Driving Mum and Dad Mad

Driving Mum and Dad Mad is the title of a series of programmes which have been shown over the past few weeks. It focused on several families who have had problems controlling their children, and who have undergone a Positive Parenting Programme to try to help with this.

I found it fascinating. But the title was wrong. Instead of Driving Mum and Dad Mad , a more appropriate choice would have been Destroying the Next Generation.

How did the children get like that? A three-year-old constantly shouting “Shut up! Shut up! Go away for ever!” to his parents. A seven-year-old who attacked his mother with a corkscrew, trying to stab her. Two little boys who didn’t seem to do anything except fight.

Heartbreaking to see – but the title of the programme implies that the children were somehow to blame. None of the parents seemed to know that praising a child is a good idea: none of them seemed to think that taking something for the child to play with when you go out is a good idea: and they all shouted meaningless commands at their children, all the time. “Be good!” – What on earth does that mean to a three-year-old? Their parenting consisted almost completely of negative input – never suggesting anything positive or interesting for the children to do, merely shouting at them when they fought with each other or were “naughty” (a word I really hate).

“I can’t discipline ‘em, I’m too soft,” said one mother. Soft? Letting the children watch ten hours of television today isn’t soft, it’s cruel.

Single mothers generally come in for a lot of stick but the ones on this programme did brilliantly – they were determined to learn a different way of doing things. The mother of Corkscrew Boy had let him spend much of his time watching violent action films and once she stopped that, he transformed into a remarkably pleasant child.

The real problems seemed to me to lie with the couples who constantly argued with each other over how to implement the programme of praise, time out and positive reinforcement – the fact that one was strict and the other wasn’t; one stuck to the strategies they’d been taught and the other didn’t.

By the end of the series the programme was trying to show the changes that had been made – and indeed several of the families did seem to have turned their lives around for the better. But I felt the programme didn’t want to open the dreadful can of worms which was the slobbish thugs Lee and Amanda from Stevenage – they didn’t really try with the strategies they had been given at all and continued to shout, swear and hit their children right until the end and I was longing to take the children away from them and keep them safe - - - - but of course, that’s no good. The children love their parents, no matter how inadequate or – in the case of these two – just plain horrible they are.

What can be done? In less than twenty years Lee and Amanda’s children will, unless something drastic happens, have some children of their own and will no doubt give them a terrible childhood too. And, of course, I very much doubt that Lee and Amanda themselves had a childhood of cuddles and bedtime stories and security and trips out and treats and unconditional love.

All over the country it’s a pattern that’s being repeated. Why are there all these thugs and yobs and hooligans and vandals? Whatever you care to call them, bad parenting is the major reason why.

I would make basic parenting courses compulsory in all schools for all students – the academic high-flyers as well as the less academic, because any course that’s just for the “less able” isn’t taken seriously. Then we might be in with a chance.