Why French Parents Are Superior

online.wsj.com

While American parents 'discipline' their children, France 'educates' them.  Ahhh, what a difference an outlook makes.  To American's children are a bother; while in France they are an asset.  The French teach their children how to "wait"; Americans instantly gratify them.

"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?" 

"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."
Even though we did practice attachment parenting with our children, we still taught them delayed gratification and practiced biblical discipline.  The hardest part of raising kiddos like this, though, was the flack we received from friends and onlookers.  Glad we stuck with it, because of the blessings we enjoy now.