State intervention is the problem

Children as young as 5 will be identified as being at risk of becoming criminals or troublemakers under government plans to tackle offending and disorder on the streets.

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, called for a huge expansion of state intervention in family life as a way of preventing young people from problem families drifting into antisocial behaviour and crime.

The last thing we need is state intervention in family life. That is what caused children to lack discipline in the first place. Let parents smack their children. That is the only way that parents will be able to control their children. There is no other way.

What are parents supposed to do?

Parents who fail to stop their teenage children binge-drinking or ‘persistently possessing’ alcohol in town centres and streets face heavy fines, community service orders and even jail.

A new Government crackdown will target the parents of drunken, abusive youngsters who repeatedly defy attempts to stop them creating disorder in public places.

Under plans to be unveiled by a trio of Cabinet Ministers, the Government will pledge to create a new offence for under-18s of ‘persistently possessing alcohol in public areas’ and give police new powers to disperse them.

What are parents supposed to do exactly? The government has criminalised them from doing anything meaningful to their children. Children learn from an early age what type of discipline they can expect to receive from their parents and grounding isn’t going to do much.

Does the government seriously think an out of control teenager who regularly drinks and has fights is going to obey their parents because they get grounded? Tell them they are grounded and they will laugh in their parents faces and leave the house. The only thing that would stop them would be discipline from an early age and not the grounding type of discipline. I mean the smacking kind where the child knows that if he goes too far he can expect physical pain. Only then will they obey their parents.

Islamic education for all

The Islamisation of this country continues. This time it is the education system. The government is considering having compulsory Islamic education for all university students. I wonder if they will have to pay tuition fees for this education too.

It is not just university students either. It is primary school students. Schools have devised a sneaky way to teach children about Islam by copying lines of a Muslim prayer for handwriting practice.

Parents of bullies to be fined £1000

Parents of bullies could be forced to attend parenting classes or face a £1,000 fine, Education Secretary Alan Johnson has warned.

His message came as campaigners said 20,000 children were skipping school every day to avoid being bullied.

Mr Johnson said he wanted to create a "zero tolerance" culture towards bullying in an effort to stamp out the "despicable" and "intolerable" phenomenon.

New powers under the Education Act would allow parenting orders to be imposed on mothers and fathers of bullies, with a £1,000 fine if they failed to comply, he said.

I don’t think the government has any clue about how to stop bullying. There is no need for parenting classes. Parents know how to deal with their children but they are banned from using the only tool that is likely to stop misbehaviour and that is smacking. I don’t mean beating the kid up especially if they are only 7 but giving them one smack that is hard enough that they will feel the pain but don’t suffer any long term damage. Here are my proposals:

1. Bring back smacking. If the parent refuses to smack their child and their child continues to bully other children and misbehave then they should be sent to parenting classes paid for by them.

2. Free education is not a right. It is a privilege. Parents should be made to realise that. If they fail to stop their children from continuously misbehaving in school the child should lose their right to a free education until the child signs a contract on their behaviour. If they breach that contract they will lose free education forever. There will be no appeals allowed. Only the Minister of Education will be allowed to overturn the ruling.

3. Once losing free education there will be no need for child benefit unless they are sent to a private school paid out of their own pocket. If they can’t afford one it is tough. Seeing as they lose child benefit the child will be allowed to find a job if they want.

4. Teachers will be allowed to hit unruly pupils if they fail to behave after being asked once.