Spain Dad, a baby blog

Alleke has been trying to convince me all week that the sun is a planet.

“Where are you from?” the kid asked. He had been watching Alleke since she hopped off my lap and announced to everyone in English that she was a flamenco dancer, and then proceeded to prance and twirl up and down the aisle of the train car. The other passengers didn’t seem to mind the impromptu [...]

1. Most children go to school by age two, although school is not mandatory until age six. Children are placed in a class based on the year they were born, so Alleke is in a class with all the kids who were born in 2006. 2. Choosing a school is based on a points system. [...]

We continue our series on dads talking about sending their kids to school in a foreign country. Jay Sensenig raised three kids in Venezuela. He talks about setting aside time each day after school to listen to your children talk about how things are going at school. If you would like to ask Jay a [...]

We continue our series on dads talking about sending their kids to school in a foreign country. Lawrence Braniff has two kids in school in Madrid. He suggests that the traditional school setting is not the only option. He and his wife Cathy have sent their two kids to Spanish school half days until they’re [...]

We continue our series on dads talking about sending their kids to school in a foreign country. Teal Rapp says one of the hardest moments of his life was dropping his two daughters off at a French elementary school in Aix en Provence for their first day of school, knowing his girls didn’t speak a [...]

We continue our series on dads talking about sending their kids to school in a foreign country. Phil Graf lives in Amsterdam with his five children. He talks about the importance of a democratic household where children are involved in making decisions, including schooling. Watch Starting School in a Foreign Country (Phil Graf) on Vimeo.

Hud McWilliams, a psychologist who specializes in families living abroad, begins our series on dads talking about sending their kids to school in a foreign country. Alleke will be starting preschool in the mornings this fall, so I went looking for some dads who could give me advice about how to handle this transition well. [...]

1. She greets her friends with two kisses and says “ciao” for goodbye. 2. She lives in an apartment (750 ft2). 3. She had already been in five countries before she was born. 4. If you give her a ball, she kicks it like a soccer player. 5. Her clothes dry on the line all [...]

Two girls sat in the sand. The one was just old enough to be interested in what the other was doing, which was dragging a plastic rake in figure 8′s between them. I watched the girls while Alleke went up and down and around the slide like it was a merry-go-round. I was curious about [...]