Parental Guidance

What’s it about?

Harper, Turner and Barker live in a hi-tech home with a central computer system that, as well as giving them entertainment and access to information, watches over all the family. This system has been invented by their Dad, Phil, who wins an award for it. He has to travel away to collect his award and wants his wife Alice to come with him. Alice is always anxious about her children and this causes problems for the kids. Harper tries really hard to achieve at her violin playing, Turner has a stutter and Barker just plays up.

Alice is very worried about leaving her kids with anyone and even more so when the only babysitters they can find are her parents, Artie and Dianne, who she hasn’t seen for ages.  The kids are in for a surprising and interesting time when Grandparents Artie and Dianne arrive and look after them in quite a different way to their own parents.

What to look out for

There’s a lot of comic violence done for laughs such as:

• Artie gets hit in the crotch with a baseball bat by Ivan, the school bully.
• Artie vomits all over Ivan.
• A skateboard rider crashes on the halfpipe after Barker pees on it.

There’s also a scene which might upset younger kids when Barker thinks his imaginary friend Carl the Kangaroo has been hit and killed by a car. The family bury Carl in the backyard.

Moral of the Story

The message of the story is that kids need to have time just being kids, playing and exploring the outdoors instead of taking life too seriously.