Switzerland Everyday Life

Do all Swiss children live like Heidi?

If you think of a Swiss child, you might think of Heidi right away. Heidi is a girl from a book. She is a girl who, without parents, lives with her grandfather, the Almöhi, whom Peter the goat is a boyfriend, is sent to the big city and finally helps poor Klara, who is in a wheelchair, to learn to walk again. You may know history.

Do Swiss children live like Heidi? No! Heidi’s story is quite old, it was written in 1880. Very few Swiss live in the mountains and tend goats there. However, “Heidi” is still topical in many things and a great story!

Migrant children in Switzerland

Migrant children in Switzerland go to special schools more often and find an apprenticeship more difficult than children of Swiss people. There are also fewer migrant children studying at universities.

It depends on where the children’s parents come from. If the families come from Germany, France or Austria, they are often successful. If the families come from Turkey, Portugal or from countries in the Balkans, they often have to face disadvantages. Often they have language problems and their parents cannot support them as the parents of the local children do.

However, here – as in Germany – the question is whether the children’s parents themselves have a good education. Then the chances are very similar again. However, some critics in Switzerland accuse the government of doing too little to support the children. For example, they should receive language lessons much earlier. In the absence of this, many children take their poor start into their school career with them.

Are all Swiss rich?

Swiss children live just as differently as German children. They fare a little differently in the country than in the city. If the parents have money, a child grows up in prosperity, if the parents are poor, it has to be satisfied with a lot less.

Now Switzerland is actually a rich country, there are fewer poor people. Average earnings in Switzerland are higher than in Germany. Switzerland is doing well economically and so are many families. But there are also social differences in Switzerland. So there are people who make more money and people who have less money to spend.

But the cost of living, i.e. the cost of rent and food, for leisure and culture, is higher than in Germany. Therefore, even in a rich country like Switzerland, it still depends on which family a child is born into.

There are children whose parents cannot afford a vacation, a car or extras, children who have little money to go to the movies or buy an expensive cell phone. There are children in the country who have to help out on the farm at home and live in nature and maybe go to a village school there. There are children in the big city who live just like children in Frankfurt, Berlin or Hamburg.

Sporty, sporty these Swiss

Switzerland is the ideal country for outdoor sports, i.e. sports that can be practiced outdoors. It starts with hiking and of course skiing and mountaineering are also part of it. If you don’t want to go straight into the mountains, you can also try out the many climbing gardens or climbing halls, as there are quite a few in Switzerland.

For children, gliding or ballooning is less interesting, at most as a passenger, but rafting, canoeing or canyoning is also practiced by younger children. This is not entirely harmless, but very adventurous and possible in the many Alpine regions with rivers.

Since Switzerland and Austria hosted the soccer World Cup in 2008, many Swiss people have been worried about soccer fever. As always, when a sport has a national star, many follow suit. Roger Federer is a world-famous tennis player, so that so many little Swiss romp around on the country’s tennis courts.

Typical Switzerland

In every country there are customs that are simply different from ours. In neighboring countries in particular, people look very carefully. Where are the similarities, where are the differences?

Open doors

In Switzerland it is a matter of courtesy to hold the door open for a person coming behind you, even if they are a few meters away from the door. Slamming the door right in front of someone is considered extremely rude. Actually, that was also the case with us once, but many no longer adhere to it.

Air-raid shelter

Many houses in Switzerland have an air raid shelter. That is actually true, there are also houses without, but then direct reference is made to the next bunker. In these bunkers there are toilets, blankets, sleeping bags, clothes, iodine tablets and even rubbish bags. Everything is thought of here. Anyone who owns such a bunker hopes to find refuge here for a certain time in the event of a disaster. Let’s hope the bunkers never have to be visited.

What is Migros?

With us you might go shopping at Rewe or Edeka or at Allnatura or at Aldi, Lidl or Netto. But in which supermarket do people in Switzerland shop? At Migros. Migros is a supermarket chain. There are of course many others too, but Migros stands for Switzerland and, above all, for quality.

By the way, alcohol and tobacco are not allowed to be sold here to this day. That was the will of the original founder, who was called Gottlieb Duttweiler, and who founded the first business in Switzerland. This trading business still exists in Switzerland today, but now also abroad.

Brush teeth

The Swiss brush their teeth more often. In Switzerland, a lot of people brush their teeth in the offices during their lunch break. Perhaps it is because it is almost impossible to pay for teeth insurance in Switzerland and people have to pay the dental costs themselves? Prevention is better than paying. In this way, children learn very early how important it is to brush their teeth for dental health. Perhaps we should take the Swiss as a good example on this point?

Switzerland Everyday Life