The van Putten Diaries

I was asked recently about parenting in the Netherlands and I didn't have time to fully respond, but I've been thinking about it ever since.  I last wrote along this line in  my post about lifestyle changes  about 10 months ago and I've obviously gathered a lot more data since then, so lets dive into an update.  While you should definitely click that link above to read the whole thing (all of which is still perfectly applicable and fills me with joy), my previous summary is still 100% on-point: The difference between the two countries as a kid is staggering, and we haven't even gotten to experience much in this context yet.  When we visited here two years ago, we asked a fellow American about neighborhoods that were family friendly yet still in the city - and she laughed.  "Well... all of them.  This is a very family-friendly country" she said.  Kids have much more independence here and freedom to be themselves.  It's safer, by a long shot, s...

For some reason, I became very interested in the secondary education system a few weeks ago.  I read as much as I could find about it, asked my neighbors and coworkers about their experiences with it, and wandered around the city looking for the schools themselves. If you read my first post about education here, you'll hopefully remember that everything is open enrollment.  As an American, this idea seems pretty self-explanatory at the primary education level, but the process is drastically more interesting at the secondary level. The biggest thing that I think will be difficult for American minds to understand is that the expectation here is for the students themselves to pick their high school .  I know, how amazing is it to live in a society that believes minors are their own people capable of understanding enough about who they are to make their own choices and understand how those choices could affect their future?  Anyway, from around age 11 students will begi...