Children 1st calls for more support for families

IT seems hardly a week goes by without a mention of the bad behaviour of teenagers in Britain and the rise of yob culture. Now a new report has revealed parents are struggling to cope with the barrage of criticism over how they are bringing up their children.

According to the survey, carried out for Children 1st, around one in six parents feels outside pressure from society is causing them or their family "significant difficulties". At the same time they feel there is a lack of support and guidance, especially during the troublesome teenager years.

The charity, which is launching the report to coincide with National Parenting Week this week, says that parenting must be recognised as a difficult job. It is also calling for local support services to be established across Scotland for families to access when they need help.

Anne Houston, chief executive of Children 1st, said that recent legislative changes to crack down on yob behaviour - such as Asbos and parenting orders - had led to a culture of blame, which was also being perpetuated by parents themselves.

"There is a lot that comes out, particularly around the behaviour of young people, that is related to how parents should be dealing with it and how they have failed," she said. "I also know quite a number of parents are concerned about how other parents view and compare them, and they feel they are not doing well.

"That can undermine a parent's confidence, so it almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy," she added.

Houston suggested a greater emphasis should be placed on encouraging support for parents, rather than punishing them, pointing out that children "don't come with an instruction manual".

"We are not born with all the parenting skills in place, we have to learn them," she said. "One of the things that comes out in this report is how much parents care for their children, want to be there for them and love them - it is not all bad news and we have to acknowledge that as well."

The survey was carried out by Parentline Scotland, a telephone advice service run by Children 1st, which receives around 10,000 calls a year. During the research, which took place from June to September this year, callers were asked: "What do you find most difficult about being a parent?"

Three out of five of the respondents identified challenges separate from their relationship with their child as the most difficult aspect of parenting. These included external pressures such as being expected to be a "perfect parent", which was particularly felt by mothers.

Justine Roberts, co-founder of internet parent website Mumsnet, said that many parents using the site expressed feelings of guilt.

"There is an endless list of numbers being thrown at parents - you have to make sure children get an hour's exercise a day, five portions of fruit and veg a day, no more than half an hour of TV a day and all the other things we're supposed to do," she said. "There are just so many things to fall down on."

Parents in the survey also spoke of their worries about the safety and wellbeing of their children in today's society, with concerns over child abuse, drugs and alcohol. Managing difficult behaviour in children was seen as the biggest challenge of parenting by around a quarter of all respondents, especially during the "nightmare" teenage years.

Jill Cook, manager of Parentline Scotland, said that almost a third of calls to the helpline related to teenage behaviour problems and suggested that parents of younger children often find it easier to talk about such difficulties.

"The thing parents (of teenagers) really struggle with is almost a complete breakdown in communication and for young people it is a difficult time as well," she said.

"There doesn't seem to be any shame involved in asking for help when your children are small, but there is almost an assumption when you get to the teenage years that there is a bit of stigma around that."

Scottish television presenter and mother-of-two Kaye Adams is backing the Children 1st campaign. In a foreword to the charity's report, she describes how she felt "rubbish at everything" following the birth of her first daughter.

She told the Sunday Herald: "It is not a matter of age, whether you are single or in a relationship, your class or economic status - it parenthood can be bloody frustrating at times and it can have its difficulties.

"But we shouldn't be ashamed to admit that or to say I am tearing my hair out; every parent will have times they want to run for the hills and we should accept that."

Frank Furedi, professor of sociology at the University of Kent and author of Paranoid Parenting, argued that one problem is that bringing up children is increasingly being seen as the responsibility of individual parents, rather than of the whole community.

"Other adults are very loathe to take responsibility for the socialisation of the younger generation," he said. "If kids are doing well, that is because their parents are really good, but if kids misbehave then it is because they have bad parents. That becomes a way of explaining a whole host of social problems in a kind of way which is very unfortunate."

He added: "There is the biblical saying that the sins of the father will be visited on the child - now we are visiting the sins of the children on their parents."

Parentline Scotland can be contacted on 0808 800 2222