motherhood has become such a big event in our lives. It’s amazing that women’s liberation has brought us to this extreme that motherhood is the coolest thing to do in your life.

« The place of a child in its mother’s mind is much more defined and separate in France. An Anglo-Saxon mother faced with the piano-thumping child would be saying ‘what is my child feeling?’. A French mother would be asking ‘what am I feeling?’. If we empathise too much with our children that it becomes intolerable to punish or limit them, this is terrible for the child. If you believe your main objective is to be liked by your child, you are in big trouble. »

« But we Anglo-Saxon mothers have created a backlash in which smart, accomplished women give up everything and their child becomes ‘the project’. This in turn puts pressure on the child. Bringing up a child successfully is about enabling that child to leave you and go out into the world on their own. »

Lise Fuccellaro believes British children may be less disciplined than their French cousins, but says they often grow up to be nicer adults: « French children may be better brought up in the strictest sense, but they grow up to be very individualistic, » she said.

« British children are more open. They may be noisier and less well behaved, but they seem to become much more social and community-minded as adults. »

THE GALLIC GUIDE TO CHILD REARING

■ Put your child aged from three months to three years into the local state-run creche for up to 12 hours a day, five days a week, and return to work. It is cheap (an individual or family with an income of €3,000 a month will pay around €1.80 an hour) and the child will learn to be both independent and sociable.

■ Instruct your child to say « bonjour » every time they meet family and friends. They should also present their face to give and receive « bises » (pecks on the cheek) when prompted, even to strangers. The same applies to an « au revoir » when someone leaves. A child who does not say « bonjour » is considered virtually a savage.

■ The dining table is sacrosanct. Any hand not in use must be placed flat on the table. NO shouting. NO getting down from the table without asking. Absolutely NO throwing food, particularly bread which has a quasi-religious significance. French children are encouraged to eat a wide variety of food from an early age at home and at school, where packed lunches are not allowed. Love of things like garlic, frogs’ legs and Camembert must be largely genetic.

■ Ça suffit! (That’s enough!) the single most effective weapon in the French parent’s arsenal. Said loudly and curtly with the emphasis on the ‘ça’. Usually follows an ‘arrête!’ (stop!). Nine times out of 10 it cuts short any arguments, whining or bad behaviour.

■ « La Fessée » or smacked bottom. On the rare occasions ‘ça suffit!’ fails, and they are rare, French parents will not hesitate to employ a sharp slap to the rear or leg. French children become so used to this, they hardly ever cry and have learned a subtle body swerve to lessen the impact. Particularly strict grandmothers may prefer to pinch an ear.

Voir enfin:

Why French Parents Are Superior

While Americans fret over modern parenthood, the French are raising happy, well-behaved children without all the anxiety. Pamela Druckerman on the Gallic secrets for avoiding tantrums, teaching patience and saying ‘non’ with authority.

By PAMELA DRUCKERMAN

BRINGING UP BEBE

Emmanuel Fradin

The Wall Street Journal

February 4, 2012

Pamela Druckerman’s new book « Bringing Up Bebe, » catalogs her observations about why French children seem so much better behaved than their American counterparts.

When my daughter was 18 months old, my husband and I decided to take her on a little summer holiday. We picked a coastal town that’s a few hours by train from Paris, where we were living (I’m American, he’s British), and booked a hotel room with a crib. Bean, as we call her, was our only child at this point, so forgive us for thinking: How hard could it be?

We ate breakfast at the hotel, but we had to eat lunch and dinner at the little seafood restaurants around the old port. We quickly discovered that having two restaurant meals a day with a toddler deserved to be its own circle of hell.

Bean would take a brief interest in the food, but within a few minutes she was spilling salt shakers and tearing apart sugar packets. Then she demanded to be sprung from her high chair so she could dash around the restaurant and bolt dangerously toward the docks.

Pamela Druckerman’s new book « Bringing Up Bebe, » catalogs her observations about why French children seem so much better behaved than their American counterparts. She talks with WSJ’s Gary Rosen about the lessons of French parenting techniques.

Our strategy was to finish the meal quickly. We ordered while being seated, then begged the server to rush out some bread and bring us our appetizers and main courses at the same time. While my husband took a few bites of fish, I made sure that Bean didn’t get kicked by a waiter or lost at sea. Then we switched. We left enormous, apologetic tips to compensate for the arc of torn napkins and calamari around our table.

After a few more harrowing restaurant visits, I started noticing that the French families around us didn’t look like they were sharing our mealtime agony. Weirdly, they looked like they were on vacation. French toddlers were sitting contentedly in their high chairs, waiting for their food, or eating fish and even vegetables. There was no shrieking or whining. And there was no debris around their tables.

Though by that time I’d lived in France for a few years, I couldn’t explain this. And once I started thinking about French parenting, I realized it wasn’t just mealtime that was different. I suddenly had lots of questions. Why was it, for example, that in the hundreds of hours I’d clocked at French playgrounds, I’d never seen a child (except my own) throw a temper tantrum? Why didn’t my French friends ever need to rush off the phone because their kids were demanding something? Why hadn’t their living rooms been taken over by teepees and toy kitchens, the way ours had?

French Lessons

Children should say hello, goodbye, thank you and please. It helps them to learn that they aren’t the only ones with feelings and needs.

When they misbehave, give them the « big eyes »—a stern look of admonishment.

Allow only one snack a day. In France, it’s at 4 or 4:30.

Remind them (and yourself) who’s the boss. French parents say, « It’s me who decides. »

Don’t be afraid to say « no. » Kids have to learn how to cope with some frustration.

Soon it became clear to me that quietly and en masse, French parents were achieving outcomes that created a whole different atmosphere for family life. When American families visited our home, the parents usually spent much of the visit refereeing their kids’ spats, helping their toddlers do laps around the kitchen island, or getting down on the floor to build Lego villages. When French friends visited, by contrast, the grownups had coffee and the children played happily by themselves.

By the end of our ruined beach holiday, I decided to figure out what French parents were doing differently. Why didn’t French children throw food? And why weren’t their parents shouting? Could I change my wiring and get the same results with my own offspring?

Driven partly by maternal desperation, I have spent the last several years investigating French parenting. And now, with Bean 6 years old and twins who are 3, I can tell you this: The French aren’t perfect, but they have some parenting secrets that really do work.

I first realized I was on to something when I discovered a 2009 study, led by economists at Princeton, comparing the child-care experiences of similarly situated mothers in Columbus, Ohio, and Rennes, France. The researchers found that American moms considered it more than twice as unpleasant to deal with their kids. In a different study by the same economists, working mothers in Texas said that even housework was more pleasant than child care.

Rest assured, I certainly don’t suffer from a pro-France bias. Au contraire, I’m not even sure that I like living here. I certainly don’t want my kids growing up to become sniffy Parisians.

But for all its problems, France is the perfect foil for the current problems in American parenting. Middle-class French parents (I didn’t follow the very rich or poor) have values that look familiar to me. They are zealous about talking to their kids, showing them nature and reading them lots of books. They take them to tennis lessons, painting classes and interactive science museums.

Yet the French have managed to be involved with their families without becoming obsessive. They assume that even good parents aren’t at the constant service of their children, and that there is no need to feel guilty about this. « For me, the evenings are for the parents, » one Parisian mother told me. « My daughter can be with us if she wants, but it’s adult time. » French parents want their kids to be stimulated, but not all the time. While some American toddlers are getting Mandarin tutors and preliteracy training, French kids are—by design—toddling around by themselves.

I’m hardly the first to point out that middle-class America has a parenting problem. This problem has been painstakingly diagnosed, critiqued and named: overparenting, hyperparenting, helicopter parenting, and my personal favorite, the kindergarchy. Nobody seems to like the relentless, unhappy pace of American parenting, least of all parents themselves.

Of course, the French have all kinds of public services that help to make having kids more appealing and less stressful. Parents don’t have to pay for preschool, worry about health insurance or save for college. Many get monthly cash allotments—wired directly into their bank accounts—just for having kids.

But these public services don’t explain all of the differences. The French, I found, seem to have a whole different framework for raising kids. When I asked French parents how they disciplined their children, it took them a few beats just to understand what I meant. « Ah, you mean how do we educate them? » they asked. « Discipline, » I soon realized, is a narrow, seldom-used notion that deals with punishment. Whereas « educating » (which has nothing to do with school) is something they imagined themselves to be doing all the time.

One of the keys to this education is the simple act of learning how to wait. It is why the French babies I meet mostly sleep through the night from two or three months old. Their parents don’t pick them up the second they start crying, allowing the babies to learn how to fall back asleep. It is also why French toddlers will sit happily at a restaurant. Rather than snacking all day like American children, they mostly have to wait until mealtime to eat. (French kids consistently have three meals a day and one snack around 4 p.m.)

One Saturday I visited Delphine Porcher, a pretty labor lawyer in her mid-30s who lives with her family in the suburbs east of Paris. When I arrived, her husband was working on his laptop in the living room, while 1-year-old Aubane napped nearby. Pauline, their 3-year-old, was sitting at the kitchen table, completely absorbed in the task of plopping cupcake batter into little wrappers. She somehow resisted the temptation to eat the batter.

Delphine said that she never set out specifically to teach her kids patience. But her family’s daily rituals are an ongoing apprenticeship in how to delay gratification. Delphine said that she sometimes bought Pauline candy. (Bonbons are on display in most bakeries.) But Pauline wasn’t allowed to eat the candy until that day’s snack, even if it meant waiting many hours.

When Pauline tried to interrupt our conversation, Delphine said, « Just wait two minutes, my little one. I’m in the middle of talking. » It was both very polite and very firm. I was struck both by how sweetly Delphine said it and by how certain she seemed that Pauline would obey her. Delphine was also teaching her kids a related skill: learning to play by themselves. « The most important thing is that he learns to be happy by himself, » she said of her son, Aubane.

It’s a skill that French mothers explicitly try to cultivate in their kids more than American mothers do. In a 2004 study on the parenting beliefs of college-educated mothers in the U.S. and France, the American moms said that encouraging one’s child to play alone was of average importance. But the French moms said it was very important.

Later, I emailed Walter Mischel, the world’s leading expert on how children learn to delay gratification. As it happened, Mr. Mischel, 80 years old and a professor of psychology at Columbia University, was in Paris, staying at his longtime girlfriend’s apartment. He agreed to meet me for coffee.

Mr. Mischel is most famous for devising the « marshmallow test » in the late 1960s when he was at Stanford. In it, an experimenter leads a 4- or 5-year-old into a room where there is a marshmallow on a table. The experimenter tells the child he’s going to leave the room for a little while, and that if the child doesn’t eat the marshmallow until he comes back, he’ll be rewarded with two marshmallows. If he eats the marshmallow, he’ll get only that one.

Most kids could only wait about 30 seconds. Only one in three resisted for the full 15 minutes that the experimenter was away. The trick, the researchers found, was that the good delayers were able to distract themselves.

Following up in the mid-1980s, Mr. Mischel and his colleagues found that the good delayers were better at concentrating and reasoning, and didn’t « tend to go to pieces under stress, » as their report said.

Could it be that teaching children how to delay gratification—as middle-class French parents do—actually makes them calmer and more resilient? Might this partly explain why middle-class American kids, who are in general more used to getting what they want right away, so often fall apart under stress?

Mr. Mischel, who is originally from Vienna, hasn’t performed the marshmallow test on French children. But as a longtime observer of France, he said that he was struck by the difference between French and American kids. In the U.S., he said, « certainly the impression one has is that self-control has gotten increasingly difficult for kids. »

American parents want their kids to be patient, of course. We encourage our kids to share, to wait their turn, to set the table and to practice the piano. But patience isn’t a skill that we hone quite as assiduously as French parents do. We tend to view whether kids are good at waiting as a matter of temperament. In our view, parents either luck out and get a child who waits well or they don’t.

French parents and caregivers find it hard to believe that we are so laissez-faire about this crucial ability. When I mentioned the topic at a dinner party in Paris, my French host launched into a story about the year he lived in Southern California.

He and his wife had befriended an American couple and decided to spend a weekend away with them in Santa Barbara. It was the first time they’d met each other’s kids, who ranged in age from about 7 to 15. Years later, they still remember how the American kids frequently interrupted the adults in midsentence. And there were no fixed mealtimes; the American kids just went to the refrigerator and took food whenever they wanted. To the French couple, it seemed like the American kids were in charge.

« What struck us, and bothered us, was that the parents never said ‘no,’  » the husband said. The children did « n’importe quoi, » his wife added.

After a while, it struck me that most French descriptions of American kids include this phrase « n’importe quoi, » meaning « whatever » or « anything they like. » It suggests that the American kids don’t have firm boundaries, that their parents lack authority, and that anything goes. It’s the antithesis of the French ideal of the cadre, or frame, that French parents often talk about. Cadre means that kids have very firm limits about certain things—that’s the frame—and that the parents strictly enforce these. But inside the cadre, French parents entrust their kids with quite a lot of freedom and autonomy.

Authority is one of the most impressive parts of French parenting—and perhaps the toughest one to master. Many French parents I meet have an easy, calm authority with their children that I can only envy. Their kids actually listen to them. French children aren’t constantly dashing off, talking back, or engaging in prolonged negotiations.

One Sunday morning at the park, my neighbor Frédérique witnessed me trying to cope with my son Leo, who was then 2 years old. Leo did everything quickly, and when I went to the park with him, I was in constant motion, too. He seemed to regard the gates around play areas as merely an invitation to exit.

Frédérique had recently adopted a beautiful redheaded 3-year-old from a Russian orphanage. At the time of our outing, she had been a mother for all of three months. Yet just by virtue of being French, she already had a whole different vision of authority than I did—what was possible and pas possible.

Frédérique and I were sitting at the perimeter of the sandbox, trying to talk. But Leo kept dashing outside the gate surrounding the sandbox. Each time, I got up to chase him, scold him, and drag him back while he screamed. At first, Frédérique watched this little ritual in silence. Then, without any condescension, she said that if I was running after Leo all the time, we wouldn’t be able to indulge in the small pleasure of sitting and chatting for a few minutes.

« That’s true, » I said. « But what can I do? » Frédérique said I should be sterner with Leo. In my mind, spending the afternoon chasing Leo was inevitable. In her mind, it was pas possible.

I pointed out that I’d been scolding Leo for the last 20 minutes. Frédérique smiled. She said that I needed to make my « no » stronger and to really believe in it. The next time Leo tried to run outside the gate, I said « no » more sharply than usual. He left anyway. I followed and dragged him back. « You see? » I said. « It’s not possible. »

Frédérique smiled again and told me not to shout but rather to speak with more conviction. I was scared that I would terrify him. « Don’t worry, » Frederique said, urging me on.

Leo didn’t listen the next time either. But I gradually felt my « nos » coming from a more convincing place. They weren’t louder, but they were more self-assured. By the fourth try, when I was finally brimming with conviction, Leo approached the gate but—miraculously—didn’t open it. He looked back and eyed me warily. I widened my eyes and tried to look disapproving.

After about 10 minutes, Leo stopped trying to leave altogether. He seemed to forget about the gate and just played in the sandbox with the other kids. Soon Frédérique and I were chatting, with our legs stretched out in front of us. I was shocked that Leo suddenly viewed me as an authority figure.

« See that, » Frédérique said, not gloating. « It was your tone of voice. » She pointed out that Leo didn’t appear to be traumatized. For the moment—and possibly for the first time ever—he actually seemed like a French child.

—Adapted from « Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting, » to be published Tuesday by the Penguin Press.