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Parenting

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, on securing the debate. It is a subject dear to her heart and it is timely considering the impassioned speeches we heard at Second Reading of the Children and Adoption Bill last Wednesday. Today’s debate has been thought-provoking and well-informed, with specialist contributions from all sides of the House. The interdependent nature of the subject means that it is as wide-ranging as life itself. I would dearly love to mention every speech because they have all been marvellous, but I hope that noble Lords will not mind if I mention only two. We heard a passionate maiden speech from the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge. It is good to hear someone speak out so robustly for the much-beleaguered institution of marriage. We heard also from the noble Baroness, Lady Rendell. What I miss most now that my children have grown up is that magical moment of the bedtime story. My work in education, youth clubs and health and more recently my involvement with the Children and Adoption Bill has only emphasised what I feel so strongly as a mother and daughter. A cohesive family life and the vital role played by parents in providing love, stability and support for their children as they grow through their various stages to independence cannot be underestimated. It is priceless. We must never overlook the importance of the extended family. ““Parent”” refers not just to the biological mother or father of the child in question but to all those who take on a parental role, including step-parents, grandparents, godparents, adoptive parents and foster parents. Each year, between 150,000 and 200,000 parental couples separate. Some 27 per cent of the nation’s 10.3   million children live in lone-parent households, the highest percentage found in all European countries, while last year’s figures showed that 61,000 children were in local authority care. There are at least half a million stepfamilies caring for 2.5 million stepchildren and it is estimated that half of remarriages involving children will also end in divorce. Meanwhile, one in four step families breaks down in the first year. This breakdown of the traditional family unit has meant that parenting skills are not being handed down. Up to the birth of a child, maternity services offer much support. Then you go home with your bundle of joy, but no manual, no set of instructions, and those first nights can seem endless. Fragmented families further contribute to the sense of ““not knowing what to do””. The support we give in those early years is crucial. All the evidence points to the strain at that time contributing not only to relationship breakdown, but also to the increase in the numbers of children taken into care. The parents who most need help are the parents least likely to come forward to ask for help. Kent County Council is pump-priming services to support preventive work in this area, with excellent results. Good habits instilled at the beginning are so much easier to achieve than intervening later. One great source of wisdom, and a service which I valued, was my health visitor. Mrs Heyes was simply wonderful. If she did not know the answer there simply was not one. But the health visitor network is patchy and the work they do and the advice they give tails off too quickly. Their role should be strengthened with more concentrated support for weeks and months as part of an integrated package for parents to opt into. Any programmes for parenting support should be devised locally and provided by a variety of different groups in the private, public and voluntary sectors. I know that the Government already give money to voluntary organisations through the Parenting Fund, but we believe that that support should go to a wider group of organisations; for example, to groups like community family trusts, where amazing work is carried out, not just in supporting parents with advice and training, but also in helping to prevent relationship breakdown. Those and many other faith-based groups deserve all the help we can give them. Anyone turning on their television sets will undoubtedly come across a plethora of parenting shows such as ““Little Angels””, and ““Super Nanny””, in which experts hand down great wisdom to struggling parents. From toddler tantrums to truculent teenagers the basic message is the same: a lack of boundaries and a lack of respect. It is often the call of teachers that they spend so much time trying to address behaviour that they cannot carry out the job of teaching. One school which has tackled that problem successfully is Dorton House, a special needs school for the blind. It has a partnership arrangement whereby teachers and parents work together to ensure that there are boundaries and a routine in the children’s day, ensuring continuity from school to home, based on principles of respect. I suggest that that is a model that would be a good blueprint for all our schools. It is almost impossible to do justice to this vital topic in such a short time. Along with the areas that I have covered, effective parenting touches on literacy, housing, the tax system, and almost anything. The one subject that should not be compartmentalised—or indeed departmentalised—is the family. We need bold initiatives and we need to trust parents. For the most part, parents really know what is best for their children and the Government should support them in the choices they make.