It should be necessary for parents to attend a parenting training course to learn how to bring their children up.
To what extent do you agree?
Many people believe that prospective parents must go on a course to gain the skills required to raise children. However, in my opinion, I disagree that it should be mandatory because of the wealth of parenting information available and the innate ability to raise children.
First and foremost, parents have coped for centuries without taking part in a training programme and have raised perfectly healthy babies. They have been successful in providing for their children using their maternal or paternal instinct that is ingrained in human nature. To illustrate this point, parenting training courses did not exist in the UK until fairly recently and the overwhelming majority of children have grown up as healthy and well-adjusted individuals. If parenting classes were essential, this would not have been the case.
Another supporting factor is that new parents have access to a wealth of information without attending a training course. Millennials, for instance, are comfortable gathering knowledge using video sharing platforms and online knowledge bases such as Youtube and Wikipedia. Furthermore, there are a plethora of applications designed for prospective parents which can alleviate any concerns about parenthood. What is more, new parents can acquire invaluable knowledge from their friends and family, especially those who have prior experience of bringing up children. If they face any difficulties, they will never have a shortage of knowledge or help available.
To sum up, while there is nothing wrong with attending parenting courses, I strongly believe that it is not necessary. The key reasons for this belief are that parents have sufficient resources available which can be combined with their innate predisposition to nurture children.
Extra Advice for Opinion Essays
1) The most important thing is to make sure you state the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement (totally agree, completely disagree etc). Generally it is easier to totally agree or totally disagree because it is easier to give a consistent answer.
2) It is important to be consistent throughout your essay. If you totally agree in the introduction and then change your mind or argue both sides, it won’t be a convincing or high level opinion essay.
3) You don’t need advanced ideas to write IELTS essays. Even if you are not a parent, you can think back to your own childhood, what you would do as a parent or other people who you know who are parents.
4) Be careful with phrases such as mandatory or only way/solution in opinion essay questions. Generally these opinions are too extreme and should be disagreed with.
5) Make sure that you paraphrase the question in a natural way
Perfect