All parents should attend parenting classes

[Still Waters]

The prime minister will call for a revolution in child rearing this weekend by suggesting that all parents should attend classes on how to discipline their children.

In a move likely to enrage those fearful of an encroaching "nanny state", David Cameron will say that it should be the norm for parents to receive instruction on how to behave around their offspring.

As part of a speech on the family, Cameron will announce plans for a parenting classes voucher scheme, claiming that all parents need help and that there is too little state-sponsored guidance on offer.

http://www.theguardi...hildren-lessons

[Black Monk]

More Nanny State nonsense, the same which, in the period of a month, first told us that men's (but non women's, mustn't discriminate against them) "safe" alcohol drinking limits should be reduced (to make it the same as women's) to now telling that there are no "safe" alcohol limits at all.

How arrogant for the British State to think it should tell us how to bring up our own children. Will those politicians who are parents also be forced to attend parenting classes or will such classes only be for the ordinary people?

Edited January 10, 2016 by Black Monk

[Redefining Success]

Arrogant pr*ck!

What makes him so perfect to say such a thing?

There is NO instructions for being a parent. Help SHOULD be available, but to those who need it, young single parents spring to mind but there is plenty of scope for others.

To say ALL PARENTS should attend is a bit ignorant.

[Leonardo]

Cameron is being careful not to suggest the majority of bad parents are "poor" - which may or may not be true. However, I have no doubt he probably thinks the majority of children suffering bad parenting come from low income families.

However, what about those children who are brought up to expect privilege and entitlement in wealthy families? I would suggest this parenting is just as "bad" as the type of parenting Cameron is presumably focused on.

[Ashotep]

This will be another reason people won't want to have kids.

[xYlvax]

Or we can just make people take tests before they produce offspring. -kind of sarcastic, kind of not-

[alibongo]

Ridiculous! I was brought up in a poor working class family, where religious indoctrination and beating was the norm. The worst we turned out was as alcoholics and thieves. This is true. Don't send them to parenting classes,put them in prison for a few days!

[alibongo]

I intended to sound factious. Of course poor parents need help. If they weren't helpless they wouldn't be poor.

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

Yes, I think we should all take parenting lessons FROM A MAN WHO LEFT ONE OF HIS CHILDREN IN THE PUB.

[alibongo]

Or the man who mistook his wife for a hat. Great book.

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

Or the man who mistook his wife for a hat. Great book.

Or the man who skull****ed a pig.

[questionmark]

in related opinion:

Bridget Christie: parenting advice? From a man who left his daughter in a pub toilet?

Without a shred of irony, the parent and prime minister David Cameron, who appears (on paper at least) to hate children and their futures – and to be doing all he possibly can to make their lives a misery, especially all the poor children who love going to libraries, living in affordable housing and eating breakfast – has suggested that all parents, regardless of social or economic background, attend state-funded parenting classes. Campaigning for this, while implementing welfare cuts that have seen a rise in child poverty for the first time in a decade, is like Kim Jong-un enforcing mandatory recycling workshops while developing the hydrogen bomb.

Unveiling his Life Chances Strategy, the Tory leader hopes the classes will become “normal – or even aspirational – for parents to attend”. Unfortunately, Cameron won’t be giving the classes personally, which is a shame, because I’m sure a lot more people would go if he did, if only to ask him if all parents should be leaving their daughters in pub toilets. Will it be like prime minister’s questions? Will parents have to stand up when they speak? Will the PM sarcastically address them as “the honourable parent”? Will John Bercow tell us off for clapping, or call us incorrigible delinquents? None of this is clear.

Read more

[Grey Area]

Not sure quite what reasoning behind this is. Parenting support already exists in the form of the family support teams, a scheme noted in the queens speech.

This service is generally referred by schools and is voluntary for parents to take or not. There are plenty of schemes out there for parents to take advantage of.

This is just going to p*** people off and in extreme cases push bad parents further off the radar.

[Duke Wellington]

More Nanny State nonsense, the same which, in the period of a month, first told us that men's (but non women's, mustn't discriminate against them) "safe" alcohol drinking limits should be reduced (to make it the same as women's) to now telling that there are no "safe" alcohol limits at all.

How arrogant for the British State to think it should tell us how to bring up our own children. Will those politicians who are parents also be forced to attend parenting classes or will such classes only be for the ordinary people?

The broken society in Britain is being driven by poor parenting.

For the ones who aren't knowingly and deliberately messing up their children, but doing it because they don't know any better, then parenting classes will result in a significant improvement in the way society functions once they become adults.

Its ironic that the Conservatives are having to implement a leftist policy to clean up Tony Blair's social disaster.