Raising children,your way

IT COMES without a handbook; no pages of instructions in dozens of languages or helpful little diagrams showing what goes where. Ultimate responsibility for the working order rests with the manufacturers - and, in the case of a new-born baby, that's you.

Many first-time parents have an "oh my God what have we done" moment as they walk out of the maternity hospital with a vulnerable, totally dependent bundle in their arms.

Raising a child is the most important job we will ever do and it's one we are least trained for. But does parenting come naturally, or is it something you need to learn?

"We encourage people to trust their instincts," says Sue Jameson, a tutor with Cuidiú, the Irish Childbirth Trust. "People should realise that every family does it differently and there is no right way. You should listen to your feelings."

The parents she would be concerned about are the ones who have waited, finding a partner, building up a career, getting a nice house and finally deciding to have a baby. "Then this thing that is wet at both ends takes over their lives. They expect things to be very different."

Anne Marie Lee, a public health nurse in Loughlinstown, Co Dublin, believes there is a major need for parenting courses. It's a need which she says is not recognised by parents "until they get into trouble".

"If you're going to pack shelves in a supermarket, you need to be trained. Every set of parents should do parenting courses. It's not a demeaning thing to do."

Lee runs courses in Loughlinstown, and at the Priory Institute in Tallaght, using the Family Caring Trust programme devised by Michael and Terri Quinn of Newry, Co Down.

What most parents need is the confidence to "act with authority as parents", Lee says. "Kids are running rings around parents."

She sees it as a generational thing for today's parents, unable to keep up with the technological world of their children who spend far too much time watching TV and on computers. "They run into dangerous spaces, where parents can't follow.

"In times past, children had tasks to do when they came home from school. Now they have nothing to do."

Lee sees children given things at a click of their fingers and she has to remind mothers that they are not their slaves. Parenting is about training children for adult life, she stresses.

"It's instinctive and learned," says Dr John Sharry, psychotherapist and director of Parents Plus, a charity which develops training material for parents and children. "Sometimes instincts are wrong." He gives the example of getting angry when upset with a child. "This only works once," he remarks, "and once you think about it, it's obvious."

Sounding just like your own mother or father as you address your child is an uncanny experience shared by most parents. But Sharry believes you are not automatically destined to replicate the parenting you received as a child.

"You can over-rule it. We can choose self-awareness and choice and say to ourselves 'I am responding this way, is this the way I want to respond?' " What worked for you as a child, might not work for your child. "Many a parent has been knocked off the rails by a child who is a bit different. A mother with a son, say, who takes after his father."

For any couple, parenting skills are learned from two different families, says Jameson, so there's a mixed bag there from the start and a couple need to find their own way of doing it.

Parents' confidence is undermined by somebody suggesting they're not doing it right, she adds. That is why Cuidiú believes "advice isn't helpful, information is". Sharry attributes the huge success of TV programmes such as Supernanny to the desire for information about child-rearing.

These programmes "are susceptible to the TV formula; they must be dramatic, told one way and not bore people with too much information". Still, good TV can definitely help, he says, especially with information on where to find follow-up support.

(However, Lee fears that because such reality programmes, with the exception of David Coleman's series on RTÉ, feature such difficult families, "they make parents with regular kids think they don't need parenting courses".)

Although such TV programmes vary in the quality of advice they offer, says Anne Conway of Barnardos, they do encourage parents to reflect on the way they are doing things. "Of course parenting is instinctive, but increasingly some people are looking for a parenting programme where they can share and discuss with other parents."

As manager of the National Children's Resource Centre, she says the overwhelming feedback from people who embark on a parenting programme is "I wish I had done this before".

While the parenting guru industry has never been bigger or more accessible, it can also be very confusing, contradictory and make parents paranoid that they're not raising their children the way they "should".

For example, Gina Ford's controversial The Contented Little Baby Bookrecommends a strict regime of feeding and sleeping times to help babies get into a routine. A former maternity nurse who has no children, she argues that this will help both parents and babies.

Sharry, father of a two-year-old daughter, is very critical of Ford's approach. "It comes across as very rigid and works for about one-third to two-thirds of children, but for those children it doesn't work for, the parents feel really bad."

At the other end of the spectrum is attachment parenting, as advocated by Dr William Sears, US paediatrician, author and father of eight children. He recommends developing a harmonious relationship with a baby by keeping it close at all times.

"If we were all first-time parents isolated on a desert island without the advice of baby books, doctors, psychologists or in-laws," he writes, "you would care for your child instinctively - breastfeeding, holding and carrying your baby during the day and sleeping with your baby at night."

The breakdown of the extended family means parents are more isolated, says Sharry. "There is a greater reliance on community support and information outside the family."

It's one reason why mothers in particular are turning to online discussion sites, such as www.magicmum.com run by Mary Bouchez, a mother of three from Co Kildare who lives in Paris. She set it up in 2004 after the online discussion site she was using closed for July "leaving hundreds of mothers 'homeless' just like me. While chatting to my husband one night he encouraged me to start my own forum.

"In today's world where new mothers are more and more isolated, living far from their own families, Magicmum replaces the traditional support network and offers mothers a place to find advice, support, and friendship," she says.

"No matter what the problem is you can be sure that on Magicmum someone else has been there and gone through it and can offer you their experience."

Jameson has mixed feelings about the value of the internet: "It's fantastic for the amount of information available."

However, she believes that "people are not as suspicious of sources as they should be. There are a lot of discussion groups, a lot of misinformation and just people's opinions. I would say read everything, but disregard things that don't wear well with you."

Bouchez thinks the 12,000 members of Magicmum, 98 per cent of who are Irish or living in Ireland, know that users are only offering their opinion and nothing more.

"An online discussion board won't confuse parents anymore than chatting at a mother and baby group, or with your neighbour.

"The good thing about Magicmum is that it is such a big site with a huge mix of mothers that you will always get more than one point of view, unlike in a smaller real life setting - it is up to you then to take on board the info or discard it and decide what you want to do."

There is no right way to parent, stresses Sharry, it's about love and consistency for your child. "There is a balance between loving and responsible parenting. Parents need to trust themselves."

Whatever approach you take to your children, you shouldn't forget that parenting is fun too, Jameson adds.

Peer pressure : use your instinct when faced with the milestones

When do you let a child have his first mobile phone, go to his first disco, go into town alone? It should be when parents are happy their child is ready for such milestones. However, people can be swayed into going against their better judgment by other parents, letting their own instincts be undermined.

"There is parent peer pressure to allow your child to do the things other children are allowed to do," says public health nurse Anne Marie Lee, who runs parenting courses.

If your child is going on a sleepover, for example, she says you should ring the other parent to find out what supervision there's going to be, what video is going to be watched etc. "Few parents have the courage to do that, they are afraid they'll be jeered at for fussing."