Teens need to learn parenting skills

More should be done at schools to prepare for the biggest role, says REBECCA WALSH.

Teenagers need to learn more about parenting and children's development at high school, child health and welfare advocates say.

Even though children leave school with specialised knowledge of quadratic equations and Greek classics, many have little, if any, education about children's development and being a parent.

Past generations learned about parenting through being part of an often large family, where they cared for younger brothers and sisters. Often extended family lived nearby.

Today, families are smaller and children less likely to care for siblings.

For some people the first time they hold a baby is when they have their own.

Lesley Max, chief executive of the Pacific Foundation for health, education and parent support, says not enough advice is available about the role of being a parent.

She says that given New Zealand's child abuse and neglect record, there is no room for complacency.

She wants to see a more active, focused approach to ensure young people leave school with greater knowledge about children's development.

"I have said for years that it is sheer madness to have people go through 13 years of compulsory education and release them with all kinds of highly specialised knowledge, about all manner of things, but being totally ignorant about the needs, growth and development of children.

"It makes no sense."

Mrs Max, who set up the HIPPY programme for underprivileged or at-risk parents to teach their children academic skills and learn about their development, is urging that students be taught parenting at secondary school.

She is working on an approach she hopes could be incorporated into the school curriculum.

Angela Baldwin, general manager clinical services for Plunket, supports the call for more information at secondary school level.

She says parenting issues, from discipline to how the breast works - in order to understand breastfeeding - could be included in the school curriculum.

"We don't teach that.

"We are more likely to teach about the kidney."

Plunket already operates a programme called Tots and Toddlers in just over 100 secondary schools, looking at issues such as childcare, nutrition and development.

In a few schools, the six-hour programme is taken by all students but on the whole it is confined to those taking health and home-economics classes.

But parents and the wider community also have a role to play.

"It [parenting] is probably the most significant role in society.

"If you do a good job of parenting you are setting up the nation for the future."

Barbara Hollard, curriculum facilitator for the Ministry of Education, says that although the new health and physical education curriculum in schools does not have a section entitled parenting, it covers a range of areas such as relationships and caring for siblings.

A section on puberty looks at the changes from birth onwards.

Ms Hollard says that if schools have implemented the curriculum effectively, it provides the basic building blocks but educating young people about parenting is not only a school's responsibility.

The ministry is working on developing more materials on families to incorporate into the curriculum.