Parents and Parenting
By Jo Budden

Theme: Parents and parenting
Lexical area: Family and relationships
Cross curricular links: Social science

Instructions for language assistants in Italics

Classroom materials

Introduction
This lesson looks at parents and parenting. Be aware that for some of your students it may be an awkward topic to talk about. Some of the students may be from a single-parent family or have a more complex family unit than simply ‘mother’ and ‘father’. If you feel it's more appropriate you could substitute the title 'Care giver' for parent, mother father, as is done in many UK schools these days.

Use Task 1 to prepare the students with the language they will need to talk about their own family (step-father, half-brother etc) and in Task 3 feel free to adapt the activity to include step-parents or grandparents, aunts and uncles.

Task 4 is a reading text about parental involvement in their child’s university education. If you are at University in the UK or have been, you could enrich the task by talking about your own experiences.

Task 5 looks at the qualities needed for being good parents and good children and Task 6 gets students to think about who they would choose if they had famous parents and how their lives would be different. This activity could be extended to a written activity and a downloadable pdf file is attached which has a nice writing activity on the topic of famous parents.

1. Family cross sticks
Cross sticks is one way to get vocab on a topic up on the board at the beginning of a class. Start by writing the word FAMILY on the board. Then add some other family words and link them with the original word as if it were a cross- word. Give students five minutes to work in pairs and see how many words they can link up (all words must be on the theme of family). Add a competitive element if appropriate for your group.  For higher levels insist on more complex language such as step-mother and in-laws.

Task 1 Family cross sticks

• How many words do you know connected to FAMILY?
• See if you can link them together like in a cross-word.

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2. Parenting survey
The Reader’s Digest magazine carried out a survey in the UK in the summer of 2004 asking teenagers what they thought about their parents.

Ask students to read the statements and decide if they are true or false. In your answers you have a bit more info so if your students are surprised by the result you can clarify it and encourage discussion by giving them the statistics from the survey.
Answers:

• Teenagers in Britain think their fathers are better parents than their mothers. False. Mums scored up to 39% better in most categories.
• More mothers than fathers know their children’s best friends’ names. True. 45% of Dads compared with 84% of Mums did well in this category.
• Fathers are more likely to cause embarrassment in public to their children. True. 8% of teenagers said their father “embarrasses me a lot” compared with 2% of mothers.
• Teenagers consider their mothers to be better drivers than their fathers. False. 73% of teenagers said their father was a good driver. Compared with 58% of mothers.
• Fathers help more with their children’s homework than mothers. False. 77% of mothers and 54% of fathers help with homework according to this survey.

The discussion questions are an extension task of the true/ false activity. If you have a small group you could talk about the questions with the whole class.  

Task 2 Parenting survey
A survey was recently carried out in the UK to find out what teenagers think about their parents. Researchers asked 501 13 – 18 year olds to grade their parents on different aspects of parenting. Read the following statements and decide if they are true or false.

• Teenagers in Britain think their fathers are better parents than their mothers.
• More mothers than fathers know their children’s best friends’ names.
• Fathers are more likely to cause embarrassment in public to their children.
• Teenagers consider their mothers to be better drivers than their fathers.
• Fathers help more with their children’s homework than mothers.

Now discuss in pairs or small groups:

• Are you surprised by any of the answers?
• Do you think the results support the stereotypes of ‘typical parents’?
• Do you think the survey would have the same results or different results in your country?

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3. Grade your parents!
As mentioned in the intro be sensitive with the students who have different family set-ups and encourage them to think about two family members they spend time with.

• This activity could follow on from task two. It gives the students a chance to grade their own parents like teenagers did in the Reader’s Digest survey.

Task 3 Grade your parents!
Now think about your own parents. Give them points for each of the following.

• 10 = Excellent
• 8 = Very good
• 6 = Good
• 4 = Satisfactory
• 2 = Could do better
• 0 = Fail

• Who gets the most points?
• What other qualities are important for being a good parent?
• If your parents could grade you for being a good son or daughter, how many point do you think you would get?

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4. Parental pressure
This text is taken from a website called Trend UK. It gives an insight into how parental involvement in choosing their child’s University has increased in the UK since the introduction of tuition fees. If you have experience of selecting an institution for higher education you could share it with the class before they read the text. You may be able to relate to some of the scenarios mentioned and can explain to your students how you chose your institution and to what extent your parents were involved in the process.

Depending on the level, you may want to pre-teach some of the vocabulary you think will hinder your students’ understanding or you may want to make sure dictionaries are available.

Students should read the text and then think about the questions.

Task 4 Parental pressure
This text is from a website and is about how parents in the UK are involved in choosing their child’s University.

Read the text and then answer these questions:

• How much do students in the UK have to pay to go to University?
• Do students in the UK usually go to University in their home town?
• What do Universities do nowadays to cater for parents?
• Are parents allowed to discuss their children with the university teachers? If not, why not?
• What differences can you see between the UK and your country?
• How much involvement do you think parents should have in their child’s education when they are over 18 years old?
• Do your parents ever put pressure on you?

	Parental Pressure Playing an active role Until the 1990s it was unusual to have parental involvement in a university student’s daily life. A student, on reaching the age of maturity at 18, would leave home to study at the institution of his or her choice. Visits would be limited to perhaps once a term when the parents would come for the weekend and the obligatory family meal would be endured. Today things are different. A study at Keele University has revealed greater parental involvement from the very beginning. Mothers from all social classes spend a great deal of time surfing the internet to check out university websites. Many go and visit the institutions, spending time off work to drive their child around the British Isles, hopping from one open day to another. Marketing for the parent’s benefit It is no surprise then to find that the parents are catered for by universities. If they are to play a major role in the final decision then their needs must be provided for. Many universities lay on special events for parents, including lunches, question and answer sessions, tours of the campus and lectures by course leaders. The catalyst in this change is economics. Parental interest has soared since 1998 when tuition fees were introduced for UK students. With an average parent paying £10,000 per year to keep their child at university there is little wonder that they wish to be involved.   Breach of privacy? However, there is a limit to parental involvement. At the age of 18 the student is an adult and entitled to confidentiality. A law lecturer at the University of Kent was visited by a father wishing to discuss the intellectual and emotional life of his son. This would clearly be a breach of the son’s privacy. He was advised to discuss these matters directly with his son. The University of Leicester has sought to ease this problem by providing booklets with emergency phone numbers as well as information about term dates and exams. Parents who have not heard from their offspring for some time would be encouraged to call a welfare officer. This maintains contact but does not breach confidentiality. Ultimately, it’s good that parents want to be involved in their child’s university life, but there are limits to the level of involvement! Nellie September 2004 This article originally appeared on the British Council Japan Trend UK website

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5. Top quality parents!
With lower levels brainstorm possible answers on the board first to give students some ideas. Ask students for their ideas and get a big list of qualities written up on the board for students to choose from.
E.g. Top Parent Qualities: Understanding, generous, respects privacy, good cook, knows friends etc.
      Top Child Qualities: Listens to parents advice, tidies bedroom, passes exams, respects curfews etc.

Task 5 Top quality parents!
What do you think are the three most important qualities for being a good parent? When you have decided, write them below the box. Then do the same for the three most important qualities for being a good son / daughter.

• Now compare your answers with your classmates.
• Do you agree on any of the qualities?
• Find the person in the class with the most similar ideas to your own.

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6. Famous parents
Ask students if they every think about changing their parents. If you have any magazines with photos of famous people and their children you could bring them in to introduce the activity. It seems to be very fashionable amongst the rich and famous at the moment to have a baby! With higher levels encourage them to think about what the life of the child would be like. (going to film shoots, staying in five star hotels etc.)  

Students think of famous people they would like to be their parents. If you have time to extend this to a writing activity, check out this link to a nice worksheet for writing about famous parents. (pdf)

Task 6 Famous parents

• Do you ever dream of having famous parents?
• Who would you choose as your parents?
• Why would you choose them?
• How do you think your life would be different if you had famous parents?

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7. “What time do you call this?” Role play
This is an extension activity for higher levels. Before you start, write some classic parent phrases on the board and get the students to imagine a situation when your parents may say this. Practise saying them with the correct intonation before they start preparing the role plays.

• “What time do you call this?”
• “I told you so! If you don’t study, you won’t pass.”
• “I thought I could trust you!”
• etc. etc.

Cut up the role play cards and put students into pairs or groups of three. In a group of three there will be two students playing the role of parents. Help students with the language they need to express themselves. As students prepare their roles, monitor closely so you can help to ‘feed-in’ the language they need. Write new phrases and expressions up on the board as you go and go through them with the whole class at the end. Students can either perform to the class, record their role play on tape or simply act out the scenarios as you monitor and listen. Don’t interrupt students when they are in full swing to correct them. Note their mistakes and deal with them afterwards.

Task 7 “What time do you call this?” Role play
Work in pairs or groups of three. A pair will be one parent and their son or daughter and a pair will be both parents and their son or daughter.

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Internet links
http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/news/ This is a nice article from Manchester Online which has a range of opinions about parents from their children.
http://www.education-world.com/a_lesson/writing_bug/writingbug065.shtml This is a nice lesson on famous parents.
http://www.britishcouncil.org/japan-trenduk-archive-studentlife-parental.htm This is the original source of the article used above. If your students have web access they can have a look. The site also has some nice pictures and more useful articles.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/parenting/learning/ This site has lots of materials and articles related to parenting as well as some nice pictures and graphics.

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