- did I ?
9 Mar 2010 0I think I’ve just ranted at a journalist....She phoned me last week when I was really busy and asked if she could phone again. She phoned today when I was getting lost in Leeds and then again this evening. By arrangement.
Holly is writing an e-book for net-mums and it is aimed at those mothers of children under 10. She has written most of it and asked me whether I feel children are being asked to grow up too quickly and aren’t able to be children long enough. So I told her.
I feel very strongly that childhood should be wonderful, and good fun and happy - and this requires others to take responsibility for the children. Too soon, people have to make decisions for themselves about life, friendship, jobs, spending etc. My concern is that presently children are aping many of the big girl/big boy things they see without understanding what others might read in to what they say and do. Five year olds in crop tops or ‘sexy slogan’ t shirts just want to look like big girls, those who swear want to sound ‘grown-up’ but adults outside the family will see miniature, sexy, rude people. This gives those other adults permission to treat the kids as having understanding they can not possibly have yet and leads into further permissiveness.
It seems to be culturally specific in that many English children dress and speak in a way that would be unacceptable in other European countries. We tolerate rather bad behaviour. Holly asked why this was happening and I told her my thinking on that too! As I may have mentioned before, the media offers far too many examples of bad behaviour as that is though to be ‘entertaining’. Within education, teachers are badly equipped for dealing with unacceptable behaviour. They feel uncomfortable about it but don’t seem to share common values which would allow them to agree what could be tolerated and what not.
And of course, parents seem largely to feel disempowered and unqualified. For some reason, all those wonderful parenting programmes seem to make parents feel less rather than more confident. Parents try method 1, 2 and 3 and then give up – not, perhaps, realising that each one hour programme represents and edited two weeks of support and ideas.
And then Holly seemed to breathe quickly as if anxious to say something. And she thanked me, asked if she could phone again, and went! The interview was actually quite brief at 17 minutes, but I wonder if the strength of my opinions was a bit scary.... I meant every word, but I did not mean to scare her!
Holly is writing an e-book for net-mums and it is aimed at those mothers of children under 10. She has written most of it and asked me whether I feel children are being asked to grow up too quickly and aren’t able to be children long enough. So I told her.
I feel very strongly that childhood should be wonderful, and good fun and happy - and this requires others to take responsibility for the children. Too soon, people have to make decisions for themselves about life, friendship, jobs, spending etc. My concern is that presently children are aping many of the big girl/big boy things they see without understanding what others might read in to what they say and do. Five year olds in crop tops or ‘sexy slogan’ t shirts just want to look like big girls, those who swear want to sound ‘grown-up’ but adults outside the family will see miniature, sexy, rude people. This gives those other adults permission to treat the kids as having understanding they can not possibly have yet and leads into further permissiveness.
It seems to be culturally specific in that many English children dress and speak in a way that would be unacceptable in other European countries. We tolerate rather bad behaviour. Holly asked why this was happening and I told her my thinking on that too! As I may have mentioned before, the media offers far too many examples of bad behaviour as that is though to be ‘entertaining’. Within education, teachers are badly equipped for dealing with unacceptable behaviour. They feel uncomfortable about it but don’t seem to share common values which would allow them to agree what could be tolerated and what not.
And of course, parents seem largely to feel disempowered and unqualified. For some reason, all those wonderful parenting programmes seem to make parents feel less rather than more confident. Parents try method 1, 2 and 3 and then give up – not, perhaps, realising that each one hour programme represents and edited two weeks of support and ideas.
And then Holly seemed to breathe quickly as if anxious to say something. And she thanked me, asked if she could phone again, and went! The interview was actually quite brief at 17 minutes, but I wonder if the strength of my opinions was a bit scary.... I meant every word, but I did not mean to scare her!