Thanks for joining us on the forum – glad to have you here. You are welcome to post 24/7 but please note that whilst we have forum moderators we will only be moderating the forum during office hours. If though you need urgent crisis help, please contact Samaritans on 116 123.
Spurgeons and Dad.Info doesn’t investigate reports of abuse or neglect. But below, you can find advice on who to contact if you have concerns about a child or young person.
Reporting a concern
It can be difficult to know what to do if you think a child is at risk. It’s important to remember that if you’ve spotted things that don’t seem right, others will have too. Speaking up can make sure that child gets help as soon as possible.
The sooner you contact your local children’s social care duty team, the quicker they can act. They’re available 24 hours a day, and can make an anonymous report if that feels safer. If a child is in immediate danger, please call the police straight away by dialling 999.
Report child abuse or neglect to your local council
Use these links to get in touch with your local council:
Just read this - bit old but really practical
Seven steps to successful parenting
by Honor Rhodes, Director of Development at the Family and Parenting Institute, provides her guide to successful parenting | Observer.co.uk, Sunday 12 November 2006
As mothers and fathers we are constantly told how complex this 'job' of parenting is. Through parenting magazines, society's anxiety about teenagers' behaviour, parenting classes and television programmes such as Supernanny and The House of Tiny Tearaways, we are bombarded with advice and prescription about how to do better.
However, acquiring the knowledge to be a successful parent does not have to be so painful and confusing. Drawing on the Family and Parenting Institute's experience of research into parenting and families, the basic ingredients for happy family life and confident, socially responsible teenagers can be distilled into the following seven steps:
1 Start early: your teenager is just the toddler you put gloves on and comforted when he or she fell over. Those early parenting behaviours of consistent love and care pay dividends when confronted by a 15 year old desperate to go out and seeking to evade your parental enquiry.
2 Listen carefully: and respond to the emotional content of the message you are being given as well as the words, be prepared to negotiate whilst being clear where the boundaries lie. Boundary setting can create dilemmas for parents in deciding what is acceptable, so get help, from talking to friends, relatives and helplines. Talking issues through makes parents feel better prepared when they need to apply a degree of control or require a child to make changes in their behaviours.
3 Remember what teenage years are like: think back to your own, your teenager is struggling to find their identity and will be 'playing' with roles, our task as parents is to help them find their way whilst remaining a constant and consistent source of help and clarity in a confusing world. Being clear in your own mind as to what is acceptable is the first step in helping your child.
4 Apply all your resources to the problem you want to solve: children and teenagers are giving the argument or dispute their undivided attention, you will be thinking about making supper, how to get through the day ahead and issues at work. Clear these distractions away and decide what the outcome you want looks like, work at that with your child and be prepared to spend as long as it takes, hours sometimes.
5 Pick your battles carefully: choose issues that are most important and let others go, you can deal with the smaller stuff another time.
6 Have help and support yourself: a parental couple, united in a common desire, is generally more effective than just one parent attempting to make changes that will be resisted; single parents can get this support from family and friends.
7 Enjoy your teenager, demonstrate your love, when battles are over make sure that you have time together doing something that you both enjoy, remember that memories of teenage years are very powerful, enduring in our children's minds more powerfully than early childhood memories, however lovely they might be.
Great advice buzz.
My wife is always reminding me of number 5 and I really want to achieve number 7.
Welcome to the DAD.info forum.
We don’t like to set ‘rules’, but to make sure that you and the other dads are kept safe, we have some requests. When engaging with the forum, please be aware of the following:
- The forum is not moderated 24 hours per day.
- Many of the moderators do so on a voluntary basis. Whilst they may be able to provide some guidance, advice or support, they may not be able to deal with specifics.
- We are not an emergency crisis service so if you or someone else is in immediate danger, please call emergency services.
- If you are concerned about the safety of a child, please click here to find the support you can get for them (link to new page)
- If you are in crisis, please call Samaritans on 116 123. They are open 24 hours a day, 7 days per week.
We hope you find this forum a supportive environment and thank you for joining us.