HELPING OLD LADIES CROSS ROADS MORE IMPORTANT THAN A GRADES, BELIEVE FATHERS

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Parenting Skills

Published on Thursday, 09 January 2014 09:30

Last Updated on 08 January 2014

Monica Costa

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Quite interesting piece of research showing an important trend in basic education. As it appears, testosterone is out, tolerance is in, and the little things really count. That’s the verdict from the survey commissioned by Sudocrem which shows that today’s dads rate the old fashioned virtues like chivalry and kindness to older people way ahead of top performing academic achievement.

The researchers asked dads what they wanted their sons to have achieved by the age of sixteen.

It is quite refreshing to see that three quarters put helping an old lady across the road as their top goal – well in the lead compared with the 24.7 per cent who voted for the importance of securing a clutch of top grades at GCSE, and the minuscule 15.8 per cent who wanted their sons to be asked to captain a sports team. This is what I was taught to do as a girl in the Seventies! 🙂 Going back to basics seems a good thing. Personally without being a dad and before reading this survey, I already showed my son to help old people cross the road very recently. It was very rewarding and my son is since always on the look out for people to help on the street 🙂

The survey results should bring comfort to anyone fearing that today’s parenting priorities are producing a generation of self-centred youngsters who, encouraged by their families, are only out for themselves.

However, courtesy to others shouldn’t stop boys taking action when necessary, thought dads. Courage, a thoroughly traditional virtue, came high up the list, with just under 70 per cent of fathers saying they would be proud if their sons made a stand against a school bully.

And though fathers do also enjoy having a winner in the family, however, with forty per cent keen for their sons to have come first in a sports day event, they’re also a modest bunch, despite reports to the contrary.

Reassuringly, dads appear thoroughly laid-back when it comes to their priorities for their sons, a far cry from media portrayals of parents so fixated on pushing their children through high profile exams and sporting successes that their lives become almost unbearably pressurised.

Cheeringly, dads also have a clear idea of what they don’t want their sons to have achieved by their mid-teens. Under forty per cent would view their son’s first date before the age of 16 as an achievement. Bottom of the charts, however, comes computer game success. Only just over 10 per cent felt that having a son who had the highest ranking on Call of Duty would be cause for celebration.