The prime minister will call for a revolution in child rearing this weekend by suggesting that all parents should attend classes on how to discipline their children. As part of a speech on the family, Cameron will announce plans for a parenting classes voucher scheme, claiming that all parents need help and that there is too little state-sponsored guidance on offer.
Ideally, of course, people would come to these classes of their own free will, but if one has to pay them, then for this crucial purpose, no amount is too much to spend.
For all the useless chatter about family values, nobody is all that invested into actually doing anything to achieve familial happiness. People put in a lot of effort into planning and organizing their careers, yet their family lives are supposed somehow to work out on their own. As a result, they come home from work and slide into yelling, screaming, bitterness, sourness, misery and discomfort. And if they have to be prodded into dedicating a few hours to thinking about what it is thar poisons their family lives and turns their children into sad little neurotics, then so be it.
Clarissa's Blog 
People put in a lot of effort into planning and organizing their careers, yet their family lives are supposed somehow to work out on their own. As a result, they come home from work and slide into yelling, screaming, bitterness, sourness, misery and discomfort. And if they have to be prodded into dedicating a few hours to thinking about what it is that poisons their family lives and turns their children into sad little neurotics, then so be it.
If nothing, being shown an alternative way of functioning is powerful. I think most people fall back on whatever default they’ve seen growing up in their own families, which is a major reason I don’t want to be a parent.
However, I see this announcement going over like a lead balloon.
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Exactly, just talking about alternatives can be very useful.
People who devour self-improvement books and websites in all areas of their lives flip out when being confronted with the idea of applying this approach to this area. The reason for that is clear: as you are saying, they see what they learned in their own families as the default option and questioning that would entail placing their parents under critical scrutiny. And that’s the hardest work human psyche can actually do. People will live in absolute hell in order not to wonder whether mommy and daddy were, indeed, all that perfect.
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It’s something I think about now that all of my grandparents are gone. You would think privately, my aunts, uncles and my parents would admit to at least some foibles. They are all demigods, and they’ll obliviously tell some story unaware of how horrible it seems. For my family, the story of my grandfather and his sandals is just a charming anecdote about how strict my great grandfather is.
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My mother narrates the story of how her father beat his adult daughter black and blue because he heard a rumor she had a boyfriend as if it were some sort of a funny occurrence. So yes, I know what you are talking about!
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The first problem I can think of with Cameron’s proposal is that it’s being made by cameron an ex Eton schoolboy – behaviour and punishment in such posh schools is on the basis of who is wealthiest, not generally who’s the worst behaved.
My second problem – who is qualified to teach these classes?
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I’m sure Cameron himself will not be teaching the classes. 🙂
The classes should be taught by mental health professionals, social workers, pediatricians, teachers. There is an army of child psychologists who wouldn’t mind some extra work.
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I should hope Cameron wasn’t going to be teaching the classes, given he accidentally left his own child behind in the pub. And there’s no way anyone with the above qualifications will be doing it as the pay will be as low as possible.
The sole purpose of these classes is to divert attention from the Government’s cuts which are sinking huge numbers of children into deep poverty.
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Nobody needs any special qualifications to inform parents that children are separate human beings with needs of their own.
I honestly don’t understand how anybody can oppose such a laudable initiative. What, it’s better to do nothing at all?
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Cameron offers an incomplete idea for dealing with a very real problem. Arguably, raising children in this day is more complicated than driving a car or even flying a plane, yet we require special training and certification for those activities.
Unfortunately, I think most parents hand down negative examples — showing what not to do, rather than what to do.
Unfortunately, I also agree with Sug’s question about who would be competent to teach courses in parenting. There are a goodly number among mental health professionals, teachers, etc., who would be profoundly inappropriate.
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Even just transmitting the idea that it’s not ok to beat, yell at, humiliate, control, criticize and force children to eat would already be a huge big deal. And nobody needs extreme sophistication to deliver this message.
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