Middle-class parenting style of being mates with your kids is ruining Britain, says super-head Katharine Birbalsingh
CHILDREN are naughty. That’s the reality.
Yet modern parenting books like to make you think there is no such thing. They are often about being gentle — centred around empathy and rewards rather than punishment — or permissive, which has very few rules or disciplinary actions.
The culture that is created by this literature, mostly written by middle-class people, is damaging to society — especially working-class families.
If you are a privileged, middle-class family, you may succeed with a gentle approach.
But if you are a single mum with three jobs and four children, it is very difficult to live by mantras such as giving the children choices over what they eat and never raising your voice.
Praise and punishment
Parents are made to feel guilty for trying to discipline children, but they need discipline and boundaries and be taught right from wrong.
I see the effects of gentle parenting all the time at a teenage level. By this time, the parents are thinking, “What on earth have I done?”.
It’s not their fault. Parents have been infantilised by parenting literature rather than empowered.
They are told to be mates with their children, but if you are friends with them as a child, rather than holding them to account, you won’t like them as an adult.
Of course, it’s much easier to always give children what they want. The harder option is to hold the line and say, “You’re not going to have that cookie.”
If I could eat chocolate all day, I would. Why do I eat broccoli? Someone has had to teach me that vegetables are an important part of a healthy diet.
Parents need to do what is difficult. It is our duty to be in charge.
You can have a naughty step, or you take away a biscuit or time with friends or a video game.
“Moral formation” is a term that has disappeared. Parents do not understand their responsibility is to develop a child’s moral character.
I tend to see two extremes — either really permissive parents or those who take everything away.
You should give praise and punishment. In school, when there is discipline, the children are much happier. They feel safer. They are more creative, engaged and polite.
Outside school, children should not be given too much choice, like parents asking which variety of nuggets they want. The child should eat what you give, teaching them to have something they do not want.
Life is about exploration, development and experiencing lots of things. If you give too much choice, it is unhelpful.
Leadership guru Simon Sinek references a shoe salesman who offered two, not three, pairs of shoes, otherwise people are paralysed by choice.
This definitely applies to children. There are children who are not potty trained when they start school, who have never seen the alphabet and do not know how to read.
I do not think gentle parenting is lazy. I’m saying perhaps it is intellectually lazy, as there is no end goal in mind.
In reality, all children are naughty sometimes. We should know it, otherwise they are going to make fools of us — and of themselves in future.
- As told to Natalie Clarke
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