A report on the Launch of Sound Sleep and
the Right from the Start Project for Parents and Teachers
on Thursday 3rd July 2003
at Little Deans Yard Westminster,
by Sarah Woodhouse
Right
from the Start
The
project consists of a series of single-focus, richly-illustrated,
very lively, human and accessible books, for parents, child carers
and nursery and primary teachers. These books are being published
by the charity Right from the Start in partnership with Hawthorn Press.
The
first book to be published is Sound Sleep : Calming and helping your
baby or child to sleep. This is a sensitive, affectionate and full
response to first mothers in particular and also to the anxiety and
exhaustion of any parents who may be on the verge of abusing their
own children. Crying, screaming and wakefulness at night is known
to be the main trigger for parental abuse and recent research shows
that one in four mothers in the United Kingdom now smack their babies,
whether lightly or hard, before they are a year old. (“Community
Study of Physical Violence to Children in the Home and Associated
Variables”, led by Marjorie Smith, Thomas Coram Research Unit
in London).
Concern
has been growing for some time about how hard the task can be for
nursery and primary teachers, when many children come to them at three
or five having been neglected, mishandled or hurt in one way or another.
Before they are two, children learn more about relationships, human
values and ‘goodness’ - and become more easily and permanently
disturbed or traumatised - than at any other period in their lives.
The Right from the Start series has been planned and written to protect
and heal, to give inspired support and help to parents, and to build
a closer and trusting relationship between them and their children’s
carers and teachers, particularly in terms of their children’s
emotional, spiritual and mental well-being.
The Launch
George
Alagiah was the first speaker. The notes and quotes below summarise
what he said.
“Children
really are the key to unlocking so much that is wrong in our world.”
“Children
have been betrayed and ignored in countries around the world, whether
on the streets of Rio de Janeiro, the slums of Bombay or boy soldiers
of Liberia….. We face the loss of innocence – the loss
of childhood but more importantly you have bottled up rage and frustration
which will out - it will come out one day and they will end up the
sort of people who will not contribute to society because they are
damaged, abused and betrayed….
This is why the rights of the child are so important. We assume that
we don't need that sort of thing here but there are lots of ways of
brutalising kids. In our country we have to learn and Right from the
Start will hopefully be part of that learning. There is a good way
in which to be a parent, a good way in which to bring up children,
a good way in which to enjoy and learn from children - and there are
not such good ways. What Right from the Start is striving to do is
part of that goodness.”
The
project also responds to the United Nations Rights of the Child.
“We
need these kinds of books. Bringing up children is the most difficult
task of our lives for which we have no preparation.”
George
Alagiah went on to reminisce about his and his wife feeling a complete
sense of inadequacy at bringing up their eldest son, of his guilt
when they left him to cry and the misery of arguing desperately about
the best course of action - and feeling grim about yourself.
Hetty
Einzig (Research and Development Director of the Parenting Education
and Support Forum) chaired the occasion and also spoke
“What
we launch today is a great deal more than just a book. …. Both
a culmination and the beginning of a dream.”
There
is nothing you remember more powerfully, more sharply, more painfully
than those early months of complete confusion and sleep deprivation.”
Hetty
Einzig described how when she first set up the Parenting Education
and Support Forum in the mid 1990s it was all about 'crisis intervention'
(i.e don't interfere with the family and then move in at crisis point
and take the children away). Then the emphasis was on prevention.
The importance of Right from the Start is that it goes beyond prevention
to promotion, from stopping the worst to planning the best. The books
address our vision of what kind of parents do we want to be. How can
we help children? What kind of world do we want to create for our
children? It is a great addition to the whole parenting field and
fits very well into the agenda of PESF.
Reading
the wonderful warm tone in which Sound Sleep is written with its non-prescriptive
attitude, the variety of different approaches that are considered
in the book and the way it is written make this book exceptional.
The author allies herself with the suffering parent.
Right
from the Start is a holistic project. It dares to talk about spirituality.
The most courageous aspects of Right from the Start is to bring together
a whole range of different dimensions of life. It is heartening to
see books on meditation and yoga next to the political aspects, the
structures and the how and why of our lives.
Bringing
up children is also about learning - not just about parents having
the right skills but about learning with their children and developing
their relationship. This series does that.
Kate
Adie said, “We have an affluent society which is educated, has
the social ability, educational research to find out how we grow and
develop and it is scandalous that we let so many young lives go to
waste, fail to flower, go wrong and end up stunted, damaging themselves
or perhaps the rest of society. We have schools, phenomenal educational
resources, expertise, freedom to publish all kinds of books, talk
to each other and share knowledge with each other.”
In
a society that has so much knowledge…… we have got further
and further away from common sense - our innate ability to nurture,
to care and eventually to educate each other. We are nervous of common
sense because everything around us has become more specialised and
less personal and human.
This
project puts in a readable form - and in the most straightforward
form - and from the heart what we can do and what we ought to do in
society regardless of background, finance, education level, social
standing. We need knowledge rather than policies, dictats, beliefs
and certain kinds of biases. Right from the Start touches on what
is common to us all - basic humanity in this very, very pressurised
world.
…………………
A
video of all three speakers is available on request.
For any further information or details please contact Sarah Woodhouse,
Chief Executive, Right from the Start, Welcome Cottage, Wiveton, Near
Holt, Norfolk NR25 7TH.
Telephone: 01263 740935
