The Kids are Alright… (albeit not in the U.S. and G.B.)
Photo: Sema Babacan
Peaktalk’s Pieter Dorsman spends two interesting posts on a UNICEF report ‘considering children’s well being in 21 industrial nations.’ In which countries are children best off? In what countries are children very happy and in what countries are they unhappy? Good news for the Netherlands and Sweden:
1. Netherlands 2. Sweden 3. Denmark 4. Finland 5. Spain 6. Switzerland 7. Norway 8. Italy 9. Republic of Ireland 10. Belgium 11. Germany 12. Canada 13. Greece 14. Poland 15. Czech Republic 16. France 17. Portugal 18. Austria 19. Hungary 20. United States 21. United Kingdom
That’s right. Children are best off, according to this UNICEF report, in the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark and worst off in the United States and the United Kingdom.
So… what causes British children to be so unhappy? From the BBC article linked to above:
Professor Jonathan Bradshaw, from York University, one of the report’s authors, put the UK’s poor ratings down to long term under-investment and a “dog-eat-dog” society.
“In a society which is very unequal, with high levels of poverty, it leads on to what children think about themselves and their lives. That’s really what’s at the heart of this,” he said.
The Telegraph tries to connect the dods as well:
It says there is statistical evidence to link growing up in single-parent families and step-families with a greater risk of dropping out of school, leaving home early, poorer health, low skills, and low pay.
The Brits aren’t exactly happy that their children are so unhappy, and decide that it’s time for action:
Drawing on 40 separate indicators, it attempts to measure and compare child well-being in six areas: material well-being, health and safety, education, peer and family relationships, behaviours and risks, and young people’s own subjective sense of well-being. Bob Reitemeier, the chief executive of The Children’s Society, a charity, said today: “We cannot ignore these shocking findings. Unicef’s report is a wake-up call to the fact that, despite being a rich country, the UK is failing children and young people in a number of crucial ways.”
Anastasia de Waal, the head of family and education at the think-tank Civitas, said: “That we rank so poorly as a rich welfare state is an indictment of Government policy. Underlying our poor record are serious social problems that New Labour isn’t addressing.”
Prof Sir Albert Aynsley-Green, the Children’s Commissioner for England, said: “The findings are disheartening but not surprising as they echo what children tell me on a daily basis.”
The shadow chancellor, George Osborne, said: “This report tells the truth about Gordon’s Brown’s Britain.”
Brown cannot possibly be a happy camper right now.
In his second post about the UNICEF report, Pieter links to this post by Ingrid Robeyns at Crooked Timber.
Although the UNICEF report confirms Ingrid’s own thoughts on this subject, she has two concerns:
First, Dutch children may be happy at schools, but what do they learn? In the UNICEF-study, the percentage of children who report “liking school a lot� is 34.4%, with only Norway (38.9%) and Austria (36,1%) doing better. Of course, the more children like going to school, the better – but schools should not be organised in such a way as to make it as fun as possible for students. This view that children can be considered to be autonomous and should have a good time, has only been reinforced by educational reforms in the last decades which have propagated the so-called “New Learning�, whereby children have been given more autonomy in deciding what to learn, and in learning to collect information and present information and opinions, rather than actually learning knowledge. Are French and German too difficult? Then why bother learning it, no-one forces you to do so. Why study history or geography if you can find all information in Wikipedia? In the Dutch debate, there is a consensus emerging that the educational reforms and this ‘New Learning’ have done more harm than good, and that children are increasingly lacking sufficient knowledge and skills in mathematics, sciences, and writing skills. In short, I think that these anti-hierarchical views on children’s education, whereby children are seen as equals to their parents and teachers, have harmed the children educational capital in the long run.
Second, the BBC reports Vangeert saying that “Dutch children almost rule the family.â€? This is not just in terms of voicing their will, but also in the time that they claim from their parents – that is, mainly their mothers. The Dutch child-centered culture puts enormous demands on parents (read: mothers). 93% of the Dutch population finds that the ideal working week of mothers with pre-school children is three days or less, whereas 84% finds that fathers should ideally work 4 or 5 days (Emancipatiemonitor 2006, p. 124). Parents (read: especially mothers) are expected to be actively involved in the schools of their kids, and good mothers bake the birthday cakes of their kids themselves. The fact that the rights of part-time workers are very well protected in the Netherlands probably is part of the explanation of why so many mothers work part time, and hence why children spend so much time with their parents…
It seems to me that in the Netherlands, the price of children’s well-being is being paid by the taxpayers, who are funding a rather generous system of welfare state provisions, and by mothers, who are cutting back on time in the labour market or on other activities in order to spend more time with their children. In so far as the latter is caused by fathers’ refusal to cut back on their working hours, or by strong motherhood ideology, this should be a concern. To me it is also no surprise that 20% of the women aged between 26 and 30 voluntarily choose not to have children (Emancipatiemonitor p. 30). In another survey among women aged between 27 and 42, 44% reported not to want children, and 72% believes that a demanding job cannot be combined with having children…
(Read Ingrid’s post in its entirety)
(Photo: Sema Babacan)
About that first concern: I share it. “New Learning” is absolutely horrible. When I was in high school, my school ‘experimented’ with my class: “tweede fase” – “second phase”… a new way of learning. More freedom, more choices, etc.
The most horrible mistake ever made in the history of the Dutch educational system. One should force high school students to study. Letting them do whatever it is they want to do (okay overdoing it a bit here) is not wise.
I’m in favor of going back to the old system: when one speaks to one’s teacher one says “sir” or “mrs”, etc. One doesn’t call one’s teacher “Michael” or “David or “Joe”.
Yes that was the old system: treating one’s teacher with respect.
In our current system, teachers are treates as friends. They’re like buddies. If a friend tells you to do something (or to get out), would you do it if you don’t want to? Of course not. Why should you? Your friend has no authority over you.
And so teachers losehave lost their authority.
Same goes for parents: this modern way of raising one’s children seems to be disastrous to me in the long run. Kids today are like little monsters. Screeming, shouting, demanding this and that from their parents. Instead of calling their parent “mom” or “dad”, they call them by their first name.
In other words: teachers and parents lose their authority. Both are becoming buddies.
We’re number one right now: that’s cool. That’s great. Lets now make sure that we stay number one. Lets now make sure that we improve ourselves / our society.
And America, what should America do? Any thoughts about that? Ingrid and I share some concerns regarding the Netherlands, but as it is our situation is quite good… the situation in America seems to be an entirely different affair.
Cross posted at my own blog.
17 Responses to “The Kids are Alright… (albeit not in the U.S. and G.B.)”
Good points, especially on new methods used at school, michael. I 100% agree.
However, sry, OT but I have to misuse this thread for anouncing urgent incoming news, from the NYT:
Documents captured from Iraqi insurgents indicate that some of the recent fatal attacks against American helicopters are a result of a carefully planned strategy to focus on downing coalition aircraft, one that American officials say has been carried out by mounting coordinated assaults with machine guns, rockets and surface-to-air missiles.
Read it all, it shows who the real enemy in Iraq still is!
Can you post a quick roundup for the readers, Mike?
Gray thank you: the education system truly might become a problem. I fear for the worst. We have to go back to the old style asap.
Yes I will try to do something with it: one point though: please e-mail links about different subjects in the future.
Uh, I don’t know why, but I really am not much of an emailer, but, ok, I’ll do that in the future.
Thx Mike!
As for the kids: We’re having a ‘cross partyline’ debate inside the government about day care centers right now. Maybe you already read about it in ‘Der Spiegel’?
I think guaranteed day care for all kids is a good idea. I know many young mothers who had to step back in their career plans because of problems with getting a good solution for the kids, and imho social skills are very important for children, too. In today’s suburbia, too many kids don’t have enough friends and not enough opportunities for safe outdoor playing, either.
The report is hooey—flawed in concept and methodology.
It is an a priori report. As best as I can tell it doesn’t attempt actually tp determine how “well off” children are from country to country. Rather it constructs a model of what the study’s authors believe constitutes a good environment for children and, surprise!, it’s a system in which government plays a much larger role in daily life than it does in the US and UK.
Example: the report doesn’t deem number of children per family and proximity of other children as factors in child welfare. That implies they don’t think that opportunities for unstructured play are important, either.
Another problem with the report is the underlying assumption that one size fits all. I don’t believe there is an single perfect solution to child welfare. Quite to the contrary I think that the Dutch system is good for the Dutch and the British system suitable for the British. There’s more to differences in national character than language and GPS location.
Note also that “child welfare” as reckoned by the report is a pretty good proxy for homogeneity of population. I also don’t see any measure in this report of how children with special needs e.g. autism, cerebral palsy are treated under the various systems and, no, comparing the healthcare systems of countries doesn’t measure that. Kids with special needs are enormously better-treated in the US than in the UK, for example (the only systems with which I’m familiar in this area). Case loads for speech pathologists, occupational therapists, and physical therapists in the UK are impossibly high.
There are literally dozens of other deficiencies in the report but the most significant one is irrelevance. What possible relevance is there in small differences between the treatment of children in the Spain compared to their treatment in Italy when there’s an enormous difference between the treatment of children in Sweden compared to their treatment in rural India?
I don’t know that you can easily transplant the lessons learned in one country to another.
My personal knowledge of European families (in France, Denmark and Spoain) leaves me with the impression that their very cultures have different values, and so, theri children grow up in a different atmosphere. You can’t superimpose culture on a society.
On the whole, they want to live comfortably, but are not driven by dreams of extreme wealth or luxury. They value free time, vacations and travel more than luxury cars or lavish homes. They are avid gardeners, and spend more time tending to their greenery than watching TV. They spend little time grumbling about taxes, even though they pay more than we do, because they accept as natural the investment in the ‘common good’.
As a result, they are more relaxed, and the children grow up in a more relaxed atmosphere.
Contrary to Michael’s experience, I was struck by how well behaved children were in these countries. The only children I’ve seen acting up in public were American tourists.
Parks are quiet!
When children go to school, they bring all that background with them,
The same lesson plan applied to different groups of children can have very different results.
Of course, I realize that my impressions are only anectdotal. Sociologists may prove me wrong. Still, with every renewd contact, my impressions are reinforced.
Interesting that other than Ireland, most of the countries listed on top are “socialist or welfare state” countries. For an anedotal example, the current captain( Nicklas Lidstrom) of the Detroit Red Wings(hockey team) considered returning home to Sweden for family reasons; he took a huge contract and stayed here. I wonder if he was toiling in the minors making middle class money if he would still be here.
RE: WHAT SHOULD AMERICA DO?
I’m very gloomy about America’s prospects in the near term. Decisions are being made via fights between social extremists; the rational middle is disappearing fast.
The conservatives are upset because the word ‘scrotum’ appears in a children’s book They want to ban the word ‘imagination’ from school texts because of its connection to ‘magic’ (a non-Christian concept)
The politically correct Left insists that all doctors in texts be female and nurses be male. A lot of great American Literature is disappearing from classrooms, because some of the characters are typical of the politically incorrect male-doctor type. Read Diane Ravitch’s “Education After the Culture Wars’, and you despair.
The fight over language is just the tip of an iceberg of fighting about everything. I fear our society is disintegrating into separate enclaves. The libertarians want to move to New Hampshire to create heir own colony, so they don’t need to have anything to do with people of other stripes.
In such an atmosphere, it’s nearly impossible to come to grips with the problems of our children. Each family is left to its own devices to raise their children in spite of the obstacles.
Great observations, domajot. I have a pretty good idea of what I believe is best for my family but one can only control the internal family environment and to a limited degree set up the external environment. When everyone else is raising their children differently than I am, it’s a difficult feat. That doesn’t mean that there should be complete homogenicity either, but shared values among a community would be helpful. I find that sometimes my community veers too far to the conservative and traditional, but I wouldn’t want it to lean too far in the other direction either. A mixture that would preserve what was good about traditional family life while also embracing progress and diversity would be nice, but seems impossible in our polarized society.
Hi! Great site, keep up the good work! And watch mine please: business voip [url=http://voip.usatrademark.org]business voip[/url] account customer vonage [url=http://vonage.usatrademark.org]account customer vonage[/url]
What a cool site. And visit my site too:
payroll cash advance [url=http://payroll.usafinances.org]payroll cash advance[/url] bank foreclosure free listing [url=http://foreclosure.usafinances.org]bank foreclosure free listing[/url]
Hi! Great site! Go on with such a good work. And look at my site:
forclosure homes [url=http://forclosure.usafinances.org]forclosure homes[/url] 1031 property exchange [url=http://exchange.usafinances.org]1031 property exchange[/url]
Hello, visit:
replica chloe handbag [url=http://chloe-handbag.bagsale.info]replica chloe handbag[/url] coach handbag replica [url=http://coach-handbag.bagsale.info]coach handbag replica[/url]
Keep up the great work!
knock off designer purse [url=http://designer-purse.bagsale.info]knock off designer purse[/url] dooney and bourke handbag sale [url=http://dooney-bourke-handbag.bagsale.info]dooney and bourke handbag sale[/url]
Hi! I wish more people felt this way and took the time to express themselves. Visit: burberry womens accessory handbag [url=http://burberry-handbag.bagsale.info]burberry womens accessory handbag[/url] chanel handbag purse real [url=http://chanel-handbag.bagsale.info]chanel handbag purse real[/url]
Keep up the great work!
designer knockoff purse [url=http://designer-purse.bagsale.info]designer knockoff purse[/url] dooney and bourke handbag official site [url=http://dooney-bourke-handbag.bagsale.info]dooney and bourke handbag official site[/url]
Helo! What a nice site here! And here’s my:
stir crazy popcorn popper [url=http://popper.usatrademark.org]stir crazy popcorn popper[/url] bowflex [url=http://bowflex.usatrademark.org]bowflex[/url] nordic track treadmill [url=http://treadmill.usatrademark.org]nordic track treadmill[/url]
What a cool site. And visit my site too:
espresso maker [url=http://espressomaker.usatrademark.org]espresso maker[/url] breyer horse [url=http://breyerhorses.usatrademark.org]breyer horse[/url] rv trader motor home [url=http://rvtrader.googleauto.org]rv trader motor home[/url]