Growing pains hit modern parents: new Anglicare report
Katie RobertsonNews Corp Australia
WA NewsNews
GETTING their kids to open up about their lives, balancing work with family time and being able to afford the latest clothes or gadgets are the biggest concerns for WA parents.
Fussy eating and excessive use of social media are also big headaches for mums and dads.
A new report has found that one in four parents have a child experiencing depression or other psychological problems, while more than half fear their kids are spending too much time on the internet.
Regional mums and dads are also more likely to find parenting rewarding compared with their city counterparts.
The Anglicare WA Parenting Perceptions Report 2013, to be released today, is based on surveys of more than 800 WA parents on their experiences and challenges raising school-aged children.
The report also found:
Single-parent and FIFO families were more likely to experience demands from their children for money, technology or clothes.
Only one-fifth of parents were coping well and weren't facing any particularly challenging issues.
32 per cent said their children expressed concern about their body.
18 per cent of parents were concerned about their children's exposure to bullying and conflict.
One in four parents said they had concerns with their children's education and schooling. A significant amount also said they were disturbed by their children's lack of respect for adults.
The report collated information from 810 parents surveyed across WA, including 400 in the metro region.
Seventy-two per cent of respondents were female and most of the parents interviewed juggled raising their kids with work. The surveys in the metro region were conducted online, while the regional surveys were conducted over the telephone.
Nearly one-third of parents said they were worried about the lack of control they had over the content their kids were accessing online, and 35 per cent had children who had been bullied directly or over social media.
"It is a challenge to get my 14-year-old to understand privacy issues with Facebook," one parent wrote. "Having constant access to internet is a constant challenge as well."
Another respondent said the increasing amount of acceptable "screen time" meant "kids have terrible handwriting, can't spell and forget how to read books and maps".
Another parent was worried about their children's safety in society and on the internet.
"I am concerned about the society we are raising our children in and the lack of morals and old-fashioned values that used to work so effectively," the parent said.
Finding the best method to discipline their children was a challenge faced by 44 per cent of the parents surveyed, and was a more prominent concern for older parents, over 55.
Only 4 per cent of respondents said they smacked their kids frequently, with 74 per cent saying they had never hit their child.
Anglicare WA executive general manager of services Jennie Hannan said many parents were concerned about how bullying was managed.
"There was seen to be a lot of bullying going on, not just physical but cyber bullying, too, and that it wasn't being managed as well as it should be in schools," she said.
Ms Hannan said they were encouraged many families did not smack their children.
"Most parents do use time-out or withdrawal of privileges rather than smacking their children," she said.
"That's a really big turnaround from 10 to 15 years ago."
Anglicare WA will use the survey results to better support parents in the areas they most needed it, she said.
"Parenting is a really hard job," Ms Hannan said.
"Kids don't come with instruction manuals, and we learn how to parent from our parents. If we've had a reasonably good model of parenting, then that stands us in good stead, but not everybody has that."