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!

I read about this in yesterday's Times. What Justine said, 100%. Just more mother/parent bashing.

I didn't even bother to read the article. I've been a mum since 1977 and there have been loads of 'experts' telling me I was doing everything 'wrong'. but somehow despite their mum doing everything 'wrong' my DC managed to grow up ok :)

Exactly Chottie, for some reason parents these days aren't capable of parenting or following instincts on what is right for our children. Government,media and an endless line of "studies" seem to think they know best and we're doing it all wrong.

These "experts" have expanded massively in recent years.What on earth has happened since the 70s when my parents were just left by and large to parent in peace?(growing up in the 70s and 80s isms fab thread if you want to be reminded if how you did it all wrong)

My mum despairs of all the pressure my sister and I are under.

I try to tune most of it out and take it all with a very large pinch of salt.

Bubbles or not, things really are tough and getting tougher for parents, whether you are the sort who is discovering that being in a higher tax band in no way equips you to send your children to private school as your parents did, or whether you are the sort who worries where the hell you are going to find the rent, the gas, and the electric money and when something goes up £5 you want to cry. AND A LOT OF IT IS ABOUT THIS GOVT'S POLICIES.
And thisunprovoked niggling and bitching shows an incredible lack of sensitivity to that.

• which, in a perverse way, gives me hope. Because the incredible out-of-touchness of a govt who can produce this sort of irrelevant pointless nastiness must surely be evident, and therefore surely we won't have to put up with them for too long?

Sorry, but I don't agree with "it was great in the 70s when parents could do what they wanted". I was a child in the 70s and I knew that there were kids in my class who were beaten, properly, at home, with belts and sticks. You could get the cane at school which was minor compared to some of the battering happening at home. Many of my friends were sexually abused by relatives (I found out later) and told no adults (and to my shame neither did I because they swore me to secrecy and I thought that was keeping my promise. But I didn't have adults who were confidantes either so had no one to tell anyway). My mother was unusual in that she had to know where we were and who with, and in that she limited sugar. (I didn't like those last 2 but I think she was right now.) A lot of children were really unhappy because their lives were a bit shit and no one cared because parents were always right.

What a cheek!!! Am speechless. How very dare she. More proof that this government is completely removed from reality - No! - children named tarquin and tallulah who have more money than sense is not the 'norm'.

I shall think of this woman or her claptrap no further.

I'm so sorry for what you and your friends experienced curry
I agree that a leave parents to it approach is not the whole solution either.
Great point about government showing themselves to be so out of touch with reality that how long can they last BTW

I think she's talking rubbish too.

My daughter would probably fit into the category of too many extra curricular activities. At 9, she does 18 hours training for gymnastics a week (she competes, her choice), an hour of ballet and she stays late for school once a week to do choir. She also goes to breakfast club to allow me to work. But I don't think this causes her to be ill equipped for coping with the adult world. At 9, she can make her own breakfast, make me a cup of tea, go to the shops to buy me something I need, plays out in the street, goes to the cinema with friends and no adults. She can help with many of the household tasks, like putting on a load of washing for me. In short, she is well on her way to becoming a rounded adult.

I do teach A level students myself, and so many of them are not ready for adulthood, they are babied. But I don't think this is down to extra curricular hobbies, I think that just confuses the matter.

As for the second, yes I think some parents are clueless about IT. I'm very aware of the Facebook functions, and how to hide posts etc, but so many of my friends seem to think that if they're friends with their children on Facebook, they'll see what is put on there. They seem unaware of the custom button, and as a teacher I know many students make great use of it to prevent their parents from seeing stuff they don't want their parents to see. Many run two accounts - one suitable for family, and a second hidden one that their parents don't know about!

That said I agree that there are far more important things to worry about than this!

juggling, don't be sorry for me! It was what I knew about with other kids that I found scary, not my own life.

Most children don't have every spare minute of their lives filled with activities as their parents cannot afford it. Most of the family budget is spent trying to feed and clothe them as make sure their heating bill is paid.
And as for uni- I doubt we can afford to send all three of our children to uni due to CaMORON squeezing every last penny from the working classes. They will probably have to get a job. If there is any left due to cutbacks everywhere.
It's exceptionally naive to say that this is the "norm" as for most..it's bloody not!!!

Am glad you were OK curry. I'm not surprised you were worried about your friends though.

Sorry that experience was certainly not what I experienced in the 70s.Abuse will happen in all ages,it is the extreme which isn't what is being discussed.

Guilty of not reading the entire thread so this might have been said already but I think her political subagenda here in point 1 is to show that all these "whingers" going on about how cuts are affecting their children's lives and putting them into poverty are in fact wasting money on forcing them to do activities that, once they get to University (ha!), they are no longer going to be able to afford without running up even more debt so there's no point in them doing them in the first place.
In other words, complete lack of understanding a) about who can afford to do these activities and b) what other benefits they can bring to a child, as well as the skill itself and c) how people less fortunate financially than herself and her social circle actually live.

Point 2 - Big Brother, much?

I think some parents try to be friends more than parents. Also some feel guilty for long working hours and so spoil materially. More help for parents to spend more time at home would be good.

Why the fuck would i listen to anything this joke of a government says when it clearly evident they don't give a flying shit about struggling families, they really are a bad dream i wish i could wake up from.

She might be able to afford to do non-stop activities with her kids, but most of us in the real world either a) can't afford it, b) spend a lot of time working ourselves, and c) have a far more rational approach to parenthood.

Just another crap adviser trying to prove that she's actually doing some work for all the money they're paying her.

Another Tory making pronouncements based on personal experience and anecdotal evidence? At least she's just an "advisor" and not the Minister for Education.

Seeing as the Tories are constantly pushing through 'reforms' that will hurt children and families then I couldn't give a shiny shit about what their 'childhood advisor' says about parenting.

I think someone who farms off their children off to boarding school ( Ms Perry) doesn't really have relevant experience to pass judgement on other people's children.

Yes, the problem of too many activities/not enough actual life skills is one that affects middle-class children. However, the problem is that, with social mobility in the UK being so weak, it is these children who will consider themselves born to run the country and be the ones becoming MPs' researchers etc. Claire Perry probably comes across them all the time. So I can understand her frustration :)

Thumbwitch - agree. It's the "all children need is a wooden spoon to play with, and you can feed your family on 4p a week each if only you can be bothered to shop and cook properly" school of Tory cliché.

I can't be asked to read the whole thread, and of course there are more pressing problems. Nevertheless, Claire Perry does have a point.

She has certainly upset people! It is very weird that people come on here very judgemental of other parents, but as soon as an outsider turns up they all close ranks! Of course there are lots of child poverty problems that need solving first but everyone knows at least one over protective, helicopter parent whose DC will end up at university not even knowing how to operate a washing machine and never having had to work out public transport alone.
Parenting is giving roots and giving wings and you have to start early-not strap them on at 18yrs and expect them to manage. And there are certainly many parents who won't simply say 'no' to their child-in case it upsets them!

That is odd, AuntySib -- given that her own three children are at boarding school, being pumped full of extracurricular activities outside her direct supervision, I'm not sure she's best placed to lecture everyone else on either "filling every moment of our children's lives with organised activities" or being "too busy to monitor our children's text messages and internet exchanges".