On a current thread, David from The AFA Inc. stated his belief that children are born as 'blank pages', as if to suggest we as parents might write their lives and their beliefs on our whim.

The children I raised, or so it seems to me, came into the world as themselves, each with different character that was apparent almost immediately. The fact that they have at times widely different beliefs and approaches to life as they have grown testifies to their inherent differentness.

Parenting was and is for me the art of allowing our kids to discover their talents, and their inner resources. The methods they adopt for the expression of interests and creativity is their business save one point. They know that they will loose my active support, but not my love if they follow paths where others get hurt or which places themselves in danger.

I am not asking for another turgid discussion on theism, but making an inquiry into how other posters see this question on their relationship with their children.

The press and even the odd regular poster here are quick to demonise our teenagers, but I find their self confidence and forthrightness very appealing. The hardest part of parenting for me is keeping quiet and allow them to make their own decisions and consequently, often enough their own mistakes, without assuming for myself their right to decide their own lives.

I'm not sure what use is a 16 yo unemployed semi-goth, semi-punk female drummer to the world, but really who am I to say?

palimpsest,

I actually have stated that humans have innate cooperative qualities when born. I have further explained that nurture can enhance or detract from intrinsic behaviour. Enhancing results from supplying love, safety and a broad education about existence. Detraction happens because of an absence of one or some of those ingredients and/or the repetitious ‘pushing’ of any narrow doctrine.

David

pal, you can have an opinion about female drummers, if you think members of society should connect with and contribute to the society that has educated and protects them. if you think you owe nothing to society, nor should the young people you help to raise. is that the case?

What is important to me is the content of my children's hearts and minds, or what is often described as character. When we say, "It's what's inside that coutns," we speak a simple but profound truth.

I've written on this topic in another post. Anyway here goes again...

We have growing agendas for raising our children. But while we are feverish about providing our children - every opportunity - from music lessons, tennis lessons, to a college or university degree, it seems that our job as parents is much simpler - and that is to raise a decent human being.

Decency might sound like a modest ambition, but in today's culture it is not so easy to achieve as we might think. Every parent I know lives with the uneasy sense that their children are growing up too fast, without clear values or a real code to live by. While we spin our wheels worrying about 'reading, writing, and arithmetic,' our children may be missing the 'real basics' like respect, loyalty, and a sense of fair play.

Survey after survey shows that children who will be the best educated and most privileged in human history, are too willing to do anything it takes to 'get ahead.'

Once I realised that collecting for the Red Cross once a year, and taking part in other 'fund-raising' activities, was not going to add to moral development, I started looking seriously for ways to help my children learn right from wrong, and to know that sometimes there is a decision to be made in the middle. My children, growing up were facing tough choices and complicated situations that could not be addressed with simple lectures on the values of kindness or isolated chats about standing up for one's beliefs.

I wanted to surround my children with a sturdy sensibility, a world view, and I wanted it to be different from the "Me" mentality of modern culture.

CONT'D

Even if television offered twenty-four hours of uplifting, intelligent fare each day, a sound bite on moral courage just does not penetrate. The medium delivers information in a flash - and then it is gone.

Stories found in books, by contrast, seep into our very being. We all have books that lifted the fog for us, caused the Great AHA!, and literally changed our lives. The printed word is pondered, and it is received only when the mind is fully engaged. Like no other medium it has the power to stay with us.

In my own case I learnt from biographies that even great individuals start out as everyday children.

Then there were the role models in fairy tales and legends and historical stories. Cinderella enchanted not because she got the prince but because she was cheerful and dignified even in unbearable circumstances. King Arthur showed what a noble deed looked like - and that there is such a thing as duty and sacrifice.

Great literature is not didactic, though it almost always instructs.
Literature that strains to instruct almost always fails. This is not to damn all books that are written in the realistic mode. A vast number of realistic books are written without a social agenda or the need to be explicit or titillating, and they are marvellous, humourous, powerful, disturbing, illuminating, everything one might want in a good read.

But, it does make sense to be aware of what your children are reading, and to make sure that the best books - including - classics old and new, are available to them.

I believe that books are still the most memorable artifact of childhood. They are not only good for the child, they are a family resource beyond anything that any medium has to offer. And to me, children's books remain what the best of them have always been, a powerful transmitter of the culture and the values of civilization.

Our role as parents is not to protect our children from the truth, but to protect them from something less than the truth.

Interesting thread, mum was from a family of 13 kids, she had 16.
Her sisters had from 7 to 13, so I know kids, maybe.
I watch my workmate with his two child family and know like his generation he is a better parent than those of my parents generation.
Better educated to be so and more time to be involved in their lives.
I think we should remember children are a gift to us, not our property forever .
My time as a parent was not unlike most of us I constantly tried to impress values that would help like just reading books 20 years before a failed politician came up with the idea.
Good parenting never came out of a book by an American professional, and it does not come via ownership of children.
No one set of answers exists for how to raise kids but it is good to see us debate the issues.