Parents

Have you noticed how many Parenting books, articles, columns, blogs there are today? Type Parenting Guides into Google and there are 11,100,000 results. Do parents have time to do any parenting after they have read all the articles on how to be a good parent? What is a good parent? Do the parents who read all these actually need them? I have this thing I have to do called work, which involves spending a lot of time with 16 – 20 year-olds. Some people call it teaching. On parents evening I never see the parents of my more challenging students (other names are available) so I guess their parents haven’t read the books? Then of course a lot of reading material is contradictory, so if you thought you were an inadequate parent before you started studying you probably will when you’re through.

When my first child was born the midwife told us to wrap him tight in his blanket at bedtime with his arms pinned and lay him on his side. The idea was that without flailing arms he would sleep, which he did. That was the only advice we were given. I remember that we put him in a basket and sat and watched him, I think we were expecting some kind of development. Like a speeded up nature film where the plant grows three months in ten seconds. Needless to say nothing happened and over a period of time we payed less and less attention to him until we realised one day he had left home. I’m joking of course. We muddled through and probably made mistakes and although I was not always around and in reality not what you could call a good  father he turned out to be wonderful person.

http://parentingabington.com/

Of course if you have a troublesome child then you may need advice, but the problem is 11,100,000 results may just contradict each other from time to time causing confusion. Years ago there was always someone on the street who you could go to. I know on our council estate there was a lady who was particularly good at helping to deliver babies and another who could save your sewing disasters and yet another who could help sort out your kids. Now we seem to have swopped communities for authors.  So don’t worry too much if you haven’t studied to degree level when your child is born if you think you need to read a book on how to be a better parent then you are probably already there. Or you could ask your Mum 🙂

The 50 most asked questions one of them is ‘My ten year old is watching porn online how do I stop him.’ Really, I mean really. Here’s a question for you. Have you heard of the Parental Control button?