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VOTE UKIP!-ON MAY 7-2015

MAJOR ISSUES BULLETIN

TO have a FULL-TIME MOTHER is the BEST MEDICINE a MOTHER can GIVE a CHILD

What Ruth should give her son(...and it's NOT a private education)

Amanda Platell

Daily Mail Saturday 13, 2007

FROM the very beginning of her political career Ruth Kelly has hidden her ambition behind a carefully-honed image as a devoted mother.

Working in the treasury , she was only too happy to play up to her reputation as a true family -first politician. Then when she became a Cabinet minister Ms Kelly boasted that she left her red boxes in the office, preferring 'like any mum' to go home early and read to her four children.

It earned her the admiration of the electorate and a path to assured success in a party desperate to secure the female vote.

How strange then, that this doting mother has decided to pack her nine-year-old-son off to a £17,ooo-a-year boarding school for children with special needs.

I have no doubt Ms Kelly genuinely agonised over what was best for her boy. And while any parent who has a child with a similar condition - I find her behaviour deeply disquieting.

As the parents of any special-needs child will tell you (and there are nearly 250,000 in Britain) the most special care you can give a child -is your time.

Which is not to say that professional educational help isn't necessary. It very often is. But for children with dyslexia and dyspraxia, there is no substitute for that extra one-on-one 'quality time' with a parent who can patiently and painstakingly assist them with their particular difficulties.

In a perfect world, of course, those extra parenting duties would be shared between a mother and father. But the cruel reality is that mothers are often better suited to this type of educational nurturing. hence most career mothers I know in similar situations have chosen to bury their ambition, cut back their working hours and spend more time helping their child in the after-school hours.

Not so Ms Kelly. Though there are excellent special -needs schools in her borough, she tells us that 'the right thing' for her son was for him to be sent to boarding school.

Right for him or right for her-I wonder?

The great sadness of all this is that sooner or later, Ms Kelly will return to the life of a humble backbencher, with far more time to spare. And perhaps only then will she realise that sending her child away has cost more than just a fortune in school fees.

For when a Child has special needs, their greatest need of all is to spend time with

THEIR MOTHER.

[We would add that it is not only children with special needs that benefit from being brought up at home and in a local school. There are many thousands of children of all ages who find one day that they were on the way to another home many miles away and that they would only see their mother on set occasions possibly only a few visits a year. It is exciting on the journey but when you see your mother wave goodbye it is a frightening occasion.

For many children they soon become aware that they are on their own and they then pursue their own life in a mystery world were they create their own comforts which in time take away partially the pain of knowing that they will not see their mother for a very long time.

On birthdays and during long holidays they find that a number of their companions are no longer around as they were lucky to have a mother who was able to take them away for a holiday. But there were more comics to read and it was quieter which made one more aware that everything was different and looked forward to the end of the holiday period which would remind one that the time was moving and one day someone would call to take you home.

Out in the grounds of the boarding house you soon learnt the secrets of the hiding places amongst the dense shrubs and the hidden grids or other ornaments which became your outside world where you had your place to be alone by choice and where you were in charge.

There was strict discipline and any wrongdoing however innocent was punished and if the person did not own up then we were all punished. The stick was most painful when it caught the tips of one's fingers and the worst part was hearing the cries of each child and the after shock of the stick smacking against the clothing of the dispenser of punishment before it was your turn. There were other things which are too painful to relate.

What we did like was that we sometimes in the evenings were given a slice of fried bread and of course on Sundays we had jam with the bread. Most days it was a few large slices of bread and butter. There were other things but everything was on ration.

Occasionally over the next six years our mother came to see us but by the time we were finally taken from the home our mother was a stranger to us. It was impossible after this to feel any real attachment to the one who called herself mother.

A few years later we were told that we were sent to the home for our own good and that we had benefited from it. It was impossible to explain that we wanted to be at home with our mother and not to have spent the last 6 years in four different locations. But this was not enough and after being home six months we were taken away one day and became soldiers of the Queen.]

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JANUARY/07