Times columnist Kevin Maher reflects on his parenting experiences following our Baby Bonds report.

A parenting class in the north of Scotland brought Kevin Maher down a level or two. It’s a lesson he’s never forgotten.

…There can be few sentences more dispiriting and downright repellent to first-time mums and dads than a chirpily fired, “So, how about eight weeks of intensive parenting classes, eh?” And yet this, after a gasp-inducing survey into the emotional lives of contemporary toddlers, is just the kind of social panacea that The Sutton Trust is proposing.

Apparently almost half of children — from all social classes — surveyed by the education charity had failed to bond with their parents by the age of 3. And in this failure there is, allegedly, the foundation for misbehaviour, underachievement in education, poorer employment prospects and social problems in later life. The trust, like a kindly dinner guest who doesn’t want to upset the host, has stopped short of declaring that modern parents are rubbish but it has nonetheless recommended that parenting classes might be the way forward.

Read the full article here.