FunToSee News

Why French Parents Are Superior

info@funtosee.com (Rachel Sellers) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:25:55 +0000

While Americans (and Brits) 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

[Although these are observations made by an American mother of American children, it may feel uncomfortably familiar to British parents too. Do you agree with Pamela Druckerman?]

Emmanuel Fradin for The Wall Street Journal.

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.

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?

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.

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.

Bizzie Baby product testers cast their vote

info@funtosee.com (Rachel Sellers) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:16:48 +0000

FunToSee awarded bronze for Tatty Teddy ‘Celebration’ Room Stickers. Thank you to the 'BizzieBaby' even busier mums, for taking the time to give an independent review of FunToSee's Tatty Teddy 'Celebration' room stickers.

Product Tested By Emily. Daughter - Darcie-Rose 17 Months
Emily Awarded The Fun To See Tatty Teddy ‘Celebration' Room Stickers 4.3/5
Straight away I thought they were very cute and very girly. They were good value for money with regards to the quantity of stickers received. See-through packaging meant you could see exactly what you were getting, tough plastic and took scissors to get into it, but provided good deal of protection. You can see and understand the product clearly. Easy application, peel straight off of the packaging and stick wherever you wish. We did move the stickers and were able to be repositioned as long as they hadn't been pressed down on. I didn't feel that the adhesive had been reduced, although I did notice small flecks of my paint on the back of the sticker. Luckily this was not noticeable on either the wall or the sticker once in its final place. After the first sticker was applied, it became much easier with practice!! I'm very happy with the size and quality, I would've personally preferred more stickers, although my daughter does have a larger bedroom, so if you were decorating a single bedroom, I think this amount would be sufficient. I do think this product offers good value for money. I was happy with the overall result; I used the stickers to create a feature area around her bed, although as before, I would've preferred to cover a larger area with more stickers. I would definitely consider purchasing more stickers and recommending them to others. Lovely product, pretty designs perfect for a little girl's room, easy to apply and look great once finished, would definitely recommend.
Emily for Darcie-Rose's room 17 Months

Product Tested By Sara. Children - Bessie and Lilly
Sara Awarded The Fun To See Tatty Teddy ‘Celebration' Room Stickers 4.5/5
I thought these were beautiful pictures, and a fab design! See through packaging enables you to see the actual product size. So easy to stick on the walls although came with no instructions, but pretty obvious as to what you had to do. I only moved one sticker and repositioned it once and seemed fine. The stickers are great quality and beautiful really girly colours however they are quite small and you would need more than one packet to decorate the average sized room. I think the price is reasonable however you would need to purchase more than one packet. These stickers look great on the wall and my daughter is on the bottom bunk so has made her view at night much prettier. I would consider buying these, definitely a quick and easy way to refresh any room. It's a beautiful product which quickly jazzes up any little girl's room at a fantastic price.
Sara for Bessie and Lilly's room

Product Tested By Chrissy. Daughter - Abigail 1 Year
Chrissy Awarded The Fun To See Tatty Teddy ‘Celebration' Room Stickers 4.6/5
These were very attractively packaged and nicely designed. Clear packaging, easy to open and reseal too. They were well described and the instructions were clear. We found them a bit difficult to remove from the backing paper, took extra time so as to not damage them. Stickers were a bit tricky to remove as they tended to fold over or crease but no problem reattaching them. They were not too brightly coloured but very pretty for a little girl's room. Good quality and quantity for the price. I think they are good value for money as Tatty Teddy is a very popular brand. Overall very happy with the product, though concerned about how well they will withstand being moved around the room. I really liked the product and think they are good value for money. I would recommend these to family and friends. They are nice, and an easy way to brighten up a kids room or furniture. I can't really find any major problems with them. They are nice and colourful and ideal for a room makeover at a reasonable price too. Chrissy for Abigail's room 1 Year

Improve don't move... Here's 15% OFF!

info@funtosee.com (Tom Crane) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Bring some New Year cheer into your home.

You know you've been meaning to change the decor in the nursery or your kid's room for months, possibly weeks, even years, now here's your chance to make a difference and have fun at the same time. It doesn't have to cost the earth either. FunToSee has a wonderful range of re-stickable and removable designs for decorating nurseries and rooms for young children.

As an added incentive to help you on your way, we're giving 15% OFF on all our products...

Simply use the coupon code NEWROOM15 at the checkout for your discount to be applied!

Why not upload and show off your newly decorated rooms to our Facebook page here and show everyone else how cool your new stickers really are!

Did you catch The Gruffalo's Child on BBC One Christmas Day?

info@funtosee.com (Rachel Sellers) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 12:47:08 +0000

Following the roaring success of the Oscar nominated, Gruffalo animated film, Magic Light have spent the last two year's working on a follow-up, The Gruffalo's Child, another magical tale from best selling author, and Children’s Laureate, Julia Donaldson and illustrator Axel Scheffler, which premiered on BBC One, this Christmas Day at 6.30pm. 6.5 million tuned in and watched it on the night!

For those who missed it, it’s some years later and The Gruffalo now has a daughter. Curious about her father's fantastic stories of a Big Bad Mouse in the deep, dark wood, she sets out one snowy night on a thrilling journey of discovery.

Produced by Magic Light Pictures, a half hour animated film from the same team behind the hugely successful The Gruffalo. Featuring the voices of Helena Bonham-Carter, Rob Brydon, Robbie Coltrane, James Corden, Shirley Henderson, John Hurt and Tom Wilkinson.

It's still available to watch here on the BBC I-player. Or you can catch the repeat on BBC3 this Friday at 19.30

To enter into the spirit of all things Gruffalo, check out our Gruffalo themed room stickers and watch this space for news of NEW Gruffalo wall decor.

Children in Need - Show your spots. Let's raise lots!

info@funtosee.com (Tom Crane) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 12:10:13 +0000

Show your spots. Let's raise lots!

Go dotty, have fun and decorate walls, furniture, stationery and more with FunToSee dots. Proceeds from Friday's sales of FunToSee Dotty Stickers - Funky, Pastel, Black and White - will go to this year's Children in Need appeal.

To donate or find out how to get involved, have a look at the BBC Children In Need page here... http://www.bbc.co.uk/pudsey/fundraising/pudspace.shtml

Why not download this Pudsey colouring sheet for your children to colour in? Simply click on Pudsey to start the download. Upload photos or a scan of the finished artwork to our Facebook or Twitter for your chance to WIN a set of Dotty Stickers of your choice! Terms and conditions apply

'Follow' us on Twitter 'Like' us on Facebook

Did any one see Channel 4 news feature last night on Made in Britain: The future of manufacturing?

info@funtosee.com (Rachel Sellers) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 18:14:00 +0000

Channel 4’s Business Correspondent, Sarah Smith, recently moved back from a stint in the US and wanted to fill her new London home with items made in Britain. But could she? As she unpacked her removal boxes, it seemed that the majority of her household items were indeed manufactured overseas, many of them made in Asia.

http://www.channel4.com/news/made-in-britain-the-future-of-manufacturing

We are very proud to say that FunToSee stickers are designed and manufactured in Britain. If you’re looking for original, British Made gifts for children this Christmas, then please take a moment to browse our site www.FunToSee.com and let us know what you think.

WIN a set of 4 tickets to The Very Hungry Caterpillar Live Show!

info@funtosee.com (Tom Crane) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR & OTHER ERIC CARLE FAVOURITES LIVE ON STAGE IN THE UK FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME!

Competition:

For your chance to WIN a set of 4 family tickets to The Very Hungry Caterpillar Live Show in one of the theatre venues below, all you have to do is name the 5 different kinds of fruit The Very Hungry Caterpillar munches through in the book! Email your 5 answers to Tom@FunToSee.com. If you need some help, take a look at our Very Hungry Caterpillar Room Décor Kit. Terms and Conditions apply*

THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR and OTHER ERIC CARLE FAVOURITES includes the classic tale of THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR’s metamorphosis into a beautiful butterfly, as well as the fanciful account of LITTLE CLOUD’s travels through the sky and THE MIXED-UP CHAMELEON’s discovery of his own unique nature. All beautifully retold by The Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia through puppetry in black light.

Suitable for everyone over the age of 2 and their families, Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia’s award winning production of THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR & OTHER ERIC CARLE FAVOURITES is the perfect introduction to the theatre for pre and primary school children.

Venues include:

Friday 11 & Saturday 12 Nov: Buxton Opera House, Buxton

Monday 14 & Tuesday 15 Nov: The Embassy Theatre, Skegness

Thursday 17 – Saturday 19 Nov: Swan Theatre, High Wycombe

Sunday 20 – Monday 21 Nov: Palace Theatre, Southend-on-Sea

Good Luck!

Competition closes: November 8th 2011
Competition open to: Residents of the UK only
Winners will be notified by email
*Terms and conditions

Let's celebrate! Tatty Teddy wall stickers NOW available!

info@funtosee.com (Rachel Sellers) — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 13:12:40 +0000

He's back at last! Decorate walls and furniture with adorable blue nosed Tatty Teddy room stickers.

Choose from stunning 'Tea Party', 'Love' and 'Celebration' designs. Each pack includes loveable Tatty Teddy in various poses, with a selection of gorgeous accessory details, in raspberry red, soft pink and subtle shades of green and blue.

Brighten-up plain walls, decorate furniture and accessories, or create a stylish corner in your room for your new baby. In fact they'll appeal to boys and girls of any age!

Tesco launches FunToSee’s NEW Room Thermometer Sticker

info@funtosee.com (Rachel Sellers) — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 16:24:28 +0000

Available now in Tesco stores.....FunToSee's Room Thermometer sticker is an easy, safe and fun way to check that your baby’s room is at the correct temperature. Simply peel and apply this handy sticker to nursery walls or furniture. Remove and reposition as you wish.

In adorable undersea designs, pack contains a smiley fish thermometer sticker, plus shells, bubbles and seaweed stickers to create an imaginative scene.

• Removable and re-usable

• Splashproof and washable

• Use in the nursery on walls, mirrors or furniture

• No hooks and pins required

FunToSee, UK’s leading manufacturer of removable stickers for decorating rooms for babies and young children, are thrilled to have their innovative new designs selected by Tesco, to add to their growing collection of licensed and generic stickers.

Carte Blanche appoints FunToSee as exclusive wall sticker licensee for their ‘Me to You’ brands

info@funtosee.com (Rachel Sellers) — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 15:07:57 +0000

Carte Blanche Greetings grants FunToSee a worldwide sticker license for the ‘Me to You’ brand, including Tiny Tatty Teddy and the beloved blue nosed, Tatty Teddy.

Jane Vaughan-Smith, from Carte Blanche, says ‘We are delighted to be working with FunToSee, a highly innovative and commercially strong business, who stood out as being the best partner for Me to You within their category.

Rachel Sellers, FunToSee’s Co-Director, says: ‘We’re thrilled to welcome Tatty Teddy and friends to our growing portfolio of high quality licenses. Considerable thought goes into everything we do to ensure the end result is imaginative, fun and of the highest quality. This, combined with our international distribution, British made products and speed to market capability, convinced Carte Blanche that FunToSee would look after their bear!’

FunToSee is already working on designs for selected retailers and will be officially launching ‘Me to You’ to trade at this year’s Kind und Jugend show, Cologne, September 15 – 18th (BPA Pavillion, Hall 11.1 Stand D-35), and The Baby Show for Trade, Olympia October16-18 (Stand L82).

Given the demand FunToSee has already received for ‘Me to You’ wall stickers and borders, Tiny and Tatty Teddy, are proving to be very good company for their other evergreen properties - The Gruffalo, Very Hungry Caterpillar and Fisher-Price!

For further details, please contact Diana@FunToSee.com or call +44 (0) 8702 621 621