Government on a “lets fix the parents” gig again

MP thinks parenting GCSE could tackle ‘toe rag parents’

Apparently the answer to all our problems now lies in a GCSE in parenting !

Frank Field (the government poverty tsar) believes Parenting skills should be taught in schools to address a “vicious downward spiral” of broken families in the UK.

The Labour MP for Birkenhead, fears many children are being dragged down by what he calls “toe rag parents”. His solution, outlined in his first report to the Prime Minister, is to place parenting at the heart of the national school curriculum.

Writing in the Daily Mail on Tuesday, the MP said Britain was facing a social crisis because of the huge number of families who “live in a state of permanent squalor, chaos and hostility”.

Read more MP thinks parenting GCSE could tackle ‘toe rag parents’

Developing your children’s talent

Your Children’s Talent

I have just read the most fantastic book;The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You’ve Been Told About Genes, Talent and Intelligence is Wrong: The New Science of Genes, Talent and Human Potential by David Shenk

Basically, this book turns on its head everthing we think we know about genius and talent. It reminds me of another great book called The Outliers, but this to me is much more practical. The premise of the book is that it is not our genetics that make us smart, but our genetics multiplied by our environment. What I love most about this book is that you read it, thinking thay you could do anything if only you could put your mind to it. It is a book that makes you feel you can rather than you can’t.

The book introuduces the concept of what it call Dynamic Development, stating that we do not develop just as our genes predict we should, but we develop in relation to our environment, including how we are parented, what we eat and what is expected of us.

The book clearly states that talent is the outcome of persistence and uses many example to explain this using the fabled 10,000 hour rule. The author suggests that persitence is the difference between medioracy and enourmous success. He suggests that developing a talent is a dynamic system and a process which is affected by our state, the intensity to which we train our mindset, how we respond to failure, the strategies we adopt and more importantly, the time we put in. He explains in the book how our development has plasticity and is not set in stone, which I believe is a message we all need to hear.

So, what is his advice to parents in supporting their children’s talent development?

1. Speak to your children and speak often. Talking, as the Hart and Risley study shows, can improve academic performance.

2. Have a stimulating environment – children that grow in stimulating environments are most likely to become more intelligent.

3. Nurture and encourage. By the time a child in a professional family is five years old it has heard 560,000 encouraging words. In comparison, a child from a working class family has only heard 100,000, while a child from a welfare family has received 100,000 words of discouragement.

4, Set high expectations that stretch your child

5. Embrace failure

6, Encouarge a growth mindset.

There is also a whole piece in this book on how to help children with delayed gratifcation, but I will save that for another post.

Just get this book, it is great!

Drugs- Teen Talk with Sarah & Lisa at Fink TV

Talking to your Teens about Drugs

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My Teen Won’t listen to my advice.

Parenting Teens

My Teen will not listen to me what should I do?

Parenting advice from The Hoff

Forgive yourself- You are Human.

OK, I have to admit it, I am a Living TV fan and since watching “At Home with the Hasselhoffs”, have become a Hoff Fan. I know it is sad, but there was just something about watching Michael Hasselhoff on holiday with his family which felt unscripted and real and a welcome break from all other TV shows. It is so nice to see a star really cherishing his family and wanting to spend time with them. I thought it was a real triumph for the family vibe, despite what you think of him.

I loved what he said at the end of the show…

“My job is to be a great parent, but it is not easy as I am human!”

I thought that said it all….it is hard and our only job ever really is to be a good parent. It reminds me of another quote (I cannot remember who said it!)

“Today I only have to fail better than I did yesterday”

I love this as it takes away the need to be perfect, which we all love!

As long as we don’t make the same mistake again and again, life is good.

Bad teens ‘not fault of parents’

Bad behaviour among teenagers is not the fault of parenting getting worse, say researchers.

Finally some sense coming from the UK. A recent study has found – shock horror! Bad teens may not be down to bad parenting.

The study found:

70% of young people were regularly spending time with their mothers in 2009 compared to 62% in 1986 – and the time spent with fathers had risen from 47% to 52%.

Parents are also  more likely to have a tighter control on their children’s movements.

In 1986, 79% of  parents expected to know where their children were going, which had risen to  85% in 2009.

There was also an increase in parents wanting to know what their teenage children were doing – up from 47% to 66%.

However, researchers found that young people were increasingly reliant on their parents, living with them  for longer, which can make parenting more stressful.

There had been a  particular increase in depression among parents in one-parent and low-income  families – with a 50% increase in parents of the poorest families with  depression between 1986 and 2009.

“It seems  that many aspects of parenting may have improved, but parents can’t do it all on their own”, said Professor Gardner. “We now  have to consider whether external influences, such as peer pressure or wider cultural influences are playing a part, given the rising number of young people  with problem behaviour in the UK today,” he added.

However I have a word of caution here. Firstly, are the sort of families that spend quality time
with their kids the sort of families where bad behaved teens come from? Secondly, is it that we are spending more time or is it that we are hovering and not giving our children freedom to be kids?

What do you think?

Read Bad teens ‘not fault of parents’

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