Parenting

Extreme parenting and Time magazine

by Deborah Lupton

A commentary published on an online discussion site on the infamous Time magazine cover of 21 May 2012 featuring a woman breastfeeding her 3 year old son.

'I'm always on the lookout for what could be going wrong': mothers' concepts and experiences of health and illness in their young children

by Deborah Lupton

Sydney Health & Society Group Working Paper No. 1

Mothers in contemporary western societies are expected to adhere to the principles of intensive parenting, spending a... more Mothers in contemporary western societies are expected to adhere to the principles of intensive parenting, spending a great deal of time and effort caring for their children, protecting them from risks and promoting their health, development and wellbeing. This paper draws upon research involving indepth interviews with 60 mothers of infants and young children living in Sydney. The discussion focuses in detail on three major topics discussed in the interviews: how the interviewees conceptualised good health and illness in their children; the role of diet and physical exercise in promoting children’s good health; and space, physical safety and bad influences. The study found that the interviewees reported that they ‘read the signs’ of their children’s bodies and had to ‘know’ their bodies intimately in order to do so. They also interpreted the signals of their own bodies – their ‘gut instincts’ – as part of the process of maintaining careful surveillance of their children’s health state. They represented diet and physical exercise as the most important dimensions of promoting their children’s health, and were very concerned about the risk of obesity in their children. Notions of space and judgements about the bodies within these spaces were also important to some of the women’s concepts of protecting their children’s health and wellbeing.

My Sunshine Boy

by Reuben Wong

'Father and baby' column published in 'Mother and Baby' (Singapore, May 2012), p.74.

Reflections on coping with and growing up with Down Syndrome in Singapore. Reflections on coping with and growing up with Down Syndrome in Singapore.

Negotiating Work/Life Balance : the Experience of Fathers and Mothers in Ireland

by Eileen Drew

Co-authored with Gwen Daverth and published in Recherches sociologiques et anthropologiques, XXXVIII, (2), 2007, pp 65 - 81

CUDDLE AND READ

by Nigel Mellor

Visit website
https://sites.google.com/site/nigelsbitsandbobs/Home/cuddle-and-read

This approach tackles reading problems by addressing difficulties in the parent-child interaction. The material was origianlly for psychologists, but could be easily adapted for teachers. Colleagues are invited to adapt the materials and run their own small scale research projects on this approach.

Introduction to Thógamar le Gaeilge Iad

by Brian Ó Broin

Irish as a home language has come a long way since the seventies, when the vast majority of Irish-speaking families... more Irish as a home language has come a long way since the seventies, when the vast majority of Irish-speaking families lived in officially-recognised Gaeltacht areas on the western seaboard of Ireland. A very significant number of Irish-speaking families now live in towns and cities, and are becoming increasingly vocal in their demands for recognition and rights.
Such families were first represented by Na Teaghlaigh Gaelacha, a Conradh na Gaeilge-sponsored organisation, and then by Comhluadar, a government-sponsored Dublin-based organisation.
An increasing number of Irish-speaking households include parents who were themselves raised speaking English, and this raises important linguistic questions about the standard of Irish spoken in such homes and the influence of Ireland's education system on children who then go on to become Irish-speaking parents themselves.
A major challenge for such households is found in Gaelscoileanna. Since only about 3% of Gaelscoil children speak Irish at home, they are in great danger of being subsumed by the English-speaking majority who attend these schools on an immersion basis. There is some evidence that the Irish spoken by such children becomes an interlingual pidgin (although the children do seem to develop fluency in it).
The phenomenon of Urban Irish is partially causing a split among speakers. Household users of the language tend to speak an ad-hoc English-coloured variety often disdained as Gaeilge lofa líofa ("Rotten fluent Irish"), while hobbyists and purists continue to pedestalise a standardised written variety which is increasingly at variance with both urban and Gaeltacht spoken Irish.
There is no doubt that modern Irish is increasingly being influenced by English, and therefore changing rapidly, but there is little evidence as yet that the language is dying out as a result of this. In fact, while there is some evidence that Irish-speaking parents are afraid to speak Irish with those they consider "good" speakers, the very persistence of Gaeilge lofa líofa suggests that this new urban dialect may be garnering support.
Since most new native speakers of Irish will be coming from households in which the parents are not themselves natives, it is necessary for current speakers to adjust to this new variety of Irish.
Since Irish remains a minority language, however, and English is the undisputed default language of Ireland, Irish-speaking parents must be watchful activists and advocates for their children's linguistic welfare, particularly in a world where English-language media are available globally, for free, and around the clock.

How a Child Acquires Irish

by Brian Ó Broin

Children do not acquire Irish by accident, even in the Gaeltacht. In a world where there are no monolinguals of Irish... more Children do not acquire Irish by accident, even in the Gaeltacht. In a world where there are no monolinguals of Irish and where the borders of all linguistic zones are being destroyed by telecommunications and improved transportation, it takes a formal decision by parents to declare Irish a household language (or to continue with its use as a household language).
Such a decision cannot be made haphazardly or without planning, as the default language for almost all activity in Ireland (even in the Gaeltacht) is now English. Intending Irish-language parents should be discussing the linguistic structure of their homes before their children’s birth, and perhaps even before pregnancy.
Planning ahead is key, as parents must be considering things such as community, family structure, education, and access to media long before these become issues.
Parents whose native language is not Irish are faced with the added difficulty of trying to raise children in a language not their own, often with poor resources for such a task. The best option is to start using the language immediately, regardless of current ability, as those who put off ‘improving’ their Irish never actually get around to it.
Children are learning Irish from the moment of their first breath (and probably before!), so the earlier their access to the language, the better. They must be hearing the language from a parent as often as possible. Most Irish-speaking households outside the Gaeltacht are bilingual, and the recommended language structure is OPOL (‘One parent – one language’).
Children should never be punished for speaking English, but by the same token, they must be highly encouraged to use Irish, even to the point of pretending not to understand them unless they speak Irish. Otherwise they will develop the habit of speaking English to the parent and the linguistic structure of the family will collapse.
Young children will often, perhaps even usually, speak English together if they live in bilingual communities, but there are possible strategies (although a little artificial) that may get them to speak Irish together.
Parents worry a lot about their children developing an English/Irish pidgin (particularly from their interactions with non-native speakers at Gaelscoileanna), but that fear is unfounded. Most Irish-speaking children develop fluency, even if their Irish, lacking the usual native-speaker’s phonetics, does not sound like that of the Gaeltacht.
Parents observe what they think is ‘bad’ Irish from young children, but the structure of Irish means that children develop perfect grammar only gradually (as opposed to English, which has an extremely simple morphology and ‘sounds’ more correct from an earlier age). There is, in fact, little cause to worry about Irish-speaking children, particularly given the number of children now being raised in the language.

Diagnosable: Mothering at the Threshold of Disability

by Julia Miele Rodas

in Disability and Mothering. Disability and Mothering: Liminal Spaces of Embodied Knowledge. Eds. Cynthia Lewiecki-Wilson and Jen Cellio. Syracuse Univ Press, 2011. Print.

This is an essay about a hotly contested issue in the experience and theory of disability: The question of how to... more This is an essay about a hotly contested issue in the experience and theory of disability: The question of how to locate, talk about, and live with an ambiguous disability identity. Because many disabilities are not immediately evident, because many are progressive or create erratic episodes of impairment, and because cultural and political considerations factor largely into competing definitions of disability historically and globally, scholars and activists have been keenly attentive to how individuals locate themselves in relation to disability. While I identify with disability identity in broader terms, however, I do not want to reduce myself to a label for the social convenience of my peers. And, while my desire for medical definition offers the possibility of affirmation, it also facilitates a greater threat. For the labeling of disability effectively generates exclusion and misunderstanding, leading to the dismissal of the person as an individual; bias abounds. There are strong competing concerns in this liminal space: unless we self-identify, we participate in the rampant oppression of and discrimination against disability, but I feel stronger and better acting out my resistance from the margin of what Tobin Siebers has called the disability “masquerade” than I do by potentially acting collectively with friends and colleagues who self-identify. My desire to remain in the indefinite, occupying the “diagnosable” space, is not so much an unwillingness to stand up politically as it is a desire to challenge the disciplinary and diagnostic boundaries of the conventional order. For my own sake, certainly, for the sake of my children, but also for the sake of my colleagues, my neighbors, and my fellow parents, I embrace this undisciplined space, rejecting the confinement of diagnosis and thus choosing to challenge the narrowing definition of human “normalcy.”

Mobile phone parenting: Reconfiguring relationships between Filipina migrant mothers and their left-behind children

by Mirca Madianou

co-authored with Daniel Miller
Published in New Media and Society (2011), vol. 13(3): 457-470, doi: 10.1177/1461444810393903

The Philippines is an intensely migrant society with an annual migration of one million people, leading to over a... more The Philippines is an intensely migrant society with an annual migration of one million people, leading to over a tenth of the population working abroad. Many of these emigrants are mothers who often have children left behind. Family separation is now recognized as one of the social costs of migration affecting the global south. Relationships within such transnational families depend on long-distance communication and there is an increasing optimism among Filipino government agencies and telecommunications companies about the consequences of mobile phones for transnational families. This article draws on comparative research with UK-based Filipina migrants — mainly domestic workers and nurses — and their left-behind children in the Philippines. Our methodology allowed us to directly compare the experience of mothers and their children. The article concludes that while mothers feel empowered that the phone has allowed them to partially reconstruct their role as parents, their children are significantly more ambivalent about the consequences of transnational communication.

Licensing Parents to Protect Our Children?

by Jurgen De Wispelaere

Forthcoming in Ethics and Social Welfare, 2012 (co-authored with Daniel Weinstock)

In this paper we re-examine Hugh LaFollette’s (1980) proposal that the state carefully determine the eligibility and... more In this paper we re-examine Hugh LaFollette’s (1980) proposal that the state carefully determine the eligibility and suitability of potential parents before granting them a “license to parent.” Assuming a prima facie case for licensing parents grounded in our duty to promote the welfare of the child, we offer several considerations that complicate LaFollette’s radical proposal. We suggest that LaFollette can only escape these problems by revising his proposal in a way that renders the license effectively obsolete, a route he implicitly adopts in his recent revisiting of the licensing proposal (LaFollette, 2010). We conclude that there is little merit in the idea of licensing “natural” parents as a practical policy proposal, and raise some questions about its continued use in relation to adoptive and foster parents.

Parenting and the emotional and behavioural adjustment of young children in families with a parent with bipolar disorder

by Robert Dempsey

Calam, R., Jones, S., Sanders, M., Dempsey, R., & Sadhnani, V. (in press). Parenting and the emotional and behavioural adjustment of young children in families with a parent with bipolar disorder. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy.

Background: Children of parents with bipolar disorder are at increased risk of disturbance.

Aims: This... more Background: Children of parents with bipolar disorder are at increased risk of disturbance.

Aims: This study examined relationships between parental mood, parenting, household organization and child emotional and behavioural adjustment in families with a parent with bipolar disorder to determine areas of specific need for parenting support.

Method: 48 parents were recruited through advertisements via self-help organizations. The study was conducted online. Parental mood and activity was assessed by self-report questionnaires (CES-D, ISS, MDQ and SRM); parenting was assessed using the Parenting Scale (PS). The SDQ was used to assess the parent’s view of their child’s emotional and behavioural difficulties. The Confusion, Hubbub and Order Scale (CHAOS) assessed household organization.

Results: Parents reported high levels of difficulties across all measures and scores were above clinical cut-offs on most scales. Children were reported as showing high levels of disturbance on the SDQ, including all sub-scales. Parenting and depression scores were significantly positively correlated, as were depression, parenting and CHAOS score. Regression analyses indicated that CHAOS was the strongest predictor of Total Difficulties and Emotional Symptoms on the SDQ.

Conclusions: Families are likely to benefit from interventions tailored to meet their parenting needs.

To Be Is to Betray

by Eyal Rozmarin

I Am Yourself

by Eyal Rozmarin

Hear My Cry: A Manifesto for an Emancipatory Childhood Studies Approach to Children's Literature

by Mary Galbraith

Love, eye contact and the deveopmental origins of empathy v psychopathy

by Jennifer L. Allen

Background
A propensity to attend to other people’s emotions is a necessary condition for human empathy.
... more Background
A propensity to attend to other people’s emotions is a necessary condition for human empathy.

Aims
To test our hypothesis that psychopathic disorder begins as a failure to attend to the eyes of attachment figures, using a ‘love’ scenario in young children.

Method
Children with oppositional defiant disorder, assessed for callous–unemotional traits, and a control group were observed in a love interaction with mothers. Eye contact and affection were measured for each dyad.

Results
There was no group difference in affection and eye contact expressed by the mothers. Compared with controls, children with oppositional defiant disorder expressed lower levels of affection back towards their mothers; those with high levels of callous–unemotional traits showed significantly lower levels of affection than the children lacking these traits. As predicted, the former group showed low levels of eye contact toward their mothers. Low eye contact was not correlated with maternal coercive parenting or feelings toward the child, but was correlated with psychopathic fearlessness in their fathers.

Conclusions
Impairments in eye contact are characteristic of children with callous–unemotional traits, and these impairments are independent of maternal behaviour.

A critical evaluation of the effectiveness of parent support advisor project that aimed to increase community participation: a literature review

by Julia Everitt

Submitted as part of MA Education in May 2010

The rhetoric of participation carries ‘medicinal properties’ and much community work aims to transform the deficient... more The rhetoric of participation carries ‘medicinal properties’ and much community work aims to transform the deficient and passive, by integrating them into society as active residents, who take greater control of their lives. The idea of co-production appears key to the Parent Support Advisor project and useful to unlock talents and encourage action, encouraging greater control from passive residents, but communities might be apprehensive if they perceive the deficit model.

The Emergence of 'Sexualization' as a Social Problem

by Robbie Duschinsky

Draft only; Social Politics

The article explores the history of the way the idea of ‘sexualization’ has been problematized – situated as an object... more The article explores the history of the way the idea of ‘sexualization’ has been problematized – situated as an object of concern – in the USA and UK. My focus here will be on media discourses, having analysed policy and sociological discourses on sexualization elsewhere. I document that, from the early 1980s in the USA, the term ‘sexualization’ came to describe a mal-socialisation which causes the precocious entry by the child into adult forms of sexual subjectivity and desire. I will argue that the media problematization of sexualization has been the result of a ‘discursive coalition’ between a number of conservative and feminist commentators, who for quite different reasons wished to justify measures to protect and regulate the sexuality and morality of young women. Underpinning this coalition is an inadequate account of sexual and commercial choice, as either simply present or absent for young women.

The Politics of the Bailey Review (with Meg Barker)

by Robbie Duschinsky

Draft Only; Forthcoming in Gender & Education

This paper explores the considerations of sexualisation, and of gender stereotyping, in the recent United Kingdom... more This paper explores the considerations of sexualisation, and of gender stereotyping, in the recent United Kingdom government report Letting Children be Children. This report, the Bailey Review, claimed to represent the views of parents. However, closer reading reveals that, whilst the parents who were consulted were concerned about both the sexualisation and the gender stereotyping of products aimed at children, the Bailey Review focuses only on the former, and dismisses the latter. ‘Sexualisation’ has four faces in the Bailey Review: it is treated as a process that increases 1) the visibility of sexual content in the public domain, 2) misogyny, 3) the sexuality of children, and 4) the mainstream position of ‘deviant’ sexual behaviours and lifestyles. Through this construction of ‘sexualisation’, gendered relations of power are not only hidden from view, but buttress a narrative in which young women are situated as children, and their sexuality and desire rendered pathological and morally unacceptable as judged by a conservative standard of decency. Comparison of the treatment of sexualisation and gender stereotyping in the review is revealing of the political motivations behind it, and of wider discourse in these areas.

Community based divorce education programmes: Short-term and longer-term impacts

by Sherrill Hayes

co-author Lori Pelletier

Evaluation of a community-based parenting education program for parents in conflict over child custody and visitation.... more Evaluation of a community-based parenting education program for parents in conflict over child custody and visitation. The evaluation shows the positive short and longer term impacts of this program on parenting attitudes and behaviors and situates it in similar programs across North America.

Invisible and centre stage: a disabled woman's perspective on maternity services

by Liz Crow