can you be an adequate parent............?

[justacigar]

Ok now, at the risk of being hung drawn and quartered - I started a thread on the education bit about whether schools should be doing more to enhance emotional literacy. The consensus was no! no! no! that's a parents' job. Then someone else started a thread about 6th formers not being able to peel potatos. The implication being that their parents should have taught them by now. Do y'all think you CAN be an adequate parent if you both work full time or if you are a lone parent if you work full time? Do you think you CAN be an adequate parent, full stop?
what is one then?

Ha ha ha. That's what I've told every single man whose ever told me he can't cook.

my job is to prepare my children for adulthood. to raise them into being self sufficient, socialised educated employed people capable of looking after themselves. i feel if i dont do this i am doing them a diservice.

MI LMAO at 'non potato based cultures' as these kids are from Lincolnshire, the spud capital of the UK!

Custy, I've said it before, I'll say it again, I'd teach your kids anyday you like!

Monkeytrousers posted this article here on another thread, but I think it's quite aposite to this one.

I'm uneasy about the privatisation of child-rearing in a sense. The idea that parents and parents alone are the only people who rear children, I think is mad and undesirable, and I think there's a lot of truth in the old adage of "It takes a village to raise a child". That article kind of says it for me. I suppose what we're struggling with, is a balance between our privacy and our need for societal support, and it's always going to be a tricky line to tread. I suppose one of the reasons schools are feeling so put upon, is because they're the institutions on which all the support which used to be more evenly distributed throughout society, is being dumped on. (Incoherent but hope that makes some kind of sense)

It makes total sense to me.

I worry that parents are being robbed of theor confidence in their parenting skills. There seem to be more and more, very nice, loving parents who lack the confidence to dicipline their children.

The natural reaction if a child is wilfully 'in the wrong' is to put them right. Time was if you didn't, your next door neigbour would step in, and help to do it for you. Parenting skills were shared from family to family, as you say 'It takes a Village'. Now that is less and less the case as people feer getting a mouthful from the kid, or the parent.

I've got a new class starting tomorrow, I'll see them twice a wee, for a total of 2 hours and 20 minutes. Of the 19 children in the class 10 have SN, some quite profound. I'm looking forward to working with them, but for the life of me I cannot see how I can be catering for their emotional well being along with delivering the KS3 scinece and trying to support their often delayed literacy and numeracy (one child has a reading age of 6 for example)

Schools can't do it, not because they don't want to, but because we simply don't have the time and/or resources.

I know that I need to address emotional issues if these kids are to reach their potential but I am totaly unable to fill the gaps that some of these kids might have in 2 hours and 20 minutes a week. For that I need to work in partneship with their parents.

What a very true article Caligyulea. DS3 (14) came home from walking the dog early on Sunday morning and mentioned the man he'd had a conversation with, and I froze. (I'll admit one worry was the amount of dognapping that goes on here and always starts with someone striking up a conversation about your dog ) I actually ended up quizzing him about what this man had said and what he was like- FFS he was just another dogwalker making polite conversation!

As to being an adequate parent, I have recently moved office so I no longer have a 40 minute each way commute, and it makes such a difference. Even though DH was coming home with the boys at 4.15 and I got in at 5 I felt I'd lost control... by the time I got in they'd all scattered to their rooms and I was surplus. Does that make sense? Now I bring them home with me and do get to see what they are up to.

I wasn't really talking about my own parenting skills - but yes this whole private/public School/home/community debate that caligula articulated.

I posted on the other thread about schools and emotional literacy because I feel that you can't teach emotioanl literacy in a vacuum, however well meaning you are as a parent - although I baulk at current plans to teach it in a blairite quangoesque fashion. (cf guardian g2 yestserday, although I can't do links).

I've got a bit stuck though.How do we improve this (cf the link caligula posted) if we are full of mistrust for our neighbours because everyone keeps moving house all the time? Who builds the trust? Whose job is that? Is that parents, schools or what?

Martian bishop -Re the academic thing - it's not so much the amount of time it takes up, which is relatively little - but the fact that it takes up mental energy/planning in my life - as in o bollocks we can't do spontaneous limbo dancing/other improving activities right now/ we have to do numeracy/reading etc.And also whilst I will resentfully do it, what about those kids whose parents won't/can't? how is that fair, that middle class/educated parents are yet AGAIN advantaging their children? and frankly, I'm sure I cock up the numeracy, as I have no idea how they teach it these days and my methods are totally 70s.

Re the being out of date, a worry for me too. Does your school do classes for parents? Ours does and is well supported

MB - no it doesn't - and frankly I would resent going to them, as that would be EVEN MORE TIME, that I could be using to enhance their EQ, the school is taking up. I probably would go, so as not to disadvantage dds, but in a surly manner.

MI - potato based cultures. class.

OK - so following on from what people have said, do those people who go to church, or have some other "meaningful" community based thing at the centre of their lives, or have extended family near,worry about the privatisation of parenting less than the faithless?

i dont know what you mean by the privatisation of parenting

Hi
I find this whole area of parenting fascinating as it overlaps with my experience as a former teacher and Head of the PSHE Dept. (Personal,Social,Health Education) in a local school and now as a Parent and Kids Coach. I am passionate about emotional literacy and helping to build children's self esteem no matter what age they are. I think parents do a FANTASTIC job because they love their children - every parent is different, just as every child is unique and there is no "one " way to "do" parenting. I've written a free report called "7 Key Skills To Raising Happy, Confident, Well-Balanced Children" and I'm happy to share this with other parents on this forum if anyone is interested. Please e-mail me on [email protected] for a copy

Hi
I find this whole area of parenting fascinating as it overlaps with my experience as a former teacher and Head of the PSHE Dept. (Personal,Social,Health Education) in a local school and now as a Parent and Kids Coach. I am passionate about emotional literacy and helping to build children's self esteem no matter what age they are. I think parents do a FANTASTIC job because they love their children - every parent is different, just as every child is unique and there is no "one " way to "do" parenting. I've written a free report called "7 Key Skills To Raising Happy, Confident, Well-Balanced Children" and I'm happy to share this with other parents on this forum if anyone is interested. Please e-mail me on [email protected] for a copy