Parenting

Here are three documents to prompt discussion about the fascinating topic of parenting and the involvement of government.

By way of introduction, governments across Australia pump billions into parenting support in its many forms. From preconception through to the late teens, our health, welfare and education budgets all to some extent attempt to influence and regulate parenting behaviours. IN the early years of life in particular, health professionals and early educators are key influencers on what we do with our children and how we do it…

There is also a lot of legislation about family life and in this way the state plays a role in regulating parenting.

I’m really interested to hear your reactions as to whether government should be involved in supporting and regulating parenting and if so, what form that support should take.

For this discussion I’ve provided some papers based around some new research on perceptions of parenting in Australia. It’s a very small study (commissioned by my workplace) but provides insights into the cultural models ordinary Australians hold about parenting and then maps this against expert views.

Here is a link to the PDF. Suggest you only need to read the executive summary to get the jist of it…

In my workplace (Parenting Research Centre) we are advocating for the state to become more involved in supporting parents… will be interested to see your reaction to a draft 2 pager that I’ve been working on.

So some possible questions for the night

· To what extent to you agree with the experts that parenting involves skills that can be learnt V the public view that it’s the result of ‘natural caring’.

· Do you think the state has a role in regulating parenting practices? If so where are the boundaries of this role (nanny state etc)?

· Do you think parenting is hereditary (ie you will parent how you were parented?) or can things be done to improve parenting.? And… if these attempts to improve parenting involve the investment of public money, is this investment a good use of public money?

· Do you think regulating parental behaviours such as disciplining children should be the domain of legislation or should this be left to parents?