Enfield riots?

[Empusa]

Just seen on Twitter and in a few articles like this, that there are meant to be plans for a riot in Enfield tonight and riot police are in the town centre?

Used to live there, and got family there (luckily a fair distance from the centre), but fucking hell! What the hell is going on?

How do we stop people becoming bad parents?

Unfortunately the natural urges that prompt people to conceive a child are very different to the character attributes required to be a good parent. Some people are just beyond help. If you have to be told that you might want to check what your 9 year old is doing after dark, really nothing short of a brain transplant will make you into a good parent.

On a positive note, rioters are in the minority. I think the answer is to support people who want to improve their own communities, not really to help the rioters, but just to support people who deserve support.

Reminded me a bit of the village I grew up in Fargate. It was a very affluent village but it also had quite a run down council estate at one end. Everyone would look down their noses at the rowdy teenagers from the estate and complain to the council when there was damage and graffitti and stuff. Yet whenever my dad caught someone up to no good, vandalising stuff (he was the school caretaker), it was always the nice polite civilised kids from the posh end. It taught me that things aren't always what they seem.

It is time to stop making excuses. Liberalism has had its day and has been allowed for too long to be perpetuated along with personal politics within the education system. I have been politically active for much of my adult life. I have never, ever taken my politics to work. The present school system cannot cater for these young people in our inner cities and decent, hardworking teachers who entered the profession to teach rather than to be social workers shouldn't have to deal with them. Exclusions policies need to change and funding is required to set up specialist units to deal with and to educate some of these young people. They have failed for too long and their needs have been ignored for too long by too many agencies clinging to a mantra of personal liberal ideology.

It is time for the teaching profession to stand up and be counted. When they strike for resources to deal with these kids and to allow the majority to take advantage of a good, excellent or inspirational education which so many teachers would otherwise be more than capable of providing, I will support them in their demands for better pay and preserved pension benefits. I will support them even harder when they stop lowering expectations and realign their standards in relation to acceptable behaviour and educational excellence with mine.

Didn't they strike a little while ago about getting more support for behavioural problems? I think they got quite short shrift.

Just wanted to add, I think so called 'liberal' teaching techniques work. However, they don't necessarily work in a class with 30 children where the teacher has 6 million boxes to tick and is expected to both teach and fill in any parenting gaps.

'Liberal' education is a full time job, with parents and teachers job sharing.

There are specialist units for behaviour, called pupil referral units or PRUs. There are also some specialist schools. Most have very poor outcomes.

Do you really think teachers want to have "lowered expectations" etc? These kids have to be educated, there are no labouring jobs etc for them to go to as they were. Socially and culturally most of the curriculum is totally alien to them and they kick off, the learning matter is totally and utterly inaccessible and meaningless to them and doesn't relate to any job they are ever likely to have.

It's not about liberalism at all, actually. No one has lowered expectations because of some liberal agenda but because you have kids at secondary who can't even participate in a nursery-level role play about ordering food in a restaurant. Surprisingly, that affects their literacy.

If you tried to cane these kids, they would stab you. Or their parents would come and kick off.

Have you ever tried to teach any of these kids? I don't teach but I do observe teachers and it is bloody impossible, don't blame teachers for massive societal breakdown where nothing is enforced or enforceable at home. Teachers have a role to play, but seriously!

Just heard on Radio Four: a community worker blaming society for disaffected youth.

"You can't just blame the parents because the majority of parents in my area are single parents and when they have to work the children end up being raised by a computer game."

Which computer games was it? Grand Theft Auto?

Well they have a point.

There aren't an awful lot of positions that are flexible enough to allow one parent to be there at all times when the kids are...it's possible to be more flexible if you're sharing that but as a single parent, you can't pass them between you.

So it is harder for single parents to be a constant influence in their child's life. There just isn't that safety net of another parent.

So it's better to have the safety net of another parent. I think that follows. It's better to plan your life that way and plan things with another person.

The problem is that to be a single parent you have to be an amazingly brilliant parent. You can create a substitute family of extended family and friends and you can 'co-parent', but if you are truly on your own you have to be twice as good as somebody parenting as part of a team.

The state cannot parent a child out of a desperate situation, either by foster care, or wrap around school care or by providing benefits. In the end, the parent is the key.

My mother was a single parent and worked full time. I was raised by my mother not a computer game. Funnily enough I have never looted or set fire to anything in my life. It is insulting to suggest there is any kind of link between single parents and this mindless thuggery. Shit parents come in all shapes, sizes and postcodes. Nothing to do with whether they are lone or in couples, working or unemployed.

And I work full time and am a single parent of 5 although I'm lucky enough (work hard enough etc) to be able to pay school fees etc

Georgie: don't feel insulted - that was the observation of an experienced community worker in very poor areas. It's an observation - a justification for why society should do more.

I think it's true that single parenthood means being a more brilliant parent just to keep your head above water.

Loads of single parents where i am and no riots have started where i am. I think its just complete organised chaos being whipped up on social networking/you tube/BBM

Ive noticed today that there are loads of groups on FB such as

We dont smash up our own home town blah blah and all the teenagers are joining them.

Hopefully some of the people being remanded will put people off joining in

I think you do have to be a super duper parent to make a go of being a single parent. My mother was a single parent. She grew into the role, but at the beginning it was pretty crap and we were very much "latchkey children". I remember it as being terribly lonely and stultifying to have to mind my siblings all evening because she was at work. My parents were teachers and I was the ultimate good girl, so never came to much harm, but my sister went totally off the rails, headed off drinking and drugging and doing all sorts and moved in with a violent self-harmer at 17. My mother suddenly found her feet and was home a lot more, not taking things for granted so much. My sister straightened out, because it was really quite a short period of time and we had had a lot of stability in our earlier years and were financially quite well off. I wouldn't recommend it as a lifestyle to anyone, even though we all came out the other side as decent "lawr abiding citizens" (phrase of the week).

I think the community worker was referring to a sub-section of single parents - not women who have found themselves let down and are doing the best they can but women who are the third or fourth generation of single parents who survive rather than live in inner cities; where in a family of five children there may be three or more fathers involved; where teenage pregnancy is the norm and where few marry and establish secure units where at least one or both parents work; where local authority housing is an aspiration and a reason to be pregnant.

Have posted this in a thread in chat but thought those involved in this discussion might also be interested in seeing this tweet from the leader of Southwark council, who visited shops in Peckham and Walworth today. He's referring to a Walworth store manager:

"Manager of one store recognised people coming in to store to commiserate today as also appearing on CCTV as looters on Monday. Incredible."

Married: I'm sure that's true, but it some areas it is a very large section.

The problem is that in asking society (ie other people) to do more for single parents like that, there's no sense of personal responsibility there.

teej What heartless cunts!

I think the point is that a young child needs key adult figures in their lives, whether these people are parents (together or not), a nanny, a child minder, grandparents, other friends and family who can do the job of parenting. These adult figures need to be present long term - they aren't low paid childcare workers.

If you parent single handed 24/7 with no support, your life is more restricted and you need more energy and 'inner resources' than if you share parenting with others.

However, it doesn't quite ring true that all the rioters have only one person who is capable of caring for them and they are out at work all day.

No, especially as many were grown men and women. Even a primary school worker. But their background is one of lack of care and discipline. That can come in any family it's true. But - I must admit - I was quite surprised to hear such an obviously left wing community worker articulate so openly that in his community it was such a significant problem.

Empusa - yy - here are a couple of his other tweets:

"Another shop owner near to tears told of youth who had just laughed after enquiring if store had been looted."

"Another tells of CCTV of mother sending her child through small broken window to loot from store."

It's interesting that he has not (so far) made similar comments about Peckham. Maybe it's down to the reaction within the community? In Peckham people went to the riotcleanup meet (but to be fair quite a few areas were still cordoned off for being unsafe/crime scenes at the time) and we have the love wall so there is a more visible display of the community's reaction to Monday's events The original board filled up so all the rest of Poundland's remaining windows are being filled now too

Actually, I have to say Poundland has played a blinder - not often a shop encourages people to use sticky-tape on its glass windows! They're getting national publicity and good vibes from their local customers

On the radio earlier I heard some parents were driving up in cars to load up the booty their kids had looted, but I really don't know what area they were referring to at the time. As a lot of people said already, how can we expect these kids to know right from wrong when some of the parents are so far removed from having a moral compass themselves?

But its not always just children from deprived areas who have a lack of discipline. I am a teacher in a very good school in a lovely area of the country and the complete and utter lack of respect that comes from some of the children (albeit a small minority) is horrific. They will swear at the teachers and they way the speak to their own parents just leaves me And the parents seem unwilling to do anything about it. The senior management teams in schools are also unable to put in place any real consequence because the parents will kick off and claim that 'you cant treat my child like that'. I cannot imagine what it must be like in some other schools.

One of the parents once told me that she couldnt understand why her son behaved the way he did, because the family were 'not rough and not druggies'. Yes, because having a bit of money and living in a nice part of the country automatically makes you a good parent

I have smacked my children three times (DD once, DS twice) on all occasions it was an involuntary action and I was shocked at myself for doing it - they are 13 and 16 now by the way and reasonably civilised and well brought up - comments on the export model are good anyway. On the radio today a lady called and said "even the parental right of discipline has been taken away by the state so how can the state now complain, especially as the children know it's illegal and threaten to report the parents to social services. Let me share something with you. Although I smacked my children when they were under 10, they said when DS was 12(ish) - well you can't hit us because we'll report you childline. I put the number for childline on the fridge and told them that if ever I had reason to hit them - or they felt abused they could call and temporary foster care would be found for them whilst the matter was investigated. They couldn't believe it and said straigth away "oh OK mum". Trouble is the children that need boundaries most are the children who do not live in units strong enough to say "OK - give them a call then". I don't condone hitting children but a smack to reprimand after the nth warning and when the naughty step doesn't work can work wonders providing there is also love and it is unconditional. The saddest thing is that my dc can have anything (within reason) but actually seem to want very little. DS wants drums and the deal was grade 5 instrument and you can have them - he passed grade 4 at 10 and stopped practising. At 16 he still wants drums and when he gets them he will have paid for them because he didn't keep his side of the bargain.

Perhaps its easier to offer tough love when one has choices and privilege - I just don't know. Also I think designer trainers are something to aspire to when you feel you will never get off a grotty estate in the middle of gangland.