Children need a firm parent before they need a friend

Frank Field, the Coalition's poverty adviser, wants school pupils to be given classes in parenting. A needless scheme, you may argue, given that most girls today are already seasoned mothers by the age of 13, but for the few with no experience of raising children, I think it sounds a great idea.
The main problem, Mr Field says, is that parents today have no grasp of "tough love". They fail to "set boundaries for [their] children". I once interviewed a psychologist about this subject – Dr Aric Sigman, author of The Spoilt Generation – and he said much the same. "There seems to be a confusion between being a parent and being a friend," he said. "People want to endear themselves to their children. In our liberal age, it's thought to be much better to have a laissez-faire attitude to children doing what they want than to be authoritarian. But this is a highly destructive trend."