Liz Fraser - A Spoonful of Sugar

Well no, I don’t think I am, because they want to do all of this. If any of them wanted to stop, they could at any time. They have asked to do all of these things, and they absolutely love them. In fact, they have asked to do a good deal more activities and classes that I’ve had to say no to, just to keep some time free for us all to be together. So maybe the well-intended push turns into unacceptable shove when the poor love wants to play the trombone about as much as he wants to eat his own poo. Each child to their own, but beware the considerable pressure from other parents; you let your child do what is right for them , and sod the irritating show offs next door whose son plays cricket for the Junior England squad, while his sister’s got a part in Steven Spielberg’s next movie. Good luck to them, and good luck to yours, too.

So, how can we stop the pressure cooker from exploding?

Don’t over-schedule your children. Let them have some free time that isn’t planned or time-constrained.

Be braveand resist pressure from school and peers.

Allow your (young) child to have plenty of time at home. Their childhood will be over in a flash.

So far Granny has advised not rushing too much, not worrying too much, not studying too much, not pressurising too much … anything else?

Yes, one more thing. Didn’t you just know it?

‘But you know,’ she says with her oft practised and amazingly effective ‘listen to your grandmother now’ stare, ‘I’m not saying you should just give kids a free rein to mess about all the time!’

‘Oh, right. I thought that didn’t sound much like you.’

Granny has a sharp tongue and a firm hand and has been known to use both on children who step out of line. Not that I would know, obviously.

‘At the same time as all this freedom you have remember the other thing childhood is for.’

What’s that then – making tiny models of squirrels out of your own snot? Saying rude things at full volume about people ahead of you in the Post Office queue and then having them say how sweet you are, instead of clonking you on the head with a jiffy bag? Eating sweets until you throw up into your sibling’s lap? Turns out Granny has something else in mind.

‘It’s the time when you learn the rules.’

‘What, the Rules of Life?’ (I think I may have been absent when some of these were spelled out … Sorry, Mum.)

‘Yes, if you like. There are a lot of rules that we all have to understand and abide by if we are to all live together peacefully. And childhood is when we learn the very basic ones, and learn where the boundaries are, from our parents.’

And presumably, I say, when children overstep those boundaries, as they so often do, they need to know about it …

‘Oh yes, of course they do. You have to teach that to a child, by disciplining them when they’re naughty. It’s not cruel, as some people say now. It’s part of what parenting is about.’

Rules give a child’s world boundaries and allow them to feel safe. If you can’t get the rules straight and clear in your child’s mind and teach them that their actions have consequences when they are very young, you really set yourself up, and the people around you, for a tough time ahead.

Granny has a few last thoughts on the importance of childhood and I start taking notes, lest my befuddled, knackered parent’s brain has trouble retaining all of this valuable stuff.

Granny takes a good slug of coffee and settles back in her chair.

‘You asked what has gone wrong with the way children are raised today – well, I think lots of you are doing a very good job, actually.’

Oh, well, thank you very much. Time for a communal pat on the back methinks … Oh, hang on – hold the patting, there’s a ‘but’, …

‘But one of the main things that’s happened is that you have stopped treating children as they need to be treated.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, as so many of you seem to have forgotten somewhere along the very busy line, childhood is the time before adulthood. That may sound obvious, but it doesn’t seem to be the case any more.’

It doesn’t?

Childhood is the time to be a child, to be treated as a child and not to be treated as equals with adults.

Ah yes. The old ‘treating kids as equals’ habit. This worrying trend is one I have noticed increasingly in the last decade, and it disturbs me. Kids often seem to be put on a level with their parents now: they’re asked what Madam would like for dinner, what time Sir would like to go to bed, what her Ladyship would like to wear, what Mummy can do to make her offspring’s lives absolutely perfect in every way, in fact.

Talking to some of my mum friends and just listening to conversations around me in the street I observe the same concerns, but it seems few people feel safe to say that they don’t want to treat kids as equals. That they feel there should be a ‘place’ for children, and another for adults. Perhaps there’s a fear that they’ll be seen as unkind, or cruel or even – Heaven forbid! – Bad Parents.

But hang on, give the self-flagellation a break: is asking what your child wants for dinner really treating him like a mini adult, or are we just trying to give kids a voice, and to listen to their opinions? That’s surely not a bad thing. I mean, they may poo their pants for several years and everything, and make your hair fall out, but they have feelings and we can listen to them!

Granny thinks it’s more to do with role clarity.

‘ I think that in many ways the line between childhood and adulthood has become so blurred and this is causing a lot of problems, because you lose your authority.’

‘Such as?’

‘Well, where to start? The clothing that’s made for little children that looks like it’s fallen out of a seventeen-year-old pop star’s dressing room, the fact that parents cannot discipline children for fear of being told off themselves, the number of tiny tots who are dragged out to cafés every weekend to have a cappuccino with their parents – that’s no place for a small child! They want to play, and muck about, not sit in cafés while Mummy and Daddy read the newspaper.’

Now hold on – I happen to agree that there are far too many kids being hoiked off to Starbucks several times a week and are all but ignored while they’re there or given gargantuan muffins and pastries to keep them quiet. It’s very depressing actually. But we do it from time to time, and I consider it valuable – no, essential – grown-up time, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with having a nice sit down over a latte while my kids read a book, or draw a picture. Or, as we do most of the time, actually talk to one another without emptying the dishwasher, hanging out the laundry or picking up thousands of bits of Bionicles from the kitchen floor. Going to cafés means having unadulterated family time, and that’s a good thing.

But Granny doesn’t mean only this. She sees it as one example of the many ways children have crept into an adult world. Being given the same responsibilities and choices as we have.