Raising kids in New Zealand

Hello everyone,

How is raising kids in New Zealand different from raising kids in your home country?

What are the activities that your kids seem to enjoy the most in New Zealand?

Do you feel that the country is "family-friendly"?

Do you recommend New Zealand as a good place to raise kids? Why or why not?

Thank you for sharing your experience.

Priscilla

The culture is different.
There are good and bad things.

1) I heard that education system is a bit relaxed here compare to India.
However, there are plenty of good public schools here whereas in India we have to study mostly in expensive private schools.

2) Addiction to bad habits is quite easy in NZ. In India, we don't have much money and everyone is working hard to be edge in the competition so there is no time to get into bad habits.
Here, I see children get into smoking and plenty of other things.

3) Medical facility is amazing whereas in India medical system is expensive.

Compared to other western countries it's brilliant. Kids remain kids for much longer. Secondary education needs some work but primary is ace!

Kids stay kids longer here. Less commercialism. Primary education is utter pants, secondary level is worse still. Lots of outdoor activities, and a laid back life style. I've found bullying to be pretty rife too. I would say it is a better place to raise children than in the U.K, but I guess it depends on your priorities.

For an Asian parent, it's a bit different. Kids certainly stay kids for longer (fully Agreed).
Education standard is not really good as they focus on physical / outdoors more than studies. Fluency in English doesn't really qualify a person to extents. Regarding the bulley factor, its something that should be handled by parents themselves. Strengthen your kids to the certain level that they could be courageous enough to fight bullies.  I'm glad teachers here are good enough to handle such situations.

Overall, I've found the system as satisfactory so far.