Parents Relying On Nurseries To Teach Social Skills
Over 90% of mums and dads say ensuring their child's interacting with others - is a bigger worry than how much exercise they're doing.
Parents in Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire are more worried about how much their child's socialising than the amount of exercise they're doing.
That's according to new research which shows over 90% of parents in our region are concerned about this.
But nearly half of mums and dads don't think it's their responsibility to ensure their kids are interacting - with many saying it's down to nurseries.
Jane Hornby is from Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Netmums which offers support and advice to parents. She told Viking FM:
"Parents are generally very interested in helping their children socialise and worried and concerned that they're helping them to socialise enough. Parents who are maybe shy themselves and who don't have a wide social group are concerned that they're missing out their children on opportunities to socialise them.
"It's a particular concern for first-time mums. We've noticed that first children tend to be very well socialised, maybe because parents are taking them to groups and classes but second children, because parents maybe don't have the opportunity to attend as many groups, these children tend to grow up less confident.
"We would urge parents to consider a range of activities such as structured and free play, toddler groups and try and introduce them to situations where there's a range of ages. It is sometimes hard to do but a lot of the pre-school classes do cover that."