A parents role

1. From the moment your child is born you have a 24/7 job of caring for your new baby. To make sure they grow and are healthy and most importantly that they are loved.

2. As your child gets older your duty of care is still vitally important. They need you to develop their skills of talking, walking, reading etc, and to begin doing many things by themselves. It’s important to teach them to behave in a nice way when they are out whether it be a restaurant or just a day out at the park – teach them manners. 

3. Your child will start school, but your responsibility is to help them to adapt to being on their own in a alien environment. It’s so important because this is the first time they have usually not been anywhere without mummy and daddy and they will need to feel secure. 

4. As your child progresses through school they will become more independent and this is where they need to learn to respect their teachers and you need to instill in them the ability to learn. That means taking time to read to them, encourage them to read and practice their handwriting. 

5. As they get older and progress though primary/junior school there are many things they can be taught. Money is a very important lesson. That it needs to be used wisely and that there is not a never ending tree at the end of the garden!

6. The introduction of sport or activities outside of school is vitally important. This has many benefits firstly the exercise is great. If it is a team sport it develops friendships outside of their normal life and all this helps as they head towards high school.

7. At a very young age, just 11 years old, they are in high school and the real world arrives with a bang. Children from all sorts of areas as the catchment area is larger. For me it is so important that they know of all the pitfalls they really have to be educated about such as drugs, alcohol and sex. You really can’t allow your children to be naive about such things as it will lead to disaster. 

8. I believe we should teach our children respect. Everybody, no matter what colour or race people are, we are after all humans beings. 

9. As they go through school it’s important that our children learn that in today’s world education is the way to a brighter future for them. 

10. Finally we should encourage our children to find a part-time job starting with a paper round or in a local shop so they learn you don’t get anything for nothing in life – you have to earn it. 

Hopefully by the time they have finished school they have learnt some lessons about how to behave in life, to be a nice person and lead a productive life and some of this has hopefully been learnt from us as parents.