Second level is another can of worms entirely

A NEW book, What Every Parent Needs To Know, is apparently about helping your kids through primary school.

It is co-written by Toby Young, a sort of public school Phil Mitchell best known for an earlier memoir How To Lose Friends & Alienate People, who has since married and co-produced a slew of kids. This book is full of tips like “Try not to burst into tears when you drop them off on their first day. Crying can be contagious and you don’t want to set off the other parents!”

What is not mentioned is that when your youngest child finally starts secondary school, you should at least wait until they have walked out the front door before you crack open the metaphorical champagne. At last! No more cake sales, school runs, end-of-term concerts, phone calls from harried primary teachers about how your child has poked another child in the eye, or the endless tedium of the packed lunch. Crying? Skipping around the house clicking your heels more like, the kids already out the door — without you — by 8am.

Obviously secondary school is another can of worms entirely – bigger, tougher, surlier worms, with spots and attitude. Already several of my daughter’s peers are smoking weed, popping pills and getting drunk (she’s 13). Luckily she thinks such activity is for morons, having been raised by a mother who spent much of her former life smoking weed, popping pills and getting drunk, and now goes to meetings to make sure this remains in the past. “Ugh,” says Daughter. “Sooooooo boring.”

Anyway it’s not as if parents have any meaningful control over kids at secondary school, other than to provide clean shirts, nag about homework and ration midweek screen time. The rest they get on with themselves. Transition to secondary school used to be about a bigger pair of ugly shoes and a new biro — now it’s about laptops and expensive rucksacks and Vans and hair gel. And probably condoms, but let’s not go there. Yet.

Still, it’s all relative. Once, going to school meant being beaten up by adults — ‘teachers’ — as well as being beaten up by your fellow students. Having your head shoved down the loo, your homework thrown out the window. At least these days physical assault on pupils by teachers is illegal, and schools are hot on bullying. It’s not as grim as it used to be.

Even if you were sent to a progressive school, like artist Mikey Cuddihy, you were still not guaranteed a wonderful time. Her beautiful memoir, A Conversation About Happiness, about her time at Summerhill school in Suffolk in the 60s — where pupils were free to do as they pleased and everyone was equal — is still tinged with terrible sadness, and is essential reading. It’s a long way from the over-entitled braying of competitive middle class parents today. Meanwhile, back in 2014, I’m hoping my kids avoid E of all kinds during their stint at secondary — both the grade and the pill.