The parenting crisis

[digimumworld]

I’m listening to the radio, the discussion is on knife crime. A caller calls in and says that we are collectively failing our children - she’s a school governor and parent and said that teachers are scared of children and that we need to stop blaming teachers - we should ask ourselves what’s going on at home for many children and that there is a huge parenting crisis at the moment.

I actually agreed. It seems more common now for there to be very little consequence for “bad behaviour” from parents. I know a few parents that are scared of their children - or at least scared of hurting their children’s feelings; also (this is the reality for me too as a parent) it’s so so hard to monitor what they are exposed to on social media - how do we know if the content they are seeing is overriding the values we are setting?

I am a parent - I truly believe that the modern parent has so much more to consider (incase relevant).

AIBU for thinking maybe there is a parenting crisis?

Some people are beyond that, when ss take a child into care it's the wailing oh my bairns I'll fight to get them back...why you never lifted a finger or showed interest when you had them.
There was a case in Scotland where a baby died cocaine traces were found on bottle teats and other traces of drugs around the house the baby died.
The mother texted the father..The weans deid.
200hours community service and a curfew order...wtaf her attitude showed complete disregard for her own child's life.

Do you think it’s just the influence of the internet? Anyone can find any information at their fingertips that justifies their own lazy parenting. There are many websites that reinforce late potty training and gentle parenting. Adults views aren’t influenced or challenged by their peers so easily now.

It’s a perfect storm.

Parents unable or unwilling to discipline their children.
Erosion of disciplinary powers at school.
Social media, porn, screen time.
A sense of underlying greed and corruption coupled with a lack of accountability in places of power such as government, big business, even universities it seems now. So no sense of pride or good moral code anywhere.
The cult and worship of celebrities, influencers etc who do nothing to instil examples of being good, hard working citizens.
Kids being pandered to and being given too many fucking choices.
Shit wages, cost of living and a totally unregulated, unfair housing market is also doing its bit to discourage young people from aiming higher and achieving.

It’s the schools. If you know you know

This, plus many parents are bamboozled by too much conflicting information and end up not doing any parenting technique, which is the worst option.

As long as they aren’t abusive, a non-perfect but confident parent is 1000 times better for the child than a wishy washy one.

I really don’t think modern day parent’s believe holding their children/teenagers accountable for poor behaviour is a thing. It can’t possibly be my child’s fault, no no no, it’s because of this or because of that, that my little treasure got into trouble/ was late/ had a melt down/ got detention. It’s absolute crap.

I remember being 9 and running out in front of a car near my local shops with my friend. Car nearly hit me, stopped, lady driver got out, shouted at me, asked where I lived, I told her, she told me to get in the car, took me home, knocked on the door and told my mum what had happened and my mum went berserk…..not with her…..with me, told me to apologise, and I was grounded for two weeks. I look back on that 33 years later and think about how that story would play out in 2025.

Lady would be accused of child abduction.
How dare you reprimand my child.
How dare you bring my child home in your car.
Dont speak to my child like that.
My child is ND and therefore isn’t aware of the risks of running in front of cars.
You should have been driving slower.
I’m calling the police.
I’m going to post on social media warning other local parents there is a predator around.

There is no way back. Society is broken. It’s always someone else’s fault. Parents cannot be objective about their own children any longer. If your child is behaving poorly, you should have the courage and moral obligation to call them out on it, not offset the blame to someone else.

True! Blame the teacher is the mantra. Parents do not stop to examine what their child might have done wrong. Massive parenting failure. Huge sense of entitlement amongst children and parents. It's crushing teachers and school leaders.

The voice of reason.

I don't think there is a parenting crisis, there is a mental health and education crisis, and people feel their lives have got worse in the last 15 years.

There is a way back but it involves rebuilding the education system from scratch with the child at the centre.

I agree. Throughout my children’s teen years, they’ve continuously told me that I’m stricter than ‘everyone else’s parents’ because their parents don’t care if they get a detention at school, they are allowed phones in rooms all night, they can have whatever social media they want at any age, they can stay up all night, don’t have to help around the house etc etc. The way I hear some kids speak to their parents too and not pulled up on it makes me cringe. It’s easier as a parent to give in than to do what you know is morally right and good for them but then this is where I think we’ve ended up as a society sadly.

Why it’s taken the government and society years to realise how bad mobile phones are for children too is beyond me. It was obvious to me before my kids got to the ‘magic age where you’re expected by society to buy them a smartphone’ that it was a terrible idea.

@MyUmberSeal
great post. I know exactly what you mean, we are similar ages. Something fundamental has changed since we were children. One thing that unnerves me whenever I hear it is the way some children speak to their parents, e.g. in shops - its not just demanding, its positively disdainful. Of course, I could be cheeky and answer back, or protest things were unfair, but the way some of these kids talk....its almost hateful. Fundamentally, I loved and respected my parents, and they were parents first, not my friends. Mind you, I'm from a culture where the village mentality is still very much a thing, children are generally more integrated with adult socializing, and you can bet the aunties (aunties in the general sense, related or not) would be quick with the discipline as well love and praise.

No consequences at all for bad behaviour, from toddlers. Here, on MN, a toddler attacking and biting his fellow nursery attendees, is 'testing the boundaries' or 'exploring with his mouth' and is a 'natural thing for a child to do'. Families are at fault 100%. I posted here before, my toddler brother used to kick me, I am older, so painfully and violently, that I cried. It was obvious, he did it for 'fun'. My liberal parents said nothing and I felt unable to hit him back. He got only more excited and encouraged to repeat this. Then one time with stayed with my gran, who witnessed this behaviour of his. She administered such quick justice, that I was scared for him. He was cured of his proclivity there and then. He was scared to hit anyone ever again. Interestingly, he never said a word to my parents, who I am resentful to say, concluded that 'he grew out of it'.

And so the culture wars against neurodiverse children continues.

after trashing SEN provision and sending kids to school hungry there needs to be a good culture war to shift blame.

the hate on here is disgusting.

@digimumworld

I don’t think it’s just parents - it’s also schools and local authorities, the way parents are expected to work full time, social media.

I can remember a shift in schools (about 20’years ago) to far more progressive, ‘trendy’ initiatives. E.g. doing Brain Gym for 20 mins a day was more important than maths.

There’s been a big rise in senior management being in offices, on computers , and not cohesively pulling their school together.

Children, rather than the environment, are blamed and labelled very early in their lives - and this sets off a pretty damaging ‘self fulfilling prophecy’.

Lack of boundaries and extremely poor behaviour management due to everyone being scared to what do to, being told they are wrong - or because they can’t be bothered. It’s far easier to ‘label’ the child whereas we should be questioning the environment and support given.

Supernanny got it right, but everyone think she’s dreadful now. Can’t see that their ‘ethos’ is improving the situation though…

Completely agree OP.

People forget as well that children model the behaviour of their parents. I see children at my DDs primary school who are literally having screaming matches with their parents and they are swearing at each other. God knows what they must be like in the classroom if that’s how they perceive communication to be normal at home.

On our class WhatsApp too, there was a discussion about P.E. kit as the headteacher sent out a reminder that children should be adhering to the uniform policy and not just wearing whatever they wanted for P.E. Cue the parents saying “well if she has a problem with what my kid wears, then she can call me and I’ll tell her straight”. Or how about you just fucking follow the uniform policy?!?!! My own child asks me a lot why other children are allowed to do xyz and she can’t.

We need to go back to basics. Most parents want to be good parents some just need a lot more support than others. Especially if they haven’t had the best of role models themselves or they don’t live near family support.

it takes a village to raise a child is true. We need proper investment in (non judgmental) support for families from birth onwards. Especially in the pre school years to help ensure the basics are in place.

Those parents that claim they will challenge the schools PE uniform policy are total bellend parents, they just are. Morons.

Smartphones should be 18+ only, they are absolutely wrecking young minds, and the government needs to step in because it's not fair to expect parents to do it.
So many kids are being made depressed, anxious, lonely, and politically extremely radical at ages where they should still be playing and being kids. Parents give their kids their own tablets/phones at ridiculously early ages - this tech is deeply addictive and disrupts normal brain development, but parents are personally addicted to their devices and so just want their kids easily occupied. Children don't learn frustration tolerance or to deal with difficult emotions because as soon as they have bad feelings they bury them in their tech addiction. This does not bode well for resilience. I'm not even going to go into the horror of online porn and what it's doing to kids' minds and sexualities. Smartphones have been an utter disaster for society in so many ways, and we need to protect kids from them decisively and with immediate effect.

I think the issue is that as a society we've agreed that abuse is an unacceptable way of managing children's behaviour, be it physical or verbal. This is a good thing. However, we haven't equipped parents and wider society with the tools to manage behaviour in a positive and healthy way. There is no real health visiting service now in many areas, no Sure Start and the like to help teach parents these skills. Many people now don't know how to manage challenging behaviour as the tool which was used on them is no longer acceptable.

I agree. DS graduated year 6 last year & I went to thank his teacher, who instead thanked DH & I for engaging to resolve issues, 'because it's not common'.

My cousins DC, both academically brilliant & topped year 12 scores etc fell to pieces because of a stumble. One has wailed endlessly for three years because she got a bit of constructive feedback from a uni placement. Couldn't manage a 'need to work on' comment. The other didn't get their path of choice for a free ride into a high earning career through our top uni. They got the second option but declined because it wasn't what they wanted. Everyone has coddled them & thinks they've been wronged. I recently told DM the harsh truth that they need to suck it up & move forward.

I’m not sure smartphones are THAT big a problem. The problem is when there are no boundaries.

The boundaries are the key issue rather than blaming the smartphone.

DD accesses homework, duo lingo etc, and it’s good to know we can contact her.

The key issue is teaching her about the dangers, setting boundaries, limiting what can be accessed etc. That’s the most important skill/issue - not the smartphone itself.

I think you're talking about two different things. Spoiled, entitled, lazy kids are not making a positive contribution to society, and I do think this is an issue. But kids who get caught up in knife crime and violence are more likely to have experienced violence themselves (I'm talking generalisations here, not specific cases - I don't know any of the details in this case)

All extremes of parenting are harmful - rigid, military style discipline, wishy washy permissive parenting, violence, total neglect.

In this all, I'm fairly sure that poverty is still one of the driving factors of most crime. I don't know the stats, but I'd be very interested to know the correlation between youth offending (violent and otherwise) and poverty.

I work in a secondary school with 1700 pupils as a TA. It is absolutely horrendous at the moment.

Yesterday I walked into an area where 6 14/15 year old were smoking cannabis (strong enough to make me feel ill being in there only 2 minutes) and they were still running around school at 3 instead of being kicked out. Because they are communicating an unmet need apparently and the parents won't pick them up.

A staff member was hit on the head with a bottle hard enough to give a concussion. The parents said it didn't happen because their son wouldn't do that and she's just recist for accusing their son. It was clearly him on cctv. Kid has 1 day internal exclusion. Where if he's a good boy he can leave at lunchtime and go back to lessons with his mates.

I was called an interfering nosy cunt because I asked a pupil to sit in the seating plan and stop being rude to a cover teacher. No consequence for the pupil. He apparently didn't mean it it was his (undiagnosed, told by a professional that he doesn't have) ADHD.

I was threatened by a pupil because I asked her to leave a classroom and stop taunting an autistic pupil who was close to meltdown. No consequence for the pupil and her dad on Facebook flagging off the staff who shouted at his daughter who hadn't done anything wrong.

I have a teenager. She's a messy bugger who often doesn't do her chores at home and can be a bit cheeky to me. When that happens she faces a consequence. No chores = no pocket money. Get cheeky, lose phone. As a result she is brilliant in school. Hard working, respectful and helpful. People ask how I managed to raise such a great kid and I answer with a lot of bloody hard work. Because that's what parenting is.

On the SEND kids points, a large number of parents do pursue a diagnosis for kids when actually it is their terrible parenting which is the issue. This means our kids with SEND are being let down and not getting the support they need. Some of the best kids in school are ASD/ADHD. All the worst are apparently undiagnosed. The ones who do have a condition we support to diagnosis and when you've worked with kids as long as i have you can spot it and I'm rarely wrong.

Add to this the lack of provision for those with SEND who can't and never will cope in mainstream but it's their right to be there and you can see the issue. I work with a 12 year old who has the English and comprehension skills of a 5 year old. We are forcing him through the national curriculum and he can't cope. He sobs and internalises the frustration (very low self esteem) but he is being let down by everyone.

Apologies for the huge rant, basically the issues we have are shit parenting, a education system not fit for purpose and a broken society which blames school staff for all the ills.

Yes this.
Poverty and depravation and lack of support is a big factor in some parents experience but I think we are all talking about parents here are not in this category.
There is so much focus on having a baby and getting all the right beige stuff, baby wearing, contacting napping, car seats, weaning, the baby is rightly the centee of their universe.
But there is little information on what to do when they start walking and get to about 15/18 months..this is where the work starts and you need boundaries and patience with a toddler. I've lots of friends with toddlers and it's so painful watching them half heartedly saying no... 😆