If you're relocating the whole family, consider how each member feels about the move. If you have school-age children, especially teenagers, how will they adapt? Just because you like the idea of living in a foreign country or a small village doesn't mean your children will. Then again, they might view it as the adventure of a lifetime.
Children will have to be registered for school, of course. Placement is up to school authorities, but parents will take an interest in their children's education. While teachers consider themselves the masters of their classrooms, they also need to know something about their pupils. They may have suggestions about ways parents can help their children become acclimated to a different language, culture, and educational system.
Being involved in your child's schooling is also a good way to meet people. Just before noon and again at 5 p.m., parents gather outside the school to wait for their children and chat with each other. In small villages, there may only be a primary school. Pupils will be bussed to college (middle school) and lycée (high school) in larger towns.
Enrolling your child in sports is a good way to help them make friends, but it's important to know that sports are separate from education in France. (The Sorbonne doesn't have a tennis or a soccer team.) Athletics are organized through the community, rather than the schools.
Soccer, volleyball, judo, tennis, and basketball are all popular for both girls and boys. Players are organized by age into leagues. Another popular game is handball. It is played on a court the size of a basketball or tennis court with a hockey-like goal and a ball the size of a big grapefruit. Teams of players dribble and pass the ball, as in basketball, and score when they throw the ball into the goal. Once the player with the ball faces the opposing goalie, defense is almost impossible—but it's great exercise running up and down the court.
Rugby, the closest the French come to American football, is popular in the south and usually an exciting game to watch, as well as to play. While golf courses remain few and far between, tennis courts and community swimming pools are quite common, even in small villages.
