Dam Parenting

After Wednesdays school lunch episodes, i have recieved several DM's asking for hints and tips about schools - and without asking everyone to go back listeniing to the numerous episodes we already have in our archive - I decided to magpie this episode, and grab a selection of learnings from previous episodes and also add in a few of my own.

In the Netherlands children start basisschool the day after their fourth birthday, so your child may walk into a class that's already formed. This episode covers what to expect in groep 1 and 2, what to send them in, and what to do in those first overwhelming weeks — for parents new to the Dutch system and for anyone heading back after the six-week summer holiday.

WHAT'S IN THIS EPISODE
- The Dutch school words nobody translates: groep 1, 2 and 3, kleuters, juf and meester, wennen, BSO, TSO, luizenzak, het tien-uurtje, gymles
- Why gym day means your kleuter may be asked to strip to their underwear
- Clothes, shoes, rain gear and mittens — Isabel Cruz's four practical rules
- Leerplicht: your four-year-old is not legally required to be at school until they turn five, and what that means for half days and BSO
- The summer slide, and why groep 1 and 2 have nothing to catch up on
- What to say at pickup instead of "how was your day"
- What to do when your child says someone was mean to them

QUICK ANSWERS
What is groep 1? The first year of Dutch primary school, for four-year-olds. Groep 1 and 2 run almost entirely on play; formal reading and writing start in groep 3.
What is wennen? Settling-in practice mornings before your child officially starts. Ask your school how many they offer.
What is BSO? Buitenschoolse opvang — after-school care, booked and waitlisted separately from school.
When does school become compulsory? Leerplicht starts at five, from the first school day of the month after your child's fifth birthday.
When do Dutch schools go back? Summer holidays are staggered across three regions, so return dates differ by where you live.

MENTIONED
Isabel Cruz, Kaleidoscope Consulting — school choice and school-readiness workshops in Amsterdam
Faye Poole, child psychologist — the emotional support and "someone was mean" frameworks
Melody, Petit Gourmet Academy — our school lunch box episode, where she went through eleven real listener lunch boxes
Our paediatric dentist episode — why you're still brushing their teeth for them at nine
It's a scramble of an episode at 9pm on a Friday night, but I hope it answers an unasked question for you.
Tell me what I've missed: @damparentingpodcast on Instagram, or damparentingpodcast@gmail.com

What do you actually put in a Dutch school lunch box? Parents at an Amsterdam school sent in 11 photos of their children's real lunch and snack boxes, and children's nutritionist Mélody goes through three of them with us — what's working, what a child's body genuinely needs to get through a school day, and what she'd change.
This one is for you whether your child starts school next week starts next month, or next year. We cover what balance actually means across a week rather than in a single box, why the Dutch fruitpauze does more work than parents realise, why the water-only rule at most Dutch schools is a support rather than a restriction, and whether the classic broodje kaas is nutritionally fine. Spoiler: it is.
We also talk about what happens when your food culture doesn't match the Dutch one — warm lunches versus sandwiches — and what to do when your child comes home asking for the same thing everyone else has. Plus three staples for the morning you have five minutes, why children under five shouldn't have nuts, and Melody's three professional permission slips for parents carrying too much already.
All 11 lunch boxes are on our Instagram, @damparentingpodcast. Part of DAM Parenting's August back-to-school series for international and expat families in the Netherlands.

DAM Parenting says the stuff out loud that you might be thinking — just in your headphones, on your own time, when you're not quite ready to say it to anyone else yet.
In episode 4 of DAM Sex, Eva is back with sex and intimacy counsellor Debby Poort to talk about something that doesn't get said enough — and not in the way it usually gets said. Sex is good for you. Not as a favour to your partner. Not because it's been a while. For you. Your sleep. Your cortisol. Your sense of yourself as a person who exists in a body that belongs to you.
They get into the actual science — cardiovascular benefits, dopamine, oxytocin, endorphins, and yes, headaches — and then into the harder question: how do you share that with someone who is depleted, running on empty, and already feeling like everything is a should?
Debby also unpacks responsive desire and the crucial difference between willingness and wanting — including the very real risk of responsive desire being used as pressure, and why that misses the point entirely. They talk about what it takes to reconnect to desire that has genuinely gone quiet — not just low, but offline — and whether it ever really comes back.
Plus: why couples stop touching each other completely, the fear underneath non-sexual touch, the couples who stopped initiating without a single fight about it, and why there is always a reason — even when brain fog means you can't remember what it was.
And Debby shares details of her free welcome course at sexandintimacycounseling.nl — no appointment needed, no commitment, just a place to start.
Find Debby Poort: yellowwood.nl
Got a question for Debby? DM us on Instagram or email damparentingpodcast@gmail.com

What do you do when the school you want for your child simply doesn't exist? If you're Tim and Camilla, co-founders of Seeker — you build it.
Seeker is a brand new private bilingual Dutch-English Montessori primary school opening in Eindhoven this September. And the children starting now? They are the founding class — the ones who will set the tone, the culture, and the standard for every child who comes after them.
In this episode, Eva talks to Tim about what was missing in Eindhoven for international families, what it actually takes to open a private school inside the Dutch education system, why the inspectie only shows up after you open your doors, and what it means to ask families to trust something that has no history yet — because it's about to become history.
A short, feel-good summer episode about the audacity of building something from nothing.
Find Seeker at seeker.education

Eindhoven | Bilingual Dutch-English | Montessori | Ages 4–6 | Opening September 2026
Part of Dam Parenting's ongoing series on schools, systems, and raising children in the Netherlands.

You're away for the six weeks of school holiday in your home country. Maybe you dropped your children off and came back to work. Or you're staring down the new school year starting soon with a child who has barely spoken Dutch all summer — and a quiet worry that something has slipped.This episode is for all of it.
Eva sits down with multilingualism specialist Mimi from Growing up Mulltilingual for a wide-ranging conversation about the language anxiety that follows multilingual families through summer — whether that's a child who goes quiet in the home language when they arrive at the grandparents', a child returning to the Netherlands after weeks abroad wondering if their Dutch is still there, or a family heading into September with a child who has barely spoken the school language in months.
They cover what actually happens to language when the environment changes, why reduced activation is completely different from language loss, what the silent period really means, and the BICS versus CALP distinction that reframes what fluency actually looks like in a child.
BICS (Social Language): The conversational language used in casual, face-to-face, or everyday interactions (e.g., chatting on the playground, ordering food). Because it is highly contextualized, learners typically master this within 6 months to 2 years of immersion
CALP (Academic Language): The specialized, context-reduced language required to succeed in classroom subjects and professional settings (e.g., reading textbooks, writing essays, solving math problems). It takes significantly longer to develop—typically 5 to 7 years.
Mimi also has something important to say about the child who compares themselves to monolingual cousins and feels behind — and why that comparison is never a fair one.
For multilingual families in the Netherlands navigating summer, the homeland, and the return to the academic year.