Is Brash ready to be sued for neglect?

Opposition leader Don Brash’s latest comments have angered parents. “If Dr. Brash expects to punish parents for supposedly doing a poor job then he had better be prepared to defend some legal actions from parents suing the government for neglect, because someone is bound to test that case!” said Parent.org spokesperson, Steve Gore.

The recently formed lobby group is concerned at the lack of understanding at the political level of the realities of modern day parenting. We have put parents under pressure for years and the cracks are beginning to show. Punishing them is not going to improve the outcomes – it will simply throw another layer of wallpaper up.

“Our politicians have spent the last twenty years creating a success focused environment for business and ensuring we have a skilled workforce while ignoring the skills needs of parents and supporting only parenting failure,” said Mr. Gore. “Suddenly Dr. Brash expects all our parents to demonstrate great skills or else pay for their ignorance with fines and community service!

When are our politicians going to realise that if we create an environment of success around parents these problems Dr. Brash is concerned about are much less likely to happen.

The new lobbying group was outraged by Dr. Brash’s suggestion that the parents of errant teenagers should be forced to attend parenting classes.

“Parent education is a valuable, positive thing. It should not be used as some sort of punishment. It sends completely the wrong message to all parents – that they should associate skills and education with failure rather than the route to success. We don't send the CEO's of bankrupt businesses to business school as punishment - why should we take that approach with parents?

By the time a child is a teenager the relationship between them and their parents is very established – for better or worse. A few parenting classes at that point may do more damage than good. Good parenting is a long, slow repetitious process.” said Mr. Gore. “A wise government would understand that and invest in parenting for the duration of childhood – not wait until things go wrong, then throw a few dollars at the problem to absolve itself of any responsibility.

Parents are the starting point of the knowledge economy. The modest cost of creating an environment that encourages and resources them to succeed would be returned to society a hundred times over when more and more parents raise children capable of carrying our country forward.

Parent.org is a new lobby group dedicated to increasing governments understanding of benefits a success focused parenting environment may offer. They can be found at http://www.parent.org.nz

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