Gary M Unruh

Confidence, warmth, and consistent discipline. Thanks Jen Lexmond for nailing down the three most critical parenting aspects. According to your research, when parents provide consistent discipline and warmth, their child will develop self-confidence, good character and experience a successful life. Based upon nearly forty years as a child mental health counselor, I can attest to the findings of this most important research. Here’s some addition straight-from-the-therapist-office information about confidence, warmth, and consistent discipline.
Here’s a central parenting rule that has emerged after seeing over 2500 clients:
Warmth and discipline need to happen at the same time, with warmth being the context of discipline, not the other way around. In my practice, I’ve witnessed a child’s self-confidence always being the result when parental warmth is the continual context of discipline.
-Warmth is fully developed parental love. And fully developed love means focusing on the good within a child during good times as well as difficult times. A child’s life essential need is to feel and believe “I’m good.” The central ingredient to establish this belief: A parent focusing on the good at the center of the child. (It’s a parenting skill that needs to be learned, but with practice warmth happens consistently.)
-Discipline is teaching and training from the perspective that the child is fundamentally good and that unacceptable behavior needs to be continually improved. And the training is best if it is consistent and firm within the context of warmth. Key point: the child is more than his or her behavior. The child must believe: “My behavior is only a part of who I am. I am fundamentally good even when I make a mistake.” With this belief the child will develop self-confidence.
For more details on this approach refer to the new book Unleashing the Power of Parental Love and the web site: www.unleashingparentallove.com.
Gary M. Unruh MSW LCSW e-mail gary@unleashingparentallove.com

Michael Williams

I welcome the Demos Report and thank Jen Lexmond for undertaking it. The report's findings that 'tough love', warmth, empathy, self-regulation and self-discipline are core aspects of effective parenting are also central components of emotional literacy and emotional intelligence. Many schools and their teachers have been integrating these principles into their care and teaching of children and young people. As Ms Lexmond points out, these are not 'soft skills' but crucial to developing capable, self-confident children who can manage their own emotional life as well as the emotions of others. We must continue to support this development of emotional literacy in our children. We must also encourage and nurture the development of emotional literacy in adults, especially in parents and those that care for children and young people. We cannot expect our children to grow into warm, loving, mature confident men and women if we are not prepared to attend to our own emotional literacy first. If we don't, our children will suffer the consequences.

Michael Williams, Ph.D.
Storyteller and Education Consultant
Edinburgh, Scotland

Rosemary Roberts

I welcome this timely report too. Helping to set up on-going Peers Early Education Partnership (PEEP) from 1995 more than ever convinced me of the central impact on child outcomes of parenting from birth to school. The aims of the project were rooted in working for social justice, focusing on literacy. The foundations of literacy in the earliest years are about speaking and listening in the context of warm responsive relationships - something not essentially class-related, as your report points out; but made harder by poverty and challenging situations. The well-researched PEEP programme supports whole communities of families with young children.

In the ensuing years I have been researching and writing (a doctoral study with families at home, and post-doc studies with early years practitioners) about the foundations of longterm wellbeing from birth - its characteristics, its determinants, and ways to ascertain it. One key construct of the resulting model of wellbeing that chimes with your report is termed 'belonging-and-boundaries', a single concept that combines 'belonging' with its consequent 'boundaries'. My book about this new model and its practical implications, 'Wellbeing from Birth', will be published by SAGE in the new year. I am delighted that these related ideas are emerging vigorously on various fronts, and hope all will make a positive contribution to this key debate about the future wellbeing of our society.

Rosemary Roberts, PhD.
Early years writer and consultant
Dunfermline,Scotland

W.L. Clark

You are so , so right on your views on parenting . We brought up two generations . In the first we had two boys , one is now a Lt . Col. , the other is a cruise ship Captain . In the second generation we brought up our eldest grandaughter and she is now a Doctor training to be a GP . She was the product of our youngest sea going son's first marriage . When he remarried they asked her to join their new family , but she declined saying she "Knew the rules in our house !" .

Throughout the bringing up of these children we had naturally applied the philosophies you outlined . But those were our natural instincts , and I am sure they are not easily taught .

Claire Hartnell

I have not had a chance to read the full report but based on the abstract above, I have the following observations:
1. If the research began in 2000, how can outcomes be measured effectively in 2009?
2. What is 'character'? Surely an incredibly subjective description likely to be highly influenced by the socio-cultural grouping of the researchers.
3. 'Tough love' is about as helpful a parenting strategy as 'buy low, sell high' is an investment strategy. How do we know when we are being tough enough or showing enough love? My friends force their children to stay at the dining table until they finish everything on their plates - even if they have to stay for several hours. Assuming all other things are equal (skip to #4 for discussion of this) does this mean their children will be more successful than mine who are encouraged to try everything but never 'forced' to finish a meal?
4. Good heavens, as if simple parental inputs were the only criteria affecting outcomes in human beings! What about genes? What about environment? What about friends? What about schools? What about economic / political factors? What will have the greatest effect on the next generation of Sudanese children? Their 'feckless' (?) parents or 5 years of warfare / corruption / mass orphaning?
5. Where does this correlation between 'character' and parental inputs break down? The best tennis player the world has ever seen was a stroppy, ill-behaved, hyperactive kid until he learned self control aged 18. Eighteen. Had Roger Federer been a nicely behaved little 5 year old, he might have made a good accountant. Ditto Michael Phelps and Lance Armstrong - both hyperactive, badly behaved kids who were 'discovered' long after their parental influence began to recede. (All three had strong genetic advantages which outweighed parental inputs). And let's not forget that badly behaved boy from a dysfunctional family who was expelled from Harrow before his time - Winston Churchill.
6. Have you noticed how easy it is to bend this dictum to suit a vested interest? See the postings above for an example of this. In the Sunday Times, the outcome had been bent to talk about 'economic success' rather than 'character building'. Well, in case you haven't noticed, our economic success over the past 20 years has been built on a big, fat, fake economy. Perhaps a few more difficult, bolshy, disobedient people being allowed into these professions would have averted the groupthink that allowed this big greedfest to occur? You can have one marshmallow now or a £3m bonus in 20 years if you fail to ask difficult questions and do as you're told.
7. Who on earth thinks that health visitors can single-handedly roll back the cultural changes that have caused a lot of the social issues in our society?? As has been stated, Surestart was hijacked by middle class parents. When I lived in Islington I was shocked that some well-off parents would lie about their postcodes to avoid paying £3.50 for a Surestart toddler group. Still, I'm sure their kids will have better character outcomes than those of the people whose postcodes they were hijacking (see #8). Health visitors are useful for technical advice but it's ludicrous to assume that a couple of extra visits might instil parenting skills otherwise absent. How can a middle class health visitor understand the needs of a single mother in a council estate?!
8. The real determinants of 'outcomes' are down to parents but not parenting. On a sliding scale, here's how to improve 'outcomes' for your children: move close to a good school, badger the school for extra help, send your children to a private school, pay for additional tutoring, micro-manage your children's university application etc; etc; In the early years, stay home with your kids - but have sufficient money to pay someone else to do the chores so that you can spend lots of quality time teaching your children to read and write a little earlier than their peers. Or, spend a great deal of money on a highly trained nanny who has the emotional distance to inflict the 'tough' bit of tough love and the time to invest in developing academic skills early. Or, send your child to a very high quality nursery 2 or 3 days / week to help socialisation without institutionalisation. Everyone else - put up with inferior childcare or do it yourself while trying to pay the bills, clean the house, keep a relationship together etc;
9. Take a look at how society has changed over the past 30 years and instead of constantly blaming parents for outcomes ask whether we have all created this monster? a) Abolition of grammar schools and replacement with comprehensive system has flattened social advancement for a generation of poorer people b) Replacement of manufacturing industries with service industries has left many working class males jobless and rudderless and forced more women out of the home and into the workforce (leaving their children in poor quality, institutionalised childcare) c) Huge GDP hike based on phoney asset values (built on credit) has developed an entire generation of people who want it NOW not after 10 years of saving d) Early sexualisation of children through the media has increased problems in schools, set back women's rights by years and created a long term nightmare for family stability e) Childrens' early years have become intolerably structured / graded and supervised making it harder for kids to kick their heels and play without adult interference. f) Responsibility vacuum has been created in society by encouraging a belief that every accident / outcome can be attributed to a third party. Where people are clearly to blame for outcomes (abusive parents of Baby P), bureacracy prevents us from acting.

Enough. If I thought this report would inform more constructive policy I would be all in favour of it's pretty advice: nice, responsible parents create nice, responsible kids but for the reasons stated above, I think it will give the 60+ generation yet another reason to tut the 'youth of today' and their feckless parents when in fact, they built the society that has created the monster. Make class sizes smaller, use taxes to incentivise marriage - or at least long term relationships, disincentivise institutional childcare, provide (HUGE) amounts of specialised help to schools with children with extra needs, allow kids to roam free, ride bikes and climb trees, encourage all 16 year olds to do work experience, bring back grammar schools, bring back grammar schools (sorry, thought that one needed double emphasis), regulate credit markets, construct our society around care and giving to others instead of material possessions for ourselves. And stop blaming hard-pressed parents for a situation they cannot control.

Matthew Kalman

"But the character traits that ‘tough love’ parenting develops in children – empathy, initiative, self-discipline, among others – is key to delivering success and happiness for their future."

There seem be some muddling of correlation and causation going on here, surely...?

The 'Big 5' personality traits – Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism – are roughly-speaking 50 per cent based on heredity, rather than environment.

Does this paper just ignore heredity? (And make the environment the cause of everything – in true 'blank slate' style?)

Doesn't this mean we're getting a very lopsided and partial view?

(I've not had time to read the report yet - looking forward to it!).

Interestingly, the most expensive research project in the world into the most effective education methods also found that a rather old-fasioned, non-'progressive' approach was more effective than all others. Even at increasing self-esteeem, where it beat the self-esteem-based methods, which worsened self-esteem!

The approach was called 'Direct Instruction'.

But it didn't fit with what education's progressive establishment wanted to hear, so the evidence was ignored, as far as I can tell...

See here for more:
http://www.uoregon.edu/~adiep/ft/grossen.htm

Matthew

Matt

Echoing the two comments above... It is amazing to me that this staggeringly useless report has walked into the national press uncriticised. Did the authors wilfully ignore the numerous studies into non-sibling adopted kids growing up in the same home (they're no more alike than any two kids in the same street) and identical twins raised apart (they're just as similar as if they were raised together)?

My kids are going to turn out nice because I'm nice and because I put some effort into making sure they mix with nice kids. I work hard on my parenting style not because I believe it shapes their personalities - it doesn't - but because it makes life happier at home.

What's weird is that parents might accept the conclusions of this report when we're all only too aware that telling kids to eat broccoli or not fight with their siblings or watch less TV has precisely zero effect on their tastes and interests - why do we accept that they are going to decide what kind of person to be based on what we've told them??

Dominic

Even if "the Big 5" are 50% based on hereditory as Mathew Kalman states (no citation so who knows where that figure comes from) then 50% are environmental. In other words genes do not have to be destiny. Some children may be born predisposed to some negative character traits, but as not all of them will go on to develop them this means that correctly parented non of them have to. In reality we are a long way from having the knowledge and resources to make the most of this oppertunity but it is surely something we must work towards.

Matthew Kalman

Hi Dominic,

Obviously genes aren't 'destiny' - and I never suggested they were.

And obviously it is 'something we must work towards' too.

I was just trying to point out that we might as well do all this based on an inclusive rather than partial model - and be aware of what we can change and what we can't.

I did a quick web search on the Big 5 genetic component - it was roughly 45 per cent to 65-ish, for different traits, from what I remember. Google "Big Five" and heredity, if you're interested....

Cheers,

Matthew

Elizabeth Mills

This report seems designed to counter the recent convincing research that share with us the dangers of not only of punishment but also of rewards and of conditional love from parents.

The work of Alfie Kohn on Rewards and Punishment compared with the support required to develop self discipline.
http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/selfdiscipline.htm

There is a large body of work on intrinsic motivation and the negative effect of external reward on learning and mental health.
http://www.psych.rochester.edu/SDT/publications_search.php?action=domain_search&dID=4

Even the DCSF are looking into self-regulation (provided our children self regulate what the DCSF want them to learn of course)
http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/research/programmeofresearch/projectinformation.cfm?projectid=15803&resultspage=1

The work of Alice Miller is particularly informative
http://www.alice-miller.com/index_en.php

Parenting is a private matter political bodies should not be intervening or attempting to direct the practices of parents though this kind of propoganda, particularly when they are suggesting that such damaging practices as "Tough Love".

Matt

@Dominic

There isn't just one piece of research to substantiate what Dominic says - it is consensus in the field of personality study.

Half of your personality can be accounted for by genetics, and half by environment. By which I mean, identical twins show a correlation on personality of 0.5.

Sadly for the authors of this report, the half that is formed by the environment is not formed in the home, it is formed in the outside world. Which is common sense really: my personality was formed when I took the traits I inherited from my parents and tested them out in the real world. The in-home environment has never been shown to account for more than 5% of personality - which is why this report and its slavish coverage are so infuriating.

Mel Griggs

On eof the biggest problems we face in the UK is debt - both personal and as a country.

The Baseline Survey produced by the FSA in 2005 clearly demonstrated the lack of financial capability in the population a sa whole A cycle ofdisadvantage?: Financial exclusion in childhood examined the problems of being brought up in a family not accessing main stream financial services.

Even more relevant is the report 'An Investigation of the Relationship between Financial Capability and Psychological
Well-being in Mothers of Young Children in Poor Areas in England -again a report for the Financial Services Authority. This clearly demonstrates the need to develop financial capability in families for the well- being of parents - and therefore children.

For those w ith very limited free disposable income, parenting is much harder- the ability to resist pester power and to keep money in its place more difficult, for a start.

Any programme to help parents to develop confident children, able to make informed choices, needs to encourage participation in(and provide access to) programmes designed to improve the families abilities to manage money.

Money is simply the way we exchange one thing of value (usually work) for another. Those values have to be taught - and the parents are the people to do that in families - but they need help.

Debt - (the inability to meet committments as they fall due) has implications for mental health (some 50% of people in debt have mental health issues ), which impacts on family welling being.

The majority of family breakdowns have money as an issue, even if it is not the only or major issue. Improving financial capabilities can hav e amajor positiv eimpact on families and children.

Kitty Hagenbach

I agree that 'Parents are the principle architects of a fairer society' and am very glad this report has come out in favour of children's emotional well being. In order to support our children's emotional well being, we need to start by supporting parents emotional well being. Our parenting style is deeply influenced by our own experience as children and parenting in the same way or the opposite is often unsuccessful. I believe it is important to support parents emotionally from conception onwards and create a strong bond before children are even born. Of course it is a continuum but good enough parenting from conception to 3 will go a long way towards our children becoming secure and successful in the world. I am a co creator of Babiesknow a programme running workshops in London to support parents to come into loving, strong, respectful and lasting relationships with their children.

Stuart Hannah

I write as a social worker and child and adolescent psychotherapist who specialises in work with children and adults involved in the 'care' system. The 'victims' if you like of poor parenting. I personally like the 'tough love' idea and use it a lot in my work with foster carers, adoptive parents and residential home staff. I believe children, particularly those who have survived adversity (often extreme), can benefit from being in the presence of emotionally literate carers, capable of self reflection who can put into practice a flexible and creative version of 'tough love' in the knowledge that they are not and never will be the young people's birth parents. Experience suggests to me that it is the capacity for self reflection or emotional literacy in parents and carers that directly impacts on the quality of relationships they can develop with partners and children (amongst others) more than anything else.

To conclude I'd like to draw readers attention to the notion of paediatrician and psychoanalyst, Donald Winnicott of the good enough mother/father/parent-eternally liberating idea!

Emily Abbott

I co-run kateandemily.com, a practical resource to help seperated parents to find a way to work with each other in the business of bringing up children. The word 'business' is key as only by using the rather cold and well defined rules of engagment found in business (eg meeting agendas, objectives, schedules, code of conduct, protocol etc) can seperated parents can find a way to co-operate and allow BOTH parents to bring up their children. I therefore see no reason why children who live with just one of their parents can not benefit from having 2 bringing them up, just as in a more traditional family set up: setting boundaries, loving them, building their sense of who they are and where they come from, family traditions, confidence etc. Of course there are absent fathers and others who can't (or shouldn't) be involved with their children, but this group makes up the minority of seperated fathers, and for these children other family members and role models are vital. But at Kate and Emily we see no reason why the report's assertion that 'for those .... having to do the work and the care all on their own – in the case of single parented families – it is often nearly impossible (setting boundaries for children and sticking to them)' should be the case if parents use our approach (read Kate and Emily's Guide to Single Parenting!). We're on a mission to help every single parent (and step parent) family do the best for their children by building and maintaining a business-like and functioning relationship with their ex.
Emily Abbott

Irene S

I do wish these reports would separate out those of us who bring up our children alone because the other parent has died. My husband died in 1999, leaving me with a 15 year old son and a 6 year old daughter. I can remember my son getting very upset when reports like this seemed to lump children like him with all other children from single parent households.

Irene

Antony Q

It is good to see at last, a report that gets to the very cause of children's under-achievement. Will the Government act upon it or just carry on blaming teachers? The irony of the Government's approach under the current Ofsted framework is that the better teachers are leaving challenging, inner-city schools for schools in middle class areas. Some are leaving the profession.
This is because the latest Ofsted framework is centred on attainment and heavily discounts children's progress. Only last week, an advanced skills teacher in an inner city school close to my own resigned following an Ofsted inspection where her teaching was acknowledged as being outstanding but the grade she was given was reduced simply because the children in her class, many of whom were newly arrived in the country, were not attaining at age-related expectations.
She is going to a middle class school outside of London where she will get the acknowledgement she deserves.
If we are serious about tackling children's under-achievement, we must get serious about tackling poor parenting.

Tony Flynn

The Demos report is to be welcomed and many of its suggestions applauded and supported. However, I think we need to be clear that many parents who are struggling against adversities of all kinds and seriously failing in their efforts to parent, are unable to offer "tough love" or appropriate warmth and discipline to their children for the very simple reason that they never experienced such nurture in their own childhoods. They are psychologically compromised, and their ability to offer nurture has been eroded. Addressing this requires more than interventions focussed around "parenting style". This may well account for why the successful FNP projects spend 35-40 per cent of specified time on parents' own "personal health" (which interpreted broadly may well include emotional and psychological well-being). It was therefore with some concern that I noted the author of the Demos report suggesting that such a degree of input in this domain could be reduced and re-focussed around "parental role". The latter, in my experience, is inextricably linked to the former, and it is rather reductionist to construe parenting capacity as a menu of "skills" which can be readily manipulated and consequently improved.

Tony Flynn,
Clinical Services Manager,
Clermont Child Protection Unit,
Brighton.

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