u/CaramelCritical2806

Sometimes I, father 44 yo, bring my little one (2yo) in the park close by home (I live in Amsterdam). I was impressed by the fact there is no interactions among parents of the kids (e.g. I interact with another father). I do not talk about creepy situations where the interaction should be between parents of opposite sex, but I say that fathers (or mothers) do not talk to each other. I am not claiming there should be a law where parents who do not know each other are forced to talk, but I believe it is a bit un-natural...

Same situation at the kinderopvang: Kids' parents do not talk to each other. I have the feeling they pretend not to see the others... but then this becomes ridiculous when kids meet and greet each other outside the kinderopvang and parents pretend they do not know what happens...

So long story short what is the etiquette for parents in kinder parks?

Hello,

Question: What are the main issues that non dutch speaking parents have while raising dutch speaking kids?

Italian father and turkish mother asking to share experience about how to raised kid in terms of language learning.

Long story short our kid will be exposed to 4 languages at the same time (Italian, dutch, english and turkish) and we live in the super multi culti shining Amsterdam where it seems that speaking dutch is something bad...

And here it starts the problem: We (parents) do not speak dutch (shame on us). All the literature about multilanguage kids consider as given that parents speak the local language. In some cases there is the idea to prevent parents to speak the local language (in this case Dutch) because it does not convey "emotions", but this implicitly assumes we speak the local language. Ideally parents should speak with the kid in their (parent) native language.

Although I introduced myself as Italian, I am a mixed race who had to deal in the past with this situation when i was a kid, I believe that what reported to us is not ideal, or at least not fitting in the long term. The actual blind spot is linked to integration: Potential scenario will be our kid will be integrated, we as parents no, and it will end up to have our kid as mediator between home and the "environment".