Parents are not always to blame for the sins of their children, writes Kathryn Holmquist

Joyriders and alcohol-abusing adolescents who put lives at risk are doing it for the same complex reasons today as they were 15 years ago. Yet many general-election candidates are ranting about juvenile delinquency as if it were a new phenomenon. They're spouting the usual soundbyte solutions and one of the most popular is blaming parents - fathers and mothers, you and me.

In the privileged elite of politics it never seems to occur to anyone that politicians' children can also rebel and get into serious trouble. Those bad parents; they're other people - members of some kind of "underclass" who couldn't care less where their children are and what they are doing.

British prime minister Tony Blair has jumped on the "blame parents" bandwagon by proposing that parents whose children play truant - and commit crime while doing so - should have £15 deducted from their child benefit cheques each week. His rationale is that 40 per cent of crime is committed by 11 to 16-year-olds skipping school. It doesn't seem to have occurred to him that if parents could have got their truant children to attend school by now, they would have. If they couldn't do it before, they're not going to do it now just because there's going to be less money to pay for food.

As for parents not in receipt of payments - are we to believe their children don't get into trouble at all? Sometimes parents cannot predict or control their children's anti-social behaviour, "even though they may be the best parents in the world", says Michael Hardiman, psychologist and author of several books on children, including Healing Life's Hurts (Newleaf), Ordinary Heroes (Newleaf) and Children Under the Influence - Healing Children Hurt by Family Alcoholism (Paragon).

"I see parents taking parenting courses and they're at their wits' end," says Hardiman. "I've seen the distress of parents who have cajoled, spent money and tried to get help for their children without success.

"Parents come to me in desperation. Eventually, if the child ends up in court, people say 'blame the parents'. It's unfair on these parents. The parents had nothing to do with it!"

Alienation of young men is a major issue - and feminism isn't to blame, says Hardiman. But perhaps if adolescents play truant, it may be because there is something wrong with the education system - which is overly feminised and wrongly focused on brain-work and material success.

Adolescents who get into trouble may have met the wrong people and joined in a gang mentality before their parents have had a chance to intervene. They may have succumbed to mood-altering substances like alcohol, whether or not their parents are teetotallers or heavy drinkers. They may have never received the appropriate help for behavioural and neurological problems - which isn't surprising considering the acute shortage of psychological services and the personnel needed to provide them.

It's ironic that liberals like Tony Blair want to penalise parents with right-wing measures, when it's the liberal agenda that's got us to where we are. Teenagers need to rebel - but there's little to rebel against any more.

"The notion that people can get through the teenage years without getting into trouble is ridiculous," says Hardiman. "When I was a teenager, if we could drink two pints or smoke a joint we knew that we were being really disruptive." Today you have to steal cars, do ecstasy, beat other teenagers up and possibly kill people before you've earned your "disruptive" badge.

"You hear more and more people saying, 'lock 'em up and throw away the key', but that won't work. In five years' time there will be another generation to lock up. Are we going to have concentration camps?" he asks.

Of course parents cannot be let off the hook. But irresponsible parenting and neglect are signs that the parents themselves need support. As parents, we are the main educators of our children, but we and our children are also subject to broader social influences that we cannot change.

Hardiman is concerned that fathers are "becoming more and more distant and detached", so that their mentoring role is lost. Fathers' lack of connection with their young sons is partly responsible for the seven-fold increase in young male suicides, Hardiman believes.

The Church's influence is being eroded, so where are the male role models for 15- and 16 year-olds? Bertie? Unlikely, when politicians are also perceived as irrelevant by many young people.

Social role models are footballers and beer drinkers - Bertie Bowl anyone? Getting drunk is a rite of passage in a society which usually turns a blind eye to 15-year-olds buying alcohol. Many parents set an example of alcohol abuse within the family home. A 50 per cent per capita increase in alcohol consumption between 1989 and 2000 has been accompanied by an increase in family violence, marital breakdown, stress on parents and partners and destabilisation of the family.

This isn't the sole problem, since many children of alcoholics become high achievers. But it is one of many factors in a complex social web in which parents are trapped in the same way as their children.

Dr Michael Hardiman will give a Rutland Centre public awareness lecture at Milltown Park, Ranelagh, Dublin, on May 13th at 8 p.m.