Support groups call for �one-stop shop�

Scottish parents feel abandoned and would like more advice on how to raise their children, according to a new study.

The Mori poll of more than 1200 parents found two out of five would like more support, and showed that parents are stressed over alcohol and drug abuse, how to exercise discipline, and how to help children achieve in education.

Some 46% of parents polled said the government has "a poor understanding" of the challenges facing parents.

The poll was carried out for Parenting Across Scotland (PAS), the umbrella group for support organisations including Children 1st, Relate Scotland, Capability Scotland and Stepfamily Scotland.

Maggie Mellon, chair of PAS, told the Sunday Herald many parents feel "unsupported", with no idea of where to go for help and advice. "Parents are warned' all the time about their children - on overfeeding them, feeding them the wrong thing, not letting them out, not letting them sit around at home. They are left without support, and with falling confidence, which the survey clearly shows."

She called for a "one-stop shop" for parenting advice in Scotland "which would be made up of local services giving parents help when they need it".

According to the survey, parents rely on GPs, the internet and sometimes their extended family to offer support.

The results follow a shocking Unicef report published earlier this month which showed the UK is the worst country in the developed world in which to grow up and prompted Conservative leader David Cameron to declare that "our society is in deep trouble".

The survey also found that 77% of parents would consider family counselling and 68% would approve of counselling for relationship difficulties, showing a change from even a decade ago, when seeking expert help carried a stigma.

Mellon noted, however, that counselling services are "rarely" available. Although thousands of parents do access support from Parentline Scotland, a lack of volunteers meant the service could only answer 3600 of the 10,000 calls they received last year.

Jan McClory, an assistant director at Children 1st and Parentline Scotland, said that parents remain "remarkably undervalued", adding that they were reluctant to ask for help a lot of the time. She added that Parentline will shortly launch a trial of email-based advice.

Mother-of-two Carol Banks from Edinburgh said she would welcome extra advice and support in raising her teenage children, who both have learning difficulties. "Outreach about some of these issues isn't really available," she said. "We only found out about a local support group because our social worker had a friend who went to it, otherwise we would never have known it was there."

Dr Lisa Woolfson, a senior lecturer in educational psychology at the University of Strathclyde, said parents are more willing to accept advice following recent television programmes.

She added: "Parents know experts are out there and that they can seek out that expert help. Small problems can become big problems without extended support. Being a parent is challenging."

A spokesperson for the Scottish Executive said it provides funding to a range of parenting organisations across Scotland and is already acting on the survey's results, adding: "We want every child to get the best possible start in life and recognise that some parents need support and advice." The findings of the survey will be discussed at a meeting in the Scottish parliament on Tuesday, at which several MSPs will share their own experience of parenting.

Another poll released yesterday by ICM found the majority of parents whose children who smoke or drink or have underage sex are unaware of their behaviour, prompting fears a gulf is developing between parents and young people.