Creating obedient not thinking and non-critical people…

[Updated August 21, see the end of the posting]. In the morning sofa on Swedish TV this morning: is the government’s investment on uncertain parents* in risk of brushing off old-time’s bringing up of children?

Parents’ uncertainty in dealing with their kids… Yes, how do we deal with our confusion? And where are the roots for this confusion?

I think this fear is reasonable (for neoauthoritarianism and neoconservatism).

The school and child physician Lars H. Gustafsson thinks people want methods (quick-fixes) and wonders:

”Do you want a method for how to be with your husband or your friends?”

He warned for that there is a lot of business in the programs on the market in this area. And he also put emphasis on that there exists a lot of knowledge in the existing profession(s). If he had gotten the money the government is spending now he would want to take care of THAT knowledge.

And yes, that’s true. Came to think on that here they have made cuts in child care, the school and school health care etc. Which means that there are less people (adults) there for the kids. People who have continuous contact with both kids and parents. Being there not just for a parents’ course. But as it is today the people on those places have limited time for each child...

I can’t help thinking quite ironically that what’s done by the government in this case is pure populism? Yes, I get creeps. You want to create obedient and not thinking people (via the parents)???

And who are those programs reaching? The ones that you should need to reach?

And for who are those programs? For the children?

If you really had the children’s best for your eyes I think you would do something entirely else and present this idea in an entirely different way!!! But now those things are done for the parents' sake and "best" and not really for the kids'!? Quite honestly!

Also see postings about conscious and unconscious manipulation.

Addition: On his blog Lars H. Gustafsson wonders when we shall start seeing kids as actors in their own lives and not just as objects for care and health promoting achievements.

And I think he is right that there will probably be reasons to remind about the children’s rights perspective many, many times.

Addition August 21: As my sweetie said

"This is more about PARENTAL RIGHTS than children's!"

Also see the article ”Swedish parenting: Back to a traditional future?”

There you for instance can read:

“It was not until after the end of the Second World War that physical punishment and shaming began to be questioned as methods of parenting in Sweden, Gustafsson writes in 'The return of the naughty step.'

Children's author Astrid Lindgren created the characters of Pippi Longstocking, Emil, Madicken and Ronja and was influential in embedding new attitudes towards children and parenting in the Swedish popular self-identity that led to a re-think in the 1970s and early 1980s./…/

One might ask whether these parenting courses aren't more for the benefit of parents struggling to find a balance to ‘life's puzzle’ in the high-stress, ‘I want it all’ 2000s, than for their children. Children are one more piece of the puzzle needing to be effectively managed; squeezed in alongside a career, a rewarding social life and free-time activities. Hence the focus on controlling behaviour, or perhaps more accurately, output. Gustafsson agrees:

‘The definition of normality has narrowed in today's society. That which was once considered normal is now considered to be deviant. Take sleep for example. Small children sleep badly, that's normal, but parents today live with such tight schedules they cannot run the risk of their child having a bad night's sleep.’

’I miss the children's perspective,’ he concludes.”

Read about limit setting, something that became very popular here during the last last economical crisis almost twenty years ago, here and here.

For what are the limits set and for whom?

It feels as this is more a backlash than a progress in our society!

* Why are parents uncertain? Are nobody wondering? Should we wonder, both as society and as indviduals?