Lessons in parenting

State involvement in how we parent our children has long been a controversial issue.

But the reams of despairing column inches about the standard of the nation's parenting sparked by the 2011 riots gave the government a fresh imperative to overcome the controversy and get stuck in. The result was CANparent, a two-year trial of free parenting courses from spring 2012. All parents of under-fives in Camden, Middlesbrough and High Peak in Derbyshire were offered £100 vouchers for local courses, regardless of their income or circumstances.

David Cameron batted off nanny state accusations at the time by describing parenting courses as a vital part of "nation building", claiming it was "ludicrous" that people needed lessons for driving a car but not for bringing up children.

But two years later, it emerged that fewer than 3,000 parents had taken up the free courses out of an estimated 50,000 eligible parents, leading to shadow children's minister Lucy Powell branding the £3.5m exercise an "embarrassing failure". The stigma attached to parenting courses has proven a far bigger barrier than expected.

"There's a culture in Britain that you can't go on a parenting course unless you have something wrong with you," says clinical psychologist Dr Hazel Douglas, who founded the Solihull Approach, one of the 14 courses on offer through the pilot. "There's something in our culture that has to change."

The government has not given up on its mission to make parenting courses as widespread as antenatal classes. The CANparent trial has been extended until March 2015, although the vouchers have been scrapped. Course providers will instead be finding ways of building a sustainable market of courses, funded through a mix of local sources such as schools, workplaces and parents themselves. Meanwhile, all involved will be redoubling their efforts to get the message out that parenting courses are for everyone.

I'm lucky enough to live in an area where universal parenting courses are already offered free through children's centres and, in January this year, I took part in a 10-week Solihull Approach course, provided by Greenwich Council. The Solihull Approach was created in Solihull in 1996 by clinical psychologists and child psychotherapists led by Dr Hazel Douglas. Initially designed to help health visitors work with families struggling with issues such as feeding, sleeping and behaviour, it evolved into the Understanding Your Child universal parenting course. What sold it to me was it would be about deepening my understanding of my children and strengthening my relationship with them, rather than just behaviour management. I was intrigued by the fact it could help my relationship with adults close to me, too. And I was curious to see how universally relevant the course would be and whether all parents might benefit.

Session 1

I feel rather self-conscious about going on a parenting course and rather anxious about whether I'll fit in. But my classmates around the table at Robert Owen Early Years Centre in Greenwich look just like the cosmopolitan, predominantly middle-class bunch I mingle with each week at playgroup.

There are 10 of us, including one dad, sat around a table in an upstairs meeting room. There's a creche for our children, but a couple of parents choose to keep their offspring bouncing on their knees.

Facilitators Sue Spinks and Amanda Dyton explain the Solihull Approach is about deepening our understanding of our children, by observing them and reflecting on their behaviour, and that we will be encouraged to share these observations with the group each week. They divide us into two groups and ask us to brainstorm the aspects of parenthood we like and those we don't. I find myself gushing forth superlatives about four-year-old Lewis and 16-month-old Beatrice: how beautiful, funny, bright, imaginative, vivacious and loving they both are, with a sense of wonder at the world that rubs off on my husband and me. But before I have time to cringe, I'm throwing myself into the group outpouring of parenting woes: the lack of time for ourselves; the feeling parenthood has robbed us of our personal identity; the nightly sleep deprivation; the daily struggle to keep our heads above the perpetual mess and chaos, and the burden of guilt that we're not always getting it right. This first session establishes the challenges we share, but it also reminds us why the journey of parenthood is one worth making.

Session 2

We've been asked to observe our children during the past week and bring to the group tales of school-gate tantrums, jealous aggression towards baby siblings and refusal of home-cooked food. Sue talks us through the three key questions we have to ask ourselves each time we try to interpret our children's behaviour, which she will keep bringing us back to throughout the course. What developmental stage are they at? What change might have taken place recently to trigger the emotion? And how well can they communicate their needs to us?

This session focuses on feelings and how difficult it can be for children to express what they want. We talk about the importance of stepping back and observing our children, to read their body language and reflect on how they're feeling. And about the importance of empowering them when they're too young to express how they feel, by labelling their emotion: "You're feeling upset, aren't you?"

Session 3

We've been asked to observe an incident with our children and I share one that has dominated my week.

A friend whose son is at school with Lewis called me to say he had knocked over her son in the playground and broken his glasses. It all got rather heated between us and my feelings of shock and shame soon changed to defensiveness.

The homework instructed us to imagine how our child was feeling during the incident. I think this helped me get the message through to Lewis about the importance of taking more care when flying around the playground as a superhero.

This practice of putting myself in someone else's shoes helped repair my relations with the other mother, too. After several days, I felt ready to tell her how I'd been feeling and understand better how she'd been feeling.

This week's session is about "reciprocity", which is basically about a parent and child being in tune with each other. Our group activity is writing down what we think our child needs to learn at the moment, versus what they really want to do.

Several parents relate the difficulties of getting their children to stop playing and stick to mealtime and bedtime routines. I contribute the fact Lewis is expected to do reading sheets at home, but would rather crash around playing superheroes, a frequent source of conflict at home.

We reflect there is often a difference between what the education system expects and what our child is actually ready for, and I resolve not to push the reading too hard at this stage.

Sue reminds us that "transitions are tricky" and to keep stepping back to reflect on how our child is feeling as we negotiate our way through them.

Session 4

This week's theme is "containment" - being able to stop yourself "bubbling over" with stress and anxiety. We are told that it is the third peak on the "Solihull triangle" of reciprocity, behaviour management and containment, and that if we can master the reciprocity and the containment, then the behaviour management will fall into place.

We reflect on all the factors that can fill up our "emotional buckets" and share anecdotes about the strain at home and the negative effect on our children's behaviour when our buckets and those of our partners are full at the same time. We remind ourselves of the importance of offloading our worries to the most appropriate people.

Sue and Mandy perform a role play of a highly stressed parent, shouting at her child: "Put those toys away, we're going out!" The mum is intolerant and overbearing in her tone and makes her child shout: "I hate you!" We reflect on how the mother could have managed the situation better by showing more empathy with her child, who she expects to instantly abort his play. "If you keep reflecting, then little by little you'll change your practice," says Sue. "As they get older, the conflicts can get worse - but if you change things now, you're laying the base for the child for the rest of his life.

"If you lower your voice, your children will automatically lower theirs too," she adds. "Boys zone out if you raise your voice. They respond best to low and slow." "Does this work with men, too?" asks Clare, to titters around the table.

Session 5

I've spent the past week biting my tongue, as our homework was to think of things we say when our children are angry or upset that we could say differently. But I've been following Sue's advice to talk "low and slow" to Lewis and it's helping calm both of us down.

This week, we're asked to discuss in groups what aspects of our parents' parenting we have adopted for our own children and what aspects we'd rather spare our children from. We share some uncomfortable memories. I reflect that my strong aversion to smacking is born from my experience of sometimes being at the receiving end of it as a child. Clare says she doesn't remember her mother playing with her and that's something she wants to do differently with her own daughter.

The discussion moves on to analysing what kind of parent we are. We are told "authoritative" is the ideal type: someone who sets clear boundaries, but is also enabling and flexible.

The key message from this week's session is that we often inherit our parenting style, but we can challenge it.

We have the power to make our own decisions and choices and we need to develop the confidence to find our own way.

Session 6

Our homework was to find something that happens at home that we'd like to change.

I share with the group that I need to get less stressed during the weekday rush to get out of the house in time for school. I confess how I sometimes have to shout Lewis through every step of the morning routine and he plays up when under pressure, making Beatrice play up too. We discuss how we can make things calmer by getting everything ready the night before.

This week's class is about the joy of play.

As an antidote to last week's rather heavy and uncomfortable session, Sue hands us large blobs of play dough and instructs us to have some fun with it. After a few awkward giggles, we immerse ourselves in our creations.

The somewhat phallic shape I'm moulding prompts more giggling. It's a tree, I argue. I'm busying myself with branches when Sue strides around the table, sweeping all our models ruthlessly into a rubbish bag. None of us heard her two-minute warning that the play session was about to end.

We are given an instant insight into how it feels sometimes for children, whose world is play, but who are often expected to cut it short for schedules forced upon them by multitasking parents. Sue reminds us how playing with our children helps build our relationship with them. "For young children, play is like a conversation," adds Mandy. "When a child plays, it often gives an adult a window into what's going on for them. It can help to build healthy relationships. It can help a child work through their emotions and issues."

Session 7

The past week was fraught at times, but play saved us on several occasions. I tell the group about Lewis's constant hunger for imaginative play with me at home and how I think it empowers him after a day of following school rules, as it gives him the opportunity to control an imaginary world where he creates and directs the characters. There was lots of it this week, mostly involving thwarting monsters. Sue talks about the benefits of giving "a bit of you completely" for a portion of each day.

We move on to this week's theme: The Dance of Reciprocity. It sounds like the title of an art-house film, but it is the sequence that every human interaction follows. Sue shows it on the board as a wave shape with seven stages, as people tune in and out of each other. It ends in a winding down period, as people start to close conversations before turning away. "If you don't have the winding down period (in an interaction with a child), you might run into problems, such as temper tantrums," she warns.

The focus turns to sleep issues. As Sue explains, "a lot of the time, sleep issues arise because there hasn't been that calming down period". We share tales of wild bedtime rough and tumble and the fallout when it gets suddenly cut short. We are told our children rely on us to help them develop smooth, regular rhythms in their lives. This will help them to learn how to calm themselves down when they're upset.

Session 8

Our homework was to observe an interaction between two people to see how in tune with each other they were. Martha shares her experience of having many unfinished conversations with her husband when he gets home from work, due to the multiple distractions from their children, who are competing for their parents' time. Mandy tells us how quickly relationships can deteriorate between partners during their first five years of parenthood. There are murmurs of agreement around the table.

We move on to the topic of the session: anger. We throw words and phrases onto the white board about what triggers anger and how we express it. We reflect on the similarities between ourselves and our children in what makes us angry, such as a feeling we're not being listened to. And we reflect on what helps us calm down.

"Part of our role as parents is to help children develop self-control," says Mandy. "If we encourage our children to have conversations about their day, we're enabling them to develop language skills that will help them communicate their feelings."

Session 9

We report back on the past week's homework, which involved trying to change one small thing to help our children manage anger or sleep better. I share the fact Sue's advice to whisper rather than shout saved our morning, by instantly lifting Lewis out of a tearful rage at his sister. Martha tells the group she's managed to create a calmer bedtime by stopping the routine of allowing her son to watch a cartoon before bed. It always led to tantrums when he had to turn it off.

This week's session is about repairing ruptures between people. This helps relationships become more resilient, we reflect, and we're reminded of the importance of setting a good example.

"What is important to remember is that the way you respond is giving your child the blueprint for how to respond to situations throughout their lives," says Mandy. "We apologise to each other, but quite often, we don't apologise to our children. We have to teach our children that things can go wrong, but we can repair things."

Session 10

We share what we've learned from the course and the difference it has made so far. The overall consensus is that all this observing and reflecting has helped us step into our children's shoes and given us a better understanding of what makes them tick. Our homes are gradually becoming calmer places, or at least places where conflict is more swiftly dissolved.

Clare shares how she's often "shouty" with her children. Her older son shouts too, but now he comes downstairs to say sorry. "It makes me feel better, because he's got the message now that it's okay to shout, but you can then make it all right," she reflects.

Sarah says the course has taught her to recognise "a lot of the things I do are just things my mother did and that actually, I can change".

Later that night, when Beatrice keeps us up through the small hours and my husband and I end up at each other's throats, I realise how much I'll miss having this weekly space to convert all these low points into juicy learning nuggets.

But I certainly feel better equipped to deal with it all now. Seeing beyond my children's words and actions and understanding how they're triggered by their feelings and circumstances has become much more of a habit now. I still fly off the handle at times, but I think I've got gradually better at averting meltdowns through dialogue. This is something which can transform the parenting experience - and general relationships - of everyone.

HOW THE CLASSES MADE ME STEP BACK AND REFLECT – EMILY ROGERS

I'm normally very heart-on-sleeve when it comes to parenthood. I quite comfortably broadcast my fears and motherly guilt issues and vent my parental frustrations, relating graphic, uncensored and - admittedly at times - exaggerated accounts of tantrums, poo incidents and sleepless nights. It's pretty much the done thing among my mum friends. There's almost an unspoken pact that says nobody must make another feel inferior by appearing to sail through it all. Instead, we feel duty-bound to broadcast our daily struggles, to display at all times that we are all floundering around, equally bewildered, in this big, messy pool of parenthood.

In this climate of communal hand-wringing, you'd assume parenting courses would be all the rage. But parenting courses are somehow different. There is a stigma attached to them, which not even the most open and heart-on-sleeve parent is completely immune to. Bubbling underneath all the seemingly unguarded chattering about parenting struggles is an acute self-consciousness; a need for the approval of others.

By highlighting minor feeding and sleeping angsts to health visitors and other parents, perhaps we are subconsciously trying to get across that such conscientiousness must mean, fundamentally, we're doing a good job. But we can be rather more reticent on the deeper self-doubt that at times momentarily cripples us, such as: "Am I actually up to this job? Can I physically continue? Do I need some outside support?" because sharing those crosses a line somehow.

Signing up to a parenting course crosses this line. If you've given up work to become a parent, this is how you define yourself - all your qualities, values and competencies, and personal pride. Telling people you've signed up to a parenting course invites them to question the very foundations of your self-worth and identity as a parent. It lays you open to judgment, to the assumption there's some kind of fundamental failure in the upbringing of your children or even that someone else may have decided for you that you need to take a course. Nothing cuts deeper than the suggestion you are a "bad parent". Crucially, this means those most in need of parenting support, those most sensitive about others making assumptions, are the most likely to shy away.

This needs to change. There is no job interview for prospective parents, no selection process, no ongoing training and no inspectorate - and yet there is surely no job more important, with such potentially devastating long-term human consequences when it goes badly wrong. Today's parents are moulding the next generation. They bring to the job an unimaginably wide range of social, cultural and religious influences, along with a potent cocktail of personality traits, domestic and professional conflicts, hang-ups, neuroses, complexes, chips on their shoulder and axes to grind. This untutored and unmonitored cross-section of society will have more influence over their children's outcomes than any teacher.

Parenting courses need to accommodate this cross-section and be marketed as something as necessary to all new parents as midwifery care. Only this will succeed in bringing in those most acutely in need of support. The benefits of courses need to be talked freely about by all who have taken part. To further help remove the stigma, I think the word "course" should be scrapped, as parenting cannot be taught. The Solihull Approach course I did made it clear parents don't need lessons: daily life throws us enough of those. What we need is the space to step back and observe our children. We need some structured guidance to help us reflect on all the factors that make them behave the way they do; some developmental, some circumstantial. We need help to get into the practice of reflecting on ourselves too. All this should be as part and parcel of parenthood as nappy changing.

The results could change the world.