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Caught Between the Imperatives of Sustainability and Good Parenting: Eco-Conscious Parenting in the Waterloo RegionCurrent levels of consumption in modern society are at odds with sustaining our planet, yet not sustaining the planet is a threat to our children and future generations. Eco-conscious parents are aware of environmental threats and must navigate tensions that arise from attempting to be “good” parents from within consumer society on the one hand and being environmentally responsible on the other. What explains the ways in which parents make contradictory choices when faced with parenting options that diverge from their sustainability aims? This question is explored through data gathered from 55 potentially true statements to participants in 20 interviews and 54 surveys. The data collected paints a picture full of trade-offs and negotiations that eco-aware parents and caregivers living in the Waterloo Region must navigate. The data identifies many of the tensions that are faced, some of the opportunities created and defines some characteristics of eco-conscious parents in the Waterloo Region. We also see from the data that eco-conscious parenting operates within a large spectrum with parents making choices that both support and undermine sustainability to varying degrees, in a variety of ways and for a variety of reasons. These tensions result in both the creation of environmentally positive actions made by eco-conscious parents (like community gardens and community bulk fruit buying initiatives) and lifestyles riddled with negative ecological impacts (examples from the data include reliance on a vehicle and an industrial food system). Raising children also typically results in greater consumption within families because children’s needs rapidly grow, especially in the early years, thus necessitating new clothing, new toys, and etc. As a result, we are currently living in an eco-social dilemma. One where modern consumption is robbing our children of their futures, yet simultaneously giving them lives with modern conveniences. The introduction sets the stage for the ecological reality eco-conscious parent’s face, often regardless of their efforts to limit their negative ecological impact. The literature review draws on a range of diverse literature and theoretical frameworks in order to provide a foundation of analysis regarding the origins and drivers of consumption, the intentional moulding of consumers, parental influences on materialism and the concept of honouring the world’s children as a framework for sustainability.
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Educational guidance for parents who are under pressure from their adolescent childrenMost adolescents place pressure on their parents. The pressure varies, so there must be factors that contribute to the variance. An important objective of the investigation was to determine such factors from the parent’s side and from the adolescent’s side. It was also important to determine the most important factors in family functioning, and in the wider social context that affect the placement of pressure on parents by adolescents. A sample of 177 high school adolescents and their parents was used. Variables such as age, gender, family structure, working circumstances of parents, birth order position of adolescents, peer pressure, the parent-adolescent relationship, self-concept and personality were included in the study. The results indicate that the pressure that parents experience is associated with parental variables rather than adolescent variables. Parental self-concept, personality, and the parent-adolescent relationship (from the parent’s side) explained almost 63% of the variance in the pressure that parents experience. The conclusion can be made that it is not adolescents who deliberately plan to place their parents under pressure, but rather parents who make themselves vulnerable to such a situation. Any remedy or guidance programme will have to focus primarily on the parent, and the success of such a programme will depend on the way in which it supports the self-concept of the parent.
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Does Parental Disability Matter to Child Education? Evidence from VietnamThis paper examines the effect of
 parental disability on school enrollment and educational
 performance for children in the 2006 Vietnam Household
 Living Standards Survey. Results from instrumental-variables
 regressions indicate that children of parents with a
 disability have a lower enrollment rate in primary and
 secondary school of about 8 percentage points: 73 percent
 compared with 81 percent. However, the association of
 parental disability with educational performance is small
 and not statistically significant. The conclusion of the
 paper is that to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of
 universal primary school as well as increased coverage of
 secondary education, the government should have policies and
 programs that either directly support the education of
 children with disabled parents and/or have policies that
 support disabled adults, thus lessening the incentive for
 their children not to attend school.