London - Parents need to be open with their children, according to author Dame Jacqueline Wilson.
The 69-year-old, who has sold more than 35 million children’s books, said it was important for parents to explain to children why they could not have things, rather than simply saying “no”.
The mother-of-one, best known for her Tracy Beaker books, also said that parents should have difficult conversations with their children, but that it was better to do so while walking or driving as the lack of eye contact made it easier to talk.
Speaking at London’s Southbank Centre about what made a good childhood, the former children’s laureate said: “Sometimes children want this, children want that, and parents who are worried or angry or frustrated just say, ‘I’ve said no, now shut up’.
“When what the parent is really thinking is, ‘I can’t afford the rent any more’, ‘I’m in terrible debt’ and ‘I just don’t know what to do’. So why not very quietly and gently say, ‘Look, we haven’t got that money. I’d love to be able to buy this or that, and I know you say everyone else in the class has got one, but I can’t manage it, I wish I could’, and I think most children will understand that.”
Dame Jacqueline’s daughter Emma Wilson, 47, is a professor at Cambridge University.
Daily Mail