Parenting: Cameron's childhood adviser says we're all getting it wrong. Is she right?

Agree with ivykaty and others too that there is a bizarre contradiction and lack of focus in her raising of these two completely different issues.

All they have in common IMHO is their position on the fringe of relevance

I have just read that only around 10% of the UK population earn over £50k.

Ten percent. Just ten.

That means the majority of the population earn below this amount.

Bubble you say???

She has a point, my own children do activities 3 nights a week and all Saturday afternoon and they are by no means doing the most organised activities amongst their peers, I feel It's a cop out performed by middle class parents who over compensate for the lack of interest they have in their children, too many parents just can't be arsed to be with their own kids for more than 5mins.

Lets face it though what I've described above is far from the worst style of parenting.

What research do you agree with? She hasn't done any as far as I can tell.

She is a financial manager who worked in the city, took 7 years off as a SAHM and has been in this job for one month.

I don't see how it's not part of sharing views in a democracy to write them on here. It's more convenient at 22.46 at night when I've had a glass of wine than driving round to number 10 personally and having a word with the PM. And you never know both he and Mrs Perry may just get to hear about said views this way anyhow. Stranger things have happened !

i dunno i agree with her research so far and i am not a tory

Great quote from Justine there- hear hear!

germy Claire is entitled to her opinion, as are we all, but the difference between her and us is that she is PAID (by our taxes) to give her advice, and it should therefore be based on evidence. She hasn't 'published her findings', because she hasn't 'found' anything, since she hasn't done any research.

nope the majority of the population are in the middle

bemused why you find such humour in that

Surely the middle class and lower class make up the majority of the population.

Not sure how thats a bubble. Since when was the high earner bracket the real world.

Sorry but :o :o :o at that notion.

We fill every moment of our children's lives with organised activities,
Most parents are too busy,

so which one is it?

It can't be both as they contradict each other - either we keep are children so busy that they never have time for anything else or the parents are to busy we don't know what they are doing - but it sure as hell can't be both at once.

Things will get worse with the UC as then parents will not be around at all to actually parent their children - for 13 weeks a year children will need to parent themselves

Then of course the parents will be blamed for letting there children run riot whilst the parents work - well thats what the government want - parents to work full time and not be with their children once they are over 5 years old. Which is fine but then don't blame parents for not being around to actually parent

i sometimes wish mn could view the world away from their middle class/or lower class bubbles

it's an all or nothing stance on here - anyone trying to have a say if shouted down as claire is here

are any of you willing to take to the plate and have your view, you can you know, we live in a democracy where you can too be claire and have your voices heard or are you just happy to sit behind a PC bleating and critising those you do.

maybe not, but i don't think claire was thinking about mnetters when she published her findings.

I don't agree that it would be a totally useless thing for her to say ....

IMHO many parents sadly do not realise the value of sharing attention with your child on whatever they are focused on in that moment as a fundamental way of developing their learning and language skills.

To put it another way, too many children are ignored too much of the time

Oh just seen Justine's quote. Hooray for Justine!

Couldn't have said it better myself!

Whoops posted too soon could go on and on but on phone - will check in later but was VERY pleased to see this advisor speaking do much sense. It's a new thing - my parenting experiences spam 20 years and its far far worse now than ten years ago...

I found the first part offensive.

What she seems to be saying is this;

some teens do so much swimming, tennis, French and piano that mummy forgets to teach them how to cook or wash their clothes. They have such a terrible first team at university they just live on beans on toast!!! Awful!!

If only I (and 85% of country had those problems!).

As for the second part, I would like to see govt also look at options against accessibility of porn rather than solely blaming parents.

I fundamentally agree with her. Down the line. I see so much ferrying about of children for instance whilst people pull sad faves at my ten year old wanting to walk home alone!!
At the other end of the scale my university- child aged parents with the phone pinging every five minutes because Johhnnies got a cold - probably because he can't eat properly because he can't cook clean or wash his own clothes at 21

but that a totally useless thing for her to say! mn does make me laugh so quick to jump in with an opinion yet so oblivious to the real world

She could say that it's good to give your children some attention and focus on their interests and what's important to them - to try to make sure that each of your DC's gets some time to talk with you on a regular basis.
Lots of good, basic, straight-forward, encouraging, (and well researched and evidenced) parenting advice she could share with us all for children's benefit ....
instead of these random ramblings

Then she could pick up on some of those fundamental issues that affect us all as parents that Justine mentioned .... and actually do some things to help.

But she's probably in the wrong party to be interested in that !

perhaps she will now mn has given her such a negative reception

She should be looking at the ways the governments policies are affecting children in real terms.

Quality of state education, child poverty, high housing costs and how that leads to overcrowding and children being brought up in houses that arent fit for purpose. I could go on.

so that's offensive to you?

perhaps she will cover more 'important' issues as well. thought what she said was quite interesting myself, we do need to worry about what they can access online

so what should she be saying and doing?

Because you have missed all the posts saying that people would prefer she tackled real issues. Some people here agree with her. I do to an extent.

But my grievance is not just with what she has said, its not close to the truth. My grievance is with what she hasnt said. The issues she isnt raising.

offended? how?