In this solo podcast episode, Kay Xander Mellish explores how Danish children learn to be Danish, beginning with the first day of school in August and extending back to early childhood education. She describes the ceremonial welcome for new schoolchildren, the widespread and often mandatory use of daycare for toddlers, and the core values emphasized in Danish preschools—independence, responsibility, inclusion, and empathy—while noting that formal literacy and numeracy are delayed until age six or later. Mellish shares personal anecdotes from her summer work in municipal preschools, detailing the physical environment, educational eating practices, and everyday interactions with children. She then discusses Denmark’s child‑friendly policies (generous parental leave, universal daycare, free fertility treatment) alongside the nation’s declining fertility rate, speculating that long educational requirements and high housing costs may be factors. The episode concludes with cultural observations of how children are celebrated in public spaces and a call‑to‑action for listeners to book her presentations or purchase her books.
Chapters
Hello and welcome to the How to Live in Denmark podcast. I'm Kay Xander Mellish. August in Denmark is the beginning of fall. The summer strawberries disappear from the supermarkets, the leaves start to turn brown on the trees, and the primary schools open again after their usual brief 6-week summer vacation. This month, some young Danes will be starting school for the very first time. They're usually welcomed with a ceremony that includes Danish flags, speeches, and songs. Their parents attend and take a lot of photos on the first day of school. This was something I unfortunately didn't know when my own daughter had her first day of school in Denmark. She'd already been going to playground classes there, so on the first official academic day, I just dropped her off at school as if it were an ordinary day. And there was nobody there to take her picture. Such is being a foreigner and not knowing the local customs. She still brings it up to this day. Anyway, it's hard to understand Danish culture without understanding early Danish childhood education, which doesn't begin in school. It begins when children are toddlers. Almost every child enters Danish daycare at 12 to 18 months, after the parents finish their 1-year childbirth leave. Daycare in Denmark isn't free. It costs up to 5,000 crowns a month in Copenhagen, for example, about $800 US, although the price is lower for low-income people. And daycare is actually mandatory. For some of the poor. If you live in a socially marginalized district, usually a district with high crime and a large immigrant population, your child must attend daycare for at least 25 hours per week in order to receive your child check welfare payments. This is so all kids learn the Danish language and Danish values right from the start. What are those values? Independence and self-sufficiency. You learn to put on your own shoes and jacket. Responsibility. You learn how to clean up after yourself. You learn group spirit, inclusion. You learn conflict resolution, empathy. Preschools in Denmark don't teach kids to read and often don't even teach them letters and numbers. That doesn't happen until they start school at age 6, and Danish kids generally don't learn to read until they are 7 or 8 years old. Basic math has to wait as well. I've been spending a lot of time with Danish children lately. As you know, I make my living giving speeches about Danish working culture to corporate groups or academics, but in the summer I like to take on other jobs and learn about Danish working culture from the inside. This summer I've been working at several preschools that serve ages 3 to 6— a great age to work with. They're old enough to be verbal and express interesting ideas, but not so old that they are flæbet, which is the Danish word for sassy, talking back. The Danish government spends enormous resources on kids, in particular preschool kids. One of the preschools where I work, owned by the Copenhagen municipality, is built just for that purpose, with high ceilings and big windows, a seemingly infinite number of toys, 5 separate playgrounds with trees and sandboxes, a pillow room for jumping around on rainy days, and a well-equipped art room, and an extensive kitchen where professional cooks prepare meals. One day this summer, we had a very nice baked salmon with rice and broccoli, followed by a snack of fresh strawberries, granola, and yogurt. We adults practice educational eating, which means we eat lunch with the small children to work on their table manners and appropriate table conversation. We teach them that it's important to talk about things that interest everyone, Like, what's your favorite ice cream? Or, which is better, trains or motorcycles? And we teach them to avoid chatter about things that are only interesting to you, like, my pants are so wet. That's not good table conversation. Of course, I once made the mistake of leading a one-sided conversation myself. We were talking about masks, and I mentioned masks as part of the COVID lockdowns. Before realizing that I was the only person at the table who had been born during the COVID lockdowns. Denmark is a very good place to be a child and to have children, yet the birth rate is dropping, as it is in so many other countries. Some preschools have shut down due to lack of kids. Just this year, Denmark reached a population of 6 million, a big landmark for a little country. But that's mostly due to immigration, not more children being born. All the initiatives that international experts recommend for increasing fertility already exist in Denmark, like child checks for parents, long parental leaves after childbirth, good universal daycare, and tax-funded healthcare. The Danish government even offers free fertility treatment for the first and second child. And it offers this to single women as well as committed couples. Yet fertility is well below replacement levels at about 1.5 children per woman in 2024. Why are there not more babies? My guess is long educational requirements for both men and women, plus high housing prices in the big cities. But Denmark is still a very child-friendly culture. There's nothing more Danish than a long line of small children on a field trip from kindergarten, walking along the sidewalk in their bright vests, each holding hands with a buddy, while an adult desperately tries to make sure that they don't run into traffic. I've been one of those adults, and it is amazing how many smiles and waves we get from passersby. From kids just a few years older who remember their own kindergarten days, from old ladies wheeling their shopping along, from workmen in vans who come to a full stop during their busy day to make sure all the children have crossed the street safely. Denmark likes kids, even if there are fewer kids these days. And that's the How to Live in Denmark podcast for this week. You can book me for a presentation. to your group or organization or your company, either virtual or in person, at events.howtoliveindenmark.com. You can also buy our books, How to Live in Denmark, How to Work in Denmark, at books.howtoliveindenmark.com. See you next time. See you next time.
