Six weeks of summer holidays are coming. Most working parents have four, maybe five weeks of vacation a year, and not all of it goes to summer. The gap is real, and it’s a topic in every Basel family by mid-May at the latest. If your child is soccer-obsessed, at least one question gets easier:

Every Basel parent gets the question at some point, usually from a 4-year-old kicking a ball in the kitchen: “Can I play football like the big kids?” The short answer is that five or six is when most children are ready for organised soccer in Switzerland,but readiness matters more than the number on the birthday