So how is the story there?
As I will be unemployed at least during my first months in Switzerland, I just was just wondering how you spend your day. Since last year I don't have a job. At the moment my program is really full with household, cooking and shopping for the house during the mornings. And my afternoon is full of children's activities (i have to drive them there and back) and quite a lot of reading with their homework. Rarely make a visit during the week. Usually only on weekends we have time and energy for walks, extra shopping, meet friends etc.
Just about the same, except everyone sounds different.
You'll be fine.
In the mornings, we polish and inventory our gold bars, before safely storing them under the bed.
Mid-day is usually spent eating chocolates from Sprungli, then having our nails done. A little shopping along Bahnhofstrasse, a few Hermes scarves and a LV handbag, and we're ready to take on the world.
In the afternoon, we collect the children from nursery and head out to the mountains for some hiking, or maybe a little impromptu skiing. This is followed by hot chocolate in an alpine chalet. This is Switzerland, after all.
Haven't you ever seen the movies?
Gold bars? I've got hundreds of those. But I haven't decided if I will bring them with me!
You got me wrong. Just wanted to make a comparison mainly to the afternoon activities and reading which really make me crazy here ! The rest I assume are more or less the same.
How modest and quite novel, not having your children picked up by the chauffeur. Must try that one myself, if I can get up on time.
Given the level of G&T in my blood stream at that time of day, I'd like to know how you overcome the problem of driving the Bentley there yourself unhindered by those pesky policemen.
You're profile revealed your love of the cinema. If you are planning to live in Zürich, you may want to check out the Arthouse cinemas:
If you have time on your hands before you've settle in, you may want to organize a trip there for like-minded expats. You can use functions on this forum to do that and maybe meet some new friends too.
Good luck with the move!
Harry
Thanks Harry! Actually it's Basel Land not Zurich but I would really like to meet new people.
So it's a myth that children outside my country (Greece) have more free time and don't have to run every afternoon from one class to another? Classes might be English, german, French,sports activities, ballet and mainly extra hours for school subjects such as Maths, history, language,physics and more. Tired to even write these!
I don't know what the school hours in Greece are like, but here kids have every Wednesday afternoon free and, depending on which class they're in, one or two other afternoons free. For example, my daughter (8 years old) is in the 3rd class and has Wednesday and Friday afternoon free.
Plus she comes home for lunch on one of the days she has afternoon school, but stays for lunch at school (Mittagstisch) the two other afternoons.
She goes to dancing and choir, and does piano/singing and English lessons with me. She does lots of reading (German and English), playing, running around outside with local friends etc. She also has homework every afternoon except Fridays.
I don't drive her anywhere because I'm teaching every afternoon, too, but I don't think her having to find her own way to things is a bad thing at all.
Many of my students, though, are driven everywhere, and some have lots of extra-curricular activities. On the other hand, some don't!
Most of the activities I know of that kids go to are music, sport, dancing. I don't know of many who are going to additional maths/science, but there are quite a few doing additional English if they're native English speakers.
So really it's up to you how much you want to be driving your kids around. I would be inclined to support their integration into the local community more than anything, by finding a couple of local activities in German/Swiss German.
For me, personally, it's important that my daughter has some time to do whatever she wants, including getting bored and having to figure out for herself how not to be bored. And I'm also conscious that with each new year the workload increases significantly at school.
As for my time, well, there isn't any, but that's because I have my own teaching studio and I'm doing some study as well. We don't have much time to visit friends during the week, either, but that's where having local friends becomes very important.
When I speak with my friends they are all doing different things and so are their kids, so there really is no one size fits all.
They are at school until 14:00.
Here it is the system: you have to go to extra classes on those subjects because they aren't being properly taught in schools. This manly happens in greek gymnasium where children prepare for the exams to enter university. But in smaller grades we have all this running with the other activities.
Asus, supporting, extra classes , which have to be paid for, like the "frontistiria" in Greece, are not the norm here. In elementary school, it is expected that all the necessary knowledge is transmitted within the regular school curiculum. Also , helping your kids with homework, and I mean doing it with them , is not exactly encouraged , except perhaps in a supportive capacity. Here, we as parents are not supposed to correct our kids homework.
It is believed that this confuses the issue for the teacher who is trying to gauge the kids ́performance through homework as well as in class interaction.
If the homework comes in to the teacher all perfect, but the kid shows less ability in class, it wll just confuse the appraisal of how the child is actually doing.
As for running around to after school activities, it ́s probably similar to what you know form Greece. If you will be living in a smaller town or a suburb, prepare to see less intervention or help by the parents in activities like going to school, going to sports courses etc. Independence is encouraged in comparison with other lands where either protecting the child from basic injury is paramount (llike Gr. perhaps), or lands where hyper vigilance has set in because of the perception of crime being everywhere ( perhaps the Anglo- Saxon world). I hope this helps.
This helped quite a lot because you seem to know what is going on here in our lovely jungle . That is the comparison I wanted!
Hi
in my case (my daughter started elementary school), they do a lot more in school than what we would have to do in Greece. In two different ways overall quality of schooling is higher, therefore not as much time needed by the parents to follow up (though, of course, my child is a genius, so your case may be different ). Note that even if your kid has learning disabilities or needs speech therapy, etc., the school will provide for this. The notion of "frontistirio" (supporting classes outside of school) for math, etc., is also quite unknown outside of Greece... Other activities are also covered nicely inside the school so you need to do less outside. For example foreign language learning, swimming lessons and sports, even music, are regular in their schedules and of good quality
Also, your kids walk to school and back on their own here
there are some activities you can add of course, one being attending Greek school, or soccer practice with the local team or dancing or karate lessons, or whatever. But overall, the activities are nothing like what goes on in Greece
hope this helps
j.
Here as you probably know, you can't get into their school from all the cars parked outside waiting for kids to come out and drive them home! I think that any Swiss would go crazy if he could see that!!!
You forgot the 8 hours you spend spying on your neighbours in case they break any rules, of which they were unaware. Also you didn't mention the 30-40 mins every day where you stop at the top of steps, escalators and in doorways to talk to your friend, or text someone on your phone.
Ok I got your point! Don't be so hard on me.....
That pretty much sums up most of my days... all sprinkled with a bit of "hey, the toilet paper is not a toy," "please stop toilet fishing," and the ever-exciting game of hide-the-cat-food.
Really encouraging!
Why has she bottled her own urine?
As another stay at home mom, most of my day is just the usual - a never ending job of cleaning, cooking, laundry and being the emotional support! I love it though. When my kids are at school I have a few hours to study my correspondence course. Weekends are more relaxing because the kids go up to the farm.