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Actually, if I'm honest, I'd rather not
Middle class, professional parents are obsessed with their darling children - far more so than other societies in history have ever been. I'm not convinced it's healthy, and it's certainly not interesting.
Don't get me started on what Mumsnet says about the way we live our lives...
What counts as 'bad parenting'?
I'll give you an example of bad parenting. Letting your 5 year old daughter watch scenes from American Werewolf in London. Bad, bad, bad. I do have some excuses - we were going up to Yorkshire to see my parents. I was keen to teach my cosmopolitan half French children how to speak 'Yorkshire'. She was begging me to see it. It was the twins that showed her. It was only a couple of scenes.
Anyway, two weeks of nightmares later and I think we've got through it. She's back sleeping in her own bed, and we went through various routines to show her that werewolves were unlikely to invade the family home. When your child is having nightmares about werewolves, well, that is the perfect time to consult the army of Google experts on the subject.
Formulating parenting strategy
As kids get older, it feels like the parenting can - must, even - get ever more strategic. The parallels with our new sales strategy at work are uncanny! What do you do when your 9 year old starts downloading stuff from the App Store for the hugely addictive and surprisingly expensive FIFA 14?
Hmmm. Well the problem is, he's made a pretty rational choice. He knew he was doing wrong. He knew he would get punished. But, equally, it was important that he downloaded enough ammunition to destroy his best friend in whatever tournament they were playing.
A punishment fit for the crime
The criminal justice system has five core aims (I think that's right - I'm doing this from memory):
- Punishment of the individual
- Protection of society
- Deterrence
- Vengeance for the victims, and
- Rehabilitation of the offender.
In a perfect world, each sentence handed down would be beautifully tailored to the specific offender. When it comes to parenting, you can create the perfect criminal justice system; that's certainly the approach we took with our recalcitrant 9 year old.
No emotional blackmail, no empty threats, and, surprisingly, no histrionics. A simple banning of electronics for four months was the plea-bargained sentence.
He's taken it on the chin - he's reading more, and there's now no competition over the iPad. Everyone seems happy, especially me... it was my ex-wife's Apple account rather than mine!
Ben Black
