Listen: Frank Field discusses his proposal of a GCSE in parenting with Yvonne Roberts
[audio: http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/GCSE_in_parenting.mp3]
Labour MP Frank Field, the coalition’s new poverty tsar, believes that family life among the poor is under threat. The culprits, according to him, are “toerag parents” living in “a state of permanent squalor and hostility.” Selfishness, sloth and sexual impropriety mark the behaviour of too many of the poor, he argues, to the detriment of their children and society as a whole. Part of the remedy, he believes, is parenting lessons—at school.
Field, who chairs the independent review on poverty and life chances, which delivers its final report in December, has repeatedly argued that the unfulfilled potential of many of the young is not all about family income. “Non-monetary factors” are also “crucial to the successful nurturing of children.” On the latter point, research backs him up. But it also challenges his unrelenting pessimism about low-income family life. Research for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, published in 2008, for instance, concluded that low-income parents, single and in couples, are doing a good job in most circumstances. While a move out of poverty and more parenting support might help, the study said, more benefit would be accrued by the promotion of parental health.
Field appears to prefer a GCSE in parenting. It’s not a new idea. The charity Parenting UK has been advocating parenting education in schools for ten years—and there is already something about it in lessons on sex, relationships and marriage.
So what’s wrong with parenting as a GCSE? Just about everything. First, who will take it? Girls rather than boys—and girls deemed dim; so it will be shunned by many. Second, what will it achieve? Most GCSE pupils won’t become parents for more than a decade and research says we learn best from a hands-on experience, not “chalk and talk.” This means more than lugging around a five-pound bag of sugar, dressed as a baby, as they do in parenting classes in some American high schools.
It became clear from research I conducted for the Young Foundation that what works isn’t the focus on interactions between a parent (most often a mother) and one child: it’s a whole family approach, one that looks at the quality of the adult relationships and addresses issues such as mental health, debts, housing, unemployment and domestic violence.
So what might make a difference here? The public schools recognised the answer long ago. They invest heavily in character, education and life skills. They encourage self-discipline and grit; and develop in pupils a sense of agency and the ability to communicate, empathise and collaborate with others (in politics, see the Eton-Westminster coalition in action). We know that, from a very young age, resilience can be taught, well-being improved, and social capital increased even in the direst of settings—not via a GCSE or a sporadic course in emotional literacy, but if a belief in the value of life skills suffuses the entire educational experience. That has to be a better preparation for parenting than a GCSE.
Most parents do need help on occasions, and some children are growing up with too little affection, support or security as families divide and re-form—all exacerbated by welfare dependency. The Labour government, in 2007, identified 140,000 families as profoundly chaotic and in need of sustained intervention (though most don’t get it). But it is precisely these families upon whom a parenting GCSE will have the least impact. Think again, Frank.
Rob Slack
” First, who will take it? Girls rather than boys—and girls deemed dim; so it will be shunned by many.”
Reality is mothers are more directly involved than fathers in bringing up kids. Reality is it is the less intelligent who need more help.
Ben Gibbs
Frank Field is usually on the button, but not this time.
Why do we feel the need to standardise everything, and then test it?
Yvonne is right that one potential issue is ‘who is this GCSE for’. Another bleedingly obvious problem is ‘what happens if someone fails the course?’ Retakes or sterilisation?
She is also right that good parenting is more about character than it is about specific skills. Character is formed far more profoundly in families, peer groups and in wider society than it is in schools. That’s where the focus should be. And that’s why we need to support the work of Whole Education (see http://www.wholeeducation.org).
Jim Goddard
I’ve already written to Prospect about Yvonne Roberts’ article, so I won’t repeat my points here (one of which echoes Rob Slack’s point). It was sad, though, to have the impression I gained from her article confirmed, rather than confounded, by listening to this discussion. It was, perhaps, inevitable that both Yvonne Roberts and the Prospect moderator would turn the argument onto the subject of the socio-economic difficulties facing many parents, as though Frank Field was somehow so stupid that he didn’t already know this. Coming from Birkenhead (where I was brought up), he would be more of an expert than most of us on the subject of socio-economic disadvantage. It was also noticeable that Yvonne Roberts attempted to reinterpret what the school pupils at the Academy had been saying to Frank Field despite the fact that he was there, listening to them, and she wasn’t. I thought Frank Field was extraordinarily patient and calm with someone who was clearly there not to listen to him or to discuss with him but to put him straight. I also don’t think any of her arguments undermined his case for a parenting GCSE, even if only as trial in the first instance. Her arguments were as scatter-gun and unfocussed as they were in print. There is a good debate to be had about the content of such a GSCE; that might have been a more productive and enlightening discussion. It barely got going here before the whole subject was side-tracked.
S. Robinson
Both Frank Field and Yvonne Roberts are right here. Parenting needs to be woven throughout the curriculum in schools, not just as a GCSE, which, Yvonne is right, would just become an ‘also ran’ subject. It must not be an option. All children need to know what good parenting and effective families look like and they need to know the difference in outcomes for children between good and poor parenting.
There is no reason why this cannot run alongside character development, the encouragement of ‘self discipline and grit’ and the development of emotional literacy. All these aspects are needed.
Also, obviously, there is a need for these skills to be taught at all stages of life: to those who are parents now, to grandparents, to volunteers and to children
jim evans
I worked as a social worker for many years and have studied cases like Victoria Climbie and Baby Peter in more detail than is good for my emotional health.
It`s my belief that we live in such a sick society that we are simply unaware of the damage we are doing to children rather than indifferent to their miserable plight.
Families with two parents are often deeply harmful in themselves but single parenting is an obscene and absurd idea for both parent and the children.
Parenting is a full time professional job not something that can be left to a rather dim overwhelmed one-night-stander who now despises her offspring… and is no more than a child herself..possibly a drug addict..and emotionally screwed to boot.
A child is treated as property in our East Enders/Coronation Street/Grange Hill society…it`s slavery of the most evil kind.
jim evans
I think Ben Gibbs makes a sound point about the responsibility for parenting being a community responsibility rather than something to be thrust on the shoulders of often inadequate individuals whose only qualification is being the child`s natural parent.
It does take a village to raise a child and we don`t live in villages anymore!