Parenting style the key determinant of life chances, says Cameron ...

[Molesworth]

Today David Cameron gave a speech at thinktank Demos as part of their "Character Inquiry". In the speech Cameron refers to research carried out by Demos and makes the following bold claim: "the differences in child outcomes between a child born in poverty and a child born in wealth are no longer statistically significant when both have been raised by 'confident and able parents'."

Policy recommendations include training HVs to assess parent-child attachments and parenting styles.

Details of the inquiry are available here: www.demos.co.uk/projects/the-character-inquiry

And the research paper to which Cameron refers is available to download for free here: www.demos.co.uk/publications/parenting

Morality and backbone sound good to me.

There was a good item on Woman's Hour today - you can hear it here - in which Camila Batmanghelidjh and Anastasia de Waal discussed "The Selfish Generation". V relevant to this discussion.

They sound good to most people. But they have nothing to do with parenting practices, except in the case of someone who, for instance, is training their child to steal from shops.

But someone who has picked up poor parenting practices somewhere along the line isn't necessarily lacking morality or backbone, just good role models, maybe more encouragement from the wider community to approach things differently, education in aspects of childcare such as discipline, understanding child development and not expecting age-inappropriate behaviour from a child.

Why do you think it is relevent to this discussion?

If you click on the link and read the summary and/or listen to it you'll see why it's relevant!

"Who should be in charge of the family - you or politicians? If it is an accepted premise that elements of British family life are failing, how can we best restore a moral code? The Conservatives talk about how to fix 'Broken Britain', while Labour tackles 'Chaotic Families'. To what extent should the government regulate behaviour in society? Who holds authority in Britain now? And, who can children look up to and respect?"

Clear as mud.

Are you suggesting, by saying that this is relevent, that the Tory proposal is promoting selfishness?

Wicked, no, I am not having a dig at anyone.

If you want to understand the relevance of the radio piece to this discussion, try looking at Demos' website (where you can read the research paper) and/or reading David Cameron's speech. After all, that's what this whole thread is about.

Incidentally, Camila Batmanghelidjh also gave a speech at the Demos event on Monday.

I disagree, the gap between rich and poor is crucial.
I left Britain, and part of the reason is, that as a single parent, I cant earn enough to get my children out of the poverty trap, despite having been to university. I am probably in your "middle" section that you think is not so grossly unequal - it gets me an ex council house near bad schools, and an old banger, and constant worry about going into debt. AIBU to think that after all my hard work at school and in the workplace, I should be able to get more than that?

No, I am not BU - because in Germany, I can.
I have a nice house, in nice district and a new car. Because the emphasis there is on teh community, and looking after everyone, not just helping the rich to get richer, and telling the poor that they should try harder.

There is also a social emphasis in germany on the community and good parenting, but this is NOT used as a sticking plaster over gross inequality, which is what the Conservatives seem to be suggesting.

I have read the Demos report. That is why I am puzzled about which side you are asserting the selfishness notion fits on.

"If it is an accepted premise that elements of British family life are failing, how can we best restore a moral code?"

Where does morality enter into it, though? What has morality to do with broken families and the financial effects of single parenthood, and the knock on effects of financial strain, the stress of running very hard just to stay in place all the time?

Morality comes into personal decisions to cheat, abuse, abandon families, etc. But is it only the have-nots who cheat, abandon spouses and children, abuse? Or does the financial fallout of cheating, abusing, abandonment and abuse fall harder on the lower end of the socio economic spectrum? There's no part of society that can claim superior morals -- true equality is only to be found in this realm, imo.

Nighbynight,

The rich/poor divide is a strange concept because it implies that you get either rich or poor and nothing in between, when in fact, what you get is a continuum, with the bulk of the people in some kind of economic no-man's land.

You will always have people in poverty because of the very definition of poverty - 60% of median income. No matter how wealthy the country is as a whole, there will always be people who earn less than the poverty figure. Relatively speaking, on a global and historical basis, there is very little poverty in this country.

The other crazy notion is that the rich/poor divide is somehow the rich's fault, and the poor are victims, when for a sizeable proportion is it is a case of reaping what you sow.

I think part of the problem is we haven't all got the same definition of child outcomes.

A child raised on a sink estate by warm and loving parents will almost certainly (barring mental health issues) have a better chance of being warm and loving and well behaved than a child raised on the same sink estate by cold and uncaring parents. But it doesn't mean he will have the same chance of becoming a top lawyer as a child raised by warm and loving parents with the funds to send him to Eton. Perhaps not even as a child raised by cold and unloving parents in possession of the funds to send him to Eton.

It's all variables. Obviously your chances of being successful in material terms will improve if you don't go to prison for mugging old ladies in your teens. They will improve still further if you have access to good teaching and are encouraged to do the right kind of A-level. Just having access to the right career guidance will make a huge difference. And those things come with good schools and teachers who believe in the pupils they are set to teach.

On the other hand, it is perfectly possible for parents to be warm and loving and firm and consistent disciplinarians and eat with the family but still discourage a child from going to university- in which case, the odds lengthen considerably as far as careers go.

Then again, a child with rich but cold or unloving parents may have a great outcome as far as material success goes and make a great contribution to society in his work life, but make his family miserable due to not having learnt good parenting.

wicked,
it implies nothing of the sort. Did you read my post?? I sowed a lot of hard work, and reaped crap in teh UK, in Germany I reap a middle class lifestyle.

For many (not all, before someone gets their KIAT) broken families, morality (or lack thereof) is a key factor, but it is not fashionable to talk about it on Mumsnet.

morality is an emotive word, which means different things to different people. Makes more sense to talk in terms of logic and compassion.

You are obviously not a part of the 'sizeable proportion' that I mentioned.

Morality used to be quite clear and not necessarily emotive - no more emotive than 'compassion'.

I know what you mean, but I suspect it's not possible to talk about what kind of 'character' is most desirable (which is what that research paper is doing) without bringing morality into the equation. Surely if you're saying some character traits are better than others, you are making moral judgements? No point in dressing it up as anything else, as far as I can see.

Sorry, should have said that was meant to be addressed to nighbynight's post

ISTR that the paper does define good character attributes (four of them, I believe). I will skim it to see if I can pull them out. They were very common-sense.

Can't quite find what I was looking for - I thought it was in bullet points, but must be embedded in text. Anyway, it's things like being slow to anger, having perseverence, willingness to discipline, etc.

Even when one partner is in dunious morality groundsit doesn'tmean the oher is

friends H took off to Thailand and started running prostitutes (alledgedly). not her fault, but the completedecimation it brought has left her soon - t- be bankrupt,with no home and a Exthe kids aren't ever allowed to see again

I ahve zero interest in his outcomes; he reaped as he sowed but I have every interest in her family.

Life is a mismatch;your downfall does not need to be through your own bad doing.... there is luck,health, other people, allsorts.

Unless evil is the factor (and I struggle not to count her X as that) then peopledeserve a hand back up. NOT to expect lifelong support (I don;t want people starving and homeless either mind) but certainly the help needed to get them and their kids up on the road again.

Aren't those positive personality traits rather tha nmorality? Morality is toan extent chosen isn't it?

Althopugh I would agree that that type of characteristic isdesirable in a parent, they are things that can be workedupon.

And there'salittlevoice in me thinking that when you start having politiciansdefining what characteristics aprents should have, there is a road from there (one of many, I am not thinking anyone there atm would do it) that really and truly should not be travelled upon.

here they are: "emotional control, empathy, application to task, personal agency, an ability to defer gratification"

the question is, how do you measure these things?

in what circumstances do you have to be able to defer gratification to be judged strong on that score?: dd has virtually no ability to defer gratification when it comes to a new book but can resist jam sandwiches until kingdom come- do you suppose her moral weakness would be picked up on by this kind of investigation? or is it only certain types of behaviour that count towards inability to defer gratification- and how relevant are this to later life (if you choose to eat one sweet now because you're hungry rather than 5 sweets later when you many not fancy them, what does that really say about your ability to be a useful citizen in years to come?)

application to task- again, isn't this partly about which tasks are considered valuable? if it's academic tasks then won't it make a difference if those are viewed as important in your family?: my SIL has excellent parenting abilities as far as I can judge, and her children were indeed able to persevere with a task, but not very much so with a book-learning task, as that was viewed in her family as rather suspect and "not for the likes of us"- would a test really pick up that they were good at persevering with tasks they thought were valuable?; dd otoh is pretty bad at sticking to things other than reading

emotional control and empathy- again, I cannot help noticing that the rules for how you express these vary between different milieus; they are not the same among my academic colleagues and my working-class friends- and that's before you even get into the subject of different immigrant cultures (many people find the British cold and uncaring); so who gets to decide if a child is expressing empathy in a suitable way?

personal agency- haven't a clue what this one means