What do you think of this article - "permissive parenting"?

[emkaren]

I came across this article this article today and I was wondering what you wise Mumsnetters thought about this. I used to be a teacher in secondary school and I did often think that some of the teenagers were quite 'toxic' - much more rude and lacking respect than I remember my peers to have been! But I find the author's ideas about the roots of the problem quite questionable. My parenting style is mostly what you would call attachment parenting - co-sleeping, I breastfed dd1 until she self-weaned at 27 months, I never did controlled crying or anything like that - but I wouldn't say that this was 'permissive' parenting, and I seriously hope that the way I bring dd1 and dd2 up will have the opposite effect to what the author of the article thinks! Dd1 is now 31 months old, and while she has tantrums etc. she is altogether quite 'good' and cooperative. Have I just been lucky that she has turned out that way so far in spite of my 'wrong' parenting ways? By the way, I am emphatically NOT saying that only attachment parenting will give you a 'good' child - not at all, it's just the way that feels right to me, but I don't mean to criticize people who do controlled crying or whatever!!! Oh, and the other thing in the article that made me think was what he wrote about toilet training - dd1 isn't trained yet and I have been thinking that I'll just wait till she shows that she's ready - is that really such a laughable idea?
Anyway, I'd be interested to know what other people thought of the article!

coppertop- Mr Shaw would be stuffed with ds1. He started reading before the age of 2. Still waiting for him to speak though at 4 and a half (bad parent bad parent).
Podmog makes a good point. Allergies do seem to be increasing, as does type 1 diabetes (bad parenting maybe?) as does ASD (of which many pros include ADHD now). If you look at ASD as an example there are often weird biochemical things going on (must be that bad parenting again). Or maybe just maybe something environmental is triggering an increase in allergies and autoimmune conditions, and maye we should be worrying about that rather than whether a baby goes to its mother's bed or not.

I think there's a lot of looking back to nonexistent golden ages going on lately. I found a pamphlet about getting your child ready to start school, written twenty years ago. In it, teachers bemoaned the fact that children were entering school less able to communicate due to too much TV, and teenagers were worse than they were previously, etc etc.....! Either 40 yrs ago, kids entered school able to read Chaucer and teenagers were little angels, or somebody has serious memory problems and a touch of the rose tinted memories. I suspect the latter is the case.

Exactly, Dinosaur. My grandparents brought up both me and my mother and were fairly strict but kind. We were both pretty sullen and selfish as teenagers, but otherwise, turned out totally different, values, personality - the lot.
Load of bollocks.
I think the reference to attachment parenting as the culprit is implied, or actually, just read Everything Modern Parents Do That We Didn't Do in the Good Ole Days.

Well said, Jimjams. More expensive for them to do ENV research though - much easier to have a pop at parents again. Works, doesn't it?

i think when you disect any piece of writing you take it out o context. on the whole i wholeheartedly agreed with the article. i do know mums who say their children are hyperactive and use this as an excuse not to parent their child - some parents can't cope and blame their child. a friend of mine has a 3 year old who is the shittiest most unpleasent child i have ever had the misfortune to meet. his mum has begged healthcare professionals " to do something" they cant as their is nothing to do - that child is badly parented as his mother is depressed and going through a bad time - she cannot say no. but she says he has " that adhd thingy" and tells everyone so - using it as an excuse - many many parents do the same - its another lable another excuse.

i particularly like the authors slant on morals as these have been forgotten in todays society.

obviosly being a strict disciplinarian is not the answer as neither is being so lax you are practically horizontal. there is a happy medium.

i think children instinctivley know that they need boundries a bounrdyless child is often an unloved one - one left to fend fo themselves. and they crave these boundries and push for these boundries from an early age.

my eldest childs school report always says " pleaent, well behaved good mannered" the rest of the report is shite as he is not academically inclined - but hey - how proud am i of that? very! he is 14.

i dont believe you should be happy with your children most of the time as mr american author suggests - for the frst 5 years my happyness days were few and far between. but lie got better! and it ws more to do with me than my children who were always perfect!

dont judge the author by his personal experiences fgs! look at gina ford - we never did any of that shit when our kids were litle 10 years ago. but how a woman can tell other women to parent their children when she has never had any beats the shitoutta me - but i have a very very very good friend assures me she is the daugher of jesus christ himself - her miricles are so abound!

I don't think the original article by R.Shaw makes any sense except in a cultural context American parents are traditionally much more permissive than European parents (IME). AP was formalised as a parenting philosophy in the USA and some people do proudly take it to extremes Americans are prone to idealism. So maybe within otherwise stable middle-class homes, being too permissive is sometimes the only obvious problem.

Maybe I will report back in 12 years about my American cousins and who turned out to have the most stroppy teenagers! At the moment, it's the Lady with older Down's syndrome and ADD (not ADHD, just ADD) children; child number 3 (age 14, no official diagnosis) acts up for attention. Then there's the girl who was raised for a few years by her schizophrenic mother; girl isn't schizo herself, but married young to a violent husband (she left him, thank goodness) and otherwise tends towards promiscuity. Another teen tends to be stroppy, but has bounced in and out of foster care from young age due to alcoholic mother. Can't see that 'permissive' parenting was the primary problem with any of them. And the only toddler I'm worried about (tends towards agrression) has a mostly disinterested father & an immature, angry mother who gives him completely inconsistent parenting -- doubt she cosleeps, though.

What I thought, reading that article, is that the writer was completely middle-upper-class and doesn't have enough experience of a wide range of other 'types' of people and the way a person's own emotional/social background screws up their ability to be patient, loving, consistent parents.

Also, he describes the discipline problem in schools as though it's new -- ha! Was terrible 20 years ago, when I was in schools with relatively low discipline problems.

Ooh, yet another reason not to buy the Sunday Times!!

But I sort of agree with parts of it, I DO know parents who are so inconsistent with their parenting that it affects their children - in restaurants for example they let their children run around (a no-no in my book) not because they feel the children need to express themselves but more that they can't be bothered to stop them and they genuinely don't care about their effect on other people. IMO, it is very important to teach kids what effect their behaviour has on others. The same parents will then shout at their kids rather than stop them doing it in the first place.

I also believe that some behavioural problems are over-diagnosed, I wouldn't for a moment suggest that they don't exist, of course they do, but there is no doubt in my mind that people love to have a label and will jump at the chance to take one - I believe that this applies to people with 'food intolerances' too (emphatically NOT food allergies I must say), all this wheat free, dairy free mallarkey which I think is a load of old rubbish and I have a curmudgeonly approach to it - drink more water and chew your food properly!

I think there is a fine line between making your child feel secure and letting them run your life, I co-slept when mine were very tiny but got strict about them sleeping in their own room pretty quickly. I don't always leap in if they are crying - my 'mummy antennae' can soon detect whether something is going to blow over quickly or not.

I do believe in the concept of 'manners' though and people often comment on how lovely dd1 is at parties etc and I am very proud of that.

custardo, brilliant post, very funny

zebra, I take issue that the article was written from an upper middle-class standpoint, are you saying that all his ideas don't apply to working class parents? You can have all the crap in the world to deal with and it is still possible to be a loving, consistent parent, surely?

Enid. A lot of research has shown that children who are on the autistic spectrum (including ADHD) have real problems with food. Not because they are allergic but because they have leaky gut which means that food particles which wouldn't normally pass into the bloodstream do.

A good resource on this can be found from the autism research unit . It describes in detail, but fairly simply why autism is a metabolic disorder and why certain foods can cause such problems to some children and adults on the spectrum. Luke Jackson who has AS has written a book called something like "A user's guide to the GFCF diet" (GFCF=gluten free casein free). Being very high functioning he is able to express quite clearly how these foods make him feel.

My son stole some gluten containing foods over xmas. He screamed for about 24 hours starting the next day (or the day after can't remember). When he has peanuts he headbutts walls and floors hard enough to bruise.

The biochemistry behind these problems is beginning to be understood. There are a huge number of articles out there. Search on autism and sulphation/leaky gut/opiods/secretin/metallothionein to get started.

Or would you say that someone with PKU had a hocus pocus diet and all they needed was to chew their food more?

Enid: What I'm saying is that he is looking at families from the outside, says to himself, the parents don't have any obvious economic/emotional/etc. problems (which could be an explanation for children's problems in many poorer families) therefore, misguided, he would argue "permissive" parenting must be main culprit for all their children's problems. It's like he completely ignores the fact that most troubled children come from troubled homes Being poor isn't the fundamental problem, but I think most people who can't manage good parenting will probably be similarly inclined to not manage to do well financially, etc.; being poor is a correlation, not a causation. Being poor also adds extra stresses, to any parent's ability to cope.

Oh come on Jimjams, you know thats not what I was saying. Of course there are many many people out there who have genuine, diet-related problems and of course people with PKU have to avoid certain foods, that isn't what I meant, can't you see that??

well, dinosaur, I don't really know what to say, other than perhaps there should be an automatic disclaimer with posts from parents without autistic children, something along the lines of 'obviously none of this applies if your child is autistic'.

My dd1 would have done a similar thing - maybe not the laughing but she would certainly have sat straight and rapt throughout - that's just the kind of person she is. IMO its not necessarily 'normal' to run around making aeroplane noises during the speeches, just annoying to everyone else.

This is what you said:

"I also believe that some behavioural problems are over-diagnosed, I wouldn't for a moment suggest that they don't exist, of course they do, but there is no doubt in my mind that people love to have a label and will jump at the chance to take one - I believe that this applies to people with 'food intolerances' too (emphatically NOT food allergies I must say), all this wheat free, dairy free mallarkey which I think is a load of old rubbish and I have a curmudgeonly approach to it - drink more water and chew your food properly!"

I think you'll find that by behvioural problems you mean developmental disorders and they are generally not over dxed. Not professionally - it is a real struggle to get a dx. i can think of one woman who is convinced her son has AS- she has been trying for years to get a dx, and no go. For what its worth I don't think her son is AS, so I think the pros are right. It is a fallacy to believe that people jump in and demand a albel. Getting my son's label was the worst experience of my life to date, even though I knew it was coming. IN fact I endded up on the floor outside the consulting room sobbing (this wasn't the official dx, but was the first consultant to tell us what was going on). Hardly a love of labels. Now someone may say "oh I think my son has that ADHD thingy" but that is nothing to do with over dx, that is a parent with crap parenting or a difficult child or a combination of the 2. By all means have a sling at them but leave ADHD and other develomental disorders out of it.

As for the diet you've lumped it in with the over dx of these disorders so I assumed you were relating the 2. The majority of people still belive that autism is a behavioura;l disorder. it's not its developmental and has a screwed up biochemistry at the root of it.

Enid you have stated that these things are over diagnosed- therefore its valid for us to reply from our viewpoint of having autistic children.

BTW before I offend anyone- earlier comments don;t mean that I think that anyone struggling for a dx is imagining it- this is one very specific case. I know more people stuck in the system where there clearly is something wrong, but they're not getting anywhere. I just wanted to illustrate that you don't just get a label on demand.

Hate the word label anyway. It's a signpost.

Jimjams, I love your posts and they are always very well researched and from the heart but sometimes I feel that you see what you want to see. Sorry if I offended you x E

A signpost??? It's a bl**ming nightmare....

Sorry - just bundled son off to school - he is high as a kite today - no big surprise, still hasn't come down since his birthday on Sunday. Peace and quiet reigns (baby is asleep) and I feel SO guilty for being glad for the break!

Thanks dinosaur, thats nice of you to say

I hate the bloody Sunday Times

I think it is completely normal for a small child to get easily bored in a restaurant or a wedding and start running around. My children are relatively good in restaurants, but not always and we have had incidents. I avoid certain places and tend to go for the more child-friendly ones. However, I think if you can't stand playful children running around, then eat at home! I think the UK is so child-unfriendly. Too much is expected of children IMO, and people have generally got a low tolerance for them. If you go to other countires, children being children are being appreciated much more.
My DS always throw huge tantrums on planes. Generally during landing because he doesn't want to have his seat belt on. I fly frequently and still can't believe the looks and lack of understanding I get both from the crew and other passengers. I am sure I think I am a terrible parent. What am I supposed to do? Stop flying? Drug him? Is it perhaps because I am co-sleeping and he hasn't been potty-trained yet? I rise above it, but I can only imagine what it must be like for parents of ADHD children for example. I wish we could just all be a little bit more understanding of children and all our differences.
BTW, I would much rather run around making aeroplane noises myself than listening to boring speeches, so I am sure that's a perfectly sensible thing to do!

That's what I'm talking about the Middle Class thing sorry, I sound like broken record. But every time I pick up Telegraph (Inlaws house) or someone on MNet refers to Times (seems to be MNet Newspaper of choice) it drives me mad. I don't relate to what their columnists say. If the average house in this country costs around £140k, why does the Telegraph devote so many pages to houses that cost in excess of £300k? If permissive parenting is such a culprit, why do I notice that the wildest children seem to get the most brutal treatment from their parents in public? I don't live in that Universe. Life is much less certain, less wealthy, very much less organised or under control, in the World I know and see around me.

Well, Fairymum, I disagree. Yes, it is true that we are as a nation quite child-unfriendly, but it seems to me that is because our children often behave so appallingly in restaurants. In Greece, Spain, Italy and France they seem much more child-friendly, but that seems to be because the children in those countries seem to behave much better in restaurants than British children do!

And if you would genuinely prefer to run around during the speeches than listen to them (!) then I'm sure your children would too, thats the way these things tend to work.