Children: Parenting for Success in School

Baroness Crawley Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Crawley]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, on securing this most important debate on one of the most intractable issues facing our society today. I also thank him most sincerely for his courtesy in giving me sight of his speech notes and, more broadly, for his terrier-like grip on the subject of parenting and children’s well-being over many years in this House.

We have had a number of maiden speeches today and we welcome them all. The noble Lord, Lord Lingfield, in a most informative contribution, gave us the benefit of his wide experience in this area of children’s special educational needs and mediation. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford gave us a refreshing, moving and most amusing tour of his diocese. As a resident of north Oxfordshire, I hope that our paths will continue to cross both inside and outside this House. The noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston—I am looking for her; there she is—will be a very important asset to this House, as her clear, humorous and excellent maiden speech demonstrated, while the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, gave us an engaging, arresting, confident and highly enjoyable maiden speech, outlining his great experience with young people. He is most welcome both day and night in this House. They were all excellent maiden speeches and the House is all the richer for the contributions of our new Peers.

The Library note issued for this debate draws our attention to the bulging literature on the subject of educational outcomes and parenting. We know from Leon Feinstein's research, which the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, referred to in her contribution that at a very early age—by 22 months—a bright child from a disadvantaged background begins to be overtaken in cognitive ability by a less bright but privileged child. While this is not to say that parenting is more likely to be poor in poor families, it does suggest that when parenting is poor the negative effect starts to accrue very early, well before the child goes to school. Moreover, the effects are cumulative and can markedly shape the lifelong prospects of the child.

Professor Desforges and Alberto Abouchaar undertook a literature review on the impact of parenting, one of their findings being that in the primary age range,

“the impact caused by different levels of parental involvement is much bigger than differences associated with variations in the quality of schools”.

A paper by Ingrid Schoon and Samantha Parsons assessed whether growing up in a socially disadvantaged family has a lasting implication for psychosocial adjustment in childhood. It concluded that,

“generally the study indicates that a stable and supportive family environment provides the ideal context for the child to flourish. In the long run, however, even resilient children are still at least in part handicapped by the experience of early social disadvantage”.

Demos, the think tank quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, states:

“Parents are the principle architects of a fairer society”.

Amen, I say, to that. Philip Larkin, the poet, put it in another perhaps even more succinct way. We conclude that positive, early parenting is essential for children to grow up into healthy, happy, achieving and rounded adults. We know that, and that most parents want to do the best for their children. They worry about whether they are getting parenting right.

A report was published recently by the charity Family Lives, formerly Parentline Plus, which found that a majority of parents felt under pressure to be a perfect parent—pressure mostly from the media, sometimes from Government and from their own parents. So many parents know that good parenting really matters and they want help and advice from time to time. Almost a quarter of parents in the report had sought help from the child’s school on parenting issues, which is to be welcomed. This raises questions on what role the Government—any Government—should have in supporting good parenting.

It is because of the importance of good early parenting in securing positive outcomes for children, and because parents say that they want access to advice and support when they need it, that the Labour Government were committed to developing a wide range of support for parents, including parenting classes. For example, there are all the main Sure Start children’s centres, which my noble friend Lord Winston advocated very well. We built 3,500 of them in our time, which were used by more than 2.5 million children and families. They were all required to offer parenting classes using one of the well evidenced programmes that have been shown to have lasting, positive benefits for children and their families.

The centres were funded to train staff properly to ensure that such classes were delivered effectively, which was most important. Most primary schools and many secondary schools also choose to offer parenting classes as part of the extended activities and family learning programmes, which again were funded by government, because those schools understood the benefits not only to the children and families but for the schools themselves, with improved behaviour and better learning for all. Is the Minister concerned about the proposed closures of the Sure Start children’s centres and the reduction in parenting classes that they provide?

The Daycare Trust, which was mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, said last week that 250 Sure Start centres may shut altogether, with most others suffering deep cuts to their services. The new early intervention grant to cover Sure Start, although welcome, is considerably less than the grants it replaces, with some suggesting that there will be as much as £1.4 billion of cuts in all early intervention programmes. What impact does the Minister expect that the cuts in local government will have on parenting support?

As many noble Lords have said, by far the most effective approach is preventive—helping vulnerable parents by getting to them early—and, as we believed that to be the case, the Labour Government introduced in many areas the much acclaimed Family Nurse Partnership, developed over 25 years in the United States. This approach attaches specially trained midwives to very young, vulnerable first-time mothers, from early pregnancy and through the first two years of a child’s life. The family nurse teaches and encourages all aspects of positive parenting as well as healthy lifestyles, and helps with strong couple relationships between parents, as marvellously outlined by my noble friend Lady Sherlock. Research in the United States has demonstrated that this approach has long-lasting benefits, including in educational attainment, to children born in the most deprived circumstances, as well as significant savings by preventing problems occurring later on in the child’s life. Will the Government continue to expand the Family Nursing Partnership programme across the country?

This has been a serious and timely debate, with highly informed contributions from noble Lords. Nothing is more important than the well-being of our children, as the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, and my noble friend Lady Massey have said. We are living through austere, sobering times. The Minister may argue across the Dispatch Box about the rights and wrongs of cuts that are being made to services, but one thing that we absolutely agree on is that it is not the children’s fault that we are where we are economically, and that the impact on them must not lead to a lost generation. As well as responsible parenting, we always need responsible government.