Children in the UK need lessons in love and moral responsibility to combat the growing culture of greed and individualism, according to a new report.
The report, entitled ‘A Good Childhood’, finds that adult pursuit of ‘personal success’ has damaged childhood in the UK and states the country is one of the worst affected in the western world. A greater emphasis on personal responsibility and the common good needs to replace an ethos which focuses on selfishness, the report concludes.
And it says that the major rise in family breakdown is a leading part of the problem. It suggests that women’s increased economic independence has resulted in the sharp increase in marital break-up in recent decades. “As a result of increased break-up, a third of 16-year-olds in Britain now live apart from their biological father,” it adds.
These trends have reduced the amount of time a child spends with its parents, the report said. Some 60 per cent of respondents said parents did not spend enough time with their children. The inquiry was commissioned by the Church of England-affiliated Children’s Society and is backed by Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams.
The study, based on responses from 35,000 contributors, highlighted other radical changes in UK family life over the last two decades, including the fact that a majority of women now worked outside the home, in addition to being mothers.
“Seventy per cent of mothers of nine-to-12-month-old babies now do some paid work, this compares with only 25 per cent 25 years ago – a massive change in the way of life,” the report says.
“Meantime, the children are cared for by someone other than their parents.”
It also claims that the combined findings of more than 90 different studies suggest that children whose parents have separated suffer long term damage reflected in lower results at school, poor self esteem, behavioural difficulties and depression.
The report discovered Britain has some of the worst rates of child unhappiness, poverty, family breakdown and child violence in the developed world. Of the 35,000 people interviewed for the study, two thirds of respondents said the moral values of children had declined.
The report’s lead authors are Lord Layard, emeritus professor at the London School of Economics and former adviser to Tony Blair on wellbeing; and Judy Dunn, professor of developmental psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry in London.
They suggest the country needs a “radical shift” towards an ethos of love and mutual respect in education, public policy and personal life. Carol Craig, head of the Centre for Confidence and Wellbeing in Glasgow, cautioned: “It is taking us into mass psychological experimentation.”
The study, backed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, criticises the parents of young children for spending long hours at work and relying on childminders. It describes an increase in the number of mothers going back to work when their babies are less than a year old as a “massive” social change and cites the fact that women are now less dependent on their husbands as a cause of family break-up.
The report, compiled by the academics Lord Layard and Professor Judy Dunn for the Church of England-affiliated Children’s Society, also claims that the quality of friendship among young people has declined as the so-called “Facebook generation” spend more time in front of a screen than outside playing.
Among eye-catching recommendations contained in the report, A Good Childhood calls for new civil birth ceremonies for non-religious families, held at register offices along the lines of weddings.
It is also recommends curbs on advertising targeting children under the age of 12, the option for parents to take up to three years off work to care for their children without losing their jobs and a reduction in income inequality. It points out that while Sweden has as high a level of family breakdown as Britain, children are less adversely affected because they are less likely to be poor.
