Parental authority and the disciplining of children will come under discussion when sociologists from the University co-host a debate.
Dr Jan Macvarish, co-author of the recent book Parenting Culture Studies, will be joined by Kent colleague Professor Frank Furedi and David Eberhard, Swedish psychiatrist and author of How Children Took Power, in a debate at the 10th Battle of Ideas Festival in London on 18 October.
The debate, titled What’s wrong with disciplining children?, will consider why ‘obedience’, ‘discipline’ and ‘parental authority’ have become so controversial and why parents are now held directly responsible for every aspect of their child’s progress.
The panel will discuss the claim that current parenting culture undermines many of the joys and pleasures of raising children by making so many of the decisions parents have to make fraught with difficulty and anxiety.
David Eberhard, will argue that the ‘child-centred’ culture which Sweden embraced from the 1970s has made it impossible for adults to discipline children, whether at home, in school or in public places. The consequence of this is an endless round of negotiation and persuasion for which children are developmentally ill-quipped and which is exhausting for parents.
Professor Furedi, who founded the Centre for Parenting Culture Studies at the University of Kent, is the author of Paranoid Parenting and Authority: A Sociological History. In 2001 he identified the problems created by a breakdown in solidarity and trust between adults and by a tendency to rubbish the experience and wisdom of older generations in favour of supposedly ‘evidence-based expertise’.
What’s wrong with disciplining children? will take place in the Barbican’s Frobisher Room at 5.30pm. It will form part of the two-day annual Battle of Ideas Festival, organised by the Institute of Ideas, running from 18-19 October. Tickets are available from the Barbican Box Office.
For Barbican Box Office go to: tickets@barbican.org.uk