Parenting: Cameron's childhood adviser says we're all getting it wrong. Is she right?

[HelenMumsnet]

Morning.

Claire Perry, MP, David Cameron's adviser on childhood, has been telling the papers today that Britain's parents have got it all wrong.

In The Times (£), the Telegraph and the Daily Mail, Perry is quoted as saying...

• We fill every moment of our children's lives with organised activities, "damaging their lives" by leaving them unable to fend for themselves when they go to university.
  
  
• We should 'snoop' on our children's text messages and internet exchanges. Perry says that, as a society, we are all 'complicit' in allowing a culture where youngsters can make inappropriate contact with strangers at all hours of the day and night. She adds, "Most parents are too busy, don't know the words, aren't aware their children are doing it. They are living in digital oblivion."
  
  Do you agree with either of her points?
  
  Or not?
  
  Please do post and tell!

[LimeLeafLizard]

Oh just seen Justine's quote. Hooray for Justine!

Couldn't have said it better myself!

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

I don't agree that it would be a totally useless thing for her to say ....

IMHO many parents sadly do not realise the value of sharing attention with your child on whatever they are focused on in that moment as a fundamental way of developing their learning and language skills.

To put it another way, too many children are ignored too much of the time

[germyrabbit]

maybe not, but i don't think claire was thinking about mnetters when she published her findings.

[germyrabbit]

i sometimes wish mn could view the world away from their middle class/or lower class bubbles

it's an all or nothing stance on here - anyone trying to have a say if shouted down as claire is here

are any of you willing to take to the plate and have your view, you can you know, we live in a democracy where you can too be claire and have your voices heard or are you just happy to sit behind a PC bleating and critising those you do.

[ivykaty44]

We fill every moment of our children's lives with organised activities,
Most parents are too busy,

so which one is it?

It can't be both as they contradict each other - either we keep are children so busy that they never have time for anything else or the parents are to busy we don't know what they are doing - but it sure as hell can't be both at once.

Things will get worse with the UC as then parents will not be around at all to actually parent their children - for 13 weeks a year children will need to parent themselves

Then of course the parents will be blamed for letting there children run riot whilst the parents work - well thats what the government want - parents to work full time and not be with their children once they are over 5 years old. Which is fine but then don't blame parents for not being around to actually parent

[wannabedomesticgoddess]

Surely the middle class and lower class make up the majority of the population.

Not sure how thats a bubble. Since when was the high earner bracket the real world.

Sorry but :o :o :o at that notion.

[germyrabbit]

nope the majority of the population are in the middle

bemused why you find such humour in that

[LimeLeafLizard]

germy Claire is entitled to her opinion, as are we all, but the difference between her and us is that she is PAID (by our taxes) to give her advice, and it should therefore be based on evidence. She hasn't 'published her findings', because she hasn't 'found' anything, since she hasn't done any research.

[domesticslattern]

Great quote from Justine there- hear hear!

[germyrabbit]

i dunno i agree with her research so far and i am not a tory

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

I don't see how it's not part of sharing views in a democracy to write them on here. It's more convenient at 22.46 at night when I've had a glass of wine than driving round to number 10 personally and having a word with the PM. And you never know both he and Mrs Perry may just get to hear about said views this way anyhow. Stranger things have happened !

[LimeLeafLizard]

What research do you agree with? She hasn't done any as far as I can tell.

She is a financial manager who worked in the city, took 7 years off as a SAHM and has been in this job for one month.

[WhoWhatWhereWhen]

She has a point, my own children do activities 3 nights a week and all Saturday afternoon and they are by no means doing the most organised activities amongst their peers, I feel It's a cop out performed by middle class parents who over compensate for the lack of interest they have in their children, too many parents just can't be arsed to be with their own kids for more than 5mins.

Lets face it though what I've described above is far from the worst style of parenting.

[wannabedomesticgoddess]

I have just read that only around 10% of the UK population earn over £50k.

Ten percent. Just ten.

That means the majority of the population earn below this amount.

Bubble you say???

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

Agree with ivykaty and others too that there is a bizarre contradiction and lack of focus in her raising of these two completely different issues.

All they have in common IMHO is their position on the fringe of relevance

[newshoots]

She comes across as a twit.

I'm not saying her observations are not valid, she is I guess reflecting the experience of her circle of aquaintance. But she is not offering any political solutions, so what IS her point?

[germyrabbit]

oh well i shall await you all doing a better job

[newshoots]

I think she ought to just post on AIBU and stop having pretensions of improving the governance of the UK.

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

Yes newshoots," AIBU to think mothers should stop ferrying their DC's to endless after school clubs and actually spend some time with them ? Surely one activity a night is more than enough for any child ? "

Sure, I can see it now, and I'd probably have a bit more sympathy for it in that context ...
but I'd still be coming down on the YABU side and telling you all what my DC's get up to and how fab their after-school activity leaders are

[inthewildernessbuild]

On further consideration, I can see the link between children being highly directed and failing to learn a lot of basic skills. On Monday for example I had a son doing Scouts, and football, and loads of homework. Not surprisingly there wasn't much time left in the afternoon for him to do any chores, the sort you might expect from a twelve year old. He's tired, he wants supper prepared; I don't want him to be so tired that he decides not to do the activities so I don't hassle him over the boring stuff (bins, laundry, table laying) That's the way it goes...the irony is he goes to Scouts where they teach him useful practical skills...

We have dropped Scouts, reasonably...I wonder why I ever let the evenings get so exhausting? And so it continues for the rest of the week/weekend, football, Guides, Fencing, Netball, to and froing, violin, choir, Netball matches. Yes it keeps out of mischief, and keeps 3 couchpotatoes active, but maybe if I did NOTHING they would organise this stuff themselves, and go round to friends houses, and just DO STUFF?

[ivykaty44]

germyrabbi - I am doing a good job at being a mother, I have two dd's and have cared for them and looked after them and they are now young lovely adult and a great teen.

Like a large portion of the population who are all doing the same, without asking for praise we love our children and want in our own ways to see them into adulthood as prospering young people.

Most of us will send these adults into the world knowing how to cook, clean, eanr a living and having been through more educational tests than any other generation in this country, through more education as nearly 50% will have been to uni.

Yet the government decides at a time when life is hard and the propspect of lossing jobs, becomeing unemployed to beat us with a stick and tell us we are doing a crap job at raising our own children the next generation.

Well perhaps they should look at the worst parents in the UK - that will be the government themselves as children in care take 90% of the places in any prison in this country....

[ballstoit]

Mainly I think that David Camoron should stop pretending to care about childhood, when it's quite obvious from what's been cut in his 'spending reviews' that he doesn't give a tiny rats ass about the children in this country.

[ZombiesAreClammyDodgers]

She may have a point on the first one. But as for the second, isn't it also because people are scrambling to keep their jobs in this economy that they aren't able to focus on parenting as much??
Maybe the insane cost of childcare is something more worth focusing on??

[coraltoes]

There are children going fuckung HUNGRY in her country, and she cares about ballet classes vs play dough time?!

[trustissues75]

Germyrabbit - the problem I see with what she has had to say is that she is looking at symptoms without realising there are actual real problems behind what she's seeing - if in fact that is what she's actually seeing, there's a chance that what she's seeing is from her own privileged little bubble.

I had no idea us middle and lower classes were so blinkered (an I've been both, if one counts purely income and where one lives as an indicator of class - oh and I've also travelled the world and seen a lot more than the "average person" , or so I'm told) obviously I haven't seen and experienced enough to be able to look at things from various points of view - seeing as you so disdainfully look down on us lower and middle classes do you have any spare cash so I,, and others similarly stricken with blinkeredness can widen my horizons a little more thus enabling me to make a more useful contribution to discussions such as this?