British Prime Minister David Cameron thinks parents need government-approved advice on raising kids. British parents aren't exactly thrilled with this recent proclamation.
One of Cameron's new policy prescriptions, unveiled Monday with an announcement that England will pour £70 million over the next five years into “relationship support,” was state-backed parenting classes. Vouchers, he said, would help cover the enrollment of low-income families.
Behind the controversial new family agenda was a deceptively simple lesson from neuroscience.
“The vast majority of the synapses, the billions of connections that carry information through our brains, develop in the first two years,” he said in a Monday speech. “Mums and dads literally build babies' brains.”
Scientists say our IQ, attention span, memory and impulse control, among a raft of other mental traits, are largely determined before age 3. So, Cameron said, new parents could use extra guidance on how to prime kids for success in the classroom and beyond.
...The idea insulted some of his countrymen.
“The notion that a particular style of parenting should be endorsed by the state, with anyone departing from this orthodoxy branded ‘irresponsible,’ should be anathema to anyone who values the privacy of their own home,” wrote Daily Mail columnist Toby Young. “Do we really also need the nanny state to tell us when our children should go to bed and how much pocket money they should get?”
...This isn’t the first time the British leader urged parents to enroll in subsidized parenting classes. The £5m CanParent pilot, launched in three low-income areas neighborhoods in 2011, drew just 2,956 parents — a sliver of the expected 20,000, according to The Guardian.
A follow-up survey after the program, however, found high satisfaction among those who participated. Cameron seeks to broaden the appeal now by framing the classes as something all parents should consider, regardless of income.
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