Lessons for future moms and dads?
Christchurch - A teacher says parenting lectures should be compulsory in all secondary schools.
Tauranga Girls' College childcare and parenting teacher Jane Baker says lessons on parenting and basic life skills should be compulsory at "some stage" of every teenager's schooling.
Her comments are similar to those of Whakamarama-based child psychotherapist Augustina Driessen, who spoke about the need to establish a parenting centre in Tauranga earlier this month.
Tauranga Girls' offers an optional six-month childcare and parenting class to Year 11 students and a year-long advanced childcare class to Year 12 and 13 students. They have done so for eight years.
| 'Kids are cute when they're little' |
Most students take the classes at Tauranga Girls' College as a step to becoming an early childhood teacher; others see it as a way to prepare themselves for parenthood.
However, the reality of parenthood did not always match the dream, Baker said.
"The kids are cute when they're little, then they get to two years old and they [the parents] are not happy."
As a result children as old as two were being put up for adoption, she said.
| Motherhood shouldn't be 'glamourised' |
Increased funding for Plunket and more in-home visits would go some way in supporting both mother and child, she said.
In class, Baker, who has four children of her own, looks at basic parenting, including long-term relationships and what made a solid family.
The roles and responsibilities of families were taught, along with nutrition, health and safety, physical development and a special toddlers course run by Plunket's Shelley McKay, a mother of two.
Under the Plunket course mothers bring children into class, where the students learn about bathing, feeding, rest and play.
McKay said it was important she didn't "glamourise" motherhood to the girls.
Katikati College teacher Gaylia Bundle said compulsory parenting workshops were a good idea in theory, but finding room in the curriculum would be hard.
Tauranga Boys' College does not run childcare classes, but has its Good Man programme. - New Zealand Herald
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