17. PARENTS WORKING TOGETHER?

Our world changes day-by-day, and in the words of the eminent sociologist, Anthony Giddens, ‘the world changes every thirty seconds more than it has changed since time began’. A most profound statement, but as the world moves along at the pace of a jet airliner, that statement is even more true!

Hardly a day goes by without a lot of TV and radio coverage of that rather controversial word, ‘Brexit’, and other fake-news, and perhaps more important news is left by the wayside, particularly what is happening to childhood! However, things go on apace and today the news, again, is about Smartphones ruling the lives of children, like an unstoppable and highly addictive drug!

How hard should we strive to ensure that children are protected during their developmental years from negative experiences that may linger within their undeveloped, subconscious minds, which can affect them as adults? Without intelligent commitment and meaningful debate to clearly understand and provide what is right for children, and what is not, how can they move towards more conscious thought as adulthood looms, to take their place in society as freethinking adults? Does an eighteen-year-old suddenly get given developed thinking as a right, or as a gift, just because in the eyes of the state they have reached adult age?

It is hard to write an education article! It is even harder to encourage readership of what one writes, but as a caution, perhaps a recent experience can put things into perspective, and act as a cautionary note to help parents who can disseminate what educationists write, from what is written out of sensationalism, not necessarily pure calculated and accurate thought.

Three years ago, I met two professional parents. They had two teenage children and when they opened the door to enter my study for a pre-arranged interview, I was aware that ‘I had been here before’! Something of a dejavu feeling hit me!

Both parents seemed wonderful and their first few words after they greeted me with a warm handshake, encouraged me to be polite in return, which I usually am, but there was no handshake from the two figures standing there, scruffy, unkempt and rather smelly. I offered my hand to them which they ignored, but they did crave for money from their mum to buy a can and something to eat!

Both parents seemed powerless, but ashamed. The mother reached into her handbag and extracted a crisp ten-pound note, which seemed for all the world to have been neatly placed where it could be quickly and easily found as if she knew it might be imminently needed; and gave it to the girl. They both left my study, muttering a few expletives and headed for the village.

Their son James attended a local school and their daughter Sophie attended a high school. Both parents and children had tried very hard to get their places at their current schools when they were eleven, but after a few years in that system their education was up for review. We talked for about thirty minutes, after which the two ‘shadows’ returned, burgers half eaten, smelling of tobacco, ears pinned back with headphones and a cute smile from one to another, and visa versa.

They clutched their Smartphones and sat in my study, hooded, sulking and bent-backed asking if they could go, with headsets still engaged and their ears pinned back flat, but the heavy music was heard easily! The boy exclaimed, “I’m not going here, it’s all posh”. The sister agreed and made it clear that she wanted to go home and watch a movie. It seemed as though they had been brought to meet me under duress, or perhaps had been bribed! Perhaps the parents hoped it would be a world-changing interview?

‘But what can I do to take these devices away from them’? Mum was definitely on my side, and so I advised her. ‘If you bought the Smartphones and if you pay the contract, then you own them’. I suggested she confiscates these contraptions and hide them or dispose of them if they were a problem. The father sat bemused and indicated by his body-image and the look on his face that he wanted to leave this bastion of control! My suggestion was meant to bring about an affirmative smile, a smile of support and understanding!

On returning home, and after that morning of hell with me, the mother entered the forbidden bedrooms marked ‘parents keep out’ when her lovelies were asleep, tumbled over the burger wrappers, Coke cans and other leftover food items, crept into their bedrooms and retrieved each Smartphone in turn. Eleven missed calls and seven messages on the screen of her daughter’s phone, and nine missed calls and seven messages on her son’s. She secreted them in the larder downstairs, and despite some very nasty expletives from the two when they got up, she did not give in. The ‘lovely’ children left the house, opened the rear doors of their mother’s rather pretty, newish Jaguar, slammed the doors and hid under their hoodies, sulking on the back seat, lounging side-by-side, headphones on.

On arrival at their schools they were met by friends at the gate and faced their questions. ‘I texted you last night and I thought you would text back when you woke’. It was immediately clear from the gestures on their faces that their mother had confiscated their Smartphones, and they all laughed. Is that a sort of bullying?

What the mother did next defies belief. She returned home, called a friend and together they disposed of the Smartphones by throwing them in the local canal and went back home together to have a coffee and consider how the mother would manage her newly-created stress levels. She said she was frightened of her own children, and she took literally what I said when she said that wherever she put the Smartphones they would get it out of her where they were. I told her to throw them in the canal, so they could never be used again. Gone forever! It was a gesture, but I meant it because she had absolutely no control over her children and she knew they would not do anything they were asked to!

On arriving home after collecting the children that day, they created such a fuss and were so rude that when they heard that their treasured Smartphones had been disposed of in the canal, they created holy hell! Their devices were ruined, their lives messed up, gone forever and will be sadly missed! It was like losing a limb!

Never mind, dad was on the way home to make his stand as head of the family, and by 8.45pm. both ‘lovely’ children were sitting in their bedrooms with a new Smartphone each, plugged in ready to become re-armed, but this time with an even more up-to-date smartphone, an iPhone 7.

Good old dad. Lovely dad. So nice that he loves us! Hugs all round was a feature of bedtime that evening.