In a similar vein, there are some pleasing examples where the support from the parent
is reciprocated by the children, as with Gloria:
“ When Ifirst went to college the children were great. They gave me loads of
back-up and said Yes, come on Mum.’ I’ve always said to the kids ‘no TV till
you’ve done your homework’ or you can’t have this till you’ve done your
homework, get your work,, you’ve got to read your books’ or something like
that. That’s what they did to me last year when Ifirst started: ‘Come on Mum,
do your homework and then you can watch TV.”
To finish, the following quotation illustrates the interaction between a small episode
of family learning, acquisition of IT skills and a father’s general confidence; the
outcome, as the rest of the interview revealed, was a dramatic transformation of
Alasdair’s future prospects:
“ .. she said ‘Oh it’s easy Dad, you click onto that and then you get the picture
and then you can type’, and I said to her, I said Thiat is the last time you ever
show me how to use a computer’ and she said to me Am I in trouble?’, I said
Noo you’ve just changed my life’. And I thought, sod it - nervous or not nervous
I will go for this, and I decided that by the time I was 40 that I would give
myself the opportunity to have a career. ”
7.2 Doing a better job as a (grand)parent
Parents report a variety of ways in which their participation in courses has helped
them do a better job as a parent, whether or not the courses had any overt link to
parenting. The benefits included:
- more confidence in their own ability as a parent;
- an improved capacity to communicate with their children;
- greater understanding or patience;
- more practical skills, for example in devising good games;
- understanding more about how others approach parenting;
- enhanced capacity to see things from a child’s view, and to understand
them as a member of a peer group.
Unsurprisingly, this effect is most clearly expressed by those who have been on
courses designed to improve parenting, or similar topics. Thus Ede’s ‘parent pack’
courses have helped her in terms of teaching her children to be responsible and
enhancing their self-esteem:
“ ... it helps me in the aspect of seeing what I’m doing is teaching my children
to be responsible adults at the end of the day, and I mean I actually turn round
to them now, and like my 8-year-old son will, when he takes his clothes off, put
them in the washing machine and turn the washing machine on. And I bet there
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