An excellent piece, well done. I thought the line :" Everyone here seems to have a victim. Who are the oppressors?" was superb and highly descriptive of the current state of play in australia, not just among parents, but among people in all aspects of their lives.

The first step for someone who feels miffed at some slight is to claim to be a victim. It's demeaning and it's now a standard part of the politico-cultural calculations when Governments make policies - who is going to be claiming "victimhood" and do we have to pay any attention to them? Squeaky-wheelism is not the way to form policy, but it seems to be all we've got.

I was also much taken with your comments on resilience and the necessary, if nasty business of teaching it to children. Little Annie who has never known "no" or heard a harsh word is not going to be very well equipped to deal with the vicissitudes.

Regarding Facebook - I don't think that parents realise that even though they may insist that their teen 'befriend' them, they don't realise that the child can go into their FB privacy settings and ensure that their parents don't have access to status updates, photos, videos, etc. All a parent can see is what their teen 'allows' the parent to see. Teenagers find ways around an over-controlling and over-protective parent - they always have and always will.

Dear Linda,
I read with both interest and admiration, your paper on bullying. One thing in the article does bother me a little, ergo: trusting your kids and telling them as such. The trust is a good thing when it comes to their behaviour, there is no doubt. What troubles me, is if someone is bullying them, for example, if the child has a web cam, and falls victim to an on-line predator., I would hope that the trust between parents and children works in reverse so that if there is a problem with online predators, the child victim has the trust to talk to their parents about it. We did tell all of our kids, that if some-one says something or does something to them that makes them feel uncomfortable, then they must either tell the authority at school, or their parents as soon as they get home (or both).
I commend you on the great article.
NSB

Linda Atkins,

For years I have thought that if the basic education were left to parents we would have a better world.

No more school uniforms, no indoctrinating universities, no politicians, no lawyers, no gun-bearing police, no criminals, no jails, no armies, no wars, no asylum seekers, no drugs

When the role of parent became a job for childcare workers & disciplining a child was relegated to to the faceless do-gooder brigade not at all in tune with reality, that's when this disaster became the mould for the idiotic situation we have to deal with now. Get mum to look after the kids & if the kids play up let mum give them a slap.
Another thing we can do is to stop voting in Governments which fail to provide an economic model in which Mum can afford to stay home.

Dear Skeptic & Individual,
Well said, both of you. Education is taught at school, rearing the kids is the Parental Role, I agree, I didn't have my kids so that some centre could look after them and watch them grow, that was my role in life, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I managed to get some crappy work when they were little, ergo night shift at an aged care centre, changing sheets and washing the nether regions, a 10 hour shift, seven days on and four off,we were an isolated family so my sleep came in the form of a few hours before leaving for work. I had one child at early primary school, and two under school age. When I got home at 0700 each day, my husband was by the front door, ready to go to his job. I would do it all over again if I had to, so much joy is missed when the kids (to be fair, if perhaps a parent really needs to work), grow up and bring home their first paintings as such.....My hub and I enjoyed going with out, our time came when the kids were becoming independent.