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What are your thoughts on this?

Currently something like three trial areas are being offered £100 parenting class vouchers, This would offer parents upto 10 2 hour classes. This scheme is currently open to all parents of under 5′s in the three trial areas.

Good thing, bad thing?

My opinion – I know a few people who could use them! I actually believe this is a positive thing, there are many parents out there who are simply in need of a positive encouragement towards their parenting.

I rather think its something that should be offered to people BEFORE they have children?
A lot of parents have children not really knowing what to expect or thinking it will all be rosy. If they could get a little insight into parenthood, they may decide to wait until they are truly ready.
Just an idea.

Fair point, but should that mean that every parent with a child currently under 5, who genuinely needs help shouldn’t get it because ‘they should have thought about it before hand’

I think this may be a good idea, but I also don’t think it balances out the loss of concrete support through the cuts (closing of Surestart, cuts in tax credits, you know, material things which make people’s lives easier, not just being told how to do it right…)
Besides, while we can all agree on what is bad parenting, there are many different views on what is good parenting (I utterly and steadfastly ignored my HV’s advice on ‘sleep training’ DD, for example).

No no, I don’t think it sohuld be SOLEY offered to people before children. If it is needed for parents with young children, then they shouldn’t be excluded. My idea is just that it may be better to educate parents before they are struggling and in crisis. Prevention is better than cure and all that! I think it would be very useful for perspective parents to be shown (as much as they can be) what they may be facing. I know people say “you’re never truly ready” but you can avoid being completly in the dark.
I also think Sleeptime makes a good point that we don’t all agree on what is a good parenting style. Perhaps a kind of workshop/discussion group with lots of different ideas and suggestions put forward would be more effective and also less daunting for parents/prospective parents than a more formal “class”.

As it is a voluntary thing, I am sort of assuming (and this is a horrible sweeping statement… you have been warned!) that people that NEED to take them will not, whilst the people that take them won’t necessarily be the ones that ought to!

I think it is a great idea, but as one SleeptimeZz has said, this does not justify all of the other cutbacks they have made!

As it is a voluntary thing, I am sort of assuming (and this is a horrible sweeping statement… you have been warned!) that people that NEED to take them will not, whilst the people that take them won’t necessarily be the ones that ought to!

I can’t help but agree

They should maybe be compulsory for some parents…anyone appearing on Jeremy Kyle, for example

I have to Agree with Trinity, the people who truly need them will very rarely be the people who take them up.

We have recently had a problem in our street with a group of kids, it was coming up to 11pm and they were throwing at houses and shouting abuse. The police caught hold of a couple, their punishment was to litter pick the following weekend, now I agree they should be punished. Unfortunately no one ever seemed to ask what a 7 year old was doing out at nearly 11pm several streets away from his house. One example of a parent who maybe would benefit from these classes!

I do agree with you though maree, an insight before you have children would have been great. I think to a point I was one of those rosy people, my head was quickly out of those clouds! Lol

Why and HOW is a 7 year old out until 11pm? I remember being that age and trying my hardest to stay awake until 11, but never managing it!
Off topic, sorry!

iv just finished a 10 week parenting class and it was the best thing i have ever done and i would say to anyone that has young children to do one. so worth it.

but alot of the stuff they talk about is for under 8′s. i mean can you imgaine putting your 15 yr old on the time out step and their mates knocking on the door and saying sorry so and so cant come out at the moment his on the time out step coz his been naughty lmao x

Even DD, who seems to me to need not enough sleep, would be struggling to stay awake till 11pm and miserable the next day. Fortunately, she understands that it is not worth staying up and being miserable the next day!!

But we have children up the road from us who play out till it is dark in the summer. They don’t do anything malicious, just make noise, as children do, but I think the younger ones must be 5 or 6. It is a bit annoying when DD is trying to sleep, but given that we are in the rainy West coast, I kind of understand the ‘make the most of the sunshine’ mentality! But not enough to let DD join in…

I don’t really know enough about it TBH but when I first heard I just thought ‘what a waste of money’.

My 6 yo can easily stay awake till 11, she couldn’t do it regularly but she can do it on occassion and longer too. She wouldn’t be able to play out till 11pm though as she wouldn’t be able to climb over my dead body! lol

I don’t know enough abut the process, so do corrct me if I’m wrong, but I’m assuming parents who are trying to adopt are offered some sort of parenting classes? they may even be a compulsor part of the process, I don’t know.
If this is the case, it does make me wonder why they are not offered to people trying naturally for a baby or thinking of doing so?
Al the checking and interviews etc that goes on in the adoptive process is non existent anywhere else but the end result is the same – they become parents.
I understand that children are not always planned and I understand that it is completly unrealistic to expect all prospective parents to join up to a parenting class, but it should at least be offered. I’d probebly attend one.