Saturday 7 July 2007

The Government is to spend an extra £14m in school teaching kids how to be polite and cope with disappointment. I'm guessing that this money is going to be spent in secondary schools.

Firstly, surely the people responsible for teaching kids manners, and how to deal with disappointment from day one are parents. Clearly many parents are not fulfilling their duty to their children to bring them up as responsible citizens. Most of this should be in kids before they get to school and school should simply reinforce it.

We could leave it up to parents but their seem to be a generation out there who either don't know how or don't want to bring their children up to be morally responsible citizens. How could a Government affect this? Well, the obvious thing is influence them with incentives. It should be possible to ring fence child allowance for under 5s so that it can only be spent on product relating to the care of children of that age. This could be done in the form of vouchers. Extra tax relief could then be offered to parenst who take and pass a course in parenting. This could cover both practical parenting and issues such as moral responsibility. Clearly parents who don't take, or don't pass such a course would then be registered with social services as being potentially at risk. Notice the word is potentially. Clearly some parents may make a fantastic job of brining up their children pre-school and these people should receive an assessment that entitles them to claim the money they would have received as a lump sum.

Far too many people bleat on about the nanny state, yet these are the same people who are outraged at the increase in teenage violence. For a Government to influence a generation it must have access to them during their formative years. The breakdon of family, the influence of the church (I am not religious) and of communities has lead to a situation where people seem isolated. We all live in a thing called 'soiety'. We are all affected by the actions of others. To not get involved seems to be an invitation to anarchy.

2 comments:

Chris said...

The idea of being a citizen should be earned not just a right. To create good citizens is aboiut time not money. Its also about investment from the governement, the school and the parents. Good citizens are made not born. The government, local councils need to create an environment where people feel they are part of the community. Building a community centre on an estate is not enough.
The idea that memebers of a comunity can somehow take it upon themselves to be outside of the common sense of citizenship and still be be treated and have the same rights as those who do do contribute is farcical. If someone attacks a nurse or ambulance person then they should have to see what the fallout is like, by being sentenced to a month cleaning up an A&E department, in a bright pink bunny suit. It destroys any sense of being tough and also makes them a target for attack by others of the same disposition as themselves.
Its about taking responsibility. This has to come from the top, so when a politician screws up, lets not have rhetoric but honesty, when a footballer falls over in the penalty area lets stop with the dirty looks and the protestations of innocence, (its on tv now remember) lets have a bit of taking resposibility. So when the young feel like doing something they have to understand that it was they, not their homelife, their race, colour, creed or the fact that they have had a drink, drug or just a bad day, that has to be responsible.

plasfan said...

I don't think those convicted of criminal offences should have the same rights as law-abiding citizens. Clearly there are certain human rights that should be upheld - the right to food, water, exercise and so on. However, the right to access pornography, drug addiction treatment, gender reassignment surgey etc. should not be available.