Have you done anything to encourage positive parenting?

[Stompgal]

I've just ordered some booklets from the NSPCC website (the NSPCC is a British charity that provents cruelty to children) called 'Encouraging Better Behaviour.' When I go out to local areas such as Muswell Hill and North Finchley, I could hand out the leaflets to any parents who are out shopping with their children. I must admit that I'm proud to wear an NSPCC wristband that I bought from Topshop 2 years ago.

The reason I've decided to support the NSPCC is that I get distressed when parents phisically or verbally abuse their children and I also dislike it when parents smack or threaten their children in puplic places such as shops, restaurants and leisure centres. I hope that the booklets I hand out to parents will encourage them to stop phisically punishing children altogether.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Well, I have too. That's part of my work.

 

[Stompgal]

Here are some case studies of positive and negative parenting that I witnessed since moving to London:

Positive Parenting

1. I was on my way to the gym for a personal training session and I had to use the pelican crossing. I stood next to a mother who had her young daughter in a pushchair. The mother was telling her daughter how to cross the road safely. I felt positive because I thought the mother was affectionate.

2. In my local Waitrose store, a man had two young children with him and he asked his son, who was standing inside the trolley, to put something in it. The boy picked up a ready meal and placed it in the trolley. The father then verbally praised him.

Negative Parenting

1. One rainy day, I was standing in the bus shelter to get the bus when a very young girl started whining because her mother wouldn't give her something from the Sainsbury's bakery, then she eventually gave it to her. The mother then swore at the girl and said that she was fed up with her tantrums. I was very agitated and desperately wanted to go home.

2. A couple of weeks later, I was having lunch in my local Harvester with my then Key Worker Edward. While I was helping myself to some salad, a mother was running after her daughter aged around 3 or 4 years and threatened her by saying, "I'm gonna smack your a**e." This frightened me a lot. When I returned to my table, Edward asked me what had happened. I explained to him that the mother threatened to smack her child.

3. The following week, I was queueing up at the checkout in my local Tesco when suddenly, a mother at another checkout said, "stop!" to her son who looked at least 10. The next thing I knew she slapped him. I let out a piercing scream and everyone at the checkout, including the cashiers, turned around to stare at me. I soon got agitated and as they continued to look at me, I said that I was fed up with them doing so. I even declared that I was never going to shop at Tesco again due to other customers stessing me out and feeling humiliated. This is when I decided to shop at Waitrose instead.

4. Another situation in which a child was smacked in a shop happened last month during Half Term. I was in Woolworths to buy some light bulbs. After I picked up my desired bulbs, I was on my way to the counter to pay for them when I saw a mother with her two young children near the toy aisle as I walked past. She smacked one of them and I ran away feeling petrified because I didn't understand why she did it or what the little boy was doing to make her smack him. When I went on the bus to go home, I declared that I never wanted to see a child get smacked in public ever again.

Examples such as negative points 2 and 3 are likely to happen during school holidays when parents are more vulnerable to feeling stressed when they're out with their children. I may consdider doing my Christmas shopping online this year to avoid coming across parents who smack their chidren.

 

[braveheart]

I tend to try and shift the focus with my flatmates' 16 month old. It's hard being excitable and small in a world of 'no' though...

 

[Stompgal]

I also registered to do my bit for the NSPCC by suggesting I hand out the leaflets to parents.

 

[Stompgal]

My booklets arrived today and I can tell staff at my house about them, especially my Key Worker and the house psychologist, who came back from her annual leave not so long ago.