Frank Furedi

‘Ignore expert advice, parents - it’s best for your child’
By Chris Price.

Ignoring government advice and parenting experts could improve your ability to look after your children, according to a university professor based in Kent.

Frank Furedi, Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent, is calling on parents to take back control because the mothball approach to bringing up your children could be affecting their wellbeing.

In his book - Paranoid parenting: Why ignoring the experts may be best for your child - Prof Furedi urges parents to understand their role has been turned into a minefield by current society.

He said bringing up a family is just as safe as it ever has been.

“Almost every year in the last decade parents have been put under more and more pressure about looking after their children and their authority has been questioned.

“The assumption is that parents are not up to the task of looking after their children. One of the unfortunate affects of these pressures is to affect parents’ confidence in their own ability to get on with the job.

“The experience of children is continually inflated into a major problem. Every childhood experience comes with a health warning.

“We are led to believe their lives have never been so bad or as dangerous as now and all these things make it very difficult to be a good mother and a good father.”

First published by Kent Online, 9 January 2009