Telly’s bad example

No wonder children these days aren't parented properly.

IS it possible to teach people how to be good parents? And if so, how? Not by watching television, that's for sure.

While pottering in the garden at the weekend, I could occasionally overhear neighbours playing with their toddler granddaughter. They were encouraging her up the slide. "That's it, big step. Hold on carefully. Well done! Clever girl!" Then there was "No don't step on the flowers sweetheart. They're pretty, don't spoil them."

And so it went on, little scraps of conversation drifting over the fence. "One step, two step, three steps." "A hug for Granny? You are so lovely."

All the time, quite possibly without even realising it, the grandparents were encouraging, teaching, explaining the world to the little girl. As, of course, do the child's parents. In just a peaceful pottering morning in the garden, that little girl was learning so much. Above all, she was learning that she was loved and treasured. Pretty important really.

The chances are that when she grows up, she will repeat the pattern with her own children. For most of us, such sunny Sunday mornings are so normal as to be unremarkable.

But what if you have never had parents or grandparents like that? How do you know what to do? You can't learn it in parent craft classes. However good they are, an hour or so a week can't make up for a lifetime of constant chat and care, conversation, encouragement and example.

Increasingly, infant school teachers will tell you that children are turning up unable to talk properly, to concentrate, listen with no idea of right or wrong or how to relate to other people. Basically, they haven't been parented properly.

Depressing enough. But what happens when, in ten or 15 years time those same children become parents? How on earth will they know what to do?

And we can't look to television. It's amazing that social services aren't on permanent stand by for babies in soaps. By the time of their first birthdays, poor little soap babies have invariably been born in a bar or the back of a taxi/ sold/ snatched/ abducted/ caught in a burning house/ buried under rubble/ held hostage/ had life-saving surgery and, of course, been subject to blood tests to prove or disprove parentage. And usually at least one or other parents is either in jail or scarpered. They are lugged around the sets or made to sit in the corner, colouring in and not saying a word. Then by the time they get to about five years old, they're sent upstairs to do their homework and don't reappear until they are well developed teenagers with perfect make up and an attitude problem. At which point the whole cycle starts again.

The Archers' original remit was to be an educational series for farmers. Maybe the time has come to have a similar soap for childcare.

If we could just have one family with a happy child and parents who spend their time singing songs, reading stories and saying encouraging things like, "One step, two steps, three steps. Clever girl."

At least those who have never experienced it, might get an inkling of what a good parent does.

WAY back in the 1960s when England was swinging, we had The Pill, which was going to change our lives forever. Meanwhile, in communist Russia where they had a brilliant space programme and a lot of tractors but shop shelves were desperately empty, the pill and even condoms were almost impossible to obtain.

So, because there was no alternative, desperate Russian women were forced into having abortions. It seemed so sad, so desperate, so primitive, we thought smugly.

But now apparently, thousands of women in the UK have had four abortions.

And there are some on their ninth and tenth.

We all know that accidents happen, even in the best of families, but in a country where teenagers probably find it easier to buy condoms than cigarettes, you'd think a few more women would have learnt from their mistakes. If not the first time, then maybe the second, third, fourth.

DRIVING the children to school could make life more dangerous for them, says the charity Living Streets.

Never mind that they don't get so much exercise, even more importantly, they don't learn any street sense. So that when parents finally let them go to school on their own, usually at the start of secondary school, they haven't a clue - and are much more likely to be knocked down.

If children are constantly ferried round like toddlers, they will never learn any more road sense than a three year old - even when they're 12.

Walk with them to school and show them the way. One day it could save their lives.

AM I the only one to have my attitude to the Chinese transformed by the recent earthquake?

Not just because of sympathy at the horror - though they certainly deserve that - but rather admiration at the way they are dealing with it.

Compare it with other disasters - not just the wickedness of the Burmese rulers, but also the chaotic first efforts of the USA after Hurricane Katrina. The Chinese leapt into action. Within hours they seemed to know exactly what needed doing. Even in the desperate films taken immediately after the disaster it was clear that the distraught rescuers were organising themselves efficiently.

Parents seeking their children were hysterical with grief, yet still, somehow, capable of thinking properly, knowing what was best to do, when you or I would have probably been running round like headless chickens.

Such clear thinking in such appalling circumstances is humbling. We have still an awful lot to learn about the Chinese.

MORE than £10bn of taxpayer's money has apparently been lost in tax credit fraud and errors. Just like that. All this after the chaos of the 10p tax rate, the rising cost of the Olympics, the hopelessness of the CSA and all those other things that have ended up costing us far more than the experts told us in the first place. Not to mention the Government's cheery announcement that inflation is really only two to three per cent. Ho ho.

I always thought chancellors had to be good at sums. Bit of a vital qualification.

But not so, apparently. Maybe someone should buy him a calculator. Before he gets even more sums wrong.