Parenting 101
According to child development expert, Dr. Mustard (no joke - that's really his name) only about 1/3 of Canadian parents are doing a great job. The rest are either OK or, and I quote, "godawful". This guy doesn't mince words - he's passionate about early childhood development and has devoted a large chunk of his life to studying it, and he says that he has given up on Canada getting early childhood education right.

"If you want a highly competent population with limited behaviour problems and no violence, then you don't have any choice but to invest in early childhood development. Since parents have the dominant effect on a child, you want to make damn certain you give parents every opportunity to be good."

Canada ranks last among developed nations in spending on early childhood development. And there is overwhelming evidence that brain development in the early years of life affects everything from behaviour to mental and physical health. Our culture has some problems. I see some very good intentions on the parts of parents, but we smother our kids and use them to "fix" troubled marriages or to patch a hole in our self-esteem. And who would ever admit to that?

Have you ever been in the grocery store, or at a movie and just cringed when you've heard some of the interactions that occur between parent and child? Worse yet - what if some of the pathetic parenting that you witness happens to be one of your friends? Do you tell them that the reason that their child is such a sociopathic terror is because of them?

I think that we need more of a sense of community in this society. Gone are the days when nuclear families existed, and kids were always under the careful watch of an extended family or caring neighbours. When I was young, I would be out all day in the summer with the instructions to "come home when the streetlights turn on" - because my parents knew everybody in the neighbourhood and they all looked out for each other's kids. I used to walk to school sans parents in kindergarten. I was nervous to let my 10 year old walk to the bus by himself. You can argue that the world is a "crazier" place and kids need to be protected more, but is that really true? I think that what's happening is that we just hear more about some of the crazy shit that happens because that's the kind of news that sells. I don't think that the statistics on child abductions, or child abuse has changed much over the last few decades. We've just become a society based on fear.