But, yes, on the whole skilled parents can raise successful, well adjusted and balanced individuals. I do not agree, however, that having first class insight, emotional intelligence and authority guarantees a parental armoury that is infallible.

Individuals are after all human complete with their own little peculiar traits, genetic make up and influences. Each child does not come with a how to manual nor does one’s own internal guide book apply to all one’s offspring equally. With the best will and skills in the world…some kids don’t want to know. Fullstop. Not all children grow through and up well adjusted…some are just bloody minded and rebellious enough to do their own thing regardless.

What can make a real difference and is key, I believe, is love and compassion.

The spectrum is huge and varied…and infinitely wonderful for it.

My childhood is filled with memories of what we children got up to with our freedom to roam in the bush and after school when very young.

…but you keep believing that super parents ensures a super child. Utopia must exist in your neck of the woods.

Not at all. There are many things, among them mental illness, autism, etc. that cannot be corrected by any amount of good parenting. So super parents can never ensure a super child, any more than very intelligent parents can ensure a very intelligent child or very athletic parents can ensure a very athletic child.

Skilled parents, on the other hand, can and DO ensure a well-adjusted child — one who has no interest in engaging in destructive or self-defeating behaviors of any kind. Through my own children, I’ve come to know scores of children very well over the years. Their personal problems, whether they be behavioral or attitudinal, or both, are quite easily traced to parenting behaviors I’ve observed. The connection has always been obvious. For instance, boastful, competitive children often have parents who compare them to their siblings and other children, and pay attention to them only when they loudly proclaim their own merits. Every other weakness I’ve ever observed in a child has been readily traceable to parental skills and mistakes. It’s really quite obvious.

In my opinion, parents who insist that they are perfect, and that their children’s faults cannot be traced back to them, are merely cowards who do what cowards do — they refuse to take responsibility for their own, parental shortcomings. It’s much easier, after all, to blame “society” or those nebulous “they.”

As I’ve said, those who can’t see the obvious link between parental behaviors and their children’s shortcomings are either in denial or just not skilled enough parents themselves to do so.

Not asking you to…my experience and the experience of others tells me that I can buy it…so I do.

…but you keep believing that super parents ensures a super child. Utopia must exist in your neck of the woods.

Nope. Still don’t buy it. All the kids I know who have emotional issues, whether that be shyness, boastfulness, selfishness, lack of confidence, or what have you clearly get it from parenting techniques I have personally observed. I know kids who are influenced by peers and those who aren’t. The ones who are come from families with poor parental technique.

I suspect that those who see no parental technique issues in tendencies such as being subject to peer pressure are, themselves, poorly skilled parents.

I have more than once…and they came back on line.

…plus I enjoyed working for the Crown Prosecution Service for two years. The parents of the youths arrested for criminality/misdemeanours/anti-social behaviour were not baddies …nor did the children claim they were…but a common denominator was a bad apple in the peer group exerting pressure/bad influence WITHOUT parental knowledge. Thankfully those with loving parents still had loving parents after their cautions etc. Parents are not with their kids 24/7 nor do parents get to know all about the lives of the children they have….regardless that they think they do. They do not.

In addition two very good parents known personally to me and considered pillars of the community have had their children go astray…to come back on line.

It also helps having the insights of a Headmistress as a friend and teachers and nurses in the family…all backgrounds, all social classes, all groups, all parents (good, bad or indifferent) can have good, bad or indifferent offspring.

Prodigal son/daughter lives on in the 21st Century.

I’ve never known a child with good parents to go astray. Not even once. But I have met many unfit parents who blame others.

No…it is not all down to parenting as evidenced by those who break free from their influence whether it be good or bad, the young who have their own light bulb moments or Road to Damascus type experiences which separate them from their parents, by runaways, by the founding of new philosophies and religions, by the influences that wider society has over children (hence the tendency of conservative minded folk to block/censor/ban/educate them out of that which is considered ill-advised and most importantly by the peer group of the young.

Next time a cult/friencship group/peer group/communism or any other ism takes a young mind…note how helpless the parent is. Good and loving parents are most vulnerable where there children are concerned.

If you’ve got one kid that just doesn’t fit it, doesn’t follow the rules & insists on being a fuck-up? Sometimes the best parents in the world have that problem.

Nope. Don’t buy it. OK. There is such a thing as severe mental illness that no amount of good parenting can fix. But that is extraordinarily rare.

For everything else, it’s parenting.

Did you know that George and Laura Bush participated in one of James Dobson’s family programs?

“Laura and I were active members of the First Methodist Church of Midland, and we participated in many family programs, including James Dobson’s Focus on the Family series on raising children. As I studied and learned, Scripture took on greater meaning, and I gained confidence and understanding in my faith.” -George W. Bush, A Charge To Keep

Honestly, I think setting yourself up as Jesus’ favorite candidate is baggage in and of itself. And, I understand where you’re coming from on this one. I just think a. it’s just too easy, and, b. I’d rather pick on his personal failings, rather than his family’s.

However, when you can strongly correlate upbringing to deviant behavior on the part of the children, well then I’m quite interested and think it has much more bearing. Relgiously motivated child abuse comes to mind.