Dam Parenting

The school bag is back out. The new lunch box is ready. And somewhere between the airport and the front door, your child tried to say something in Dutch — and it didn't come as easily as it did before you left. Does that mean something has gone wrong? Did six weeks speaking your home language undo years of work?
In this episode of Dam Parenting, Eva sits down with multilingualism specialist Mimi - from Growing Up Multilingual— back for another episode of their ongoing multilingualism series — to talk through one of the most common end-of-summer anxieties in international families: the moment the school language feels rusty.
They cover:
— What is actually happening in your child's brain after weeks in a different linguistic environment
— Why reduced activation is completely different from language loss
— What parents do that makes the transition harder (and what actually helps)
— How to talk to your child about the shift so they understand it
— and stop interpreting it as failure
— When to genuinely worry, and when to simply stay steady
Mimi also addresses younger children, preschoolers, and families whose children are starting school in Dutch for the first time this September — and what they need to know before day one.
This episode is for every multilingual family in the Netherlands returning from the homeland, heading into a new school year, and quietly wondering: are we okay? Yes. You are. And here's why. Dam Parenting is the weekly English-language podcast for international families navigating life in the Netherlands. New episodes every Wednesday.

This episode is brought to you by MamaSocial , because navigating motherhood far from home is so much better with the right women around you. Events and spaces for mothers of all backgrounds, right here in the Netherlands.

You moved here. You built a life. And somewhere along the way, you started carrying something you couldn't quite name.
In this episode, clinical psychologist and trauma therapist Adina Petre joins us to break down 7 types of trauma that show up specifically in expat and international family life — the ones that don't look like trauma from the outside, but quietly shape everything.
We cover: relocation grief, cultural identity loss, generational trauma, birth trauma in a foreign healthcare system, parenting without your support network, the psychological cost of living in a second language, and vicarious trauma in a world that won't stop delivering bad news.
This episode won't overwhelm you. It will give you words. And sometimes — that's exactly what's needed.
Share it with someone who needs the language.
Adina Petre: adinapetre.com
Follow us: @damparentingpodcast

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