Comments for Parents' Forum

Comment on Next meetup: Children and food – Thursday 15 September 2011 by Birthday in NYC

Birthday in NYC — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 20:09:56 +0000

Hi Sue. I think that this is a very disturbing trend among our youth. Recently, I was watching one of those reality pageant shows involving children as young as three, and it was amazing to watch the type of pressure that the parents put on the children. Teaching kids that young to worry about their bodies like that hurts self-esteem, and has no health benefits. In fact, it probably leads to long term health problems as children deal with issues during their teenage years and beyond when their bodies start changing. Great post, thanks for sharing!

Comment on Taking your children out of school by Rosie Cuckston

Rosie Cuckston — Mon, 23 May 2011 21:28:59 +0000

Your argument is convincing, but isn’t one that I’ve actually heard from school management and local authority “attendance” personnel. They focus wholly on potential damage to the child of the failure to attend school.

The case against taking your child out of school is also presented in terms of meaningless statistics and absence target levels where the difference between a 93% level and a 96% level means Ofsted will get off the school’s case about absence. In my experience, even teachers don’t talk about in-term vacations undermining teachers’ authority.

Rather than sticking up for education, or teachers, properly, school management and local authorities threaten potentially uncooperative parents with taking away the child’s place at school. The idea seems to be that parents need frightening into compliance, possibly because school management and local authorities don’t have any idea what a good argument could be for not taking in-term vacations, but are well practised in how to guilt trip parents.

Comment on Taking your children out of school by Jane

Jane — Tue, 10 May 2011 11:40:54 +0000

Steve,
There are lots of elements to your reply- probably an essay’s worth! But for this reply I want to take up your suggestion that parents taking their children out of school leads to independent thinking. If independent thinking is a flouting of authority in its own right- then I suppose that is true.
My view of independent thinking is children are given knowledge exterior to themselves which helps them to make educated judgements, academically, socially and politically. Although I am not against flouting the rules if appropriate and for a cause I judge to be right, I don’t think independent thinking arises from just not doing things you ought.

Comment on Taking your children out of school by Steve K

Steve K — Mon, 09 May 2011 23:38:05 +0000

Who says education isn’t also personally gratifying? And holidays (and more importantly) cultural experiences certainly aren’t just about ‘personal pleasure’. You make it sound like school is like some kind of nasty but necessary medicine and anything else is a bag of sweeties.

You offer no evidence whatsoever, even anecdotal, that children do take on the negative values that you presume they do from this experience. You also fail to consider any of the possible positive values that they might also take on, such as the importance of family or independent thinking perhaps.

And to say “School is there to teach children a body of knowledge that is rational and abstract and experiencing things is not the same as knowing things.”… that sounds like a curriculum from 1962!! I must remember to tell my daughter’s teacher that she must only learn rational and abstract things in school from now on and leave any experiences for the holidays.

I don’t actually disagree with you, entirely. I’m just writing this in the hope that your readers will see through your opinionated, poorly constructed argument and realise the matter might be just a bit more complicated than you make out.

Comment on Next Parents’ Forum: The Power of the Mummy Bloggers by Mary Sil

Mary Sil — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 00:46:14 +0000

I think that this discussion is very important because parenting can be an isolating experience. I didn’t have a mum, but I could see that even those who did often felt very alone because, unlike our own parents, many of us have moved miles away from where we grew up.’

Comment on There’s more to human character than sharing toys by Dennis T.

Dennis T. — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 08:29:33 +0000

I agree with your point that instead of comfort or happiness (as defined by ‘enjoyment’) it’s better for our kids to learn how to ‘cope with adversity’ as you say or handle stress.

It’s unhealthy to mollycoddle our kids and these kids eventually grow up with a sense of entitlement and have anxiety about things that are not big problems at all.

I’m also growing tired of articles on how to be perfect parents. My kids need to know that I’m not perfect, that there may be days I won’t be trying so hard, or may say the wrong thing, but as I’m responsible for caring for them, they are ultimately responsible for their life.

Take the best that I can give. Instead of hating me for not being the person I’m not, put your energy into being the person you want to be. You don’t become anything or achieve anything by blaming your parents.

Comment on Male post-natal depression by Chris

Chris — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 12:39:49 +0000

The birth of my first child knocked me sideways and completely undermined my ability to work – not just about lack of sleep, but the change of life/expectations that the men in the Grauniad article talked about. I certainly think it’s ridiculous to suggest that I had (or have) PND, but the more I read and hear, the more I think parents of both sexes who become significantly depressed after birth are ‘normal’.

Comment on Is it “okay” to Lie about Santa? (Yes!) by Debbie Drummond

Debbie Drummond — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 18:02:37 +0000

No! You should be honest to your child that Santa is not true. Just an imagination of our ANCESTOR! lol

Comment on The book bag-should it be defended? by amanda

amanda — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 12:43:35 +0000

what’s a BOOK BAG?

Comment on The book bag-should it be defended? by Sallym

Sallym — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 11:36:26 +0000

I help in our school and if the parent hasn’t signed in the book then I have to read the book again with the child. Its not “proving” to the teacher that you have read so much as saying “Yes my child can read this book, lets have the next one”. Its a way of making sure the child is getting read with. Some children never get read with at home and so they need to read with an adult more often in school than those who get read with every night at home so its simple logistics to use the parents signature as a measure of who is who. That said now my children are off the basic books and onto chapter books they read it to themselves and I just initial it to say I saw them with the book in their hand. Every now and again I will random test to make sure they are really reading it and not just flicking the pages but by and large I really don’t need to actually listen to them. So overall I’m fine with having the reading policed by parental signature, it isn’t for proving you have read, its to make sure your child can read that book before they get given harder ones.