Parents have always been subjected to advice from many quarters, from their in-laws and other relatives, from friends, in modern times from the media as well, and in the past few decades from governments using professionals to prescribe a variety of “desirable” parenting behaviours. Inevitably this advice has influenced parenting and has thus contributed to forming the next generation.
Recently two writers have questioned the pressures that parents put on their children in response to the new ethos of parents attempting to guide every aspect of their children’s lives, and asked whether or not these are beneficial.
The precious gift of parental neglect Carol Sarler described this precious gift in an article in The Times. She cited a study by University College London which concluded that children who are let out to play unsupervised will grow up to be healthier because such children are more active and less likely to become obese; such children will also become more socially competent because they learn independence and self-reliance.. She questioned the value of the government document “Children’s Plan’, which prescribes a variety of ways of increasing adult involvement in children’s lives, with more support services, high quality cultural activities and supervised adventure playgrounds, among a host of other proposals for intervening in children’s lives.
To those who claim that close parental involvement in controlling children’s behaviours is necessary because of an increase in public risk for the children, Sarler pointed to the reality that there is instead a huge increase in artificially stimulated alarm, boosted by occasional dreadful incidents that are used an excuse to impose yet more adult intrusiveness. (She cites the average chance of abductions and murders by strangers in the UK at six a year, a figure which has hardly changed over the decades.)
The author said she was not suggesting that children should be allowed to run feral, but argued that there is a difference between intervention when needed and interference as a default position.
“Helicopter parenting” questioned Another writer, Sarah Womack, social affairs correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, focused on the concept of “helicopter parenting” as stifling the modern child. This applies particularly to the ‘kids of privilege’, according to the creator of the helicopter concept, the American clinical psychologist Madeleine Levine. Meanwhile a UK headmistress, Vicky Tuck, has spoken of the mobile phone having become the world’s longest umbilical cord. Other experts say that the concept of “smother love” has become pervasive today, combined with the mistaken belief that children will only develop if they are constantly active.
Mention could also have been made of two other government documents, “Every Child Matters” and “Every Parent Matters”, both of which have many good points but fail to recognise the importance of empowering parents and encouraging them to take more initiative in rearing their children, rather than leaving most of it to be done by professionals or in response to professional advice, at considerable expense to the State.
With the maze of conflicting advice offered to parents, some try to follow the advice, even when their instincts urge caution. Other parents simply decide to ignore all the advice and do whatever their instincts tell them. Neither approach offers a good solution to the challenging task of rearing and educating tomorrow’s citizens. Currently the least popular but probably most effective option is that of empowering the parents, offering them the information they may need but also the encouragement to work out their own solutions to most if not all their problems.
Ref. empowerment 006, ECDC. Sources: Carol Sarler (Times, 27.12.2007), Sarah Womack (Telegraph, 26.12.2007), other press reports and the three briefly cited Government documents. 12.07.
Copyright: ECDC/PCEO Bristol UK 2008
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