Five-a-day parenting 'checklist'? What do you think?

[HelenMumsnet]

Hello. We've just heard about this proposal to give all parents a five-a-day checklist, detailing how they should bring up their children.

Apparently, it's an idea that's winning the support of many politicians.

Would it win your support?

I have said that I have no issue with parenting classes and to be honest part of the reason I needed help was because I was a single Mum - I never expected to be and was not prepared. When I fell pregnant I was married with a six figure income and within a few months of her birth I was penniless and a single Mum. However I am uncomfortable with the suggestion that this us just about single Mums. It is about any family set up that is not working. I would have been very insulted at the idea that I should do A Levels as I had a degree and a PGCE. I also think that ant life skills classes cannot be compulsory , they will not work if people are forced to go. I gained a lot from parenting classes, budgeting sessions and personal development courses, bur they worked because we all wanted to be there.

The idea that all single mums must have a meal together in a set up that sounds like a poor house is offensive. Having said that I attended a group - voluntarily - that involved a shared meal which I found very valuable in terms of building a support network and gathering ideas for healthy cheap meals.

What a load of patronising rubbish.

Because of course poor parents don't realise that they need to talk to/read to/play with/feed healthy food to their children! And we don't need to provide an incentive to all the nice well off parents as they already do everything perfectly!

I would think this funny if it weren't so sad. Who exactly is it aimed at? Who doesn't know that reading aloud is a good activity to do to their children? Who aims to feed their children an unhealthy diet?

I don't even agree with the praise one in that simplistic form. Praising children endlessly makes them dependent on external praise as a motivator. My children can't move in school without being given a sticker due to their excellent skills in sitting on the carpet, eating dinner with a knife and fork and tidying up (all very good but why are these not basic expectations?)

Being a parent is far too intense, demanding and complicated an experience to distill into a five-point checklist. Or any checklist at all, for that matter.

I agree with MrsDeVere that it's all about trying to help the great unwashed, and is going about it in the clumsiest way.

I can see myself becoming a candidate for the promoting literacy targets because my DCs have forrin efnik names and might have a problem wiv Ingleeesh. I've already had a few professionals do a double take upon realising that their mum is as bog standard hundredth generation English as they come, and their dad is fluent in twelve languages (I exaggerate, obviously).

Really, the lessson of Sure Start has been that the more you try to 'target' or to 'tailor' initiatives, the more the miss those who are at greatest need of them.

Mind you, there is a funny remark on the Telegraph site along the lines of 'Thank goodness the government is here to remind me to feed my children every day. No more weekly feeding for them, then' which cheered me up immensely.

I knew I had to do all these things but I was in the middle of chaos and therefore it was beneficial to have a chance to make parenting the key focus of my life . Often these schemes are not about telling people things they don't know but bringing them to your focus.

Breastmilk, I entirely agree. You would think the Sure Start problems would have put them off this type of well-meaning 'let's get everyone involved, no discrimination here' project, but no...

Personally, I'd like them to plough lots more money into getting literacy and numeracy right in schools. They've cut back on some excellent schemes in this area (e.g. Every child a reader type ones) which helped those who had already fallen behind age 6. Very poor literacy is linked with a whole host of negative outcomes, look at the literacy rates in the prison population.

Scotland has the Play Talk Read campaign. Its not too patronising imo. I am a middle class parent by background / education (not income ) and have found some useful tips from it.

I think the idea of being linked to toys etc. is wrong. It should be emphasising that children and babies do not need more money spent on them, they need your attention. As for paying people, also not a fan.

I found sure start very useful. Intact I would say the reason that I managed to become a good parent who also managed to get her career back on track and a contributor to society rather than a taker was because of sure start and similar schemes.

I would strongly object to being told how to parent - partly because I think I am always right but also because I think to government should be spending money on more important things. What a waste of money.

Lots of people loved SureStart, lots of people benefitted from SureStart, but there was a general consensus that the 'hardest to reach' groups who were genuinely very deficient in parenting and other life skills didn't attend.

That's not true for all of them, but by definition, people who are enthusiastic and willing to listen and happy to display their parenting to professionals who do judge/take notes/report if issues turned up in droves and the parents of really disadvantaged children often didn't. This makes it a not cost-effective early years intervention for the most disadvantaged children.

I think it is a good idea. But I also think that one of the reasons so many parents are not already doing the (rather obvious) things that are proposed on the five-a-day checklist is because parenting has been so devalued by society, in favour of working outside the home. If you constantly tell parents that they should be out working, you by definition tell them that they weren't doing anything useful by being at home with their children...

Daft idea. Mainly because very few people actually agree on what makes a 'good parent', we might all say 'reading to your children' but how often, what should we read, opinions on that will vary hugely.

So then we can probably all agree on basics like 'feed them', 'clothe them for the weather', 'make sure they're clean'...but the parents who need help with these basics need much more help than a checklist and a parenting course.

I also have concerns about how this could change people's attitudes towards 'aternative' (for want of a better word) parenting. If there is a government sanctioned method of parenting, then what does that make the rest of us?

twinklypearls I realised very early on that I was not a natural mother. So I read books, watched tv programmes and sought advice from my health visitor (who was not helpful) and from parents of older children. I was willing, even keen, to change. Many women are not. Whether they are rich or poor, married or single, this scheme will not reach them.

Agree, Allinabinbag.

I don't think classes is the way to go at all. And I don't think cash incentives is a go-er, either. You just know that people would turn up and register for the cash and then wouldn't be seen for dust.

How about public information adverts, or (just to show I'm modern!) public information texts which show people interacting/playing/talking to/with their children or text reminders that the providers have to send which say something like "Reading Time!" After all, we had the Green Cross Code and whatnot so why can't we have something similar now?

Good grief, I think this is going to far. Parents have been bringing up children for thousands of years without needing a tick list.
Sure, some of them are crap at it but giving them a list probably wont make any difference anywaay!

Heathersmall Might as well stick them all in the workhouse eh?

Excellent idea. I think unless you are a professional in the area you just don't see how clueless some people are. And it's usually not their fault - no one's ever told them and they can't necessarily read it for themselves. It's obviously not intended for the majority of parents who do know how to raise their child.

What on earth could be more important than parenting?

Ellisbell why is it only women who need to learn to parent?

I think it is interesting that us 'good parents' are presuming we dont need the checklist. Anyone who has watched supernanny et al can clearly see that there are loads of good parents out there who are missing one or two of these guidelines. Which ones are you guilty of? Many of my peer group dont do the 'play' or 'talk' unless instructing or telling off. I guess I let my DH do a lot of the play but strangely I love it when I make time to sit down and play.

I think its a good idea, we are stuck in a situation wherby poor people have shit loads of kids, and if we cut their benefits we end up with child poverty,

so in the short term, anything like this is a good idea IMO

for every parents that thinks its shit, there may be one that takes it on

I might even follow some of the rules!

Agree. Or to put it another way, following a five-point checklist cannot make you a good parent. I could set a stopwatch to spend however minutes doing whatever each day and I could write myself cue cards to tell the DCs anything required, and I could still spend the rest of the time screaming and hitting. But then, when faced with losing my kids, I could instruct a solicitor to focus all her paperwork on how assiduously I adhered to the government-mandated five-a-day, and it'd get me off the hook in no time.

Such guidelines then, are at best a lazy substitute for thinking for oneself and, at worst, open to somewhat scary levels of manipulation. I mean, I'm sure that all of us who've ever dieted have at times decided that the cocoa bean must surely constitute one of our five-a-day...

I had hoped that this kind of patronising, interfering, social engineering bollocks would end when New Labour left office.