My two children, between 8 and 12, have to take the train for three hours on their own. I was looking for information online on access to the train. Why? I’d noted that when taking ID TGV tickets ( the low cost breed of tickets actually run by a company separate from the SNCF, but that use the same TGV trains) access to the platform is only allowed for those with tickets. This makes controlling tickets on the train unnecessary and probably helps reduce costs for ID TGV.

But imagine leaving my two children on their own to find their train car, lift their suitcases and stow them away somewhere without my help?
So I wanted to make sure that at least for those with ‘ traditional ‘ TGV train tickets, access to the platform was possible for individuals dropping off travelers.

I performed a search for “ accès train “, and found a response that seemed appropriate: the site address was: http://mission-voyageurs-handicapes.sncf.com/. Which means “SNCF Project for handicapped travelers”. However, guess what one gets when one tries to access the site?

SNCF and Accessibility - click to enlarge

This pathetic “site unavailable” message: no phone number, no address… You’re handicapped? Too bad, better not take the train.

Two sisters, both handicapped, recently found out they could not take the train together because the trains could not accomodate for two handicapped persons at ounce…

Finally, she’s proposing to offer, for major cities worldwide:

• Travel info suited to families
  IE, not your typical: best restaurants and great museums, but rather, restaurants, outings and activites children or teenagers will enjoy.

• Text guides we can print out or have on our mobile devices with child-specific content, to give children and teenagers information and games they’ll be interested in, at last…

She’s asking all international families to answer this survey to help her assess your needs better. It’s here- and its in French. Thanks for taking 5 minutes to respond!

•  edutational content typical of high end children’s magazines (offering illustrated stories, games, stickers and a poster)

• and true instructional content that parallels what children are to be learning that year in school, ie:
  •  Math
  • French language
  • and History and Geography content.

In a country where there is a real worry on the part of parents as to what their children are learning in school, given the comparatively poor results the French educational system has had since the 1970′s, this magazines is clearly designed to calm their angst.

The magazines are beautiful, with a glossy cover, thick paper and brilliant colors, and the instructional content in appealing to the eye as well as in its approach.  A six year old boy not particularly known for his love of school work was found deeply interested in the magazine’s exercizes, not only in the ‘ fun ‘ sections!

They are bi-monthly publications.  They are sold in French press kiosks by the unit and on a yearly subscription basis.  They cost about 7 euros each in a kiosk and 36 euros a year for a  6 issue subscription, in France.  Prices will be higher outside of France no doubt.

Milan Presse is the French publisher behind the idea.  Milan was recently acquired by Bayard Presse, a worldwide leader in children’s magazines, with tens of language adaptations of its leading French titles such as J’Aime Lire, called Adventure Box in the UK.

– > More on Champions du CP et du CE1 and on subscribing

FEES:

There are fees of course:

• Homes are not all listed in all real estate agencies. I know of one network, ORPI, that lists its properties through all its network’s agencies, but this is a recent and novel approach.

• Agency fees are about 6% (but run from 5% to 10% depending on the price of the home)

• State fees are about 8% on homes more than five years old, and 4% on recent homes.

So that’s right there between 10% and 14% of the house’ s cost in fees!

Then there’s the administrative hassles.

LEGAL and ADMINISTRATIVE CONSTRAINTS :

Think you’d like to renovate, and maybe add some rooms to your new property? You’ll have to ask for a building permit ( ‘permis de construire’), which may take up to 3 months to be granted or refused, for reasons you often do not completely understand.

There are rules pertaining to the land you may be buying, restricting how much you can enlarge the home. In one instance, even though the house is on 5 800 square meters of land, ten minutes from a city, the only possibility is to enlarge up to twice the size of the existing home. In this case it was not a huge home, with 170 square meters. This means the owners can only up to 85 square meters to the home, leaving a huge part of the land unused for housing- thereby reducing its value.

Information on the land and the home is supposed to be maintained by the local town hall ( at what is called ‘ le cadastre’) , but it is often incomplete and not considered as legal proof.

In conclusion, be forewarned, buying a home in France is an adventure!

France Home Finance is a Paris-based company I’m familiar with who helps non resident buyers find loans.

- > Here’s a good page they have on buying a home in France.

Here are some lunch ideas and techniques:

• I prepared a menu for the week everyweek, which did not vary very much. There was enough to do just preparing the meals!

• For desert, I ‘d most often give them:

- > Unsweetened Yogurt,fruit, raisins, unsweetened applesauce ( in an individual serving). Whole Foods has those.

- > Or mild cheese like Gruyère, Comté or unprocessed cheddar and fruit.

• Here’s what main courses of a weekly menu were like:

Monday:

Peas, cooked, with butter or cream, with small pieces of ham mixed in. Stored in a small round thermos.

Tuesday:

Tuna, rice, corn and tomatoe salad, with oil and vinegar dressing.

Wednesday:

Green beans, cooked with butter, and pine nuts, with some pieces of meat or fish.

Thursday:

Squash with butter and some meat or fish

Friday:

Pasta with fresh tomatoes and pieces of chicken. That was real chicken that I ‘d bought raw and cooked , not the bleach white kind unfortunately found in many Caesar salards in US restaurants…

So there you have it. Alternatives are broccoli with cheese melted on top, whole potatoes with cheese or butter, etc… It takes a little time to prepare but you can plan in advance and you it spares you the thought of what sort of chemicals your child will be eating that day at school!

I do wish I’d had a service that prepared these sorts of meals for me, and remember a person in San Francisco had started doing this but cannot find her name again now.

The limitations of child protection software

Yes, you can use child protection software to protect your children when they are surfing, by blocking improper sites. I find this a little cumbersome and necesarily imperfect. It first requires each individual family to acquire, install and configure the software. This is not which easy for all, for financial reasons, and in terms of comfort level with IT.

It also in my view either screens out too much or too little, since it only uses machine generated filtering and has the imperfections associated with this type of approach. Between two sites hat mention the word ‘ Girl’, the ‘machine’ will not know the difference between a site that has photos and text relating to sexual themes and a site that talks about girls education or activities for instance. Unless its truly well thought out, and includes other criteria to help select the proper from the improper sites. But I have my doubts as concerns screening out images. How does an automatic filter see the difference between an image acceptable to a child and another?

A search engine for kids to access the world safely, not a search engine for kids content

I ‘d like to see Yahoo, Google or AOL create a search engine to be used by kids specifically, where I ‘d feel safe sending them. This would not mean only kids’ related content would be on it à la Yahooligans. No thanks to sending my child content limited to the idea a corporation has of child-appropriate content, complete with commercials and product placement. No, I’d like my child to have access to the world, but a safe one, not the real one that we parents access with a Yahoo or Google search.

Common Sense Media non profit tracks quality of media for parents – and they’re liberal

I found a site that partially addresses this need. Its called Common Sense media, and is, you guessed it, out of my dear old San Francisco… Common Sense media has taken note of the fact our children are bombarded with media and that we as families are not very well equipped to manage these various media sources so we keep some control over what our children see and hear. They are not part of the Religious Right either! They provide an old fashioned editorial team’s review of movies, TV shows, web sites, and other media and rate them on criteria like sexual content, violence, commercialisme, message ( what is behind the entertainment?).

Pretty darn neat – and a .org too!

-> Common Sense Media site 

True, isn’t it strange this isn’t here yet? Could it be too many men with little responsability for managing children and the household have been in charge?

Why not put in place play centers housed in the cities’ day cares and schools that are today closed and empty on weekends? The initiative could be a joint one from city or neighbourhood officials and shop keepers and service providers. Parents might pay a reasonable fee. It could also be reduced based on the parents’ spending in the area, to encourage shopping.

Who’d win?

• Children: Instead of having to tag along in stores, they ‘d play with neighbouring children.
• Parents: they’d finally be able to purchase whatever it is they need, peacefully. Hell, they may even get some pleasure out of it!
• Shop owners and service providers: They’d get more relaxed clients, and would not have to monitor uncontroled movements from small humans around their precious merchandise.
• Public officials: They’d get hoorah’s from parents, maybe even a statue, and would surely get good press and visibility among their peers as innovators.

Mc Donalds and Ikea have long ago taken into account families’ needs, as has the Cyrillus clothing chain to a lower degree, with their small play area in its chic stores. These companies seem not to be faring too badly, do they?

Looking forward to the next generation finally taking the family out of its social ghetto…