Originally Posted by cricketman

The most important thing for children is a balanced and loving family.

However, growing up in Spain is good for feeling loved and for social skills because Spanish society is very loving, caring and sociable. These are very important values to create happy adults

It's not so good for developing those skills that are so useful in a 21stC capitalist society i.e. individualism, drive, entrepreneurship - and the education system is a mess

Originally Posted by Moses2013

But what would be different to kids growing up in a rural part of Germany or France where people help each other? Even where we live in Ireland you can find loving families and all the kids in the neighbourhood have manners.

Originally Posted by cricketman

I can only compare the UK and Spain

I haven't grown up in any of those other countries!

By the way, I live in the middle of a city. Very few children live rurally in Spain

As for the comment about "kids have manners". That wasn't what I was saying at all. And of course, whatever "manners" are depends entirely on the social context