Hello, I would like that somebody can help us as we do not know anything about German laws.
My daughter had been in a private kindergarden since Augost 2002 until June 2004.
The problem is one day my daughter that she is 4 years told me that one girl put cream in her vagina and she did not like it anyway i wait some days to see if this was continiousand there for i will go and speak with the teacher.
The next week the teacher spoke with me. She told me that the kids were discovering themselves and playing to put cream in their parts. I told her that the discovering of their bodies is ok but i did not want that anybody touch or put cream in her vagina . She was not happy with my answer and even told me of course you are catholics i found that very bad. Shetold me that ,when the kids play she will remove my daughter from that game and tell her that she can not play as your parents do not want and you should ask your parents why.
I got upsad that she doesnot respect my desicion and make my kid to feel different but i thought i will be aware what happen there and anyway my daughte will go to another kindergarden in 2 months more.(This happen in JUNE)
The next week i peak my daughter and she told why Petra(TEACHER)has and do pipi with blood. I could not believe it what this teacher done.
MY DAUGHTER TOLD ME THAT SHE WAS IN THE TOILET AND THEN ARRIVED THE TEACHER AND ASK MY DAUGHTER TO LEAVE THE TOILET AND SHE DIDINOT WANT IT AS SHE WAS BRUSHING HER teeth so she did all that bussiness infront my girl.
I called my husband and told him thats it, so we decideD to take her from that place.
Our big problem now is that we gave them a KONIGUNG in may saying that we will take my daughter in August and now they are asking for money for July and August.
We think we should not paying them as what happen there is not acceptable.
We do not know what to do as my husband is English and I am Mexican and we do not know the lawr here but i think what that kindergarden do is wrong and until know we have not have any apologize from them.
We do not know what to do.
Please can you help us?

Hola Adriana

I also have a 4 years daughter, also in the Kindergarten. Your story makes me sick.

I would like to know more about it. You can write me in spanish to agmmza2002@yahoo.com.

As you have noticed, the sexuality in Germany is pretty different as we use to know in our countries. But I think this kind of experiments is kinda liberal isn´t it?

Is not clear for me if you want to make a demand for your daughter or for the money.

If the case is for the money, you have signed a contract with your kindergarten. Over there is written the Kündigung time for quit the kindergarten. You have to respect this time or they have right to claim for their money. Usually is three months, your daughter go or not to the school.

But I´d be more concerned about the other story. I think discovering theirself is quite normal, but this kind of discovery ..... I don´t know. My daughter is assisting to the KG from last year and we didn´t hear any word of that kind of games. Also the story of the professor was a little bit far away from normality and I guess this is illegal. The problem would be how to prove it. I think it will be stressing for your daughter.

I support your decision. Your girl cannot stay anymore in a place like that.

So, send me an email or post your address and I´ll write you

Saludos

YO

Hello,
Actually this story just hit my fears about raising children in this society and about the freedom that we have to raise our children like what we want and not like what the society wants.
I also have a daughter who is about to be 4 years, but up to now I didn't send her to any German KG only because I am afraid of what she is going to learn or see there.
I frequently ask my self questions like, are we as parents allowed to speak to the teachers - now in KGs only but later in schools- about what is acceptable for us and what is not? will we find an open minded teachers who will respect our cultures, religions and believes as being different to theirs?
Will the schools force my daughter or son do things which we don't accept like swimming naked or nearly naked, or going in journeys and sleep outside the home, or going to cinemas or mixed parties where things go out of control, ....
Is activities like described in this thread are individual rare behaviour or could be more often,,,

I don't know if any body has any positive or negative experiences which could help us take the right decisions regarding our kids future at the right time...
Thanks
alom

I don't think there is a clear answer to your question since it all depends. It depends on the school, on the teachers, on the location and so on. But, it also depends on you.

The integration dilemma say something like this... if you choose to remain here, if you put your children into "the system", they will have more chances in the future *here*, but some of your values and beliefs, specially those in opposition with the local values will collide, and by the time they are teenagers or even before, things might get bitter. You try to reinforce your beliefs, but your children try to fit-in at the same time.

If you keep them 'out' of the system, they will not 'integrate', may be your family life will be more peaceful, but their chances *here* will be very low.

In both scenarios they will be put in a situation where they have to choose between you and the 'system'.

I'm not saying that either position is true, this is just the view given through the media to the public.

Yes, this kinda message provokes some chills in our hearts, meaning us "parents" and "parents-to-be" because not being able to be with the kids 24/7, mostly when they are in school, we dunno what can be the influence of all that.
It makes me remember of the message a parent left here about his daughter who left home to live with her b/f.
Different cultures, different peoples, but we want to get our kids right and educate them according to our believes and cultures but sometimes, the influence of the school goes beyond our own.

I remember times when my daughter was coming back home and I was correcting her about things she were doing or saying I didn't agreed with but it was always "Nein, Heike hattest so gesagt" (Heike was her KG lady).

And as I've moved to another city and that my kids have to apply in a new KG, I'm just fearing, more because my own wife had had a racist experience not far than 3 days ago from some 12 y-o kids living in our buildings. If she lives that now, what will that be for the kids?

But I can't prevent them from not going there because they have to learn, have friends and get themselves integrated in a country where I would like them to live for the next years (PR willing to).

I've had had very good experiences in the previous KG of my daughter, the women tere were very open, we used to talk a lot when going to pick my daughter up, I've even been elected do some responsabilities there in the parents' comity, which was kinda stressfull when you are the only black dude there :-)

Be as I always say, never underestimate what you teach your kids at home, that's where the real education starts and all is done before the age of 6. Teach them your views, explain that to them (even if you think they're too kiddy, they do understand. Each time I slap my daughter [Yes I do] when she's done wrong, I wait til she finishes to cry and then tell her why I did slapped her, in kind words but very clear, and believe me, she never makes mistakes after that) and love them, that's the best you can give to them and if you have to raise your voice and shout back at the school where they are going, do that, you're the father, the mother, the responsible, and you owe them that.

I won't stay put if something like that happens to my girls, I will face the consequences if I should bring some, but hell yeah, I've choosen them to be, I'm the one worrying about them, I'm the one staying at their bed when they're sick, and man, I would kill if anything happens to them.

When you look into your baby's eyes, don't you see this lovely flame that burns inside of him/her toward you? Do your best to keep that flame alive and never, I say, NEVER, let someone bring it to die.

D., a father like many on earth, but a father first for my daughters.

I remember when my daughter started at the KG, there was a girl who was always putting sand on her hairs, beating her, stuff like that. I said nothing at the time, just a small claim to the woman taking care of them there.
One day, I went back from work and my daughter had some blood in her eye, due to some sands thrown by the same girl. I first went with her to see her Kinderarzt and then the next day, I got her to the KG myself (my wife was normally doing that as I had to go to work) and man, I can tell you that I really shout myself out that morning in the office of the Director, with both her and the woman who was taking care of my daughter in the office. Since that day, I had some peace with them and my daughter never had problems again, except the small things with kids which are normal (knees bleeding because playing and falling down, small quarrels with the others...).

Sometimes, shouting is good for the health of everybody :-)

D.

"The integration dilemma say something like this... if you choose to remain here, if you put your children into "the system", they will have more chances in the future *here*, but some of your values and beliefs, specially those in opposition with the local values will collide, and by the time they are teenagers or even before, things might get bitter. You try to reinforce your beliefs, but your children try to fit-in at the same time."


I think it is not that bad. Integration does not mean that you should have same opinions as local people.
It is enough if you are able to accept other opinions.
It is clear because even germans do not all think same.
You have conservative catholic Bayern, than you have lot's of generations that think different.
So it is clear that you can not think same as all germans because there are 1000s of german opinions.
That teacher in KG is simply stupid and mean, and I assure you lot's of deutche parrents would like to kick her.

I don't belive that one has to sell his integrity for integration.

"I don't believe that one has to sell his integrity for integration."

That's the Quote of the Day!

hi,
not being a parent yet, perhaps i cannot imagine the full intensity of pain that 'adriana' and her family had felt after what happened with their girl, but even then it really hurt me.
i want to show just another side of the picture here!!
i think that DVD is right in saying that not all germans will like that teacher's act. But who knows where another person like that (petra) teacher is teaching ? i mean one cannot overlook the possibility of being another victim of such kind.
tell you guys one thing, whenever in some street i see some children of age around 10-16, i get afraid. why? because i see little innocence and more cleverness in them. they try to behave almost perfectly. true, this is a an advance and materialistic society, but where they are heading ?
the other day, a german colleague of mein was saying that current lot of young german people are less talented and less hardworking as compared to their olt lot.
perhaps too much freedom(specially in case of children) is a also an extermism, and every extrem approach produces unwanted negative results.
anyway, this is my own thought and you may not agree with that.
regards

First of all I regret that adriana's daughter had an unfair treatment. But once we wish to live longer in Germany we will have to face a lot more later keep open your eyes widely for your children. Children's care is a senstive topic in Germany and one has always a right to take their case to Jugendamt. So I suggest adriana to find a nice person in this office and make a complaint.

Adriana do you know where does the name Adriana comes from.
From Adriatic sea or Adria.
It is sea between Italy and Croatia.
Take a look on the map.

I agree with most of the points you mentioned that we should be carefull about our childeren and ...
But such problems are not only in Germany, most of European countries, USA, or better to say most of the 1st world countries are the same in this regards, I mean they are going to modernize their cultures (can be defined in different contexts!), as they started doing it in 17st century for the politic and religion (a simple example: separation of religion and politic) and then industrial revolution and also revolution in media and recently information technology. all of these are the sequence of one thing, Evolution of human kind. and of course not always the right way, sometimes mistakes and problems and ...
We should see the problem not only in German or a specific culture, that's the problem between a conservative and non-conservative views, which one is correct I'm not to judge about. but if we see where the problem is we can find a better solution!
The problem of Adriana's child, however is clearly fault of the teacher, but living in a country other than where we grew up cannot be without such conflicts.
When we accept to be integrated into this society, then we should not speak about my culture or your culture! my religion or your religion! we should speak about (find) our common culture and try to solve the exisiting problems considering the common believes and clearing the missunderatanding! and of course repect the opponent opinoins! or at least hear and think about them!

This issue is quite interesting and I cant help but to drop this few lines...

It's interesting to observe how this topic has developed cultural and religious twist.Quite a red herring !

This issue to my understanding has to do with a little girl of 4yrs whose genitals was made part of the ingredient of a class experiment without the consent of the parents. Since at this age the parents are the child's trusted guardian.

This issue sound more like a moral one to me; I dont know about you !The question is, when is a child initiated into this process of moral decadence or freedom of self-expression as some would like to called it in this new 'age' ?

I think this issue should be in as much as possible placed (in context of the child's age) above culture , religion , ethnicity or what have you.I think if a sample of parents are made irrespective of their cultural,religious , etc affiliation. The number of those that would frown at this is most likely going to be higher.

I suppose this is just an isolated case brought out, because I'm almost certain that in KGs here there are checks to firewall unstable minds from gaining access to our kids (at their tender age).

I suppose this is just an isolated case brought out, because I'm almost certain that in KGs here there are checks to firewall unstable minds from gaining access to our kids atleast at their tender age in light of this new 'age'.

Hi Adriana.

It has been long since my last post here! Your story is a very moving one. Is very disgusting what you are telling here, and I think you made the right decission on taking your daughter out of there.

Going to the practical issues (hey guys, this is a long Sudaca post, so you can skip it from this paragraph on! :-)) , if what you are worried is about the last months of payments (the Kuendigung time-related stuff), I agree completely with YO. I am afraid you will have to pay, unless you really want to get hard and fight for the issue. Don't get me wrong, I think you may have ground for not paying and even for taking legal action, but that's not the point. Any kind of action will involve too much time and mishandling, and yes, your daughter could be exposed to things that are even more difficult to process.

The cultural and religious twist in the education discussion is too hot an issue in nowadays information. We have too many bad examples of bad policies getting into the education system -like the outrageous rules on headscarves in France, or the pressure by the actual USA administration to reintroduce religion as a major player in school education. I am more interested in just Germany, because this is the place in which we live. And a very interesting and particular one in the initial education field.

You sent your daughter to a private kindergarten, and yes, Germany has been traditionally a land for many experimental approaches to initial education. Even Mr. Joschka Fischer, the ever-notorious Foreign Minister was related for a while with some -for its time- controversial experimental school in Frankfurt led by Mr. Daniel Cohn-Bendit (Daniel le Rouge) , the leader of the May'68 Paris movement. He went from leader of the most famous uprising in Paris to director of a Kindergarten in Frankfurt in few years, and it made sense. But for Mr Fischer, the ghost of that experience (as well as his alleged relations with the Baader-Meinhof gang, and so on) had turned back once and again to haunt Mr. Fischer's political career.

All in all, the big education project of the German New Left on the 70 was a reaction to the traditional system which -they argued, with some solid facts to support- had been only too good in generating authoritarian types within the German society, with the example of N-S as the darkest paroxism. But no matter how well disposed you may be to new ideas and the utopy of a fair world, if you read the cornerstone book of Mr. Cohn Bendit (called Le Grand Bazar), there are passages there that, out of context - and not quite so, even-, makes you think of his memories around that kindergarten as a whole experiment edging on pedophilia. Check this passage out:

""It happened to me several times that certain kids opened my fly and began to tickle me. I reacted differently according to circumstances, but their desire posed a problem to me. I asked them: 'Why don't you play together? Why have you chosen me, and not the other kids?' But if they insisted, I caressed them even so."

Disgusting, right? What Mr. Cohn-Bendit -and most of this new-Education experiments- argued, was that precisely having no inhibitions towards sexuality was the best weapon to prevent sexual misbehaivours. Repressive societies, they insisted, are much, much better in generating sexual deviations. Within certain limits, this people believed they were creating a new kind of manhood. Hey, this was Hippy era, after all. You judge it yourself. Me, personally, I cannot help but feeling disgusted, but again, I feel uncomfortable on the lake of my German town on a Sunday afternoon, where many 50somethings are absolutely OK to sunbath naked 1 mt. away from me and my family.

For whatever this is worth, most of the parents -and the kids that went to those schools in those years, now grownups- have always pop'd up whenever the issue is brougth back, and always with possitive comments. What is more important, the system as a whole in Germany adopted many of the proposals of this experiments -you can tell when you see how the KGs are decorated, and how the daily routine goes in there. As usually happens, the most valuable contributions of radical experiments lie not on revolutionary breakthroughs, but rather on how they bring up into the mainstream discussions that otherwise would have remained in the dark. And a big chunck of this experiments went mainstream in Germany.

Even more, let's not forge that Germans are usually able to tell what was good and what was not so good from those extreme experiences. You can count in Germans -and this is one of the things of "germanity" I admire the most- to distinguish quite clearly between the core issues and the marginalia, something that we in Latin America, for example, are not very good at doing. So Germany took some of the best things of this experiences, and BTW, allowed the "alternative politics" of the 70 win an ever-growing place in the mainstream political discussion. For good or for bad, the Greens are -though not majority- a pivotal player in today politics.

But hey, there are still loads of radicals out there. Even without considering the radicals, we have to concede now that 30-40 years after the 60s, the questions are worringly coming back into perspective, but from the other side: is the system too liberal? Running the risk of sounding a bit harsh, I think that Germany as a whole is in this very -very- uncomfortable situation in which certainly a bit more of moral motivation and guidance on the initial education -and definitively, a less meritocratic system on the middle edducation- would help, but any mention to something even remotely related with discipline as a system raises horror flags on many sectors, and also internationally. So is difficult to get into serious discussions, not to mention conclusions, because what was supposed to be a utopy of a new education and -that's the key- a new Germany, has left the door open to extremes that are difficult to cope, and that give awkward validation to the arguments of the other extreme, the authoritarian one. But hey, this is Germany at its best, right?

Going back to your case, you choose a private KG, therefore, you were a bit more vulnerable to this kinds of "experimental approach". On my experience, you can count with a bit more of mainstream approach on State-based schools (as well as in religious-related ones). My son went two years to Kinderkrippe (started with 1 year and 3 months!) and since some weeks into Kindergarten. The first one was from the Gemeinde. Now he goes to the KG of the Lutheran church (because it was the one assigned to him on the big pool of KGs made on my town, and is only 50 mts. away from my home). I have only good words for what the teachers did during all this time.

In any case, Adriana, I think on the other possibility, my son going to school in my country (in Uruguay)... and yes, there will be many things that would be different and perhaps closer to what I like as cultural pattern. But he will be in schools with 60 kids per group, with teachers earning misery salaries, with no playing or learning material, with zero motivation, and lucky if he gets a room with crystals on the windows in winter. Unless, of course, I could pay for private education there, a fact which -if we get too philosophic- is also a perfect example on how unfair the world is and how bad the wealth is distributed.

Anyway, nothing of this rebukes the main point: you did the right thing on taking your girl out of there. And fast.

Cheers,

Diego aka. Sudaca

PS: Adriana, if you wish to discuss this or anything else further, in Spanish, of course you can contact me at carboneta@hotmail.com
PS2: Detlef, how are you after all this time?

In case anybody is interested on a whole discussion on Joschka, the new Left and yes, the education experiments, there is a great article that appeared some years ago in an american magazine, the New Republic, by Paul Berman. You can get it via suscription here

http://www.tnr.com/082701/berman_partone082701.html

or free here

http://lists.village.virginia.edu/lists_archive/sixties-l/3465.html