French are better parents?

I read in the papers today that 2-year-old French children can sit in their toddler chairs seat for 6 hours straight! They also start to sleep in their own rooms from 2 weeks onwards and learn to sleep through the night!

I was thinking like...what have the French done right?

Pamela Druckerman has a book examining why French are better parents. I believe in essence, it involves:

• High self-esteem - Beginning from pregnancy, they seek to enjoy pregnancy. They are more conscious of self, less worried about how the food that the mother eats may affect the baby, less worried if the baby is breastfed. No long pre-bedtime routines and they have evenings to themselves. It’s also common for French parents to send six-year-old children off during the summer to a colonie de vacance. They think if a mother’s whole life is devoted to the care of her child, it’s not good for the child and it’s not good for the mother. Not in the selfish way though. It is just them. They are here to enjoy life and they will not be stopped by kids.
• Treat them like adults - Kids eat what the adults eat and they have to say "bonjour" to adults.
• Authoritative - Setting hard limits. No snacks between meals, no disturbing of parents on weekend mornings, no immediate attention when they cry.
• Freedom - The French are strict on a few things but they actually give kids quite a lot of freedom. Freedom to play by themselves and to cope with frustrations and boredom.

Less is more yet again.