Just let the children grow

PARENTS are much less resilient than kids now," observed a respected educator recently, and don't we all know where she's coming from, I thought.

PARENTS are much less resilient than kids now," observed a respected educator recently, and don't we all know where she's coming from, I thought.

The hovering, indignation, anguish is all around us; some of it deeply primal, raw, unbound. I've seen examples in both UK and Australian schools as aggrieved parents go into righteous battle for their precious darlings. God help the educators; there's nothing like a modern mum on a mission. Recent tales from other schools: parents demanding a recount of a school leadership ballot - in the presence of Australian electoral officers - after their child wasn't chosen as a prefect; threats to withdraw a pupil; schools being bullied with legal action if a kid's not included in the netball/public speaking/soccer team.

What kind of adults are being raised here? Resilience is a necessary life skill; at its core a magnificent and moving tenacity of spirit. "The end is nothing; the road is all," author Willa Cather wrote - yet some parents are trying to smooth that road to a ridiculously unnatural extent. The aim? That holy grail, the child's happiness (and perhaps their own). At all costs. Bugger the rest.

Counselling psychologist Helen McGrath says the situation's no longer balanced. "There's been a big shift in the past decade, a real loss of parenting skills. It's child-centred parenting, which results in less resilient kids as well as parents." In the war and postwar eras, she says, Aussie children were taught to be tough, to endure, overcome. Parents wanted their kids to be independent, good people, within a community. Over the past 10 or 15 years the message has changed. There's a lot of fear fuelled by the media, yet no evidence the world's a more frightening place. Coupled with this is peer pressure - parents criticising other parents, and moving in packs to try to remove certain teachers.

McGrath believes the "raising self-esteem" movement is discredited because the resulting narcissism has become counterproductive - the "I'm better than anyone else, and I will get my way" syndrome. With self-esteem hasn't come the requisite counterbalance: empathy. "We're now teaching self-respect instead of self-esteem - i.e., what you do, how you conduct yourself, your morals. We're teaching teachers to teach students. The parents are lost."

She thinks some of the problem lies with women having babies later. They've often had a career, know how the system works and are extremely assertive. Compare that to previous generations, when women were generally meek in the face of authority. "Women who know how, they're the ones usually driving this new way of operating," McGrath says, "but they've lost logical perspective." Blinded by their ruthless path to have their child succeed at all costs; unable to see how foolish and blinkered they appear. It strikes me how little empathy these extremely competitive women have for any other child; it's like they just don't see them - and it can result in a subtle alienating by other mothers. And am I right in thinking the extremely vocal, hovery angst can often seem most pronounced in the alpha woman who once had a professional career but is now a full-time mum? Perhaps because they've time to focus, obsessively - their active minds aren't filled up with other things. Their child's success is now theirs, too. All-consumingly.

A teacher's dream parent? "An advocate for their child, but one who does so with courtesy," McGrath says. "They'll respect the teacher's right to teach. And they don't want the school to fix a friendship fallout. There are lots of normal experiences kids have to go through. Parents are feeling too much through the minds of their children; they shouldn't think they have to respond emotionally." As Christopher Robin pointed out so wisely to Pooh, "Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think." It's all part of growing up.

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