Parents' Forum

I was watching clips of old cricket matches yesterday (don’t ask) with my husband and 10 year old daughter. At the end of the Test Match at Edgbaston in 1981 when England won the match, the crowd invaded the pitch. My daughter couldn’t fathom what was going on – this was so alien to anything she’d ever seen. We told her that was what it was like in the olden days-people did those kind of things.

But it does make you wonder what this means for children. What does it mean that they live in a world where public space and private space is so controlled? Even their first experience of going to nursery is that there are barriers to entering the space.

I sent my two kids to school today, but I ended up getting a call from the school to pick them both up. No sooner had I picked my youngest up, I had to go back to pick the other one up as well.  OK they did both have coughs but they weren’t really sick. 

I was told that my youngest had a temperature and the oldest had a rash that needed to be reviewed by the doctor.  I did my youngest’s temperature before school and after they sent her home and it was 37 degrees. I don’t think that constitutes hot.  My oldest had been scratching her face (hence the rash) and was hoping to come home because lots of other kids get sent home in her class.  In fact when I picked up my eldest there were two other kids waiting for their parents to arrive.

Apart from one of my children needing to go to hospital to have a bead removed from her ear (a childhood experiment gone wrong) my kids only sick days are when the school tends to send them home.  I think schools are creating a culture around kids where they know that if they cough loud enough they will be sent home.  I think the schools should be a little more matronly about children and illness.  Most kids enjoy a sickie and thats not in the kids or the parents interest to entertain.

This year’s Battle of Ideas, a two-day festival of social, political and cultural discussion is taking place in London, 31 October & 1 November 2009. Tickets are on sale now.

You might be interested in our exciting Parents’ Forum sessions and the Battle for Reproductive Choice Strand:

Parents’ Forum Sessions

• We Don’t Need No Sex Education
• Policing The Playground: Do Anti-Bullying Campaigns Do More Harm Than Good?
• Standing Up to Supernanny: Why We Need A Parents’ Liberation Movement
• Sporty Kids and Pushy Parents: How Much Encouragement Is Too Much?

Battle for Reproductive Choice

• Frankenstein’s Daughters: from science fiction to science fact?
• Whose Right to Choose? Choice, ethics and regulation in 21st century reproduction
• Three’s a crowd? The battle over population and reproduction

Speakers include:

Ken MacLeod (science fiction writer); Ann Furedi (Chief Executive, British Pregnancy Advisory Service); Dr Ellie Lee(lecturer in social policy, University of Kent); Simon Blake (national director, Brook); Professor Peter K Smith (head, Unit for School and Family Studies); Zoe Williams(columnist, The Guardian); Dr Katherine Rake (CEO, Family and Parenting Institute) and many more.

The Battle of Ideas is in its fifth year and is now a major fixture in London’s intellectual calendar. The Battle of Ideas was described by Chris Rapley, director of the Science Museum, as ‘a rare opportunity to debate first hand with those involved in the great issues of our time’.

The Battle of Ideas is a space where ideas can be argued for and fought over without constraint. Free speech allowed!

The event is held at the Royal College of Art, Kensington Gore, London SW7 2EU and is organised by the Institute of Ideas .
Please forward this email to interested colleagues. I very much hope you will come and join the debate.

Join the Institute of Ideas & get a discounted Battle of Ideas 2009 ticket.