Swedish norms/standards

There are many immigrants in Sweden, and because of that it can be difficult for many to understand the Swedish standards, it doesn’t have to do. But it can happen.

Like for example in the United States people usually don’t take off their shoes before entering someone's home.

But in Sweden you do that, you take off your shoes at the door. WHY? Because we like to keep it clean.

It is also usual to shake hands with people you haven’t met before, for exempel in a meeting, or if you're going to the dentist. The doctor usually always shake hands and say what name he or she has. And then you just do the same thing, you shake hands and say your name.

It’s important to be in time when you go to a meeting for example, you ususally go there 10 or 5 minutes earlier.

The people in Sweden are mostly nice, but we don’t get too close to someone we know and we aren’t very active when we’re talking. And with that I mean that we don’t really use body language. We keep a certain distance with other people we’re talking to. And we speak very quiet. 

We also don’t talk to strangers, that’s something you learn when you are a kid.

For example if you sit on the bus and you see an old lady standing up because there is no place to sit, then someone usually go up and let the lady sit down instead.

I found some questions online about standards, one of the questions was "Where do you get standards from?" And a girl wrote that she got standards of her environment, such as parents, school, as daycare / preschool teachers.

And some special norms that she thought that people should follow was that you should be courteous and helpful.

I agree with her and I also think it must be modified to learn young people(teen-agers) to have more respect for older people, there are many who need to learn to respect people more, not just teen-agers. Because respect if very important in Sweden.

All are not equal, but I still think you should try. 

I think it is important with standards it helps us know what is right or wrong. What would happen without them? Imagine if kids would throw snow balls on innocent old people just to have fun. But with the standards we have it doesn’t happen, well not what I’ve seen.

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Liridona